Do you remember that feeling you get when read a really good book or after watching an incredible movie? You walk in to it full of your own life problems and things to do and conversations to have but you leave feeling completely consumed. It happens after serious movies, like Seven Pounds, or those romantic comedies that weave a happy ending you could only dream of, like The Holiday.

I'm entranced. I'm consumed. Laurie Halse Anderson wrote the amazing book Speak, and after that miraculous book I am dedicated to reading anything she writes. So I picked up her 2009 piece, Wintergirls. I've never battled anorexia, which the book deals with, but I'm consumed by this girl Lia. Anderson's writing is raw and honest and unforgiving. I am drawn to books about these raw, honest, depressing to admit problems. E.R. Frank wrote the life altering book Wrecked, which specializes in how people cope after traumatic experiences, and after reading it I knew my writing had to have a purpose. I want to explain all those feelings people never talk about. I want a book to give someone hope.

I think my sick conditions have developed into a sinus infection, but I can't be sure because I couldn't get a doctor's appointment. I missed out on a chance to have fun with my friends and I had waited so long to see them. I decided to read but this book has latched on to the start of depressive feelings and is driving hooks into them.

I took a shower to clear my head but memories just surfaced in the clouds of steam. Hurtful memories. Thought provoking memories. The wrong kind of thoughts. Is it this house? Can I not escape my fears when I'm in this house?

There was this day in high school when all the girls in my group had boyfriends. There was this sudden pressure to get one if I wanted to fit in. Someone even made a comment that everyone had a boyfriend but me, and I should get one. Was I not already hoping for one?

The next day Sarah dumped her boyfriend. Within the week Red was single. I was so relieved. I had spent the past day rolling around their statement in my mouth. I was terrified that I would lose my friends to relationships, that with everyone coupled up I would be excluded. Judged and pitied until I found some dumb boy to partner up with. But the statement stuck with me.

Jillian needs to find a guy.
There's still so much about you that I love.
You look so cuddly.

These voices whisper to me through the steam. I try so hard to forget, but I clearly haven't mastered it. I can only stay in the shower so long before my fingers wrinkle.

Why can't I be stable? I used to think I needed prescription medicine for my depression. I feared it though, having to rely on a pill to find sanity. But I already do. My migraines rule over my life. If I don't take my pill in time, the migraine will consume me whole. Wrap itself tightly around my toes. Stretch over my chest. Play ping pong with the neurons in my head. It's just bad synapses. I don't need your made up logic to explain my pain. I just need this pill. Sanity. I even have to take a specific birth control pill because I'm so prone to migraines. My life is dictated by this pill. I'm always touching on this in my writing, but the responses signal that I'm alone in this terror/dependency on a little white pill.


I thought talking to this boy would make me happy. I thought if I just controlled everything I said I could make myself desirable again. But I'm too fucking honest. I can't control myself around him. I can restrain myself, sure, but I can't hide the truth. I'm not a person you can rely on to pull you out of the darkness. I am prone to it, I am inept. I slip and fall in puddles of insecurity. My sanity is a mirage created by little white pills.

Talking to a boy still makes me doubt myself. I think back to when I was his and I remember that belonging to someone made me feel so content. But I still had to take little white pills to find sanity. I always will. I write best when I'm clinging on to the thinning threads of sanity. That's why I want to be a writer, to expose the threads and find the switch that drops down a thick rope of sanity.

I can't hold on to these thoughts. I can't let them dwell in my bones. Maybe I've made enough progress to exempt me from seeing a therapist, but I still have to let it out. And once it's out I can look at cute pictures of kittens and eat delicious grandma made cookies.