A Window To Everywhere

0.06

"Hello, my name is Lydia. They used to call me Lydia, Lydia, the encyclopedia. Back at school where I will have trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Dr. Alonzo asked.

"Oh, there's trouble. Right here in Riverdell. Home to the Rissette River. Winding and slithering like a snake. But I am not a snake. I don't slither but my thoughts do wind. They twist and turn into not normal things."

The technical term for my incoherent babbling is 'world salad', basically a confused or unintelligible string of words or phrases. If Dr. Alonzo was annoyed by my words, she did not express so. Instead, she sat quiet, watching me. As if almost waiting for me to tip over and spill information that I did not want to share. And soon enough I did, careless and on a high from my delirium.

"Do you cry? Sometimes I feel like crying because of voices. People, boys, Finn. Finn. Do you see him? Because I do, all the time. Haunted. Why aren't you like me? You should be haunted. Finn. He might hurt you or at the very least hurt me. Haunted. Scared. I am, I am." I said swiftly, in one rushed breath.

"Well Lydia, I need you to be able to listen and focus on me right now. Unknowingly, you've shown me two things, two symptoms." She began, looking first at her folder, then back at me.

"You're having some kind of psychological difficulty, a 'delusion' to be exact. It is a fixed but inaccurate belief that isn't based on evidence. This is appearing to be what you're experiencing with Finn. And secondly, you are also having disorganised speech. This has to do with how your brain processes a thought. Your thought process is a bit disorganised, making it difficult for you to sometimes express what you mean. Which is why you have been doing things like a word salad or going off topic. Often, your responses won't make sense to the people around you."

I thanked her for the lesson. She in response closed her folder and said she would see me the following week.

When I left her office I left scared, terrified even. I was at loss with what to do; the situation was out of my control and I didn't know where help was. As quickly as they had disappeared, all my fears of being judged and excluded washed over me. I felt winded, out of breath and suffocated in my worries. How do I tell my dad? Or Piper and Laurel? How do you tell someone normal that you aren't the same?

That night was terrible; I lay awake surrounded by a pool of my own sweat, unable to sleep. A string of thoughts ran through my mind, like a broken record on repeat: why am I so weak? Why don't I pull myself together? How do I tell Dad? I am an embarrassment. I can't do anything.

When the following day arrived, I had convinced myself I wasn't worthy. I was a failure; I couldn't function properly and control my mind. I started muttering out loud to myself, curled into a ball with my arms wrapped around myself. I almost wanted to laugh, now I could even resemble an insane person as I went about my daily life.

Dad who had come back from the business trips a couple of days ago, found me on the floor of the kitchen, rocking back and forth and muttering gibberish. Emotions flitted through his face: happiness, shock, confusion, sadness, pity and fear. I wanted to cry. I never have hated myself as I did so much in that moment.

He wasn't able to get anything out of my gibberish but I managed to hand him a phone number; the phone number of Dr. Alonzo. He probably spent a good ten minutes talking but all I listened for was the staccato beeps on an ended call. I hated that he had found out that way. From someone else, from a family member, from a medical perspective.

The drive was quiet, in the sense that neither of us talked to each other. I was muttering under my breath, trapped with my own demons. I guess my Dad was at a loss with words, never expected to wake up to a mentally ill daughter.

_______________

"Not entirely sure. I have not seen her for a long enough time."

"-form. Best to try medication."

"Yes, I agree and understand."

I sat outside Dr. Alonzo's office, occasionally picking up some of their conversation through the heavy wood door.

"Lydia." Dad said, once he'd stepped into the corridor.

"We have discussed and decided on a treatment plan," Dr. Alonzo began as I stepped into her room.

"I can't be a hundred percent exact as I haven't seen you long enough, but from what your dad has said and the symptoms I have seen, it all indicates to Schizophreniform."

The words had hit me like bricks. Schizophreniform. A real illness.

"Schizophreniform is a short-term version of schizophrenia. It's a type of 'psychosis' and is characterised by distortion in the way someone thinks, acts, how they express their emotions, relate to each other and how they distinguish reality."

The more sentences she said, the more bricks I felt like I was being hit by.

"Fortunately, being diagnosed with schizophreniform doesn't necessarily lead to schizophrenia. So your symptoms could lessen and eventually leave within the next six months."

This wasn't a relief to me because I had been feeling this 'change' in myself and essentially this disorder in the last six months. A horrifying feeling struck my gut as I pushed past the unimaginable, eagerly believing the diagnosis my psychiatrist told me, hoping that I was merely someone with schizophreniform.

"So what's the treatment plan?" I asked surprised by how strong my voice sounded.

_______________

Clozapine also known as Clozaril was what I need apparently.12.5 milligrams once a day, taken orally. Help me with Finn, with my demons, with my broken mind. Take away my symptoms and help me cope. And I agreed because I was tired, of Finn and of it all. I needed a moment to myself with the whole not mental me. And if drugging myself worked then that what I would do for the time being.