Inconveniently True

Chapter One

- Madelaide -

"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning"

- Louis L'Amour

     My life isn't average. For as long as I can remember, people have called me brave, resourceful, or independent. But truthfully, I'm none of those things. Sometimes I can't even find the energy to get out of the bed in the morning.

     Since things have gotten worse, I've felt so alone. Mom was diagnosed with Schizophrenia at a young age, I didn't even know her before she was on antipsychotic medication and I can't imagine a time when she was completely happy. Her disorder has been a struggle for as long as I can remember, but it's only gotten worse since my grandma died. I thought she'd be able to stay and fight the psychotic episodes if she knew how much I needed her, but that didn't even seem to matter. When grandma died mom was completely convinced someone had murdered her, she begged dad to fly her half way across the country, so she could scour the apartment for clues, of course, despite how much she cried and begged, we all knew what had really happened, and what was happening to her. The day mom stopped taking her antipsychotic medication was when things really started to go downhill. She claimed that they had been tampered with, which only made things worse. On good days, I could come home from school and watch mindless tv with her, it was hard to hold a conversation, but I could tell mom was trying to be involved in my life, which at the end of the day, was enough to show she still cared. Another thing that scared me, was the possibility that I could become my mother. Some people claim schizophrenia is hereditary and if that's true, I have a 15% chance of getting the same illness I've seen my mom struggle with her entire life. Sometimes it keeps me up at night, but I try not to think about it. Clearly, my home life isn't the best, but at least I have friends at school.

     This year, I'm a junior at Parks High. My friends and I have been a tight knit group since the beginning of freshman year when I decided I needed a fresh start. In order to cope with everything, I thought changing my friend group and who I was would somehow change my reality both at school and at home. Spoiler alert, it didn't. I'm still trying to figure out if I made the right decision leaving my old life behind and starting anew with the "cool popular kids" I used to despise. Once you get to know them, they're nicer than they seem. Of course, I still don't feel completely comfortable telling them about my mom. Whenever we were supposed to do something at my house I would always cancel last minute. I know it put everyone out and I'm completely aware of how much I let everyone down at the beginning, but I couldn't tell them the real reason they couldn't come over, and I certainly couldn't tell them why.

     Sometimes I feel guilty about being ashamed of my mom, but I can't stop the thoughts from circling through my head. If by some miracle, I did have the guts to tell everyone the truth, what would my friend group think of me? Would our two years of friendship mean nothing after they found out the crazy that happened to run through my bloodlines? I wish I could say I knew they wouldn't care, I wish I could say we'd be friends no matter what, but honestly, I'm not so sure. I can see their fake smiles and the way they act around each other. Everyone is so desperate to fit in, we forget we're all weird, we all have our own pet peeves, emotions, and irrational fears. In the end, I love them, or at least that's what my comments on their Instagram posts say. They give me a reason to go out on the weekends and a reason to still care about the trivial things of high school, which leads me back to Jake. My crush since the moment he set his piercing blue gaze on me in third period geometry. Ever since then I haven't been able to forget the way my whole mood changes when he flashes me his white toothed smile. We went to our spring fling together but still haven't made our relationship official. I can't help but feel a little scared that putting a label on things would change the amazing friendship that took so long to build. My friend's at school have been pushing him towards me for as long as we've been friends. I remember how much they begged to know who my crush was back when I could still focus on things that weren't related to my mom. It took them days to convince me telling them would be a good idea, even now I'm not sure it was. On the bright side, they have been telling me for the past couple months that he's officially promised to ask me to homecoming. I can't wait! Dress shopping with my friends and talking about the normal dance things have always been one of my favorite distractions. It sounds so stereotypical for a girl like me, but I guess all of us follow some kind of stereotype, whether we want to or not.

     If there's one thing I can say for sure, it's that I never would've imagined myself this way a couple years ago. Before I made the rash decision to gradually stop talking to my best friends and become a whole new person, I had a nice group of people to turn to when things got really bad. Mainly, my go to person in this world was my best friend, Destiny Carter. We'd been best friends since we were little, yet another cliché I have to own up to. My mom was best friends with her mom before I was even born, and they shared everything with each other. Destiny's mom had seen her during the best and worst parts of her life and her disorder, even becoming a second mom to me throughout my life. Sometimes I miss Destiny and her family more than I care to admit. I feel like I'm letting my mom down in a way by not keeping up with her as much as she would've expected. I can't help but wonder who I would be or what I would be like if I didn't let go of Destiny and the others in a desperate attempt to change the things about my life that simply weren't going to change – at least anytime soon. I guess, at the end of the day, it's hard to let go of that tiny hope in the back of my head that someday everything will return to normal, that someday, it'll be just like it was before my grandma died and took my mom with her.