The Quickening Continued

      Sixteen was a crazy year. I met and started dating my ex-husband. I started smoking pot regularly, almost daily.  I tried (and loved) acid. I stopped seeing my councillor at some point, I don't really remember why. Life was one big party. I don't know if the numbness went away, but it was certainly drowned out by all the beer and bong rips. I had a circle of new friends and acquaintances and I was sure everything was going great. For awhile.

       One night we were up to our usual. Pot, beer, and mescaline. I had my first bad trip. I couldn't move, couldn't speak, we were watching movies and I doubt that anyone noticed. It was my first time locked in my head, but it wouldn't be my last. It was the precursor. I was terrified that I would never come down. I know that's a common worry with bad trips, but the thing is, I didn't. Not completely. In the weeks that followed, the paranoia seeped back in. Not that it had ever really gone, but it had only bothered me when I was alone. The fear was back, and I couldn't shake it.

      Seventeen came along, we had a big party and got engaged. But I was acutely aware I was standing at the edge of a precipice. The delusions crept in slowly. My neighbour was a psychic vampire. I was broadcasting my thoughts and everyone around me could feel the waves of paranoia radiating from me. I could hear other people's thoughts. They were judging me, or plotting against me. I kept this all to myself, obviously. I couldn't trust anyone. 

      My now fiance left to go to college, 800 miles away in Pittsburgh. I was sad, everyone knew I was sad, and I guess that's why my pulling away went unnoticed. The voices had started by this point. Mostly just when I was in my room alone at night. Sometimes they came from the Mia Wallace poster on my wall, sometimes they came from everywhere and nowhere. They were incessant, keeping me up at night. We got a letter from my psychiatrist (who knew nothing about the voices or delusions) and I went on a home schooling scheme where I had classes with one other girl at a teacher's house every week. Or maybe it was twice a week. Whatever it was, it was enough to keep my grades up high enough to graduate. My every waking moment was spent just trying to appear normal. I couldn't let on what was going on inside my head. 

      Graduation came, the very same day that O.J. Simpson led the cops on a car chase in his white Bronco. My graduation party consisted of my family sat glued to the telly while my best friend and I sat in my room with a bottle of Jack Daniels she'd secreted in. She was the last person I felt somewhat normal around, and it was a good day. I was finally free of school and the next day we'd pack up my belongings and drive out to Pittsburgh where my fiance was waiting for me.