One Hundred Letters for James

028

028:

Hallucinating

(I've been talking to your mum a lot lately. For some reason talking about you isn't something that she wants to do. What happened to you, James?)

Maybe this one is a lot for you to take in, maybe this one isn't what you'd expect of me, of happy, silly, Kathleen, who wasn't really all that happy.

This letter will probably sound a lot different from the others, it's because I ran out of pills, the pills for my depression that you probably didn't even know about, that I only told your mum about.

Now you're wondering where did this come from, when did the demons start eating her from the inside, eating so much away that she didn't eat anymore, and now you're wondering when did I stop eating, and you're praying that I'm eating now, because that's just who you are, and you wanted me healthy, and happy, even though I was and am anything but.

It was in Grade Eleven, James, when I stopped eating. I missed my mum, and I missed my dad, and I missed not having all these demons inside of me, so I starved the demons. I starved myself, all alone in my flat.

It didn't work, of course; the demons were still feeding on me, on my sadness. So I would sit alone in my room, curled up in the fetal position, and I would close my eyes. I would hallucinate. About you, James. Wishing I could be happy. I stopped being happy in Grade Seven, when my mum stopped coming home, when I stopped living, really living. I told your mum, and she tried to help, tried so hard to help, and the pills worked for the first few years.

Then the pills weren't strong enough, so I took two instead of one. And it didn't make me happy, it made me sad. Sadder, if that was even possible. So I pretended that I was fine, and I wore big sweatshirts, and I listened to music, always listened to music, trying to drown out the hallucinations, the hallucinations of my mum, of my mum crying. So I listened for ages, and I didn't eat, and no one knew because I lived alone. You came sometimes, and when you saw the empty fridge, I would just laugh and say that I've been too lazy to make my own food so I had been ordering in. And you were oblivious, so you shrugged and went along with it.

I didn't like hallucinating, of course, especially when I hallucinated about you. You were always happy, and energetic, while I was getting weaker and weaker by the second. All I ate was pills, pills and water. Your mum doesn't know about the anorexia, though, so don't you dare tell her.

In the hallucinations, you were always crying. It was startling, because you never cry, because the infamous James Matthews never cries, but you probably thought that Kathleen Baker never cried, so I guess we're both wrong. I never wanted to see you cry, so I took less pills, and I was happy for a little bit, and I ate. Your mum got me better pills, in Grade Twelve, and I ate normally again, and I thought that was the end of the demons, but I was wrong, because they're back.

My demons are back.