The Art of Psychiatry

I’m done. I can’t do this anymore. Everybody’s problems have been forever etched into my brain, and I’m sick of hearing their voices repeating over, and over, and over again. A neverending loop of madness. People just assume the psychiatrist has it under control, “Oh, she spends all day helping people with their problems, surely she can deal with her own,” they think. I know they think it. I can see it on their oblivious faces. Sometimes I swear I can even hear their thoughts. But don’t they realize how wrong they are? How so very wrong they are? And that’s why I’m here, standing on the edge of this abandoned, dilapidated building with nothing but a broken LED flashlight from my keychain which I dropped while trying trying to climb these twisted stairs to the top.

        I’m standing on the edge of this building, the wind blowing through my hair. I’ve been here before. Not only physically, but also mentally. I’ve been on the brink of madness, walking the line of insanity, but I’ve crossed it, and I’m making my way through the wasteland that is my mind. The tips of my toes slip past the edge of the building, the cold wind hits my toes and sends chills up and through my spine. Nobody understands me. Nobody will ever understand the Torment I am constantly being put through. I allow more of my toes to slowly slip past the edge, as hot tears stream down my face. Before I know it, all that of me that is left on the building is my heels. What is wrong with me? I’ve been taught all my life not to let my patients kill themselves, to let them know that there is somebody out there who understands them, somebody who truly knows what they are going through. Maybe that’s why I made such a good psychiatrist, because I truly did know what they were going through. My whole body is shaking, as I try to convince myself to stop, to take a step back and just shake this off like it’s another bump in the road. But, I have no reason not to do it. Nobody has ever been there for me, nobody would even care if i disappeared. I scrape my mind for somebody, anybody really, that would care if I left, but I am unable to recall anybody. I dont just mean anybody who cared, but it seems as though I’m unable to recall anybody that I’ve ever known. That’s it. There’s some external force force who’s doing this to me, something that wants to take control of me. It feels like there’s something watching, like a shadow out of the corner of my eye, but the second I turn my head, it’s gone. Just like everybody I once knew. Surely at some point in my life I knew somebody, right? I mean, I’m a psychiatrist, I get patients everyday, I see dozens of patients every week. Maybe that’s what it want’s me to think, but I see past this fake life. None of this is real. This thing, this…demon want’s me to think it’s real, it wants me to leave this building and go back to a fake life, one where my whole life is in it’s sick, twisted hands. I’m not going to let that happen. I throw myself from the top of the building. I feel the cool wind rush past me as i plummet towards the ground.

I don’t feel the impact. I know it happens, but I’m too busy watching my life, all of my memories, play through my eyes. I had a great childhood, two parents that loved me, fed me and got most of what I wanted. Some may say I was spoiled. I grew up as an honor student. I did band, math camps, and anything that would get me a good grade. After graduating from high school, I went to a very prestigious where I got a degree on mental health. I started my life as a psychiatrist, earning more than enough to feed both me and my new fiance. After getting married, we had two beautiful children, both of whom are following in their mother’s footsteps. I had a perfect life. If not for the schizophrenia i would still be living in that perfect life. As my mind floats away from the pain, all I can think is, I’m sorry.