Madness 1

She kept her finger on the pulse, literally. She had always worried
about her heart rate, her eating habits, the 20 cigarettes she smoked
per day.

As a child she was happy, carefree and naive. Oh, she wished she could
be na?ve again. As the thoughts spun around and around in her head. She
had always assumed that she would die young, she never had much of a
life planned for herself. The thoughts made her dizzy. Just to be
normal. Is that not enough anymore? She did not have a teen pregnancy.
She did not take drugs. She always wanted to do well at school. Was
that not enough? She had good intentions. Where had she gone
wrong?

She left school, tried college, she didn't fit in. She got a job,
great, she had now earned the respect of her parents. At last, was she
on the road to a 'normal', existence?

We spend a third of our waking day at work and if we're lucky, we get
seven hours sleep. Is the rest of our day wasted. She would be dead
soon.

She spent her nights, alone, awake, concentrating on the way she felt-
was her breathing steady?! It seems a little fast. The tablets, where
are they? She was sure she had bought some more. Where the hell were
they? Why did she worry so much?

She loved to watch crime dramas. They often mentioned schizophrenics.
Was she halfway there? She could never decide.