Prisoner of the Mind

          "Kid, life is a waste of fuckin' time. I know you're only six right now, but one day you'll understand why I have to do this." Hayden said, as he ran his fingers over the cold blade of a knife. I was playing with a toy airplane, but I looked up to see him standing there in the doorway, crying. I was scared but I couldn't fully understand the situation.

          "But... Hayden... I don't think you should be playing with that knife... mommy says that they're sharp and dangerous." I said quietly, scared that he'd hit me or something for talking back to him like he had done a few times before. He just looked down at me. I stared into his tear-filled green eyes for a second, and somehow I sensed his overwhelming sadness.

          "Ah jeez kid... just... don't ever become like your big brother okay? I'm no good. I've hurt everyone in my life. I'm a miserable fuckin' failure. But you're a good kid. I think so, and so does everyone else. You're gonna make mom and dad proud... just like I never could. I'll see ya around, 'kay, kid?" He knelt down and ran his fingers through my hair. I dropped the toy airplane by accident, and it broke into a million pieces, or so it seemed at the time. I turned away from him, and began picking up the pieces.

         Hayden took the knife and stabbed himself just once in the chest and his eyes opened wide before he stumbled to the floor. I started crying hysterically, and the room started spinning as I watched blood pour out of him and onto the carpet of my bedroom.

         Through tears I stuttered, "O-Okay..s-see you around..."


         All of a sudden, I heard something smash against  the wall downstairs, and I completely snapped out of the trance I had been in. I opened my eyes and realized I had let my mind wander through my memories again. There were tears in my eyes, as there were every single fucking time I had that flashback. I just sat there quietly on my bed and stared out of the window.
         Trying to tune out the commotion that was going on downstairs, I watched the raindrops hit the cracked glass and then slide down onto the windowsill. Through the fogged-up, broken window I could see the trees swaying back and forth in the wind. I tried to focus on the trees and my eyes began to close again. Thoughts, emotions, and memories were swerving around my mind like a drunk driver on the road. It wasn't until two years ago that I understood everything that had happened the day my brother killed himself...


          “I’ve got some good news, and some bad news. Which would you like first?” Dr. Hoffman asked my mom.

         My mother just looked at him with a look of disdain and didn’t say anything. I looked at her and waited to see if she would eventually say something. She didn’t. So I spoke up and asked him for the bad news.

         Dr. Hoffman turned to me and said, “Well it seems that your strange behavior as of late is due to the same thing as your older brother Hayden had--”

          “Oh fucking christ! Another psycho? Where the fuck did this bad DNA come from? Cause it sure as hell isn‘t from me!” my mom yelled, abruptly. I looked down at the white tiles on the floor and began counting them. I didn’t want to deal with this.

          “Mrs. Lansing, you’ll be glad to know that this condition is treatable with medication. The mental health facilities and the help they provide have changed and improved tremendously over the past eleven years. I’m going to start Kade on an anti-psychotic right away.  I’m also going to set him up with a top notch psychologist at this hospital. If his condition doesn’t begin to improve within the next few weeks, we’ll put him on a stronger anti-psychotic. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to commit him to the hospital for a few weeks. It’s my job to help my patients get better and eventually lead normal and successful lives. Here’s a prescription for his a medication.”

         My mom ripped the little piece of paper out of the doctor’s hand and stood up and left the room. I followed her to the elevator and we got in. The numbers lighted up one by one as we went down four floors to ground level. The silence was scaring me a little, because my mom and I had a very close relationship normally. But I could sense that she no longer cared for me now that I was just like my brother.

         We got into the car and she slammed her door shut. I stared out the window for the majority of the ride home. She pulled into the driveway and as I was about to open the door she grabbed my sleeve. I sat back down instantly and looked at her. Her eyes were bloodshot and she had a look of anger and disgust on her face that I hadn’t seen since she gave my brother that look whenever he would have an ‘episode’.

          “You’re just like him. I can’t fucking believe your just like him. I thought that when he killed himself, I was rid of the biggest burden in my life. But now this!” she dejected. I tried to get up because the look on her face was unbearable. But she grabbed my arm this time and pulled me back into the car.

