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1.
When I was little my grandma had two mirrors in her bathroom that mirrored each other. i would stand naked in front of it, steam from hot water filling the bathroom causing the cold tiles to gather moisture, and i would stare at my body, small with my stomach round, and bruised legs, full cheeks flush with red, and uncombed hair matching brown eyes. I would stand and watch my body be mirrored over and over again until i could see myself a million times in that green world, I liked standing in that place where all i saw was myself in what looked like a house of mirrors fading emerald and with each reflection my body would be smaller. I loved imagining myself older like many young girls did, I would imagine breasts replacing my flat chest, but i could never quite figure out what i would look like.

2.
“Sometimes I just don’t feel like a person, not like i’m some fucking alien or a insect or something like that i just don’t feel like a part of this, I don’t know maybe ... I don’t know.” and that was it, my profound statement and maybe this stranger would truly know me now but he didn’t cause i wouldn’t let him. I sat back and didn’t listen to what he said i played with my sleeves and pulled at my polyester skirt making plaid patterns that sat over my legs. I thought about what men must think of me when i walked by wearing a short plaid skirt that i rolled at the waist with knee highs and my collared shirt it was disgusting and made me like my uniform at the same time. I was innocent when i wore it but not i was a fantasy and that's what i wanted, to be slightly more than everyone else. I wanted it because i thought being smart meant you have something more, it gave me the lead way to need to have comfort in a world i wasn’t made for.

3.
“Fuck You, Fuck You, Go to fucking hell, I don’t care.”
“Calm down, or i’ll call escorts and they’ll take you”
“ What do I fucking care what are you gonna do send me away. Oh you already are. Fuck You”
That was when I cared the least or the most i wanted to destroy myself completely and everything around me.

After that day so much went blank it wasn’t the same. And then I cried not able to stop my tears, they had become uncontrollable, beads of grief streaming down my face for days and days my pillow had become stained with black when I would lay my head down and leave my eyes open as my makeup ran down to that starched white cloth that burned at my raw cheeks. White walls had surrounded me and the landscape paintings on them were teasing me with the world i was missing. Its like there was this whirlwind around me and i was quieted i couldn’t yell at these strangers, and i didn’t know who i was anymore so i hid behind approval. I was impressive, passing all my classes with good grades and making considerable progress in therapy. And i felt so much truth with it at the moment yet i don’t really know if it was true. I felt like i had so much clarity and then i came home and it disappeared so quickly. I had forgotten to question it.

4.
“You can’t move.... Don’t get up” the impossibility overwhelming me fixing my mind on moving but i felt long halls surrounding me halls with no destination. Calm motherly voices in the distance “getup..... come on you can make it to the bed” but I couldn’t, bathroom floors have become a good friend to me since the days i first started drinking some time between getting drunk and morning time I would always make way to the bathroom, pressing my face to the floor cool tiles calming my hot skin only to reach up to the toilet and puke for my what seemed like the millionth time. Toilets had become a sight of comfort in my many drunken stupor's upon stumbling into the bathroom i would see the toilet and there would almost be a glow around it, I would feel like it was a parent you hadn’t seen in a long time and would finally fill the void. And now the irony of it is that I can no longer get drunk the question of my alcoholism or lack there of will never be answered because of my asian heritage and binge drinking I no longer have the enzymes you need to metabolize alcohol.

5.
The car was rolling down the hill and I was immediately impressed in awe of everything i saw. As the street lights grew brighter, the spindly trees rose up out from the background making themselves more apparent, the music grew louder, I was sitting with my back pushed to the chair like i was on a roller coaster the intensity growing and growing. Someone turns around quickly “how you feeling Sasha?!” he said with a smile, he knew how i was feeling. All I could repeat in my head was this all looks so new, I felt like a newborn child born with all my knowledge yet no familiarity. My stomach ache also was beginning to grow more intense “tell him stop I think I’m gonna puke.” and the car jerked, stopped, and I fumbled with the door and all of a sudden it opened to a bright world where cars went by fast and I puked watching my own vomit swirl around in a puddle. I got back in the car and didn’t know how to act or feel, that was an understatement. I got out of the car to feel a rush of cold and walked up to the my group of friends all standing in a circle, cigarette smoke raising from between their fingers. “’Will you come take a walk with me.” I say lower than a whisper “Of course” he says back to me.
“How do you feel?”
“I don’t know weird, I just can’t even describe it.”
“Yeah for sure, Where are we going”
We had only walked about ten feet away from the group. I was wondering to myself when I had first started loving him, I still can’t pinpoint a day I know it happened slowly. I walked into the laser light show with wide darting eyes at kids staring in depth and with awe at pictures displaying the universe and large displays with miniature worlds in them. I couldn’t stand the feeling I could feel my body tensing and how i wanted my legs to be clenched to my stomach feeling safety. I sat down abruptly not even bothering to make my way down the aisle.
“It’s all about life can you believe life how does it all work, what does it mean.”
“Max I can’t even take the Laser light show, let alone life.”
“but it’s so complicated think about the depth of who we are”
“when is this thing gonna start.” I stared questioningly at the blank black ceiling with slight colors showing through.
“it’s started for me....”
“yeah me too.... Maybe”
I never imagined it was possible to feel that uncomfortable in your own skin.

