EIGHTEEN

Hello World.

A lot has happened this past week so I’m not going to waste time explaining all of it.
Riley’s paranoia around me hadn’t gone away and I was starting to become really annoyed with it.  Two days after my last entry with the dream about Carolyn I was in the kitchen fixing myself something to eat for lunch. Justine was wandering nearby as she usually does since she follows me everywhere.  I was cutting up an onion and Riley happened to walk into the kitchen as I was doing so.  He had just woken up so he wasn’t paying any attention to where he was going and I glanced at him just as he was about to step right on Justine.  I don’t think I have ever moved so fast in my life.  I stopped what I was doing and had Riley up against the wall with my arm across his chest holding him there; the knife was still in my hand.  Riley stared at me wide-eyed completely awake now for a few moments before sliding out of my grip and yelling at me, “What the hell was that Willow? “
I apologized angrily and told him he was going to step on Justine who was now hiding in one of the drawers I had left open for her to climb into. 
“You could have hurt me with that knife and how the fuck did you pin me against that wall huh?” He complained rubbing his hand across his chest where my arm had been.  I stared at him blankly for a moment trying to process his words.  I couldn’t have hurt him right?  I mean he’s a full grown man and I’m kind of on the short and small side of a woman’s build.  I moved towards him to see if he was okay but he turned defensively away from me and rushed out of the room.  I stood there for a while thinking about what had just happened.  Justine poked her little head out of the drawer and scurried over to me.  She climbed up my pajama pants and up my arm where I helped her onto my shoulder and continued to cut the onion for my lunch.

Everything was basically the same for the next few days, another dream but nothing too significant to share.  Riley was still being paranoid and looking at me as if I were going to pull a knife out of my bra and stab him in the throat or something.  Then two days ago I walked into Riley’s bedroom to ask him something and I accidentally caught him with his shirt off.  He was facing me when I walked in and I couldn’t believe what I saw.  There was a long bruise the size of my arm running horizontally across his chest where I pinned him the other day.  I stared at him and he stared back at me and we literally stood there for at least a minute without saying a word.  Finally I turned and walked back down the hallway and into the living room.  I didn’t see him for the rest of the night and I didn’t sleep at all.  I laid there in bed wondering how I could have done that to him and also wondering why I felt almost no emotion towards what I did.  I kept thinking about how it could have been worse and thankfully I felt a little scared thinking about the other things I could have done to him that morning. 
I didn’t see Riley again until yesterday afternoon when I got home from work.  When I walked into the apartment he was sitting on the couch and didn’t say a word, he didn’t even look at me.  I put down my bag and went into my room to let Justine out of her cage.  I came back into the living room and sat down on the couch.  Riley looked at me and I just started bawling.  I don’t know how I could just start crying that hard but it happened.  He scooted closer to me immediately to comfort me and he kept telling me that it was okay and everything was fine.  I kept telling him between sobs that it wasn’t okay and that I was so very sorry for what I did to him.  When I kept crying he asked me if anything else was wrong and I ended up telling him about my dreams and the tall man I keep seeing in and out of those dreams.  He fell silent after that but he kept comforting me and eventually helped me to my room where I then passed out for the rest of the night.
When I woke up this morning Riley had already left for work and he left me a note on the fridge telling me that he called me in sick so I didn’t have to go to work.  He also wrote that he and I needed to talk about something but he didn’t say what.

I’ll write to you all after Riley and I have our talk.  I have a feeling it isn’t going to be good…

~Willow

SEVENTEEN

Hello World.