          “Listen to me now, and listen good. If you don’t get better, I’m going to commit you to a hospital for life. I can’t go through this all again. Do you even know what you’re doing to me?”

         I wanted to say that it wasn’t my fault but I knew that would just make her angrier. So instead I got out of the car, walked into the house and up the stairs, and stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door shut.


         I opened my eyes once again and noticed it had gotten dark outside. How long had I been day dreaming? I got off my bed and tried to find my way through the pitch black bedroom to the lamp. After stepping on several things, I found the lamp and turned it on. It wasn't that good of a lamp, and it only illuminated a small portion of my bedroom. My mom and her boyfriend were still fighting downstairs and her shrill screams were piercing my ears and making my skin crawl. The hateful words she was projecting onto him were aimed at me. I figured that by now I'd be used to it, but it still cut into me like a fucking razor. I quietly opened the door and walked down the hallway into the bathroom.
         I studied myself in the mirror. I used to loathe my pale skin, black hair, and green eyes because I had always looked very similar to my brother. But as I looked at myself, I noticed I had let my hair grow out to my shoulders, almost as long as his had been. He was my age, nineteen, when he committed suicide. I realized I looked like an almost exact replica of how I remembered him. Maybe that's why my mom began hating me the minute she found out I had the same mental illness as him. She didn't see me anymore, she only saw him and his history repeating itself through me... I shook my head and pushed those thoughts out of my mind. I opened up the medicine cabinet on a whim and saw two boxes of cough tablets. The ingredients contained dextromethorphan, or ‘dxm’ as kids at my high school had called it. I used to hear stories about kids getting high off of this shit. Even though I had never done a single drug in my entire life, I felt like I needed an escape.
         I took all thirty-two pills and then walked back into my bedroom and stood in the doorway for a bit. Looking around my room, I noticed it hadn’t changed much over the years. The only real difference was that I had covered my brother’s blood stain with my bed so I didn’t have to see it every time I was in my bedroom. Of course, the whole ‘out of sight, out of mind’ thing I had been aiming for didn’t exactly work. I went and sat back down on my bed and opened up the nightstand drawer. There was a few empty pill bottles from when I was actually taking the medication. And then there were about ten prescription bottles that were still completely full. The medicine hadn’t worked, and that discouraged me so I stopped taking them…over a year ago…


          “Dr. Hoffman, I demand answers now! Why isn’t he normal yet? It’s been almost a year since he started taking that medication! I want Kade back! I don’t want Hayden!” 
         
          I heard my mom yelling into the phone, so I snuck over to the other phone in the kitchen. I picked up the receiver and pressed mute. I instantly regretted it afterwards.

          “Mrs. Lansing, sometimes certain medications don’t work for some people. Each weekly visit that Kade has had with his psychologist, he’s been reporting that his delusions and hallucinations have been stopping and that he feels better with the medication. He’s also reported that he’s stopped having flashbacks, or living in the past as we call it. If you see that maybe he’s been playing the system a bit or is simply delusional about his recovery, then there are more powerful medications we can put him on.”

         My fist was clenching up. I was never involved with the decisions they made together, and I was almost eighteen! I wanted to scream into the phone that I’m a part of this too, that I should be able to make decisions for my fucking self! But I couldn’t get caught listening in on my mom’s private phone conversations.

          “Oh, you’ll put him on the most powerful medication you can find! I’m sick and fucking tired of looking at him and seeing Hayden! Hayden was a failure; a fuck up. And Kade was supposed to be different!”

          “Let’s schedule another evaluation for Kade. My team and I are trying our best to help treat your son, but with schizophrenics it can be tough, and sadly sometimes it’s chasing a hopeless cause. I see potential in your son and that’s why I want to try to help him as much as I can. But if he doesn’t improve by the time he’s nineteen, we’ll commit him. I know having a family member with a mental disease can be a burden but--”

         I slammed the receiver back down and ran into the living room where my mom was. She looked at me angrily, but at that moment I didn't give a fuck. I grabbed the nearest alcohol bottle off the coffee table and ran upstairs. I heard my mom following me so I quickly shut my door and locked it.  That was the first and last time anyone would ever call me a fucking burden. I downed a bottle of my pills and chased it with a few swigs of my mom’s vodka, and what seemed like hours later, I woke up in the hospital.


