The Journal of Beatrice Grace Parker

Confused and Disoriented

Half my year went into Physio and mental evaluation. They said I was disoriented. The psychiatrist at the hospital had taken Mom aside to quietly tell her that I was bordering on depression. But she was not quiet enough, because I heard. I heard every wretched word of that conversation. I heard Mom sniffing mutedly into her pink hanky, trying not to let me hear it. But I was far beyond caring. It seemed that sometimes I wanted to get up from the sick-smelling hospital bed, away from the tangle of tubes that somehow always seemed to lead inside me from somewhere or the other. I wanted to go and hug Mom, I wanted to be brave for her. I desperately wanted to say that everything would be alright because I would get better.

Another part of me didn’t want me to get better. It wanted to hide under the covers, and remain there in that room that smelled of spirit, away from the world I couldn’t face. This was how I used to feel all the time before. So I had built myself a castle of books, inside of which I could be self-secure and happy, sarcastic and cheeky even, not needing to look at the world in the eye, as I was alone and satisfied with being alone. But somehow my Voldemort had burrowed his way in through my defences, easing through my wall of books. And my castle had fallen with him. I felt naked without that wonderland to bury myself into, I felt exposed to the world. The sarcasm and the rude comments I could pull off in my own bubble seemed to vaporise in the open air I found myself in. And the part of me that wanted me to get better was shouting encouragements, willing me to get up and face the world. The other part, that had always been me, seemed to be losing the battle. I felt like there were two people, where there should have been just one me.