All in the Mind

Seconds probably seem like minutes to us both as I stand just staring.

“…What?” she asks.

I still don’t immediately answer. How can I? The answer is grave.

Her eyes widen to signal she waits for it still.

“Ummm, nothing,” I finally say. “Just gotta head to work soon.”

“Yeah, well, it definitely doesn’t look like ‘nothing’.”

My eyes try to communicate to her she’s right, but ah, what’s the use. I can’t even tell my own mother what’s really on my mind and has been for…far too long.

“How about I make you a nice, warm cup of hot cocoa before you head out?” she asks. “Maybe that’ll make you feel better about whatever’s troubling you.”

Not really.

“Thanks, Mama,” I push a smile through. “I really appreciate it.”

“Baby, of course. Anything for you. And if there’s ever anything you want to talk about, you just let me know, okay?”

My smile comes a little more naturally this time.

If only taking her up on her offer were that easy. If only I could share my thoughts with her as I did so easily once upon a time. If only they’re the kinds of thoughts you can share, without…

Sigh. If only.

*************

Later that day, my eyes don’t blink as they fix on the large black outline of a human body outside my office window. Laid out on a large white billboard, the image of a thermometer fake-pulsates within the outline’s “head.” Beside the outline is a big, thick green checkmark.

Beneath that is another outline, one of a brain cut in half. And beside it is a big, thick red X mark. My gaze glazes over the words in bolded Impact font printed above:

Simple Sickness. It isn’t that complicated.

It sure feels complicated, I think as the sign taunts me relentlessly, as it taunts me every day.

As it’s taunted me for years.

“Hey, Tommy! Can I borrow your stapler?” My coworker Bobby interrupts my thoughts as he peeks over our shared cubical wall.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” I hand it to him.

As he thanks me and turns, I suddenly jolt to my feet, reach over, and yank the stapler back from him.

“Wha—?!” he starts, but before he can finish, I grasp him tightly with one arm, shake the stapler open with my other hand, and drive a staple down into his neck.

“What the fuck?!” he cries.

Without answering, I drive down the chunk of steel again and again and again.

The little metal pieces continuously puncture his flesh, and little pools of red begin to collect and stream down his back and chest.

“Help!!” He cries out to the rest of the floor, but no one seems fazed, continuing their respective work task as if nothing is happening.

“Tommy!!” he screams as I continue to puncture him repeatedly, my face void of expression. “TOMMY!!!”

“Heyy, Tommy!! Hello?!?” Bobby smiles as he snaps his fingers in front of my face, and I look up at him still hovering into my cube. I raise an eyebrow, confused.

“I was asking if you have any staples.” He waves the stapler. “Looks like you’re out.”

“Oh, oh, yeah,” I chuckle nervously and shuffle in my drawer a few seconds before handing him an unopened box. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. Hey, you alright, man? Seems like I kinda lost you there for a sec.!”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Sorry. Just have a lot on my mind.”

He continues smiling awkwardly, lingering there another moment.

“Well, alright!” he says abruptly. “Thanks for the stapler! I appreciate it and will be sure to get it back to you ASAP!”

I nod and return to my computer, trying my best to refocus on work.

I can’t, so I take a deep breath and go for a walk, heading to the break room.

This isn’t a real thing, I keep telling myself. It isn’t a sickness or illness. They’re thoughts. Just thoughts. And thoughts don’t matter, until or unless they become action.

All I have to do is just make sure they never become action…

“Hey, Tommy,” my colleague Maria greets me as she warms her food.

“Hey,” I return and immediately imagine the microwave door crushing her fingers before the electric current zaps her unconscious.

Ok. Time for an early lunch.

I decide to swing by and check on my cousin Lonnie since she hasn’t answered or returned my texts or calls in days, which is unusual.

Her car’s in the driveway, which isn’t unusual since she works from home.

I knock on the door a few times. No answer.

I try the knob and am surprised when it opens.

“Lonnie?” I call out as I walk into a scene that nearly shocks me.

Clothes, paper, cans and cartons. On the floor, on the couch, on every table and counter. And a thin layer of dust covering it all.

This might not be a big deal for, say, a freshman in college, but this is Lonnie. The person who never lets anyone’s shoes make it past the “Welcome" mat. The person who religiously washes and dries the dishes before sitting down to eat. The woman who dusts and vacuums twice a day…on a bad day.

“Lonnie!” I yell again, hearing some activity in the back but still no answer.

I head to the back and find her bedroom door cracked, the TV blaring in the background. I push it open.

I might be inclined to think she’s dead if not for the rosy color in her flesh and her chest rising and dropping slightly.

“Lonnie!!” I turn down the TV with the remote and call to her again. Still nothing. “Lonnie!!”

Just as I step forward to try to physically wake her, she finally begins to stir.

“Hmmm?” she moans, her eyes still closed as she rolls to another position.

“Lonnie! Wake up!!”

“What?! What?!? What do you want?”

