The Happy Treatment
Chapter 1

My head hurts. Today has been a rough day, much like the others, though I don’t know why. It was a normal day. I woke up with my eyes feeling tired and dry, probably from crying in my sleep last night due to a nightmare again. Well, I say nightmare, but they’re more like memories just replaying themselves. Memories like the times I’d used to pay attention. The times I’d pay attention to people, though it depressed me too much to always see brokenness on everyone’s faces and despair screaming in their eyes, so I often push these memories to the back of my mind in an attempt to pretend like nothing was ever wrong, much like everyone else does today.

I’ve dreamed of memories with Dad. I’ve dreamed of the times he used to play with me, only then to have his bedroom door cracked open by me later to replace him sitting at the edge of his bed alone with his elbows resting on his knees as he buried his face in his hands. I’d always be left wondering why he and Mom never spoke about this, but I soon learned, like I just mentioned, that it was just easier this way. It was easier just to not pay attention, to not bear the pain of acknowledging brokenness.

I’ve dreamed of memories like the times I’d feel too vulnerable. The times like crying in front of classmates when showing those kinds of emotions in public are part of an unspoken rule that one shouldn’t do that. The times when I used to open up to people and reveal my vulnerability, but again, soon learned that it’s easier not to. I learned this lesson many times in fact. I observed it from Mom and Dad in the beginning, learned it from tormenting classmates later, and am now reminded of it from my own mind.

I rolled out of bed, my body feeling achy and tired, and I somehow made it through school like I do nearly everyday while feeling this way; feeling drained and tired in a way as if my body and mind are placed on auto-pilot. I kept my eyes facing forward throughout my classes, refusing to turn my head and risk the chance of noticing anything that might break this illusion I’ve made that everything is okay. The illusion that I’m okay and so is everyone else.

I greeted my usual friends, usual classmates, and usual teachers without any of us acknowledging the obvious pain that sits in all of our minds for reasons none of us can really understand why.

“So should we meet somewhere later to work on this?” Iris Octave said as I sat with her along with a small group of classmates as we worked on a group project for science.

“Can’t,” Jackson Cole, another kid in the group said, “I have work later.” Jackson looks down at the paper in front of him dragging his pencil in random lines in the corner next to his name.

“Well,” Iris says, “I’m not going to be the only one doing all the work like I always am in every group project I’m randomly put in. Uh-” she turns to me hesitating, then looks down at my paper to see “Cindy Reeves” written at the top, “Cindy, right,” she continues, “What about you? You working tonight?”

I look down at my paper, the number of questions are overwhelming. I feel alone, disconnected from this group, disconnected from everything, and I replace myself almost wishing I could have a part time job at one of the fast food restaurants near my house like Jackson and some of my other classmates, where I can be overworked and throw away my mind for a few hours, mindlessly taking orders from both ungrateful customers and a depressed, compassionless manager. I know I could easily get a job at any of them, since every place is understaffed, but Mom says I already have a full time job right now, being school, and those fast food jobs are for the summer. I understand her reasoning, even though I know we could definitely use the extra money, and I could definitely use the numbing feeling of being a worker and nothing more for a few hours a week. The feeling of turning off my overthinking mind, and being assigned tasks to do that feel meaningless and small.

This may not sound desirable, but I replace myself wishing for it sometimes when I’m depressed enough, stupidly thinking if I’m already hopelessly depressed, I might as well go all the way and throw myself into a job requiring no individuality.

It would also be useful for when I need to get out of group projects such as this one, where I’m stuck with someone who actually wants to meet up after school while working on the project in class is totally doable.

“Yeah,” I responded to Iris simply, “Well… I already have plans.”

“Ughhh,” Iris groaned and ran her hands through her purple dyed hair. As she brought her arm up to her hair, I caught a glimpse of the dried red cuts on her inner arms. I quickly looked away, pretending not to notice.

“Relax,” Jackson said, “It’s a fuckin’ simple group project not a whole exam. This thing is worth like 10 points.”

Iris glared at Jackson, and they began arguing over working. Their conversation faded into background noise as I rested my chin in my hand and stared at the clock in the classroom. It was the last class of the day.

After what seemed like forever, the bell finally rang.

