Because I came here with my older brother. When I was little, I guess I must have been 5 or so, he read me bed time stories while our mother had to work late. He would usually pick a story full of tension and adventurous spirit, and at some point he would start to ramble off a bit and describe the environment the protagonist was in, in rather excessive detail. Of course, impatient as I was, I wanted to know how the story continued, but he always preferred painting the pictures into my mind with his words. He really knew how to drag it out exactly until the moment when I got too bored and would wander off, and then he continued with the actual story to draw me back in.
My brother was also the first person I called when I received the diagnosis, and he has been a great help to me from the moment on when I couldn't cope with the sharp pictures turning to smudges and slush in front of my eyes. But as grateful as I should have been about his help, I must admit wasn't always nice to him, especially in those first few weeks when it got unbearable. Colorful turning to grey turning to absence, friends turning to acquaintances turning to memories, outgoing turning to a feeling of permanent imprisonment: It took a heavy toll on my mind.
After one particularly outburst of mine about something incredibly trivial, my brother's only answers were his footsteps as he walked out of the room. Left to myself, trying to clumsily prepare a meal in my kitchen, my white hot anger diluted into a kind of grim, simmering and omnidirectional hate. When I figured out later that I used too much salt in the process to cook up anything barely edible, it all just boiled over. I'm not proud of it, but I yelled some obscenities, threw my plate on the floor and stumbled around until I felt the comfort of my bed.
I don't know how much later it was or why exactly my brother came back, but he entered my flat with the spare key I gave him, and dragged me out only with very few words. Now too ashamed about my behavior, I didn't put up much resistance. We drove in a car for a while, and when we arrived I heard many people around me, the sound of a lively, busy place. We continued on foot, turning here and there and then we finally must have entered a building.
It was quiet at first, but then my brother cleared his throat and started painting pictures in my mind with those broad, colorful brushes that were such a fond memory from my childhood.