Anomalies ✔

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO: SQUEAK

Men go to far greater lengths to avoid what they fear than to obtain what they desire. 
-Dan Brown

The worst part about having something inside you so self destructive like depression or anxiety is that it's so intimate, it's personal. Your own mind is working to pick you apart by everything you once found exciting or love.

You become so close with your own tragedies no matter how small that leaving them behind feels like you're killing a part of yourself you need to survive.

But the thing is you don't need it.

Mental illness just tricks you into thinking that it's normal, because it's always been there but normal doesn't mean okay.

For a while, I couldn't see past the Tourette's and I didn't realize anything else was wrong with me.

But clearly, that's not true.

I have been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder, I have ADHD that I have to take medicine for, insomnia that keeps me up at night and OCD tendencies that are bad enough to trigger fits but not bad enough to definitively say I have OCD.

And it's all a part of Tourette's -something most of my problems seem to be linked to.

Slowly, things fit into a schedule.

My day would start at five, I'd go on a run until six thirty and then I'd take a shower. When I got out me and Jasper would get coffee together and he'd walk me to my eight am hell class that is Business Management before going to his because apparently, he shares his first one with a friend.

I'm not sure if that means he doesn't want me to meet his friends or not.

We don't see much of each other during the day but occasionally during his lunch break, he'll text me to see if I want anything.

But because my nine and eleven am classes both deal with me making food- -them being Baking and Pastry Arts and Culinary Arts- -I always say no.

The last class of my day is my Art Therapy Practicum that I minor in, it only lasts an hour and goes until two thirty but my football practice starts at four and ends at seven thirty at night. Jasper's last class ends at five thirty.

So I get home last.

If home is what I should call it, anyway.

I get nervous about so much, it's ridiculous. I'm afraid to hold coffee, take a shower without asking first, throw away my egg shells, use the oven, have a conversation and tic in public.

None of these things I should be afraid of, I know how to function perfectly in the real world and I know my tics can't be helped.

But that doesn't stop me from being anxious.

That doesn't stop people from staring.

It took me a while to figure out that my roommate doesn't quite like being out in public either.

Jasper is popular, anyone could tell that, he knows people's names- -he knows more people's names than I have met in my life, which is strange- -and he's nice to everyone. He's cute and tall and he's smart, he can play many instruments and is in great shape.

He's everyone's dream friend.

And boyfriend.

But he is still really awkward and shy, something that is adorable all on it's own, and never has very serious conversations with people or goes to parties.