self-inflicted

How I wish you would take your medicine.

Of course she knew she had problems. So much of the problem was knowing that she had them, knowing she was broken. But they didn't understand that. They thought they were helping when they sent her to the doctors, who told her what was wrong with her using terms that were very technical and professional-sounding. What she took away from it is that it was a problem with her brain. They gave her pills, with names she couldn't pronounce. They told her this will make everything better.

She hasn't thrown them out, though she isn't quite sure why. When she's supposed to be out, she goes back to the doctor for more, and now there's dozens of little pill bottles lined up, hidden under her bed. She kept them on the nightstand for a while until she started having people over to stay the night. They looked at the pills and got this look on their face: this one's crazy. Usually they left, and that made her feel bad. Sometimes they stayed, and that made her feel even worse.

So she hid the pills, and as she did she wondered why she couldn't just throw them away, or why she's never even tried taking them. She's broken. She needs to be fixed. That's how it works, right?

She's supposed to be better, so when people who act very sad and concerned when they talk to her call, she acts better. They seem to believe the trick, and on good days, so does she. She's been seeing someone who seems to believe it, too, who doesn't act sad and concerned around her. That helps sometimes. But sometimes, when she's alone at night, she lies on the floor and stares at her collection of pill bottles. And these days even though she acts better, she's afraid again. Maybe they're just pretending. Soon they'll send her to another doctor and tell her she's been collecting pills under her bed this whole time. And she tells herself she's just being silly, even though she knows that never works.