Shades of gray

They say curiosity killed the cat, and I think someone here sees me as the cat.

I'm not crazy.

I know that's exactly what someone crazy would say, but I swear: I'm not crazy.

What can I do to prove I'm not? The fact that I'm writing a journal, like the school counselor said, doesn't help. Well, the fact that I'm even seeing the school counselor at all doesn't help.

Let's see, what would a person who is NOT crazy do right now? Probably introduce themself.

My name is Abby White. I'm fifteen and I go to Creecher High School. What else could I say? Music is my greatest hobby. People my age think I'm crazy, so I don't really have queues of girls begging me to be their friend.

Anyways, no need to talk about them. Let's talk about me.

Music is my thing; it helps me feel alive in this world.

Oh, and this. As I mentioned before, the school counselor said it would "help" me. I'm going to write this only because Mom and Dad asked me to give it a shot. It was them asking the school counselor to "see" me. Do you see now how crazy people think I am? No one is telling anything to the lady across the street and now I'm the crazy one? Come on, she has a billion of red cats! Or, at least, I think they're red.

I forgot to mention it, but this world is all black and white. There are a ton of shades of gray, but no actual colors. I saw colors when I was a child, then one day looked at the sky and noticed: it wasn't blue but an unnerving shade of gray.

There is only one problem: nobody else seems to notice this lack.

A lot of people listen to me until this point with a rather curious face, like: "This one's funny. Like, really funny. I don't understand why everyone says she's crazy". When I say this, though, their face has the following evolution, quite the same for anyone:

1. "Wait, what?"
2. "Oh. It must be like the rumors say: she's crazy"
3. "Poor girl, she's really crazy"
4. "Better listen to her with the most understanding face possible"

The problem is that, when they do the understanding face, understandment is the last thing they awake in me. To be honest, rather than feeling understood I feel like throwing them a bottle.

When I keep saying it's true, people stand, hold my hand and whisper something like: "I can help you", making me walk away every time.

What is wrong with them?! More than is wrong with me, honestly.

At least if I had a nice appearance, I could comfort myself with that. But no, fate gave me not only a quirky mind, but a dose of self love that is basically a negative number.

Once I did a checklist of what girls in my class like about their physical aspect and what I like about it. Every time I pass next to a mirror, I check if I have what they have. The x is what I don't have, so most of it. A few weeks ago, after listening to "Elastic Heart" by Sia I added a new thing to the checklist:

Elastic heart: v

Well, if I hadn't an elastic heart I would have killed someone already. Positive vibes only, as they say. :)

I have to admit I'm starting to like this whole journaling thing. Of course, the counselor will never know I do. I can't afford to agree with her, people think I'm crazy without adding it.

I need to go, but I'll update the journal when I come back. =D

Okay, here we are.

Mom works at an employment agency, so she meets a lot of people and she talks with everyone.

So, I was saying: she saw this friend of her, a psychologist..

All normal until here, right? Yes.

The problem is that she wants me to "talk to her". Oh, man.

I told her I was completely fine, but she got all huggy and "Don't worry, darling", which shook me even more because "Don't Worry Darling" is the title of a thriller where this woman finds out the truth and everyone think she's crazy. What a coincidence, right? An annoying, unsettling coincidence.

Anyways, now I'm on my way to go meet this woman. Let's just hope she has candies in her office and that she won't do a bunch of "tell me how you're feeling" questions. I hate when people do that. They steeple their fingers, lean back and either take their glasses off or start taking notes. I hope she doesn't do a test with the ink stains like "Watchmen".

That would be weird, but I honestly prefer it over the questions about feelings.

Okay, she's walked away to... get mandalas?! Wait, what? Is this a hospital's support group or what?

When we walked in she told mom she could leave, that we would just "chat from girl to girl". I honestly haven't felt more cringed in an entire month than in that single minute. Yet, she does deserve an award: "cringiest therapist I've ever been to".

Anyways, she took her clipboard out and wrote something in a very messy way, maybe because she's a psychologist and psychologists are a kind of doctors. Maybe she wasn't writing, she was preparing some ink blot test.

She looked at me and I knew.

I slowly, almost imperceptibly shook my head in warning.

"Don't you dare" I thought.

"So, Abby..." she started with a Penny Wise style lipstick smile. Maybe she cared, but she was showing it in the wrong way.

