Tick Tock [short story]

define a [r]eal mental illness

Saturday, August 3rd, XXXX ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀23:11

United States of America

NXX XXXX

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School starts in nine days. I’m nervous.

There’s supposed to be “troubled kids” like me there. But I’m not troubled. Not really. And I don’t think they are either. Most of them, anyway.

But the thing about diagnosing a mental illness is that no one knows. You don’t leak pus and you don’t bleed and you don’t cough or sneeze or excrete nasty stuff through your pores - you just start acting in ways other people don’t think you should be. Then they start getting curious. And when they still can’t figure you out, can’t put you in something like “abusive family situation” or “bullied at the schoolyard” or some kind of convenient psychological reasoning for your behavior, then they start slapping labels on you to start explaining away your eccentricities.

I personally don’t believe I’m mentally ill. I heard somewhere that crazy people never think that they’re crazy. But I’m pretty certain I’m not crazy.

Unusual, yes. Whacked and out of this world? No. 

 All of me is here. But maybe I don’t belong here.