I waited on the video call for Dr. Wager to join. This part was probably the longest of all our calls. Just waiting. But the silence gave me enough time to think. I was supposed to be changing up my medication. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want medication at all. I hated the idea of needing to be dependent on pills. I hated the fear of dulling out my senses. I didn't even know if it was necessary to switch them up or if I should just go back to taking my current prescription. I didn't know what to tell the doctor. Should I be honest and tell him I haven't been taking them? It wasn't like I could tell him what was going on. I already knew he wouldn't believe me. No one believed me. It would waste my breath and just make me look crazy to try to explain why I stopped taking them. If my own husband couldn't believe me, who else could?

"Hello, Kimberly!" Dr. Wager joined the call. His smile was a friendly one. He always seemed so cheerful. I wondered how he managed to function so normally in life. How could he surround himself with such unstable people and all those medications and then have a normal life, a normal family to go home to at night. Maybe it was unfair to assume his life was so normal. I didn't know him at all. Not really.

"Hello, Dr. Wager." I offered up a smile as well, though mine was most certainly more hollow. Nothing against Dr. Wager, of course. I just hated having to have these calls.

"How are you? How have things been?" He asked eagerly and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

I was dreading this. I was still juggling what to even tell him. I wanted to appear as normal as possible while also wanting help. I was so exhausted and scared all the time. I wanted it to end already. But at the same time, I didn't want to have to get professionals involved. Especially professionals that had already taken me away from my children once. I had to be okay if I wanted to stay with them. "Well, things could be better." I found myself saying.

"Tell me about it." He offered his helpful ear.

It was an internal struggle. I know my pause didn't look good while I mulled it over, "I just -" I shrugged, finally settling on a half truth, "I have forgotten to take my medication these days. So, things have been a little rough."

"Oh?" His once friendly and bright demeanor changed to one of either confusion or concern. "Rough how? Hallucinations?"

I nodded, "And paranoia. Things like that." I kept it short.

"Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself or others?" Can't forget the safety check. I found it a little annoying, but I still understood.

"No." I lied. While I could never imagine harming anyone else, I couldn't say the same for myself. Every day was a day I wished this struggle would just end.

"What can we do to help remind you to take your medication, Kimberly?" The way he spoke to me reminded me of how a father would scold their child. He was old enough to be my father, which didn't help.

"I have post-it notes. And timers." I offered. "I just forget to read and set them. I can do better." I really didn't want to be having this conversation. It just made me feel like a failure. Like I had just disappointed everyone. Was it so easy to help myself? All I had to do was take medications? Could pills really be the real answer? Was I just sabotaging myself while trying to help myself? Did I even know how to help myself? Even now, I felt so scared and paranoid. What was the right thing to do?

As if he could read my mind, Dr. Wager said, "You need to be taking your medication every day. I can't help you if you aren't willing to help yourself. Don't you want to help yourself?"

"I can do better." I told him again. "I want to help myself." It was true. I did. I just didn't know how. Not truly.

He smiled again now, "That's good. I'm glad to hear that you aren't giving up on yourself. I want to help you, too. But I can only do so much. Would it help you to set a reminder on your phone right now? Let's go ahead and do that. Let's also go ahead and take our dose for the day."

I felt my stomach drop. Take the medication? Here in front of him? Was he serious? As if he really needed to monitor me? Yet, I was torn. During the time I hadn't taken my medication, the fear factor had increased tenfold. I just couldn't be certain if it was because of some medical condition worsening or my senses getting heightened of the terrifying reality around me. Reality. What even was real? It frustrated me more and more to even think about it. I realized Dr. Wager was staring at me. He was still waiting to watch me take my medicine. My anxiety was increasing the longer his eyes stayed on me. Should I fake it? Could I even fake it? Was it worth it to try? Part of me felt so childish.

"Okay." My voice was shaky. I got up to locate my pills next to my bed. I imagined he would want to physically witness me swallowing the pill. What could it hurt? Just one day. Hopefully, that wasn't enough to dull me out. I collected my pills from my given daily prescriptions and came back to sit in front of my video call. "Here it is." I had this feeling like I was some kind of prisoner. Needing to be forced to take medications. Being observed for the effects. Like a lab rat. While at the same time, stuck in another prison of fear. I dropped them onto my tongue and reluctantly took a sip from my tea to wash them down. I had to suppress the urge to spit or choke them back up. There was a level of fear in taking them.