"Man, this is going to be long" I thought after a long sigh.

"You're dying to ask me how I feel, right? Do not dare." I thought again.

"How do you feel?" She asked.

I stayed silent, with my "I'm processing my feelings" face, thinking about how to answer. I could... throw her a philosophical and unnecessary complex quote. Like: "To do is to be". No, I wouldn't be answering her question.

"Honestly?" I said.

I meant: "Honestly, lady, what the hell is that question??", but I kept it simple.

"Oh, Abby," she did a compassionate smile and leaned closer. She looked like those hip hop dancers that can extend their neck so much you think you're watching a turtle that has drunk a Polijuice Potion.

"We're in a safe space." She tried to hold my hand, but I pretended my shoes' velcro closure needed an adjustment and retracted it.

Okay, that was definetely enough. I decided: I had to take her down. I'll go in full "let's-make-the-therapist-crazy" mode.

I looked at her with melodrama in my eyes, then looked away and put a hand on my heart.

"Oh, I feel something!" I said, looking at the watch above her head like one would look at a vision.

"Yes?" She started writing.

"Hunger!" I said with planned excess of emphasis.

"Of trust?"

"No!" I said, my hand still on my heart.

"Of what?" She took notes frenetically, not seeing my "Oh-I'm-Loving-This" face.

"Food!" I said like I meant something philosophical.

"So you want... food and trust?" She said, the understandment in her eyes turning into a "What da..."

"Oh, sweet, sweet woman, no. It's only the celestial delight of food I seek." I said, this time me patting on her hand.

I tried so hard not to laugh and looked at her hair: it was becoming yellow. Yellow, like I remembered it! But, the second she started talking again, the color disappeared and I was back in my gray hell.

"Okay, Abby. Now let's talk about you, not me. I'm here to..." She left the sentence unfinished and looked at me with the usual "therapist that is thinking" face.

"I swear if that lady says it..."

"I'm here to help you, Abby"

There, she said it.

"And I'm here to eat your notes if you say something as stupid as that again" I thought.

The therapist, whose name is Linda, by the way, is coming back, so I'll keep you posted.

P.S: She asked me to call her Linda, but I won't. Not in a million years. What is she, the ice cream lady? No, I would NEVER call her Linda. She might think I like her. Creepy thought.

I just got home.

Epic, really. I'm going to tell you all about it.

Get comfortable, because it will be entertaining.

Before starting, though, I want to say something: I know I should’ve felt something, but the only things I felt were fun and annoyance. I know I may sound annoying with all my sarcasm and never being serious, but I just cannot be serious in front of people like that! I know that maybe I should've appreciated her work, but... I didn't.

Now, without anymore delay, let me tell you all about this encounter. It only gets worse from here.

She actually brought mandalas. Honestly, I was expecting she’d gone to Tibet and had a monk draw it, considering how long she’d been gone.

"Abby, dear, which one do you want to color?" She asked in a sugary voice, like a teacher during Easter time asking a six-year-old which egg she wanted to decorate for her parents.

"Why are we coloring mandalas now?" I said raising an eyebrow. I had heard something about the soothing effect of mandalas, but I didn't want to test the theory. If I would have wanted to soothe myself, I think I would have listened to music, not colored mandalas.

Beside, being in front of that woman made it very, very, very unlikely to be able to soothe oneself.

The only problem? I had something like one hour and a half to spend in front of the twin of Rita Skeeter, with same hair, glasses and need to know whatever goes in someone's mind. Would she write on her own notebook that my eyes were "glistening with the ghosts of my past" like she did with Harry in "The Goblet of Fire"? Because that wouldn't make any sense.

Anyways she insisted, so I chose a mandala, turned the paper around to its blank side and started drawing on it.

Linda, the therapist, looked at me with a "God, kiddo, what are you doing?" face, then took her own mandala and started coloring it.

Finally, after a time that felt like an eternity, she put her markers down.

"Can I see yours, Abby?" She asked with her Rita Skeeter smile.

I showed her my pizza floating in space and she nodded and wrote something on her clipboard.

Man, was she really analyzing me based on my drawings? Maybe she really would have made me a test, not with ink blots but with mandalas.

She raised her drawing and laughed exactly like Rita Skeeter.

"I'm terrible!" She laughed again.

