Short Stories

The Long Journey Home

I used to think I was normal, that I was happy, that I was like the other girls at school, that I was okay, that I was healthy. But then I started hearing things, seeing things, things that weren't there. And that's when I started to think that maybe I'm ill, maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm a freak but nobody ever realises - because i'm a good actor, maybe I have scars under my long sleeves, maybe I'm a completely different human under my mask, maybe I have the wrong soul in my body, or maybe I have multiple souls in my body, and each soul wants to kick the other souls out, maybe that's why I see and hear things. Maybe i'm schizophrenic.

When I was little, I liked to think of my illness as a sort of superpower. The way I could notice things that nobody else would, and I was proud of myself until, when I got older, I noticed that these weren't good things. They were awful things. I noticed how some people wear long sleeves and pants, even on the hottest days of summer. I noticed the red marks when some people's bracelets fell down. I noticed people's empty eyes, and he way thy tug away when someone grabs their arms. And, at 16, I found myself glancing around the room, looking for shaking hands, or scarred wrists, or empty eyes, just like mine.

I don't want to be alone. But, on this long journey we call life, you are always alone. Yes, people come and go, but no matter what crowd you're standing in, or whose presence you are in, you are always alone in your head, you share a mind with nobody else. But I guess that makes you lucky, because sometimes it's better to be alone. That means nobody can hurt you. And because of thoughts like these, I believe that I was designed to be alone. Unfortunately for me, I am never alone. I stayed up late with these thoughts, contemplating whether I was happy with not being alone, or whether it made me the most unhappy person alive.

Home is not four walls and a roof, home is not the arms of your lover, home is your mind, home is your thoughts, home is where your sanity lays; it may not feel like home, and it may not be the safest place, but that is home. So I guess people who lose their minds, people who go crazy, people like me, are just trying to get back home.

People generally tend to think that mental illness aren't real, illnesses like schizophrenia. I often hear people telling me that I shouldn't worry, only because it's not real, it's all in my head. And I repeat these things to my therapist, and she tells me that yes, it may not be real, it may all be in my head, but telling someone with an mental illness that it's not real, it's all in their heads is like telling someone with asthma that it's not real, it's all just in their lungs. And it aggravates her so much to hear people talk like this, as if mental illnesses aren't real and are the victims fault. Because mental disorders are disorders of the most powerful organ in your body - the brain, which is precisely why it causes so much damage. And it just makes me envy normal people more, with their normal lives, without any problems, with their normal brains and normal thoughts.

I'm not exactly sure when I got sectioned, sometimes I'm not even sure when or where I am, or even who I am, on my worst days. I'm not gonna lie, the paranoia, the hallucinations, they get really scary sometimes; imagine feeling completely and utterly unsafe at all times, feeling as though there's a threat lurking over your shoulder, being certain that you can see and hear and feel it there, but turning around to find that there was never anything there. Everyone is the enemy, everyone's out to get you. No one is safe, no one is safe. You are not safe. Feeling tense and alert, never at ease. Can you imagine that? It's a nightmare, really.

I see others like me, leaving the hospital, having completed their long journey home - with their minds back, their sanity back, their thoughts on track. And I wish to be better, I wish to not feel like I am constantly having a war against myself, I wish to feel like the voices in my head are not trying to kill me, I wish to complete my own journey home. But little did I know that when the doctors said that I am better, when they said it with confidence, that I would wish that I wasn't better. Because without the voices, without the demons, I no longer shared my mind, which means that I am now, like many others on this Earth, completely and utterly alone. I have my mind back, my sanity back, my thoughts are on track; I wonder if i preferred being okay and alone, or insane and accompanied.