"Well done, Kimberly!" He praised me proudly, "I'm so happy for you. One dose at a time. One day at a time. Let's keep our routine so that we can continue on a road of self care and betterment. Don't forget that reminder on your phone now!"

To humor him, I set a daily reminder in my phone for the same time every day. I could just ignore it daily, too. He didn't understand my fears. I wish he did. I wished someone on this planet did. If only for once, there was somebody out there somewhere who could understand what I was going through. One person I could really share all my feelings and thoughts with. People who didn't have the power to separate me from my family. I wasn't a danger to them. I wasn't a danger to anyone. Well. Maybe to myself. But I always did my best to cope. I always found some distraction or rode out the wave of dark thoughts. 

Later that night, my husband was all too eager to know what the doctor had said. I wasn't about to tell him of my shortcomings. He would have been so angry at me to have neglected my medication. And yet, I couldn't hide the fact that I wasn't going to be getting a new prescription. I suppose I shot myself in the foot here. "I will stay on the same medication." I had to be truthful. I would likely forget my lie down the road. "The issue was me. I just need to be more responsible and take my medication. I would forget too often." Although, he was quick to make me regret that decision.

"Are you serious?" His tone was strained and harsh, "I tell you every day! I tell you multiple times a day sometimes! How can you keep screwing that up? How far is your head planted up your own rear? It is such a simple thing, and you can't even manage that?"

"You're being mean." Was all I said in my defense. Sure, I was in the wrong, but he didn't have to react so harshly.

"And you're being inconsiderate of everyone around you. While you're busy dealing with your shadow stalker, the rest of us are busy dealing with you. Did you even think about that? How hard it is to see you like this?"

Why did it feel like I needed to defend myself with every single conversation that I had with this man. Everything was my fault. No matter what I did, it was always the wrong thing. Sometimes, I truly thought he would be so much happier if I didn't exist anymore. If he didn't have me messing up his days by being such a screw up. Why even have me around if I couldn't ever do anything right. "Deal with me?" I couldn't help but feel hurt by how he said this. As if I was such a terrible burden on him or on my own babies. I couldn't stand the thought.

"Dealing with your episodes." He rolled his eyes, not even registering how mean his words were.

"I'm sorry I'm not normal." My tone was defeated. I couldn't argue with him. Not this time.

After dinner, we were able to watch a movie again. Once again, I felt disconnected. I was feeling disconnected from the movie, from my husband, my family, my home, my world, my life. Again, I had that feeling that I just didn’t belong here. Nothing felt real. Even my bed didn’t feel real beneath me. It all felt off. I must have slipped dimensions again somehow. Like reality was bleeding into a parallel universe. It reminded me a lot of the Mandela Effect. Where things seem to change right from under our noses and select memories just suddenly seem to be wrong. Like the Monopoly man. Does he have a monocle or not? So many people remember him having one. They can all picture it so clearly in their minds. But the truth of the matter is, he doesn’t have one. He never did. How can so many people all have the same collective memory so very clearly, and yet they are all so very wrong? And that was just one out of hundreds of examples. That was what this was like. Remembering the vibe and feel of a different bed, home, and life. And yet, this was supposed to be what it has always been. Did my memory change? Did the world change? Did nothing change? I couldn’t figure it out.

I would have talked to my husband about it, but after our earlier conversation, I figured he had really been through enough with all of this. All I could do for him was to try my very best to keep my freak outs to a minimum. Or at least try to keep them all out of sight and off his mind. I couldn’t help the way I thought or felt. I had tried to overcome this as easily as he said I could. But it wasn’t easy for me. I couldn't get out of this nightmare I was living. It was my life.

All the while, I didn’t feel like it was really my life. I was torn between wanting to keep my head low and wanting to call everyone out as being an imposter. I sighed while mindlessly watching the screen, unsure of what I was even watching. I wanted it to end. Not the movie. Everything else.