Paranoia

Julia woke up and let out a breath.

Another long day lay ahead of her
and her shoulders slumped in resignation.
She left the room to greet her mother
who was nowhere to be found.
She soon found that her mother had left the house,
under the pretense that their house was a homeless shelter.
Julia couldn’t display annoyance though.
She knew that this was something
that her mother dealt with,
but refused to cure herself of.
She gently took her arm
and led her back to the house slowly.
Any sudden gestures would cause
her mother to panic.
And if she panicked,
another one of her episodes
would begin.
Julia tried not to be too private or informal
with her mother,
as this would also cause an episode.
Julia sighed again.
She tried to be intimate with her mother,
but always felt as if there was a barrier
between the two of them.

Julia had always thought of

taking her mother to the doctor,
to see if maybe Mr. Parker could
get through to her.
Perhaps if someone talked to her
in a consultative manner,
she would relax and see that something was wrong with her.
But Julia could see all the ways
that that visit could go wrong.
She just wished that her mother could be normal.
That she wouldn’t doubt Julia’s loyalty to her.
That she wouldn’t always think that her mother was out to get her.
That she wouldn’t be so quick to become angry and hostile.
But maybe that’s just the way it’s supposed to be.
Maybe she’s supposed to be the punching bag
for her mother’s acrimony.
Perhaps her sitting back and taking her mother’s criticism is the best way for her to deal with this mental
health disease.
Maybe this is just how it’s supposed to be.

As they enter the house,

Julia accidentally shut the door a little too loud.
’Three, two, one’ she thought to herself.
Her mother’s cruel words came hurling at her
and Julia did nothing to deflect them.
She simply nodded and said “Yes mother.”
She tried to prevent the tears from streaming down her face, but they fell before she could stop them.
She tried to tell herself that her mother didn’t mean those words,
that it was just the paranoia talking,
but it still hurt so much.
This was the life she now lived and she hated it.
Not her mother, she could never hate her mother.
But she hated the person that was standing before her.
The person the paranoia had infected,
and had now become a whole new villain in Julia‘a life.
And she worked so abundantly that her old mother would return.
That her normal mother would return.
And that they could live together peacefully.