Mindlessly coasting, occasionally stopping, never wondering but always continuing.

This is the way I am. Never questioning how I got to be this way. I just live; mindlessly. At one point I wanted to change the world, no at one point I thought I could change the world.

I’m seventeen and I live that moment over in my fragile mind again every day.

I got put into foster home, they tried to help I think. She was my best friend. She is my best friend. I refused to eat for a while after it happened. I only would drink water and that was because ‘they’ made me. ‘They’ being all the hands that touched me, whether it was to hug me, hold me, prick me with an IV, bandage my cuts, take advantage of me or simply to wipe away my hard tears.

‘They’ decided I needed to talk to someone about it all, ‘they’ thought that would help. So now every Tuesday afternoon I go downtown to see a psychiatrist, and today is no different. I walk into her office, and throw my bag heavily onto the chair beside me, the gesture of an angry teenager, which I believe is the persona I exude.

We had our usual empty small talk and when that was finished she told me to get up and go over to the far side of the room. This was new.

“Tell me what you see when you look in the mirror,” she said.

“You’re kidding right?” I snorted in response.

“Just try it out, it won’t hurt you to try,” she smiled at me hopeful.

Irritated I replied, “This is stupid.”

“Just tell me what you see.” She said in her usual patient voice the same kind kindergarten teachers have.

“… Two eyes, a mouth, couple stupid freckles…” I retorted impatiently. Her unchanging expression told me we’d probably be here all day. “I see a sad and pathetic girl. Happy?”

“Who is this girl? Describe her to me.” she said plainly.

I stare at my body as if it’s a checklist: miserable eyes, tight lips, and a collarbone that sticks out much further than it should. It’s me alright, down to every last freckle, my mom’s freckles.

A soft tear escapes suddenly from my eye, what was she doing? How was she doing this?

I miss my mom, and I miss myself. But this is me, this girl looking back with those haunted eyes.
I can’t see myself; the girl in the mirror is a distant stranger, just a figure. I reach up and remove a strand of hair that has fallen loose from my ponytail, the reflection mirrors me.

How did I lose this connection?

How did I drift so far from who I
am?

What have I become?

Too many questions were racing through my mind and each competing for my attention. I began to feel overwhelmed and short of breath. The walls slowly closing in on me, trapped. Trapped below a surface with no way out, no way of breaking through. I was running out of time. A voice suddenly breaks through my inner battle like the shattering of glass. Quick and dangerous.

“Do you want to know this girl?” the psychiatrist asked me delicately.

I know the answer she wants to hear. But somehow I can’t find my voice. I just stare at my reflection. This girl, a girl I felt like I knew. I glared at the mirror wishing it would shatter. Frustration began to well up inside of me; I did not want to look at this girl anymore because broken girl is me, and I have her freckles.