In My Head

A Story by schnickythep

In My Head

7/19/12

I think that there is something wrong inside me. I don’t know what is going on, the word panic attack comes to mind but it doesn’t quite capture what just happened, the rage, the feeling, the fear. My mind went haywire and my body did with it, leaving the rational part of me bewildered. But I can’t see a therapist. If I can’t handle my own problems I shouldn’t even be here, right? Do I need help? A scene forms in my mind, unreal to the rest of the world but as real and vital to me as the air I breathe. Where I can try to sort myself out with just the voices in my mind, the only voices I can stand right now.

There is a teenage boy sitting in an office chair, in a small office with off-white walls. An older woman is seated behind a small, well organized desk facing the boy, taking in his appearance. He looks like he is either high or insane, or both.

She speaks calmly, like she is used to him enough so that she is not alarmed by his appearance. “What happened this time?”

The boy taps his foot quickly, like sitting still is almost unbearable. “I exploded.”

“Really? That’s not dramatic at all.”

“I’m serious. I felt like I was going insane.” Now is apparently not the time for sarcasm. He looks around the room, taking it in, comparing it to the memories that were only just created. But everything is exactly the same as it should be, from the walls to the desk, right down to the three perfectly parallel pens that he has never seen her touch to the lines on her face.

“Describe it to me.”

“I was working out,” he says. The woman snorts. This does not make him want to go on, but he does anyway. “I started getting this feeling, like my skin wasn’t really fitting me right. I just figured it would pass so I kept going. It got a lot worse pretty fast. I was getting chills, feeling paranoid… I couldn’t stay still but I could barely move. I got angry, angry at myself for not knowing what was going on inside me, angry at the world, at everything for no reason. I didn’t know what to do with myself but I couldn’t think about it for long without doing something.”

“Were you sober?”

He twitches slightly. “Yes.”

“Did you try using the punching bag?”

“Yeah, it just made me worse. I just got so angry at the bag that I couldn’t keep going.”

“So did it just fade away?”

“After a while. I ended up just biking until it went away and then I went home.”

“How long ago did this happen?”

He thinks for a second. “Two or three days ago.”

“And this was the only time this happened?”

“The only time I can remember.” As if he could forget something like this.

“Okay. Thank you. You can go.” The boy stands up and leaves the office. The woman stays at her desk after he’s gone, just sitting there, thinking, trying to find a solution but coming up empty, wondering what could have sparked the problem.

The woman sighs, rubs her eyes, and stands up. Too late to worry about what could have been done to prevent it, time to start searching for a solution. After all, helping him is the only reason that she exists.

“He must think he’s insane,” she says to herself. Then she turns out the lights, walks out of the office, and locks the door behind her.

7/24/12

So am I insane? I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This isn’t gonna get any better, is it? I look at myself in the mirror and I stare too long, looking for things that might hint at what’s going on inside of me. But I look the same as I always look. Aside from the circles under my eyes and the paleness. Have I always been like that? Am I only starting to notice now? Do I look worse than I am or the other way around?

I take a breath. If no one else has noticed it must just be all in my head. Right? Or is my head the problem? Insanity works from the inside out. I look into the twin black holes, the only truly black things in the mirror, in the centers of my eyes. There is no horror-movie flicker from the inside but I can tell that behind them something’s wrong.

8/11/12

It happened again, while I was supposed to be having a good time, visiting family in Maine. Not exactly the same but mostly. And if I try to explain what’s happening I just get semi-questioning looks, like they expect me to be lying or exaggerating. My imaginary characters are helping but only to get my thoughts straight. They don’t have any more solutions than I do. It seems like the only thing I can do is wait and hope for it to stop. Might as well try again in my mind. But If my mind is the problem, how can thinking about things really help me?

The boy is back in the office, looking even worse than before, eyes bloodshot and he’s twitching a bit. The woman looks at him. “Did it happen again?”

Why else would he be this way? “Yeah. Worse this time but didn’t last as long.”

“Working out again?”

“Kayaking.”

“Why was this time worse?”

“It was stronger, and there was nothing I could do since I was in the middle of a lake.”

“Aside from the intensity, same as last time?”

“Pretty much. There was one difference though.”

“What was it? How different was it?”