         What had really pissed me off about that conversation was that the doctor was completely right. I was playing the system because I did not want to be in a mental hospital. So I lied my way through every single therapy session, when nothing was getting better. In fact, it had gotten much worse. I was hearing voices left and right in my head telling me what and what not to do. The only way I could stop them was to block out everything that was going on in the present. I closed the nightstand drawer and laid down. I stared at the clock and an hour and a half passed before I began to feel anything. My legs were starting to feel numb and my head felt like it wasn't attached to my body. I stood up and fell down on the floor. My body felt like it was floating when I had stood up, and it shocked me at first. I stood back up, and even though I thought I was standing still, it felt like I was in a never-ending dizzy dance. The walls that surrounded me were spinning around; shape-shifting and changing directions constantly.
         I knew that I should lay down, but I needed to get out of the fucking house. I floated down the stairs and saw my mom on the worn out sofa in the living room downing a bottle of vodka. I could tell by her glassy eyes and facial expression when she saw me that she was completely wasted. Normally, I would've been disgusted but my mind was in a different place and I didn't care.

         "Where the fuck do you think you're going at this hour?" she asked, slurring each word that spilled out of her mouth.

         “You know what? I don’t even know! But I’m leaving!” I said. As each word passed through my lips I felt them float away, and it almost felt like I had never said them in the first place.

         “No you’re not. It’s almost midnight! Get back upstairs!”

         “You know… I don’t think so! See ya later, mom!”

         “‘See ya later?’ You even talk like him! You are him! I can’t fucking handle this anymore! Get back here so I can end this once and for all!”

         I didn’t know whether she wanted to hit me or kill me, but when I saw her stand up, I ran. I ran out of the house and down the winding street that I lived on. When I felt that I was far enough away, I stopped for a minute and looked up. The sky was a deep blue. The stars were not sparkling, the moon was not shining, nor was the wind blowing. I looked around to the houses that surround me, and not a single light was on in any of them. I heard no music, no talking, no screaming, no walking. It was at that moment I realized I was utterly alone, and sadly the atmosphere seemed rather dead. Aimlessly, I wandered forth on a winding road that looked bleak and dreary that late at night.
         I was getting more and more fucked up as time wore on. This state of mind was haunting, I didn’t know exactly when I would come crashing down again. I knew I would crash, however, for it is inevitable. Such artificial happiness comes with a price. I felt myself slipping back into the past, but this time it felt like it was happening in the present. I had never felt like this before, and it was confusing the fuck out of me. I saw my brother standing in front of me and I almost screamed because for a second I thought I was looking into a mirror.


         "Kid, life is a waste of fuckin' time. I know you're only six right now, but one day you'll understand why I have to do this."


         I looked him in the eyes, this time not as a six year old boy who couldn’t understand the complexities of the situation, but as a nineteen year old man who could.

         “I understand completely, Hayden. I hated you for the longest time, you know that? I thought you were selfish for leaving us behind like that. But I understand now. Because I’m living the same life as you.”

         He didn’t move or speak, I just heard his words from thirteen years ago play over and over again in my head. I kept staring him in the eyes, trying to gauge his reactions to my own words.

         
         “Ah jeez kid... just... don't ever become like your big brother okay? I'm no good. I've hurt everyone in my life. I'm a miserable fuckin' failure. But you're a good kid. I think so, and so does everyone else. You're gonna make mom and dad proud... just like I never could. I'll see ya around, 'kay, kid?"


         “I wanted to tell you a long time ago that you weren’t a failure. You were a great person, you were just lost in your head. I have the same problem. Another thing… you weren’t lying when you said you’d see me around, were you? Because here you are! But you were wrong about one thing, I never made mom proud. She hates me because she thinks that I’m you. She always tells me that she wants Kade as her son, not Hayden. It makes me sad.”

