Laudanum

On Psychiatrists and God

The psychiatrist shuffles her notes and looks at me from across the room. She looks a little nervous, her fingers beating a tattoo on her clipboard. I don't know why, I'm not that dangerous. I mean, I only killed my boyfriend. I didn't go on a massacre. He was only one guy. And anyways, it's not like I can actually do anything. I'm handcuffed to a chair and there are two attendants standing next to me, waiting for me to go into a frenzy and leap towards her, trying to kill her. Not that I will, even though it's tempting. It'd make her scared of me, and show her that I'm in control. Not her. I can tell from the way she speaks to me, that she thinks I'm dangerous (kind of true) but completely unintelligent (not true). Too bad for her. They all think I'm unintelligent and dumb as a rock. But that's my doing, I play the part perfectly. Unintelligence makes them feel more at ease, they can be as condescending and patronising as they like and I 'the ignorant fuck' won't understand. Ha.

She coughs and I realise she's asked me a question. 'Huh?' I ask, emphasising the noise, making me sound thick and stupid. She smirks slightly and I see her satisfaction spread across her face. What an idiot. Any competent psychiatrist would see the trademark signs of lying that I display, on purpose of course.
'How are you feeling today Lydia?' She asks, trying to hide her smirk. I blink, and pretend to process the question, biting my lip and furrowing my brows pretending to think really hard. 'Good,' I say widening my eyes slightly and looking over her head slightly 'but Steven says you're a bitch'. She scowls. I smile, as if proud of myself and nod to her. 'Steven' is part of the deception. He's the so called 'voice' that tells me what to do. When I was arrested, I claimed that 'Steven' was the next prophet, telling me that Joe had been an unholy demon, one of the Knights of Hell, and was required by God, to die. As God's Knight on Earth, Steven told me my mission. Or so the story goes. Truth is, I made the whole thing up. I didn't kill Joe for some holy mission. No, I killed him because I wanted to, and I didn't regret it in the slightest. One thing I can be accused of is being a liar. In fact, I was diagnosed a compulsive liar, before I murdered Joe in the cabin. However, it didn't seem to occur to the jury or the opposition that I might be lying about what happened. Idiots, the lot of them. My mother had been only too happy to oblige when the opposition had asked her whether I had a history of delusional behaviour. Of course, my mother was biased. She thought I was crazy when I stopped lending her money, and put my foot down about her drug use. Again, the jury didn't think about that either. Not that I care, I'd rather be accused of the crazies than end up as somebody's bitch in prison.