Thread: "I know how you feel."

This is something I just cooked up, I want to continue it into something larger. Tell me what you think.
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“As a professional, I'm not really supposed to get personal with patients,” patients, try 'prisoners', “ I fully understand the situation. I know how you feel, Vincent.” says the warden, or therapist in layman terms.


'I know how you feel'. Its hilarious when people say it to me. Not because its a joke or a punchline, but because they don't. Nobody does, hell, sometimes I don't even know how I feel. The line between happiness and sadness is very thin, for me at least. That's what I tell my shrink anyway.


“I'm sure.” I say to just end this topic and move on to the next. Going with the motions I suppose. She jots something down on her pad, looks up at me, then puts her face back into the page, then clicks her pen.



“So, Vincent, it was your birthday last week, 17 years old, huh?” she asks, as if she didn't know.


“Yup,” I concur.


“How was it?”


“Okay.” I mutter. I stay silent for a little while. She continues to stare, you know, the intense 'elaborate-on-that-you-idiot' kind. I return the 'I-don't-wanna' gaze.


“Vinny-boy,” god kill me now, “you aren't going to get anywhere with your treatment if you do not work with me,” she stresses, exaggerating every possible syllable. A valid point. One of the few she has had over the past 6 months. I want help, really I do. Yet, I can't get it, my mind and my body are on different schedules. My body goes to therapy, is willing to receive therapy, but my mind just won't accept therapy. A constant struggle.


“Alright... it was fun,” I guess, or at least it was the common idea of fun. Though, did 'I' specifically have fun? No, I didn't, but I'll spare her those details, “I had dinner with my family. My father left for work, and my mom went to bingo. My sister went to a friend's. Then a few of my friends came over, we got high and played Call of Duty until three in the morning.”


“I thought you said you didn't have friends?” she asks. You know, I just told her I took drugs, and was abandoned by my family, yet she needs to remind me I'm a loser. You know what, doc? You really did the trick! I feel better already!


“I do, but I don't.”


“How is that?”


“What?”


“That you have friends, yet don't have friends.” Another good point. Damn, Doctor Mangold is on a roll today.


“People ARE friends with me. I guess they enjoy my company. But, I feel like a drone when I'm around other people. Like I'm just part of the pack taking orders. I can't relate to them, I can't have a deep conversation with them, I can't even laugh with them. They're just immature, fucking douche bags, like anybody at school or at home. Nobody gives a shit about the world. Or at least any world that is outside of their own. They feel high and mighty, and don't care about other people's situations. Kinda like you.” Uncalled for, right? I get that sometimes. Doctor M is flustered and probably offended. She picks her jaw up off of the floor and recomposes herself.


“Have you hurt yourself lately?” She asks, damn her. Damn her to hell. Since I made her feel like shit, I guess this is revenge.


“Not since you made my mom file my nails down so I can't scratch myself. Oh, wait! You also made her shave my head so I couldn't pull my hair out. I got an idea,” I continue and crack a smile, or at least what I think I smile looks like, “ why don't get me a flea collar, and bar my windows so I can't jump out of them.”


“What about the razor blades?”


“You mean, do I shave?” I joke, but I think I know what she is insinuating. She pauses dramatically, like in a 'Lifetime' movie, and continues.


“Have you tried cutting yourself again?” Yes I have.


“No.”


“Are you sure?” Nope.


“Yes.”


“Your mother told me that you have. This is the third time.” See, at Stockland Medical Office, they have this rule. If you try inflict serious harm upon yourself three times, much like in baseball, you're out of there. They send you to a mental ward for serious physiological evaluation. Me, much like the idiot that I am, wasn't fully aware of this rule.


“It was different this time,” my body said. My mind didn't want it to. I don't know how it slipped out. Fuck.


“How?” another question, shocker.


“Well, it wasn't like the others. I used to cut horizontally. To feel something. This time...” I sigh, mustering up the energy to get out the last six syllables, “ it was vertically.”


“You know what I have to do now, correct?”

This connected to me a bit since I've been through some therapy. But I found it a bit exaggerated in parts of the character's behavior