Call Me Crazy (5 page)

I turn to look out the window and notice that the sky has clouded over and rain is beginning to sporadically pelt the ground. My mind wanders as I listen to the pitter patter of the rain drops on the glass. I wonder where the guy from the rec room has gone, what he’s doing, and how nice it must be to have the freedom to leave this place. The thought suddenly makes me feel smothered and I try to take a slow breath to keep from hyperventilating right there in the middle of the doc’s office.

“Tally?”

I turn at the sound of my name and based on the look on Dr. Stacey’s face
, she must have called my name several times before I finally looked at her. Back when I had first begun sessions with Dr. Stacey, I had put up a wall as tall as the Great Wall of China, hiding behind my usual sarcasm and smartass-ness. She had taken it with much grace and patience and I had grown to respect the fact that she didn’t reach across the table and smack me, which I totally deserved. I was finally worn down by her persistent kindness and had begun to be cooperative.

“Where’d you go?” She asks me with a gentle smile.

I learned early on that lying to her wasn’t an option. Dr. Stacey had a way of reading me.  I always felt as if she could see the truth in my mind, even when I wasn’t telling it. I think that somewhere along the line, she had majored in deciphering psychiatric patient bovine scatology.

“I was just thinking about how nice it would be to be able to come and go from here instead of being stuck in this building all the time,” I admitted.

She nodded and I see the compassion in her soft hazel eyes.

“I know that it must be hard to be here, especially at your age, when everything inside you is telling you to run free and enjoy your youth. I want that for you, Tally, but we need to make sure that you are ready to function in situations that you can’t control. We both know that you don’t want to have another incident like you had before you were brought here.”

I nod, agreeing with her but not wanting to discuss what had happened. Once again I wonder if she can read my mind.

“I know you don’t like to talk about it, but you have a month until your senior year starts and we need to talk about healthy ways to handle stress and moments when you begin to feel out of control. The medicine will help, but medicine is only 10
percent of the solution. The rest is learning to manage the disease, not letting the disease manage you.”

“Okay,” I let out a deep breath, readying myself to delve into the memories that I try to keep locked up.

“What was the final straw?” She asks.

“My history teacher being a condescending ass.”

To my surprise, Dr. Stacey blurts out a laugh. “I’m sorry, that really isn’t very professional but it’s just that I remember having a teacher like that when I was in college and I wanted to punch him on a good day, so I can only imagine what you must have felt like on one of your bad days.”

I nodded. “For days I had begun to feel agitated over nothing. I just felt like at any moment I was going to explode, a ticking time bomb. Little things would cause me to react so irrationally. That morning I hadn’t been able to find my keys and I had yelled at my mom and thrown my book bag a
t the front door. In my mind I was asking myself what the hell is wrong with me, but I couldn’t stop.”

My breathing increases as I talk about that day and I begin to remember exactly how it felt to be so out of control. “I remember thinking that I must seem so crazy to my parents and they kept asking me to calm down, but I couldn’t.”

“It’s hard to believe because you can’t see your brain, but that reaction is entirely chemical,” Dr. Stacey responds.  “Our emotions and moods are affected by different levels of certain chemicals in the brain. Let’s look at someone with diabetes, for example. They have a lack of insulin in their body that helps control their sugar levels. When the insulin is depleted, their body reacts negatively, becoming ‘out of whack’ if you will. If they don’t know what is happening, there is nothing they can do about it. The same is true of bipolar disorder. You have low levels of chemicals, and sometimes excessive amounts of chemicals, in your brain that make you ‘all out of whack,’ for lack of a better term. Up until now you didn’t know it, so of course you didn’t know what was going on, but now we know, and knowledge is half the battle.”

“So I’ve been told, G.I. Joe,” I mutter as I think back to Candy’s words. Dr. Stacey smiles at me, she’s become accustomed to my little quips and to my surprise she just rolls with them.

“My point is, now that we know what is going on, we can work to help you deal with the times that you begin to feel out of control.”

I nod. “Okay, I can do that.” I glance away as I try to form the words that I want to say, the fears that I want to express but have been too scared to give them names.

“What if I can’t get better? What if I have to stay here forever?” I know she sees the panic inside of me and though I try to stop it, I feel a tear slip down my cheek.

Dr. Stacey hands me a tissue from the box sitting on the coffee table.

“That’s a perfectly normal fear, Tally. You don’t have to be ashamed to voice it.”

I let out a snort as I wipe my eyes. “I swear you can read minds.”

She chuckles. “No, but I’m very adept at reading facial expressions and body language. In fact, they usually reveal much more than a person’s words.”

She doesn’t say anything else, just lets me collect myself. It’s one of the things I really like about her. She never tries to force conversation and she is completely comfortable with sitting in silence until I am ready to speak. She never shifts nervously or makes unnecessary movements; she is completely comfortable in her own skin. I wonder if I
will ever be comfortable just being who I am, will I ever stop wanting to be someone else? I clear my throat before trying to speak again.

“So do you think that I will get better?”

“Bipolar is not a disease like cancer that can be cured. It can be managed and you will have times in your life where you will function completely normally, and then you will have times in your life that will be a little harder. But you don’t ever have to get that far out of control again because you know what is going on now. When you start to sense that familiar feeling of not being able to keep it together you will just let me know and we will see if we need to adjust your medicine or if maybe just therapy will be enough.”

I frown at her. “So I will have this for the rest of my life?”

She nods at me but doesn’t look worried.