6.
I always stare at my body in depth right before I get into the shower looking at every shape inside and outside of me. I look with critical eyes at every crevice, fold, and plain of skin. My eyes following the subtle and not so subtle curves of my body. I stand in disbelief at the inconceivable idea that this is me, it is my vessel it goes with me everywhere, i look at its changes how it has grown it is almost separate from me. I look at my stomach bulging and smooth starting small at my waist showing small lines of ribs focusing in towards the center, and as you move down it widens along side my hips with small marks lighter in color than my tan skin in squiggly lines traveling south and onto my thighs. While i do this i think about how I used to be thin and with desiring and disgusted eyes I stare at every flaw on my skin small bumps tracing my arms, hair in wrong places, and i think that maybe perhaps if they were gone I would feel better but I know better.

7.
I remember when I first saw the words printed on the paper bipolar, depression, possible borderline personality I couldn’t believe that all of these intense feelings had been put into a box it made me want to cry. I knew I was fucked, and I loved it I nurtured my fear and cradled it. When I used to cut my arms my dad used to take me into the bathroom and clean them with iodine and rub neosporin and vitamin E oil so that they wouldn’t scar so badly. He would sit there with so much pain and determination in his eyes and I would sob and beg him no that he didn’t need to and to leave me alone, sometimes I would tell him about my day or make small talk, it had become routine. When I came back from my first trip to the psychiatric hospital I screamed like never before, I flung my arms around hitting my right wrist against anything I could see every little bit of pain I felt gave me clarity. I screamed for days straight my dad sent me outside to do yard work as my punishment for taking on a regular basis, he wouldn’t talk to me, he had become cold and decided not to comfort me any more, i screamed more, and one day as i stood in the back yard with fury running through my veins I looked up into his room and saw him folded on the ground sobbing, I had never seen a man cry like that not even in movies, he was completely wrapped up in sadness, it was one of the most intense things I had ever witnessed. I didn’t stop.

A man about fifty to ninety pounds overweight holding a diet cola asked me the following on my second day in the psychiatric hospital.
“Are you currently having any thoughts of suicide?”
“No”
“Are you having any feelings of hurting yourself or others at the moment?”
“No”
“Are you planning to run away from here?”
“No”
“Are you planning to kill yourself?”
“No”
“Are you craving any drugs or having any symptoms of withdrawal?”
“No”
“Why do you think your here?”
“I don’t know”
“So how do you think these medications are working out?”

We filled out sheets everyday asking us what percentage of our breakfast we ate, they had lists of possible feelings that we put check by each one that we were feeling I was always careful to not mark angry, frustrated, sad, low, annoyed, or hopeless, in fear that telling the truth about my emotions would only keep me there longer, though I was definitely feeling all of the above. They also asked how our nights sleep was, if we were feeling like hurting ourselves or other, if we were mad at our families, how we slept, and if we urgently needed to talk to anyone. I always thought that if I urgently needed to talk to someone I probably wouldn’t bother to write it down on a piece of paper first.

I have this strong urge to work in the psychiatric field, perhaps it is because of my first hand experience with it or maybe it is because it hurt me just as much as it helped. I am in no way a victim of the field itself and I owe my sanity to it in a sense, but it also taught me a great deal of confusion, fear, and manipulation. I want to be a part of it because I am someone who it didn’t quite work on. In my experience I have only seen those who have not experienced in any sense but that they want to help but have very concept of what they are experiencing except what they have learned in a classroom or those who owe there lives. I am neither. The one reason that has kept me from voicing my desire to be a part of it is that my best friend has always wanted to be a psychologist.