I had meant to write to you all sooner but I was super busy with work on Friday, I even worked a later shift than I usually do so then by the time I got home I was too exhausted to think let alone write anything.  I noticed something though.  Ever since I’ve been seeing the tall man outside of my dreams, I haven’t actually been having dreams about him.  Instead I’m having dreams which are actually replaying memories of my childhood.  Sometimes they’re dreams of the part of my childhood before I was diagnosed with Schizotypy.  One dream in particular that I had made me question one of my symptoms though.  It was a memory before my diagnosis, I had been playing with one of my friends and she and I were feeding bread to the ducks that lived down by the pond on my parents’ old property.  I was probably 6 or so, I remember it being a few months before my parents took me to the doctors to get me checked out for mental illnesses.  I had ran back into the house to grab more bread to feed the ducks while my friend finished using what bread she had left in her hand.  While inside I ran immediately to the knife drawer and grabbed the biggest one I could find.  I looked it over, admiring its gleam and my own reflection in the blade.  A blank white face could be seen standing behind me and even though I looked right at it in the reflection, I never turned around to actually look at the figure.  I ran out of the house and straight to the pond, stopping a few feet behind my friend, now that I think about it I believe her name was Carolyn.  She had knelt down, soiling her white dress in the damp grass and mud, to feed the ducks by hand.  The ducks, seeing me, quacked loudly and scrambled away.  Carolyn stood up and turned around to see what had scared the ducks away.  Seeing me with the large knife in my hand scared her and she started to back away from me.  I stared at her with a very calm and content look on my face while slowly moving towards her.  I could feel the same emotions I had when I had actually experienced them and the one emotion going through my mind was….hm….I’m trying to think of the correct word to use.  You know that feeling when someone you care about or look up to asks you to do something really important for them?  You feel like you have a huge responsibility to carry out the task at hand?  That’s how I felt.  I felt as if I had some kind of responsibility to kill Carolyn.  I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t angry, I wasn’t sad, hell I didn’t even feel anything but that responsibility. 
Anyway, I backed her further into the pond, Carolyn is crying at this point.  Her cheeks are red and puffy and she’s bawling like a baby.  Her eyes are filled with water and they are squinted almost closed.  Soon enough she backed up so far that she was almost in the middle of the pond, and she was in far enough to where she could no longer touch the bottom.  She was starting to thrash about and scream for help.  She was drowning.  I went in after her and even though she was unable to swim properly she did everything in her power to get away from me.  Before I could even make it all the way to her, she disappeared under the water.  The knife fell out of my hand and sunk to the bottom of the pond and my parents came running out of the house. 
Then I woke up.

I can only assume that Carolyn drowned.  I don’t recall ever seeing her again after that but if she did survive somehow, her parents never let me see her again.  The only thing I remember after Carolyn went under and the knife dropped from my hands was a sense of pure serenity and calmness.  I had accomplished what I was bid to do and I felt peaceful.  I’m going to start keeping a dream journal to write my dreams down and if any of these dreams seems significant enough, I will post them here.

I’m starting to wonder however if my killing fantasies are an actual symptom of my Schizotypy….or if I have somehow always been that way, and if this tall man is responsible for them.

~Willow

SIXTEEN

Hello World.

My doctor’s appointment was today and I hated every moment of it.  I absolutely HATE hospitals and doctors, and none of that hate has anything to do with my being a schizotypal.  I’ve just always found doctors to be extremely irritating and stupid.  Hospitals scare me.  Period.  No more to explain really.  Anyway, the appointment went well despite my resistance to even get out of the car.  The doctor didn’t find anything wrong with me.  What a big surprise there.  Riley was acting really paranoid for some reason and asked the doctor if there was anything I could take to prevent my coughing fits.  The doctor explained some random prescription and wrote a note for the pharmacy so that we could go pick up the pills.  I’m not fucking taking those pills.  I hate pills.  I used to be so tripped up on all the anti-anxiety and anti-paranoia pills I used to take when my Schizotypy symptoms would get really bad.  Sometimes my parents would even force me to take a sedative pill when I was being really hostile, or even when they would be paranoid that I was going to hurt them.  Some parents right?  I don’t even care that it’s a pill for coughing fits.  I’m never taking a single pill ever again. 

The ride home was very awkward.  Riley hardly said anything, and he didn’t even look at me.  In fact he has been mildly avoiding me ever since he caught me coughing up blood in the sink.  I don’t know what the hell his deal is but whatever.  If he thinks that I’m going to hurt him then he’s dead wrong.  I’d never hurt Riley, and in fact I’ve never had violent fantasies about him anyway so yeah…

That had better not change…

~Willow

FIFTEEN

Hello World.

So, I had to stay home from work for the past two days because of bloody coughing fits.  I saw the tall man again a few times after the first encounter I had at the craft store, and the second time when I was in my room with Justine.  He just….watches me.  Sometimes from far away, but sometimes he gets closer.  It was scary at first I will admit but…he hasn’t tried to hurt me yet so I’ve almost grown used to him being around constantly this past week.  I know it sounds strange and I feel like, now that I’m writing it and it’s in front of me, that I have calm feelings about his presence…but…I feel like his presence is familiar somehow.  I can’t quite put my finger on it yet but I’ll figure it out sooner or later. 

Anyway, back to the part where I mentioned I was coughing up blood.  I’ve been having coughing fits and they only get more and more violent, so violent that the past two or three times I’ve coughed up blood.  Riley caught me in the bathroom the other morning washing it down the sink and he flipped the fuck out.  He calmed down a little bit when I explained to him what it was from.  I guess maybe he was under the impression that I had killed something again.  So of course he called me in sick and has made me stay indoors since then.  Unfortunately he told me that he made me a Doctor’s appointment to get me checked out.  I don’t want to go, but I don’t really have a choice.  If I didn’t know any better, I’d bet more than anything this is happening because of the tall man.  I can’t remember a time when I ever coughed up blood before now, but again….I’m not sure if it’s me being paranoid or not. 

I’ll keep you updated on how I’m doing and how the Doctor’s visit goes.

~Willow