I got my usual amount of homework and studying to do for the day, walked to my locker without looking at anyone I didn’t have to look at, packed my things in my backpack and went home, riding the trashy, unnecessarily noisy bus home.

I threw down my backpack when I got home. It sits on the floor by my bedroom door, taunting me with the homework I’ll have to do later, but before I unpack that, my mind starts to unpack itself. Now that I’m in my quiet room, my thoughts I’ve kept numb all day finally start to create chaos in my mind.

I feel isolated, alone, and I feel the world growing darker around me the more I pay attention to my surroundings, so I try to stop paying attention. I sit on my bedroom floor, leaning against my bed as I often do, and I feel for my comforting knife I keep underneath it. I feel it’s cold blade against my hand, and I pull it out. I hold my arm out, having the palm of my hand facing up, and I drag the sharp, cool blade against my tan skin, opening a red cut below my wrist. I do it again, then again, until I have a few lines of blood decorating my arm. I take a deep breath as I feel the cool, numbing feeling kick in again and spread throughout my body as well as my mind. I set my knife down for a quick moment to run my hand through my dark, wavy hair. All the small tormenting details in my mind start to temporarily fade.

“Do you have another one?” I turn and next to me sits my closest friend, Eva Straus, who I had forgotten momentarily that she was here. We often see each other after school. She’s in my English class with me at school, though I can barely recall her sitting next to me earlier today. We didn’t speak much.

Our story isn’t anything too significant. I can’t even remember how we really became friends, just that we’ve gone to school together for as long as I can remember. We’re both depressed, and I guess that’s all it really takes for people to become friends these days, because we don’t have much else in common.

She glances up at me, only to look back down at her phone, scrolling through posts and stories on social media.

“Yeah,” I answer, “it’s in the usual spot.”

Eva gets up, setting her phone on the floor, and opens the top drawer in my nightstand to pick up another knife. She sits back down, keeping a far space between us as she sits on the other edge of my bed on the floor. Grasping the other knife in her hand, she does the same as I do, dragging the blade swiftly across her arm. I stare numbly at her arm, watching the blood trickle down her skin.

“Thinking about jobs and stuff again?” Eva says, as if reading my mind from thinking about it earlier. She’s staring blankly at the wall. I don’t answer and she doesn’t seem to notice. We’re quiet, as we usually are, until Eva breaks the silence, mentioning posts on social media as she does occasionally.

“Saw someone post about their job and stuff,” she began, “how they feel fuckin’ alienated there like Capitalism… or Communism. I can’t remember, just some shit like that.”

That concluded our conversation. At least they’re getting paid to feel that, I thought to myself. Posts like that are common today, of people talking about their jobs and life in general, complaining about feelings of isolation, then blaming it on a political party. Most argue whether to label this Capitalism, Socialism, or sometimes Communism. Today, it seems people focus on arguing over what to label this tragedy rather than do anything more, like help each other out of this isolation with multiple labels. They -

Stop it. I catch myself thinking and paying attention again, and I frustratingly press the knife into my skin a few more times, accidentally causing blood to drip from my arm and onto my carpet.

“Fuck,” I whisper under my breath. I notice Eva stand up and walk to my closet, grabbing a wash rag off the shelf. She looks down at my bleeding arm. It’s bleeding a bit more than hers.

“Do you want one?” she asks, holding up the wash rag in her hand.

“No,” I say without hesitation.

“It’s going to stain your carpet.”

I groan, “Fine,” I say, standing up, “but I’ll get it myself.” I walk over to my closet and grab my own wash rag. Eva sighs and walks back to her spot on the carpet. I walk to the bathroom next to my bedroom and wet the rag under the sink for a moment then come back to my room to scrub my carpet. She cuts her arm a few more times as I scrub the wet wash rag into my stained carpet.

“Just cut it like you usually do,” Eva says with an empty voice. I sigh and grab my scissors off of my mini desk in my room and pathetically pick at the carpet until there’s a small indent where little brown fringes of carpet used to be. It doesn’t look too attractive, but the blood stain is gone. I throw away the pieces of carpet in my trash can and plop back down. I look down at all the little holes my carpet possesses from past events like this one, and much like me, it seems like my carpet has some scars.