“This time I wasn’t paranoid at all. It was all just rage. And even though I was going as fast as I could I felt like I was barely moving and that made me worse, feeling like I wasn’t in control. The wind kept pushing me around and I hated it.”

“That’s interesting. You said you were in a lake?”

“Yeah.”

“So you couldn’t have been fighting a current. That’s actually important, though not necessarily good.”

His jaw clenches. “What do you mean?”

“I think that means that the problem is in your head.” The woman shifts in her chair. “I’m sorry.” The boy is visibly shaken by this, and the woman immediately feels guilty. “It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah. Doesn’t change anything.” He drums his fingers on the table, slowly at first, then faster and faster until any rhythm disappears and all that is left is pounding. “Still going crazy over here.”

“Maybe not.”

“Really? Cause I’m pretty sure. I don’t know why or how but my brain isn’t working right. Most people would call that crazy.”

“Okay. So you want to be crazy? Giving up all your hope already?”

He looks defensive. “I never said that.”

“Then don’t give up your hope. Not yet at least. I know you’re going to be okay.”

“You’re just saying that because it’s your job.” The boy gets up and leaves before she has time to say anything else, slamming the door. The woman doesn’t try to stop him, only sits and watches as he storms out.

After a while, the woman gets up. She crosses the room, opens the door and looks out at an empty hallway. She shuts the door and walks back to her desk, seemingly calm, but her eyes echo the fear in the boy’s. What if he really won’t get better? If she only knew what was causing these explosions, it would be easy to help him; to save him from whatever it was that seemed to be eating away at him, making him doubt himself so much.

She looks back at the door. No sense staying in an empty room. She rubs her eyes, stands, and leaves the office, once again locking the door.

8/17/12

I can feel myself getting slowly worse. Instead of explosions, now it’s just a constant pressure of rage and fear building in my gut, and I’m using the last of my faith to pray that I don’t reach the breaking point. I hear it loud and clear, the problem is in my mind… a problem I can’t find the root of and that has no name that I can tell the one person outside of my head who really cares. I don’t know how much more time I have until I lose all of myself to whatever is inside of me, turning my own body against me. And I still don’t know anything about what’s going on in my head.

I hope that I will be okay, and I can fake that I am alright for the people I am around. All I have to do is say that I’m tired and they leave me alone. But I am getting surer with each passing day that I won’t be. I haven’t given up yet, though. I still want to fight, even though I don’t know what I’m fighting or how to fight it. And if I’m up against myself, is it even possible for me to win?

The boy is back in the chair. The circles under his eyes are darker and he is paler but he isn’t twitching anymore and his eyes have lost their rabid stare. He rubs his right leg, whether it is intentional or involuntary is hard to tell. The woman is sitting across from him again, waiting for him to begin.

After a while she breaks the silence. “You look like you had one hell of a night.”

He nods slightly. “Tell me about it.”

“What happened? Another explosion?”

“Not really.”

“Then what?”

“I, uh, got depressed.”

“What do you mean? What happened?”

“I was trying to make sense of what I was feeling and I just got depressed. I can’t describe why but I felt like I deserved to be going insane. Like, if I couldn’t handle my own problems I didn’t deserve to be here. And I started feeling like I deserved even worse than what I had because it was my problem and I couldn't handle it, so I was about to cut myself… but before I did I sorta realized what I was doing and snapped out of it. I feel a lot better now actually.”

The woman appears to be confused. “I’m glad that you feel better.”

“Thanks.”

“Are you sure you’re alright?” She still doesn't seem to understand what she is being told.

“Yeah. I’ll be fine. Just thought you should know.” The boy stands up, gives the woman a half smile, and leaves the office.

8/21/12

So here I stand, so far from perfect but no longer slipping farther, after the voices in my head have finally stopped trying to reason with each other. I guess having people arguing in my head about my sanity doesn’t really make me sane, but for the moment at least I am functioning. I guess that will have to be good enough. I hope that this peace lasts me for a while, although I never see things like this coming. And I’ll never really be prepared, so might as well enjoy this while it lasts.

No matter what happens to me, I’m done feeling sorry for myself. The boy and the woman, who never truly existed but have done more for me than almost anyone in flesh and blood, slip back into the semi-coherent fogs of my brain, no longer needed to sort out my insanity. It seems I don’t need them anymore, or at least not for the moment. I hope it is a long time before I do again.