“Lonnie, you’ve gotta get up, hun,” I finally go over to try and shake her, and her eyes gradually open.

“I”m tired, Tommy,” she whines.

“Honey! I’ve been trying to reach you for days and have been worried about you.” I look around. “And now that I’m here, I’m even more worried.”

I walk over to her bathroom, fill two Dixie cups with water, and come back to her bed, splashing her face with one of the cups.

“What the fuck?!?” she snarls as she slightly lifts herself with her forearms.

“Lonnie, it’s one-o’clock in the afternoon, on a Monday,” I say as I try to give her the second cup to drink, but she isn’t interested. “What’s going on with you?!”

I surveil for the first time the chaos in this room. An empty bottle of Merlot—and no wine glass—sits on the nightstand. Several large piles of laundry sprawl across her love seat and the floor.

This isn’t my big cousin.

I knew the passing of her mom, Auntie Dot, earlier this year would be hard on her, but she seemed oddly okay for a long while after. So, as more time went on, I’d stopped worrying about her and really thought she’d continue to be okay.

I may have thought wrong.

As I try not to have the scene overwhelm me, an all-too-familiar older-male voice suddenly speaks from the TV.

It’s President Reyner in a news conference.

“I’m happy to say we’re living in better times, people,” he said, “Far better than ever before, as we’ve gotten back to being simple humans and living with simple, actual common sense.”

He shifts his weight on the podium.

“Ever since we passed the worldwide legislation of Simple Sickness, life for everyone has been so much simpler, as it once was and as it forever should be…”

Lonnie rolls her half-asleep eyes.

Suddenly, a noise startles me from behind. I turn, and a flash of red and blue soars past her door and into the room.

It’s little Ralphy, her 8-year-old son, sporting his Spiderman onesies I got him last Christmas.

“What are you doing out here, Ralphy?” Lonnie sits herself up more fully with the most energy she’s had since I walked in. I try again to give her the cup of water, and this time, she accepts it and takes a sip. “Get back to your room!”

“Wait, wait, why can’t I say hello to my little cousin?” I extend my arms as Ralphy flies towards me.

“Heyyy, Cousin Tommyy!!!” he exclaims with uniquely sugar-high energy.

“Hey, buddy! What’s going on? Why do you have to be in your room?”

“I don’t know,” he lowers his head dramatically.

“You do know,” says Lonnie. “Tell your cousin why you’re in your room without video games or your TV!”

Ralphy lingers, quiet.

“Little Ralphy here keeps acting up, talking out of turn, and not getting his work done at school,” she answers for him. “So, he’s on punishment until he remembers how to act right!”

“Oh, yeah, school!” I say. “Shouldn’t he be there right now?”

“Yessss,” Ralphy’s exaggerated glee returns.

“Well then, why aren’t you?” I turn back to him.

Ralphy doesn’t answer, so I turn to Lonnie again.

“Lonnie, why isn’t he in school? It’s Monday.”

“…Shit,” she says gutturally—her tired, red eyes first dropping before they veer back up at me. They fix on mine for a few moments longer than normal, in a way that I keenly recognized, having often been on both sides. The yearning to say what her lips can’t. Or feel like they shouldn’t.

The yearning to share whatever’s on her mind.

I straighten up around her house as much as I can before I head back to work, but I make a point to come back, check on her, and finish cleaning up later.

*************

I’m hoping that little break to see my cousin will help with what’s been on my mind. And this nagging related distraction outside.

I’ve tried multiple times to request a desk change away from this window, but they claim there’s no other space.

It just feels like that thing’s always watching me, nagging me—the black, green, and red steadily remaining too prominent in my peripheral to ignore.

It sometimes even feels like it talks to me.

Talks to me because it knows.

Knows what I can’t say.

What I can never say again.

Out loud, anyway.

That I want to hurt.

I want to hurt people.

Badly.

Like, really badly.

Not mental or emotional hurt. Physical—is that better? Or worse? I’m not sure. But I think about it constantly.

Constantly.

Punching someone. Stabbing someone.

Choking, strangling…

If I had a gun, I’d shoot someone. But I know better than to have a gun.

I think about cutting a person, about smashing their face with a hammer, even about burning.

Pretty much anything guaranteed to sever the flesh.

And I’ve had these thoughts for many, many years.

I used to regularly see someone, even took medication for it. My psychiatrist’s name was Linda, and she was great. That is, until she stopped answering my calls.

For a while, I didn’t understand what’d happened. Did she think I no longer needed the help? Did I scare her away? But that can’t be—she’s a doctor, and I’m her patient. Is that not what she’s here for?

So, I eventually went to her office.

I heard the sirens and smelled the smoke blocks before I saw the flames.

I’d been hearing certain things in the news, but that’s when I knew it was real. That things were changing.

I’ll forever regret not realizing sooner and doing what I could to properly prepare. It would’ve been nice to say goodbye to Linda and to get her to record an audio or two of her tips and tools for the road. But most of all, I’m upset I didn’t stock up on medication.

