The McKinley Chronicles Part I

1. I'd rather be limbless.

"Lucy, I promise you. Dr. Ritchie isn't going to dismember you."

I glanced up at my mother with great skepticism, raising one eyebrow to emphasize how little her words reassured me, "Those are brave words coming from someone who doesn't have to spend 50 minutes lying on a sofa with a strange woman staring over you. I'm telling you, if I come home with one less limb, the blood will be on your hands. Literally."

My mother lifted her coffee mug and pressed it to her lips, taking a rather large drink from it (despite my insisting that her levels of caffeine consumption are NOT healthy) before setting it down and letting out an exasperated sigh, "See, maybe if you would just make an effor-"

She cut herself off before I could. Maybe if you would just make an effort you wouldn't have to go. Just stop being so sad. Nobody understands how fed up I am of hearing this. You think if I could just wake up one morning and decide that I felt like ridding myself of my crippling anxiety and depression (I like to call them my monsters), that I would still be like this? Because if you think I chose this lifestyle, you can think again. My mother is one of those people. One of the people who "don't believe" in mental illness and think depression can be cured by thinking happy thoughts, and anxiety can be cured by just getting out there. She believes it's entirely my choice - which is really quite ironic in a humorous kind of way, considering that she's more insistent that I continue to attend psychotherapy than I am, "Oh, yes, I believe that it's up to you to cure yourself, and that relief lies within yourself, and so I'm going to send you to someone who specializes in fixing other people."

Perhaphs it's just my way of thinking, but I fail to see the logic in this situation.

I lifelessly pushed the remaining 5 or 6 cheerios around my bowl with the back of my spoon, creating little ripples in the milk that reminded me of the ocean. The cheerios began to remind me of little people, and soon what was once a cereal bowl, became a scene of pure terror. Six innocent cheerios, swept away by the milky current, and so it was then that they realised they were soon to meet their end. Drowning is never a good way to go. Poor Cheerios. 
Perhaps psychotherapy was a good idea...

My train of thought was ever so rudely interrupted when my mother sheepishly spoke up from behind her coffee mug, her eyes peering over the rim at me innocently.
"It's all in your head, you know."

Her voice was soft, she was trying to reassure me like she has so many times, but the truth is, I just cannot be reassured. Especially not by a statement so obvious as that. I tried to refrain from saying anything, because regardless of my response, it would most likely strike up a conversation far too emotional for my liking, and those are the kinds of things I prefer to avoid before going to get my limbs detach- I mean, psychotherapy. So instead of any verbal response, I simply nodded my head (what I really wanted to say was, no shit it's all in my head, that's why it's called mental illness. But that wouldn't help) and set my spoon down on the table.

"If we don't leave now, we're going to be late."

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After a painstakingly long half hour drive to the hospital (drives to psychotherapy always feel much longer than they are. That's probably because of my completely logical fear of being dismembered. But whatever) my mother pulled up in front of the entrance and shot me a reassuring look.
"Dr. Ritchie is here to help you, Lucy. She's going to make you better. I promise."

I pursed my lips and shrugged doubtfully, "I don't see how detaching my left leg from my body will make matters any better whatsoever, but I trust your motherly expertise and her... degree... things, and whatnot. So I'll go with it."

Mother leaned across from her seat and gave me a playful slap across the side of the head, "Very funny - now will you pack the dismemberment gag in already? You're going to run late at this rate, now get a move on. I'll meet you back here at twenty past. If you have one less leg, you can have a KFC for dinner. I promise you. Now go."