the circling of the drain that it frequently did.
She was so alone. She had nobody who she could talk to, nobody who understood. I mean, she didn’t understand, so how could anyone else? The truth was she was tired, so tired of fighting all the time, so tired of struggling to stay alive. Every day was a struggle. Every morning when she woke up she felt the dread creep in, that horrid feeling that she had to cope for yet another day.
Jo couldn’t remember a time when she felt normal. It wasn’t a feeling she could describe or explain in any way that made sense. She just knew she felt like something was wrong, that something was broken on the inside.
As a child she didn’t realise how different she was. She didn’t know other people didn’t hear voices in their head all the time. It was as she got a little older when people looked at her strangely that she realised other people didn’t have a life like hers or didn’t feel like mere passengers in their own life.
When she was 15 or 16, the depression reared its head. She started scratching at the arm, frantically scratching all the skin off, which was the beginning of the self-injury. Later on the self-harm escalated to cutting and burning although if she was honest, she didn’t really remember doing any of that. Life careened down a slippery slope at a rate of speed Jo couldn’t keep up with, and a few years later, she had her first admission into the psychiatric ward, which was the first of many.
In the early years, she fought hard to keep going. When the depression and self-harm first hit she tried counselling, but the school counsellors were (in their words) ‘not equipped to handle her case’. She tried keeping a diary as that was supposed to help her draw out those feelings and express them. Yet once she saw different hand writings on the page, she stopped doing that.
When Jo had her first admission into the psychiatric hospital when she was 20 years old, her family didn’t bother to hide their disappointment and embarrassment. They made it very clear she had allowed herself to be dragged down by her weakness.
Jo knew they were right. She wasn’t a strong person, not like the rest of the family. She lacked the strength of character to not let life get to her. She was just one big disappointment.
She wasn’t sure if she believed in reincarnation, but she hoped it was real. She would have a chance to put it right the next life. She would not let (what her mother called) ‘normal childhood experiences’ get her down and affect her whole life. She would get it right, she wouldn’t be an embarrassment to her family for being weak and having ‘mental problems’.
Don’t tell, don’t tell.
Jodie
Shift, switch. Jodie arrived out front to find herself standing in the kitchen, next to an apple that someone had obviously started cutting. ‘Gross,’ she said to herself, before leaving the offending fruit on the cutting board to invariably go brown and grabbing the Pepsi Max out the fridge.
She then hunted in the pantry and was rewarded by finding a bag of chips she had hidden there earlier in the week. “Score!” she said out loud, and plonked herself down in front of the TV, happily munching on the chips. Life was good when you have a bag of chips and the TV all to yourself.
For all intents and purposes an outsider would look and see a woman in her mid-forties tucking into a bag of chips with great gusto. Yet, despite the outward appearance, it was actually a 14 year old sitting there, thinking and acting like a typical 14 year old.
Jodie was used to hearing the constant chatter from within, after all it was all she had ever known. And apart from the crying which sometimes cropped up, she liked it. She never felt alone and she knew the others had her back. Besides her BFF Josephine was always around for her to talk to.
Life was good, Jodie smiled, shoving another handful of chips into her mouth. She flicked through the online TV guide, and, upon finding out that 16 and Pregnant was about to start, she gave a little squeal of delight. Yep, life was good.
Jo
Jo wasn’t really even aware that she had lost over a day in time. All she realised was she wasn’t in the same place she was (what felt like to her) a moment ago.
She knew she should get up and do something, but she was so tired, and she felt like her whole body ached with the effort to simply keep going. Despite the overwhelming feeling of wanting to die, she kept fighting to live, yet she didn’t know why she did. Why did she fight so hard? Her life was meaningless and she had nothing going for her. And the truth of it was it was all her own fault.
Why was she so worthless? Why couldn’t she get it together?
‘I have fought this for so long and I’m too tired to keep doing it. I have had enough,’ she thought. This was not the first time she had thought this and if she was honest, she had made many plans over the years. Yet for some reason she could never follow through with it. Why was that?
Almost operating on memory, Jo went to the bathroom. She knew she had the means to do it. Even though she never remembered buying things, she knew the pills were in the bathroom. They were her safety net, her ‘In an emergency, break glass’ reassurance.
Just do it! That feeling that always followed once she made the ultimate decision washed over her and she felt strangely calm and relieved. She ran the bath and made it as hot as she could stand so she could be in the water when the pills took effect and then she could hopefully slip under the water. While it filled, she pulled out the boxes and bottles of pills. She grabbed a large glass of water and started to pop the pills out of their sheets…
** ** **
“Can you tell me what happened?” The doctor said, in his ever gentle manner.
Jo’s eyes flew open and found she was in David’s office once more. What? What happened? Why was she here?
Jo automatically hunched over in her usual foetal position, her hair falling over her face and she felt the tears start to prick at her eyes at the feeling of being so helpless. She couldn’t even get that right. She couldn’t even end her miserable life. After months of back and forth, of trying to cling onto some morsel of hope to get through every single day, she had felt she was making the right decision and was truly ok with dying. She was ready to be at peace finally, she really was. Now she is here, at the doctors? Good God, what was happening to her? Why couldn’t she even make the decision to take her own life? Why was she so useless she couldn’t even get that right?
Don’t tell, don’t tell.That voice again, that male voice. It was in her head, she knew it, but it sounded so real she couldn’t help being startled when she heard it.
“Jo?” The doctor interrupted her thoughts, gently bringing her back to the moment.
“What happened?” Jo managed to ask.
“The others told me what happened, but I would like to hear it from you.”
“Others?” Jo managed to say.
“Yes, the other members of the Collective.”
She shook her head. “They’re not real, I made them all up,” she tried to say. Why did it seem to take all her strength to speak?
David was familiar with this denial dance they performed whenever Jo was with him. “They are real Jo, I speak
