There’s a monster in my head. He speaks to me when I’m awake, when I’m asleep, when I’m at work, and yet, to everyone around me, I’m normal. He tells me things that I wouldn’t repeat out loud, things that make me question whether I am a person or just an alien with a branded number on his torso. Every moment, every time I blinked, it felt as if life became more and more unbearable, as if Atlas could no longer hold my mind, but to everyone, I am still who I have been since I was five.
People, animals, the world, I feel myself only trusting me and my monster more and more. I heard a bell ring and looked up from my cubicle, and saw it was five o’clock I was allowed to leave. Did I do work? I saw my boss, and walked quickly to get the elevator in case I didn’t do work again. As I was with some coworkers, the monster told me that they had guns, knives, and ropes, all specifically for my future execution. I ignored him, as even though he had become much more apparent in my head lately. I went in my car the monster kept whispering in my ear, telling me that the other drivers in the road were waiting for me to mess up so they could go full speed in my car. I finally got home after running into some neighbors where the monster repeated some of the same rhetoric as it has been for the last couple of months.
In my room, I tried to calm down, so I cradled like a baby, I spun in circles, I went in my bed and lied down while listening to music, trying to get the monster out of my head. I didn’t want to leave my room, knowing that in just two and a half days I’d have to go back to work again. I was browsing tv until I saw an answer that at first I ignored. “Feeling sick! Dr. Trenton Carlisle can help you!” With that I called Dr. Carlisle and luckily, he lived relatively close to me, just a mile from my house. As I walked, I saw the trees grinning at me with hunger, the squirrels looking at me with blood thirsty eyes, and the water, something once so peaceful, threatening to drown me.
After what felt like an eternity, I finally made it to Dr. Carlisle’s office. The receptionist told me that it’d just be an hour as two patients came right before me. She gave me a form to fill out. I was desperate, so I believed I filled out the form, though I may have just doodled – I forget. I gave the form back to her and decided to go on a walk even though those walks are where the monster has the most power. It felt as if buildings were falling on me, as if people suddenly turned against me, as if all my embarrassing history was revealed, and I was suddenly standing in the center of the universe on an international TV, naked. My alarm started ringing, and I realized I was barely awake on a bench so I quickly dashed to the clinical office of Dr. Carlisle.
He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Interesting form you have here” as he showed me that I hadn’t actually answered any questions, just drew something that I didn’t recognize. He then took me into his office. It had a chair, desk, and he took out a clipboard which had paper. He asked me some standard questions such as how I found out about his clinic, my age, my gender and sex, and my ethnicity. Then he moved onto the question, “Why are you here?” With that, I explained the monster in my head, told him of his weak powers during work, but his stronger powers during the weekend, and how it feels as if anyone or anything is going to kill me. He looked at me curiously with a glint in his eye, “Am I going to kill you?” He asked. I thought the monster would give me an answer but the monster was either afraid or bored, so he didn’t reveal himself to me. I shrugged, and Dr. Carlisle nodded. “Under regular circumstances, I’d say you have paranoia, and while you have glimpses of paranoia, I believe your issue is very different.”
He then took me to this room which felt almost sci fi and told me “Imagine your dreams, your ideals, your utopia.” I then fell asleep, and for the first time, I felt the monsters powers diminishing, as usually, during sleep is when the monster takes my head and turns it into his personal Lamborghini. Yet this time, I imagined myself as an astronaut, reaching the ideals of Icarus, exploring the unknown. The monster seemed to dissipate, as my utopia was a moon society, and the monster was basically nonexistent, like a ghost of my mind.
When I woke up, Dr. Carlisle smiled and told me, “As I thought. You struggle with paranoia but also with what I call Limerence or Idealism Syndrome.” I looked at him as if he had three heads. He laughed kindly and said, “Limerence or Idealism Syndrome is when someone’s unmet expectations lead to paranoia because the world or your life is not how you envisioned it. It can lead to many different diagnoses, like anxiety, depression, or, in your case, paranoia, where your unmet needs have caused preemptive trauma to believe the world is out to get you. The monster? The monster is something you’ll have to deal with on your own, but my advice is that the best way to deal with this is to live your life as you want. The monster is the small world and small minded people that you’ve met. All the monster is, is your subconscious telling you how you see the current world, even if you know it to be untrue.”
“So what do I do?” I found myself saying. He looked at me solemnly and said, “Here, this is a Harrison Bergeron Pill.” It will take away the limerence and idealism from your life as this pill makes everyone and everything equal, it makes life as dull as you know it to be, and finally, it removes the power from the monster. Consider it my treat. After three months and you find you still need it, I’ll charge you only $15 for it. Fifteen? I felt a little low in my head but I accepted. I wondered if the Harrison Bergeron Pill would actually work. I stared at the pill and I felt my throat get hotter and hotter as the monster had grasped me, and I was unable to open it. As we tussled, I found myself lose time and time again to it. I finally opened the bottle and heard a pop. In my head, nothing is safe.