By the time I did realize what was happening, I could no longer get it—legally, anyway.

And that was five years ago.

Five years…since the concept of mental health and mental illness was eradicated.

I remember President Reyner’s first press conference about it like it was just yesterday.

“Simple Sickness,” he’d proudly stated. “Being sick only in the way God intended—in our bodies, not in our minds. Colds, the flu, measles, diabetes, heart disease, even cancer—those are the kinds of sicknesses we recognize and we’ll continue to do all that we can to treat and hopefully one day cure. And guess what? Now we’ll have more time and resources to actually put towards those treatments and cures, since we won’t have to also tie them up with junk science and junk medicine!”

So, that’s it. There’s no longer a such thing as depression, or anxiety. No grief, trauma, or even addiction. We can’t even use the word “stress” anymore.

One can’t be diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, OCD or ADHD, PTSD or any personality disorders. No mental disorders. No mental illness diagnoses.

No mental illness.

“It doesn’t exist,” the president insisted. “It’s all made up by an elite group who wants to make you feel like you’re crazy. Like you aren’t capable of great things! I think you’re capable of great things, and I care about the real ways you, I, we all become sick as humans—physically, not mentally. And now, thanks to me, all of the unnecessarily confusing, projecting psychological mumbo-jumbo is a thing of the past!”

He’d decided mental health had gone too far—that there had come to be a diagnosis and disorder for any and everything and was too often used to excuse bad and criminal behavior.

Once President Reyner made this proclamation, it wasn’t long after the rest of his party and the rest of the world followed.

Scientists everywhere tried to argue against it—to show proof that mental illness really is a thing. They presented tons of research and studies, as well as many examples of people most infected by mental illness and the effect it often had on their lives and families. And on society.

“You aren’t a real scientist if you think there’s something wrong with the mind,” President Reyner touted repeatedly in interviews and on social media posts. “They are part of that self-serving elite!”

Not only were those scientists not believed and their assertions disregarded, they eventually were…put to death.

They along with anyone else related to the matter.

I’m sure including Linda.

Anyone who’d been connected to mental health was now not only no longer practicing but presumably no longer living.

No more therapists, psychiatrists, or psychologists. Not even counselors. Pretty much any doctors and practitioners for people who remain have to be only for our bodies—nearly nothing related strictly to the mind.

There was a brief moment when it was thought, even though there’s no longer mental illness diagnoses and practitioners, perhaps the government would still somehow allow the medication.

“Why would we need medicine for something that doesn’t exist?” President Reyner declared.

So, no more antidepressants, anti-anxiety, or mood stabilizers. No antipsychotics or even stimulants. I’ve heard there’s still some on the black market, but it’s really hard to come by, and when you do, it’s really, really expensive—about 50 times more than it was before.

Also of course if you’re ever caught selling or buying it, you’ll face the severest consequences.

In fact, any talk or action at all that suggests or even hints at mental health or mental illness other than to condemn it can lead you to years in prison, or worse.

So, it’s come to be that no one talks about it.

Even behind closed doors. Even with close loved ones. Even with close loved ones you trust most—like for me: my mom and Lonnie.

Five years.

So, I’ve just been trying my best to cope on my own since.

Besides some lifestyle changes, which seem to only barely help, literally all I have left is my head.

I can still think the thoughts, and I do, but I worry that won’t be enough for much longer—especially, since, my particular thoughts…will amount to real trouble if they ever become action.

Later that evening after leaving Lonnie’s, I walk home and encounter in a dark alley a young man half my size walking in the opposite direction. The neighborhood is quiet, other than the occasional car that passes in the distance.

Looks like he might be in college. He carries a backpack, and since it’s pretty late, I’m thinking he may have just come from a late-night study session at the library nearby.

“Hi,” I give him a friendly smile as he passes. Large headphones cover his ears, and I recognize the tune.

Doesn’t seem the safest, but he probably counts on this being a safe neighborhood.

Still, he hesitantly smiles and slightly nods back.

Once we’ve passed, I turn and look back, noticing he doesn’t do the same. He continues to casually stroll, his head slowly bobbing to the music.

I step forward…for about 30 seconds.

I then turn back around and head home.

“Hey, baby,” my mom greets as I come through the door minutes later. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine, Mama, how are you?”

“Oh fine, fine.”

“I saw Lonnie today.”

“Oh, you did? How’s she doing?”

“She’s doing well,” I lie.

“Poor thing, I know she misses my sister. I miss her, too.”

“Yeah, I know, Mama…”

“You sure you’re okay?” she asks. “It seems like something’s troubling you.”

I stare at her, my eyes begging her to see and hear everything she wants and needs to know—everything I want to tell her, so my lips won’t have to.

“Yeah, Mama, I’m okay,” I lie again, and I confirm my eyes have failed, as her forehead relaxes from urgent concern back to warm relief.