Believe in yourself. Make today great. You can do anything. Uh huh. Sure. My mother always tries to motivate me before dropping me off at the therapist. It’s all part of her sad plot to help me cope with all my problems, the latest of which being my chronic depression. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to get out of bed. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. The therapist was my dad’s idea. Much to their dismay, it’s not working. To be honest, nothing is working anymore. I’ve stopped caring. Stopped trying to get better. The voices have gotten worse. Well I call them the voices. The doctors call them “hallucinations.” All a part of my “Schizophrenia.” Its all just words to me. I sometimes think how hard it must be for my parents to have a daughter so sick. They tell me they love me and they wouldn’t have me any other way yet they make me take countless pills and lock their doors at night in case I snap. They think they understand but they don’t. In fact, everyone thinks they understand what it’s like to be me and they’re all wrong. I hear the conversations. They know I’m slowly deteriorating. They’re gonna lock me up. I’m dangerous. The doctors deal with kids with schizophrenia everyday but I’m not like them oh no I’m not crazy. And as I look at my therapist I see that her face and smile are kind, but behind her nurturing eyes there’s no understanding. Only pity. I don’t want her pity. She thinks I’m crazy. They all do. They’re going to lock me up in a padded room and pump me full of drugs and let these demons of the mind rip me apart. But no amount of pills is gonna change the fact that what I’m dealing with is so much more than an illness. My sense has withered, and all I can do is sit and wait for the voices to burn up what’s left of my sanity like fire to a piece of paper. And if they lock me up in a loony barn I’ll go mad. I’d rather die. I want nothing more than to be rid of this unbelievable burden that I have to carry every day of my life. A day to forget the hallucinations, the depression, the doctors, everything. And if I learned one thing, from being unwell, it’s to never take anything for granted. To live everyday like it’s my last because I’m telling you I won’t be able to take this any longer. And most of all, to enjoy the small things in life.