Mirrors

Different

Chapter Thirty:

Different

After a few days of feeding and rest, Valerie was sent home. I remember walking through the front door, entering the house as if I hadn't lived there before. The aura seemed different. I felt as if I were a different person entering that house. It was familiar with a different feeling.

I missed mom. In the living room, I looked at the recliner where she usually sat. I looked back to the front door, hoping that she'll return with my baby sister Florence. But she didn't. I returned to my bedroom. The first thing I thought of doing was to take the painting materials out of closet. I hadn't had the chance to experiment with it since my birthday.

Everything changed after that. Because of the trauma I went through, Dad thought bringing me to a therapist would fix me. The way I thought, the way I reacted and the way I expressed myself was examined. I was an experiment under their eyes; I felt it. Every visit seemed dull. Every conversation I had with the psychiatrist just angered me more. It was painful showering her with my personal life, opening every possible curtain of my stage. She traveled through every corner of my brain, trying to scour through anything she thought was useful. I had never felt so violated, so futile, so disrespected.

Every night was another battle with the nightmares that tip-toed through my slumber without warning. That was when I started to get insomnia, feeling crazier for every sleeping hour lost. The therapist shoved pills down my throat, thinking that it would somehow “fix” me. But it just made everything worse.

One day, she offered this supplement that would help with the growing depression. She convinced my dad that it would help with everyday life, so that I don’t lag on everyday activities. So day by day, I took those pills that would somehow make me happier. As I suspected they didn’t work. It made matters worse. It tore through my metabolism, put me to sleep and altered my mind. Slowly, I turned into a psychopathic monster that dreamt up monsters, believing that each and every one of them were after me. a

It was a constant battle of going to sleep with beasts in them, or stay up late with my deteriorating mind.

Dad took me off the pills. The last session I had with the psychiatrist ended in screams and scolding. We never returned to her. Thank God.

The medications ended in the middle of seventh grade. My grades plummeted. My social life was non-existent. The teachers monitored me; they knew my ‘condition’. Every period in school was a struggle. English class was especially hard. Going back to reading books frustrated me. Because of my frequent habit of staying up late, concentrating and understanding each sentence was a battle I never thought to ever be in. I somehow convinced myself that I had dyslexia.

I never managed to try and make new friends. There were too many reasons to call me a lunatic. There was no need to let anyone come into my life when I am afraid of myself. How could I let anyone accept me when I couldn’t even accept myself? No one understood. No one needed to.

In the middle of art class, I stood watching over Valerie. She sat on a stool, working on a project alone. Pastels spread around the rectangular table she kept to herself. My head bobbed back and forth, looking all over the room. Most of the tables were filled with groups of kids that have known each other since elementary school. None of them went to the same elementary school I went to when I moved to Washington state.

Nothing distracted Valerie from her work. Her eyes never darted off. Her hand never stopped moving. Some classmates passed by, watching her do her work. Their eyes widened at the sight; I smiled at each reaction. Yeah; I’m a bit of an artist.

“Hey,” a girl said, sitting on one of the stools next to Valerie. “You’re so good,” she said, gawking at the pastel drawing of a vase. It was so simple; why would she be amazed by that?

“This is nothing,” Valerie said, shrugging.

“What are you saying?” the girl protested. “Mine is shit compared to yours.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Stop being modest . . . um—”

“—Valerie. My name’s Valerie.”

From outside, Valerie just seemed like an ordinary person. Everyone thought she was shy because of her quietude. But that was only skin deep. No one had dug deeper to actually see what was really going on.

Inside her head were images no little girl should ever see. Then and now, she would see imaginary shadows from corner to corner. She had a paranoia that of a deer trapped in a cage full of tigers. She was a lunatic. She was pathetic. She was unwanted. I hated her so much. I hated that monster.

At the end of seventh grade, I had finally recovered from the trauma. I was no longer mesmerized by the dreams that haunted me at night. The monsters no longer visit me at night. Nights began to calm down, giving me eight to ten-hour sleep. My grades climbed up to A’s again. More acquaintances began to crowd around me, though many of them were shallow friendships. I didn’t seem to mind that I hadn’t had deep conversations with these people, so long that they kept me company. Finally, I was sane again but I was different. I changed significantly—more than when my family left home.

I was worrying about what I looked, how the medication had pounded more weight on me. I began to have the obsession of wanting to make everything perfect. Everything needed to go my own way. For no apparent reason, I began to worry about promptness. I couldn’t be late to anything. I couldn’t procrastinate. I started to worry about my everyday life when there shouldn’t be anything to worry about.

Even with this, I hated myself. I still thought of myself as a lunatic. I still evaded communication and socializing. There was no way I could tell anyone about what happened to me.

The hatred rose up inside me. I looked at Valerie who was laying on her bed as she read a book. I couldn’t help but feel ashamed of her, feel angry at her. I just wished she never existed, that mom never left, that I never snapped. She was the part of my past that I never showed to anyone. She was an abandoned child who didn’t need anyone. I hated her.

The scene blurred out. I found myself in the dark again. This time, I wasn’t alone. A few feet ahead of me stood a girl dressed in the same white dress as me. It was Valerie, eyeing me with disgust. We stared at each other, unmoving. It felt like an eternity since either one of us moved.

“I hate you, too,” she mumbled.