“Why?”

“It’s just the way your body is. It sucks, I know that, but it isn’t the end of the world. You can and will live a normal healthy life.”

I wish I felt as confident as she sounds but deep inside I really wonder if I can ever be the way I was before I lost it. She smiles at me reassuringly.

“When it’s time for you to go home you won’t be on your own. You will still have counseling sessions with me weekly, okay?”  

I nod and try to return her smile.

“Is there anything else you want to talk about before we call it a day?” She asks and my mind immediately jumps to the guy whose name I had discovered through less than honorable channels. I look at Dr. Stacey’s expectant face. Finally I let out a groan.

“The new patient that came in today,” I pause.

“Yes?”

“She had a visitor…,” I’m not really sure what I should say now that I’ve started. I feel silly for even bringing it up, but the dam has been breached so there was no stopping the water now. “He looked about my age and something about him was…compelling.” I don’t really know if that was the best way to describe my attraction to him, but it was as descriptive as I was going to get with Dr. Stacey.

“I saw him, and if by compelling you mean good looking, then yes he is.” A frown creases her brow as she studies me. “Have you spoken to any of your friends from school since you came here Tally?”

I look down at my hands as I grit my teeth against the immediate pain her question stirs inside. “Just Natalie.” Dr. Stacey and I have discussed Natalie many times. She is my best friend and quite possibly the only reason that I didn’t kill my history teacher. Since that day I had become the pariah of the high school. I’m
that
girl. I would like to say that I don’t care, but that would be a lie and I’m tired of lying to myself.

“I see,” she answers. “Well, maybe the next time your mysterious visitor comes you could show him around.”

My head snaps up. It wasn’t like Dr. Stacey to encourage patients to interact with other people’s family members.

She smiles at me. “It would do you good to have a friend who doesn’t hear voices but can still relate to you.”

I can’t help but laugh. It was true that, aside from Natalie and my parents, the only friends I had were here in the hospital. But even as I laugh at her words I know that I will never tell Trey that I’m a patient at Mercy. I don’t know what I will tell him
if
I even speak to him, but I don’t ever want to see the look in his eyes that others give me, those who know that I’m not normal.

“Okay,” Dr. Stacey stands up. “That should do if for today.”

I stand up too and toss my tissue in the trash next to the love seat. As I head for the door I hear her clear her throat. “Um Tally,”

I turn to look at her as I grab the door knob. “Yes?”

“Let’s try to make group tomorrow, okay?” She is smiling when she asks me but I can see the reprimand in her eyes.

I grinned at her as I opened the door. “You got it boss.” I salute her and watch as she rolls her eyes, and I imagine she is remembering that it was how I had originally responded to her, but now I did it out of playfulness rather than as a coping mechanism.

~

I hear a knock at my door as I’m lying on my bed, staring up at the cracked ceiling. I’m practicing being still, something that is very difficult for me. Dr. Stacey says that it’s because being still causes me to have to deal with the emotions that are difficult. My response—“why the hell would I
want
to deal with emotions that are difficult?” Granted, I was having a bad day.

“Come in,” I say loud enough for whoever is on the other side to hear.

I see Natalie with her long chocolate brown hair and big brown eyes, poke her head around the door and give me one of her beaming smiles.

“What’s up, my crazy little chickadee?”

I grin back at her. She is the only person outside of these walls that I will allow to call me crazy because I know she doesn’t really think it.

“I’m doing homework,” I tell her.

She raises a single brow at me. “Err okay, and exactly what is the homework?”

“I’m supposed to be ignoring the people in the room,” I glance at her from the corner of my eye and then look back up at the ceiling, “You know, the ones you can’t see.”

I try not to laugh, knowing that Natalie will try not to act weird about my admission, but it’s just too fun to tease her.

“Right,” she finally says.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed pulling myself up from my reclined position.

“I’m kidding Nat; I don’t see people that aren’t there.”

She laughs nervously. “I knew that.”

“I see dead people, but that’s a whole ‘nother bag of worms.”

Her face pales and I let out a bark of laughter.

“Dammit, Tally,” she growls at me once she realizes I’m teasing her again.

“I’m sorry,” I hold up my hands as my laughter dies down, “really I’m sorry, it’s just that sometimes I have to joke about it or I just might freak out again.”

She walks over to my bed and climbs up, leaning back against the wall.

“I know,” she tells me simply.

“So how goes it on the outside?” I ask turning to face her.

She shrugs. “It’s boring. I never thought I’d be ready for summer to be over, but if it means you will be set free then I’m all for it.”

I smile at her
. I know exactly what she means; only I’m not ready for school, but I’m ready to be free―I think.

“What’s been going on in whacked-ville?” She asks playfully.

I realize that for the first time in a long time I’m actually excited to talk to her about something normal―a guy.

“Well, actually
something interesting did happen today.” I can’t hold back the stupid grin that is pasted across my face.

“Please don’t tell me that somebody took off after a nurse with a syringe thinking they were an alien who wanted to probe them.”

I roll my eyes. “That has only happened a couple of times, and if you had seen the room they were putting the patient in you would have understood her reaction.”

Nat shakes her head and lets out a puff of air. “Okay, if it isn’t one of the crazies then what’s up?”

“We have a new patient and her son came to visit her today, and let’s just say he was easy on the eyes.”

Nat
grins and lowers her eyebrows, rubbing her hands together greedily. “Yummy, guy gossip and in the nuthouse no less. What did he look like?”