Crazy- Depressed play

Well, there is Hitler (sign guns with hand)

NO, I am not Hitler! I mean I'm not crazy. I mean I'm depressed. Does that make me crazy?

Presenter: nods head.  (means yes in American audiences)

Auris; I mean I'm a 17 year old girl. I just feel lonely some times and when I walk the streets, I am alone. When I walk to school, I am alone. When I drink water, I am alone. I go home alone and when I got accepted to college, well...

Presenter: Let me guess... you were alone.

Auris: It's not so simple. I thought my whole family would be around me and there would be hugs and kisses and the occasional "I am proud of you!" and my sister "I'm sorry for all the times you stayed up until midnight doing the dishes when it was my turn and I feel asleep on my responsibilities". You know, something like that.

Presenter:  Oh, so you were lonely, yes?

Auris: yes.

Presenter: I mean, that's not so bad. We all feel lonely sometimes. You were lonely and then you got taken away to the mental hospital? What happened, did you tell someone that you were lonely?

Auris: No I didn't tell them but then it got so lonely that I stopped sleeping.

Presenter: Stopped sleeping you say?

Auris: Yes! there was this voice in my head and it just wouldn't go away and I would tell it "Shut up!" but it wouldn't.

Presenter: I see... (looks away in thought). Where was that voice?

Auris: in my head

Presenter: In your head you say. So, tell me, what happened next?

Auris: well I was frustrated night after night couldn't sleep and I have to go to school in the morning and I still have responsibilities you see, so then I started doing things around the house, trying to tire myself out so that I could sleep.

Presenter: Tire yourself out you say so that you could sleep. What kind of things?

Auris: well one night I started organizing the kitchen.

Presenter: that's a nice nighttime activity.

Auris: well the pots are loud when you move them you know so it started  becoming something going on in my head, well to something noticeable.

Presenter: Were you used to being noticed?

Auris: Well, I don't know about that. But it was something I was doing to help me sleep and my mom noticed.

Presenter: She noticed?

Auris: yes, she did. 

Realization: Maybe this is part of why mom doesn't trust doctors. She gave me away to the hospitals and I guess she thought they would 'fix' me. Fixing in the mental heath community means drugging beyond recognition.

No one asked me what happened or what were the thoughts in my head. They just gave me pills to numb the pain and diagnosed me as bipolar and manic depressive. It means my moods go up and down (which simple means sometimes I am happy, sometimes I am sad. Those complexity of emotions are simply not allowed).

I was drugged. Yes, me, the girl who was against drugs. The girl who could have been the DARE spokesperson. I was drugged. The most dangerous drugs too, the mental health drugs. They fuck with your brain, emotions and make your thoughts foggy. 

You think life is hard now? Try it when its hard to think, breathe or basic functions like brushing your teeth.

Walking to school everyday day (alone as always) was now tricky because the side effects of the drugs was that my eyes were sensitive to light. what this meant was that now its hard to cross the street because everything is blurry.

Also, spontaneous nose bleeds. Try to blend in math class when blood just starts dripping down your nose like your favorite scary movie. You also ask to sit next to the window because it's winter in NJ and you feel like you can't breathe and in math class in high school, no one ever switches seats.

I speak up for myself and sit next to the window and all the students look at me like I am weird. They don't ask for things. You come in, you sit down, you are quiet, you listen and figure out the math problems. I wasn't allowed to have a mental breakdown.

It messes up with the usual web and flow of life. Friends diss you. People wonder what happened to you because you are no longer in class.

I came back and I have an afro. My friend said I was back but I wasn't myself. I cared no more about 'being pretty' which preoccupied my mind as a 17 year old teenager in her last year in school. I tested myself. Made myself as ugly and unkept as I could be. I faced my fear. Can I go outside with hair undone, no makeup, no cool outfit?

So I did. and I felt liberated. but it confused people around me, including Josh who took a picture with me because we had the same style (crazy undone hair, baggy shirt and jeans and black gloves they sell at the dollar store)