"Yeah, lady, you really are." I thought, but I just nodded, giving her the luxury of at least one serious reaction from me.

The moment when she realized I was serious, she fell from her chair and started thanking Buddha, since she had became buddhist during the mandala session.

Just joking.

She looked at me with a huge Penny Wise smile and made a face like: "Yay, she will open up!".

"Oh, lady, don't let it get to your head. Don't get illuded" I thought.

"So. How did drawing make you feel?" She asked, her smile so sweet is was almost disgusting.

"Hungry." I said, shrugging. That was the most honest thing I had told her in the whole session: I was hungry, really.

"Oh, right, you drew a pizza." She said, taking out a box from her desk.

She offered me some coffee flavoured candy, but I declined. Coffee candy? Who in the world likes coffee candy? Except Rita Skeeter, of course.

She put the box away, steepled her fingers and took the cap off her pen.

"Does your drawing have a particular meaning, Abby?"

Man, how could a pizza have a meaning behind it?! It was floating in space, but it was still a pizza! Did she see something suspicious behind the extra cheese? Was wurstel something future psychopaths drew?

"Maybe it does..." I said. I couldn't help myself: I had to make her go crazy.

"Yes, Abby?" She started taking notes.

"The space in which the pizza floats represents..." I looked at her with the corner of my eye.

She stayed silent, taking notes in a ridiculously messy way.

"My hunger. The black hole my stomach is." I finally said.

"Oh." She abruptly stopped taking notes, then a flash of light striked her green eyes and she wrote something as if the whole therapy session depended on it. Her green eyes! I saw them! I saw color! But, again, when she started gibbering something, hoping some clever words would come her in mind, the color faded again. And... I understood. It was the fun. The fun I felt when I saw her confused face made me see color. Nice feelings made me see colors, Unpleasant ones made me go... Back to black, like Amy Winehouse said. Or Back to gray, to be more precise.

But then I realized something else: either this world was one where emotions ruled, or... I was crazy and they were right.

I didn't listen to Linda, the therapist (and I'm adding therapist because they will have to torture me to make me say only Linda), lost in thought.

And then I realized another thing: all this was not helping. I saw colors rarely because the people who were supposed to help me where therapists, and all they did was asking me about more and more feelings, not really interested in everything else that regards me. They don't understand that the only way to help someone is truly caring about them, trying to let them talk, asking them why instead of what.

Have you ever seen "Doc: nelle tue mani"? It's literally "Doc: in your hands" in English. It's an Italian series (I watch it because my granny was from Italy so I know Italian) in which there is this doctor that treated his patients like... projects. No name, only the bed number. Then he gets shot in the head and survives, but has forgotten 12 years of his life. He starts working at his hospital again, and he gets to know each patient with sincerity. He understands what some people have for two reasons:

1. He's very, very, very good
2. He TALKS to them! He gets to know important details other doctors don't know!

That's the proof you should talk to someone, see them and not only look at them.

I felt really good after realizing that.

She kept talking and I was slightly nicer with her. Not completely, just slightly. It's not like I want to see her again, mark my words.

When she was done and mom came to pick me up, I realized another thing (yeah, today is "Realization day"): I didn't want to see therapists. I know they just do their jobs and all, but I really do not want that.

"See you around, Abby!" Waved the therapist.

"Hope not, cringy lady!" I thought while smiling at her.

"How was she?" Mom asked me in the car.

"Fine." I shrugged. "Mom, no more therapists. They don't get me."

Mom sighed. I know she was doing her best, but I risk of killing someone each time I go to meet some therapist.

"Okay, Abby. Just... talk to me if you need someone. I'm always there for you." She said, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

"I know mom. Thanks." I said. I know my parents love me. I could climb on the Burji Kalifa and still couldn't see, from there, the vastity of how much they love me.

As soon as we got home, I went to my bedroom and... here I am.

But let me tell you something, journal. I might actually be crazy. I don't know, but I think I would like to. Maybe... maybe I have some kind of depression. The question is: what would I do if I knew the truth? And... do others know if I'm crazy or not? Do they for real?

Well, like a song said... "Si nasce soli e si muore nel cuore di qualcun altro", or "You are born lonely and die in someone else's heart".

And maybe that's the truth. I'll probably always be in my parents' hearts, but will be lonely. Because no one gets me except me.

"All the world's a stage", and you are the opera libretto.

Next act is on.