It was one of those days where everything seemed bleak and brittle, teetering on the edge between what was withstand-able and what was ear-splitting incomprehensibility. The office was silent, and Dr. White was still looking over the paperwork, the crease between his gray eyebrows the only sign of emotion on his pitted and scarred face. I was trying not to pay attention, trying not to count the seconds that were the only noise in the room. The air seemed thin, another undertone of the frailty that seemed to keep me so desperately on edge. The chair I was sitting in was stiff, uncomfortable, a horrid color with an even worse smell. Worn leather and peppermint. It had become the scent that I associated with these appointments, and if it happened to reach me outside of therapy hours it always brought me within centimeters of vomiting with anxiety.
This particular stack of papers was practically burning through my conscious. I was already being treated like an animal, an incapable one at that, and I was unsure of how my most recent outburst would affect the conditions further. I must have been spacing out, because when Dr. White said sternly, "Addie." I jumped.
Looking up, I found his dull gray eyes staring at my hands. Fingertips, specifically, that were now bloody with my insistent picking. I clenched my teeth, and hid my hands between my knees to avoid his glare. His eyes had already scolded me, along with his voice on multiple different occasions on the same subject. I tried to ignore the hot flash beneath my cheeks as he leaned back in his chair and sighed in exasperation. I was aware that I was quickly becoming his least favorite case, which only made me want to chew and pick at my nails further. It wasn't like I was asking to sit in that chair. In fact, I had fought tooth and nail to avoid the facility all together.
"Addie." Again, the stern almost scolding voice. It took me a moment to realize I was biting fiercely down on my lip. At least he couldn't see the way my nails were clawing into my wrists. I exhaled, a sharp quick breath, and tried to focus. Attempted to display myself as normal. Whatever that was, anymore.
"So?" I croaked after another horribly uncomfortable moment of silence. "Do I get another ten years put onto my sentence, or what?" I tried to laugh at my own joke, but it came out strangled and sounding more like a coughing exclamation of pain. I clenched my teeth again as Dr. White sniffed, looking more bored and dissatisfied than ever. He was a tall man, and looked rather awkward slumped in his own armchair. I remember thinking when I had first seen him that he should have designed his office at least in a more comfortable fashion for himself, seeing as he spent almost all his time in it. But, there he was, hunchback forming from the way he slouched and pants too short so that his veiny milk-colored ankles were exposed.
"Do you think this is a joke?" His voice was gravel, his impatience and uncaring attitude seeping through like poison. I was on edge, always on edge, but his words were nothing new and I was far from hoping that I would ever get any kind of real help. In fact, things had been getting worse, not that I would ever imagine bringing such a thing up. No, instead his words pricked a nerve somewhere deep inside and I could feel my cheeks flush again, this time in anger.
"No." I said flatly, my own voice still seeming foreign and dull in my ears.
He leaned forward, balancing the papers on the arm of the chair and resting his elbows on his knees. His gray eyes were raking over me, and I knew he was picking out the 'indicators' he had discussed with me all those weeks before. Facial indicators, that is. Ways to interpret someone's feelings and inner thoughts when they refused to talk about it or express them in other ways. Things like fidgeting or quivering lips. I stared back at him, wishing violently for a moment that my gaze would cause him to keel over. This time, when he spoke, his voice was more level. Almost serene. "Addie, your behavior last night, it was unacceptable." Now, a famous pause for silence while those gray eyes searched for any flicker or moment of weakness. "I want to understand what caused the outburst, when you had seemed to be doing so well in the past few weeks."
A wave of hopelessness seemed to wash over me, and for a moment I felt like sobbing. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders feebly, aware that my lips were mashed together as if to prevent the words that were building up in the back of my throat from spurting out. What causes an outburst? What causes an outburst in a little piece of sunshine like this? Well, there was a whole list. Just thinking about it made my hands clammy and the numbness I so efficiently wrapped myself in was thin and moments away from dissolving. It was impossible, to get better. To strive when all there was around you was sickness, mental decay, and your own barking, strangling thoughts.
Not to mention the new carer.
How was I supposed to explain what had happened, when I was still baffled by it? How was I supposed to articulate the debilitating fear that had suddenly, and ravenously, consumed me into a state of panic? Was there a way to describe how when he had introduced himself I had never been so afraid of anything in my life, and that innate terrible sense had swallowed me whole?
"This is unlike anything you have ever exhibited before, Addie." His words interrupted my thoughts, snapping me back to the quiet and stuffy office. I must have looked rather daft, staring back at him without a word. He must have took this as a sign that I didn't comprehend, and maybe in a sense I didn't. Not from an outside point of view.
Dr. White took another long look at me, then sat up, thumbing back through the papers. "It says here that you began to scream, and become delirious. It says that you didn't respond to any of the carers, and for this reason they had to medically sedate you." He glanced at me over the crest of his glasses.
He was expecting an answer, but what could I say?
(c) Shelby Williams 2015
