Doctor: Ezra Boyd

Patient: Delilah-Rose Keeler age 15

(Diagnosis: Depression with mild paranoia)

Task: Create some sort of written journal entry of your thoughts on your condition.

Journal entry: Poem

Sometimes,

I feel like the body I’m in

isn’t mine.

It feels like me

looks and sounds like me,

but I’m just inhabiting it

A hollow mold

I’m just gas filling the chambers

and if you take a hammer

and hack away at my

ceramic shell

you’ll shake me

break me

and out I’ll spill

rolling like fog

consuming my world around me

I feel the pills

inside my body

fucking with my mind.

Seeing the cracks

in my so called

skin,

I’m just waiting to shatter.

And sometimes

I can feel the silence

on my lips

gagging me

the only thing filling my mouth.

Task: Just write what you feel. Do not worry about spelling or grammar. The point is to convey how you feel in a moment.

this may sound weird, but I feel like im sofocating. I can feel the words and sentances and everything building up in my mouth filling it to the brim and I just want to throw it all up because its just building up in there and eventually I swallow it down and im fine but then it eventually just builds up again. Its like having your mouth pumped with thick yogurt and the pressure pushes your tongue down. I just need to scream and yell and sing and release it out and stop the building pressure in there. and it feels so good just to say “ahhh” to myself in a normal tone but its not a full release and a couple seconds later the space that that “ahh” emptied out is just filled again and I just need to scream! I gasp for air because that’s the only way it can get through the sludge and mud and goo blocking my throat.

Task: Write about the new medication.

I can breath again, that’s all I can even say. I really do want to get better. Its like I was drowning and now I’m treading water but the thing is I’m still waiting. Waiting to climb out of the middle of that bottomless pool. But you know what? It’s ok for now. For once the medication is really on my side. Life is so much easier with it and I don’t have to think so much! I just do. I live.

Task: Patient requested a free write.

I hate this. These new stupid pills are messing with me again. I don’t have them for one day and have a freaking panic attack at school. You want to know the thing that they, no YOU, don’t tell me when their passing out the new “happy” pills? It’s that once you’re on them, it’s almost impossible to get off. You need them. You rely on them. Then when you think, “Oh I’m doing fine” and try to stop? You’re worse off than when you started and there you go right back on them again. Mother’s little freakin helper, huh? None of them know what it is to be in my position. Sam and precious Nikki? My parents? They have no clue. I watch all these people, laughing with their oh so brilliant Abercrombie friends and realize none of them are like me. They put their little blinders on so as not to deal with what’s actually there, and the fakeness. I’m alone in seeing the world because everyone else is too self- involved to look at the whole stupid thing as it really is and deal with it.

Do you think its possible to hate someone you’ve lived your life with? You’ve shared practically every moment with? Hate them in a way where you could do something to hurt them and feel nothing. Wondering why there is only numbness and whether it’s in my head or not. Perhaps, it’s sad that all I can remember from when we were younger is the time she ganged up with the other girls on me.

Task: You can go as far back as you want and end as early as you want, but I would like you to tell me about “you”. Talk about yourself and what led you to be sitting here in this room.

Wow, I really applaud you for originality! Never been asked to talk about that before. Ok then, I’ll start where I always do with you people; it started when I was carted off to my first “fixer”. Then I had to go to the second and then the third, and finally my parents realized guidance counselors weren’t exactly my cup of tea. They have all their little rats that they tell all your secrets to, I could here them whispering in the halls.

Recorded conversation and notes taken after the previous task was handed in.

Ezra: You know what I think Delilah?

Delilah: What? (Patient avoided eye contact and fiddled with rings.)

E: I think, that you are avoiding the subject.

D: Oh yeah, where’d you get that from? (Sarcastic and still did not look at me)

E: How about we just talk about your life then? How about you start from elementary school up until now.

D: Okay, yeah

E: Why are you smiling?

D: I liked elementary school. (Looked me in the eye)

E: Oh yeah, and why was that?

D: I was blissfully ignorant.

E: Of what?

D: People and the hypocrites. My family.

E: I haven’t really heard much about your family. Tell me about them.

D: Well, you can basically chalk it up to this: Sam is the innocent, beautiful child. Then Nikki, the talented, clever one who’s my parents pride and joy. My father isn’t home enough to know much about me because he’s always working late. My mom hears no evil, speaks no evil, sees no evil even though it’s all around her. Finally, you get to me. They were expecting, you know, my big breakthrough. The sad part was that I had been too. I kept trying and trying, waiting and waiting for what makes me special in my family to come to me. And you know what? It never did.

Patient stopped talking and turned away taking a tissue to her eye and quietly said, “Crap. I’m sorry”

E: Why do you say that?

D: You ask a lot of questions. (Smiled)

E: I am your therapist

D: I’m not quite sure. I don’t really cry much. I don’t like it.

E: It makes you vulnerable.

D: No, it doesn’t.

E: Yes, it does Delilah.

D: No, it doesn’t.

E: It’s okay.

D: Stop.

E: Its okay, Delilah

D: Stop! (Patient began to yell)

E: Delilah, its okay.

D: Stop it!

E: Your okay, Delilah.

D: Am I?

Micaela Bahn
Age 14, Grade 9,
Writopia Lab
Gold Key