         He finally moved and I was startled. At this point I was completely numb and fucked up out of my mind. It felt great seeing Hayden again. I started out the night wanting to fucking kill myself, but maybe getting high was all I needed to be able to reflect on my illness and my past. I started to feel a little nauseous so I sat down on the pavement. Hayden stayed standing but he looked down at me and spoke.

         “Kade… I feel like everything that has happened to you since I died is my fault. I feel like I traumatized you into being schizophrenic like me or something. I don’t know. I just wanted to tell you that I love you. I never quite got the chance to say that thirteen years ago, y’know? I mean… I was so fuckin’ sick back then… and Jesus, you look just like me when I died. It’s fuckin’ creepy the similarities we have.”


         “Dr. Hoffman, I demand answers now! Why isn’t he normal yet? It’s been almost a year since he started taking that medication! I want Kade back! I don’t want Hayden!”


         I shook my head to try to get rid of my mom’s voice. I felt my short-lived happiness drain and I saw Hayden fade away. My flashbacks were intertwining with each other and I could no longer focus on just one memory. No, no, no…, I thought to myself, focus! But I couldn’t, and I started remembering a million different things at once. I was once again lost in my head, but this time it was about a thousand times worse.


         “Oh, you’ll put him on the most powerful medication you can find! I’m sick and fucking tired of looking at him and seeing Hayden! Hayden was a failure; a fuck up. And Kade was supposed to be different!”


         I looked over and saw someone running towards me. I wanted to get up and run away and go find someplace where I could be happy in peace. I didn’t want to die anymore. I wanted to live and become successful for Hayden. I wanted to do the things that he couldn’t do because he left this planet early for him.


         “Mrs. Lansing, you’ll be glad to know that this condition is treatable with medication. The mental health facilities and the help they provide have changed and improved tremendously over the past thirteen years. I’m going to start Kade on an anti-psychotic right away.  I’m also going to set him up with a top notch psychologist at this hospital. If his condition doesn’t begin to improve within the next few weeks, we’ll put him on a stronger anti-psychotic. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to commit him to the hospital for a few weeks. It’s my job to help my patients get better and eventually lead normal and successful lives. Here’s a prescription for his a medication.”


         I heard the footsteps getting closer and I started to stand up when the person kicked me back down onto the ground. I looked up and it was my mother. She had a knife in her hands. Part of me was scared, but part of me felt like it wasn’t actually happening. My mind tried to focus on what was happening in the present but I couldn’t. The scenery around me started to spin around and for the first time in my life I couldn’t distinguish the present from the past; reality from the fantasy.


         “You’re just like him. I can’t fucking believe your just like him. I thought that when he killed himself, I was rid of the biggest burden in my life. But now this!”


         “It’s not my fault!” I screamed at her. I kept screaming it over and over again. I thought maybe if I said it over and over again it would change the past and I would be somewhere else when I opened my eyes.


         “Listen to me now, and listen good. If you don’t get better, I’m going to commit you to a hospital for life. I can’t go through this all again. Do you even know what you’re doing to me?"


         “Why won’t you listen to me!? It’s not my fucking fault! It’s not Hayden’s fault! And I’m not Hayden! Stop trying to kill someone who is already dead!”

         She looked at me, her eyes wide and her expression furious. She slapped me across the face and gave me a stern look and said, “Don’t you ever fucking tell me what to do! I don’t care what Dr. Hoffman or anyone says, you’re never going to get better! Hayden was right to stab himself, at least he couldn’t make me miserable anymore! But then you had to go and be exactly like him! Look at you! Your hair, your eyes, your skin tone, your voice, your mind… you’re exactly like him! You are him! I don’t want to be miserable anymore!,” she began bawling her eyes out, “I want you gone from my life forever! Hayden!” she screamed and I saw the knife go in and out of me but I couldn’t feel a thing. I felt my mind spinning like a merry-go-round that had gone haywire.


         “But... Hayden... I don't think you should be playing with that knife... mommy says that they're sharp and dangerous.”


         I felt myself begin to cry as I watched everything fade black.








         “I’ve got some good news, and some bad news. Which would you like first?”

         “…good news…”

         “…bad news…”
         
         “…Which would you like first?”