“I don’t think so.”
“Ignore him?”
“I will, believe me. But it’s weird. I just don’t know why people would tell such an obvious lie.” Anger welled up inside of her, her chest not only aching but burning.
“I’ve met a few people who said things like that. They were invisible. Could fly.”
“Weren’t they high?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes, it’s part of their mental health problem. Sometimes they’ve been so abused, that they’ve lost touch with reality. I remember one woman I met before your cousins were born, back when I worked at Day Haven. Oh, honey. It would break your heart. She had been on the streets since she was twelve. She’d been treated as badly as a human can be treated, abused mentally, physically, sexually... She insistedshe was invisible. ‘I’m not here. You can’t see me. No one can see me.’ You know, after a month in our in-patient program, she finally looked me in the eye and whispered, ‘Can you see me? Am I still real?’
Sophie swallowed over the painful bulge in her throat. “That’s so sad.”
“Another man was brought in by his kids. He’d stopped eating. He insisted he was a ghost. His wife of forty-three years had died. He couldn’t wrap his head around living in a world where she didn’t exist, so when she died, he believed he’d died, too. He stopped eating because simply put, dead people don’t eat. This guy on campus doesn’t eat brains, does he?”
“Tacos and Szechuan-style beef are his favs.”
“Sounds like he needs some mental health help. He might have a reason to believe he’s no longer really human, really among the living. A dissociative disorder, a failure to integrate into reality after a major trauma. Or he’s a straight-up weirdo who likes to freak people out.”
Jesse never seemed unkind. He didn’t seem weird.
Was there some trauma around sex and intimacy that caused him to shut down, to believe he couldn’t be with a woman? Her aunt was still talking.
“There’s also something called Cotard’s Syndrome or Walking Corpse Syndrome. Honestly, if this kid is able to function and take classes, I give him a boatload of credit. Those kinds of mental health issues are usually so severe that they impact normal daily life and the way a person functions.”
“Hm. Are there other diseases like that? Where people believe they’re something else? Like... a mermaid? A vampire? An animal?” Sophie asked as casually as she could.
“Yep, although I don’t know a mental health diagnosis specifically associated with mermaids.”
Sophie tuned out for a minute as her aunt began to talk about some rare genetic disorder that caused humans to have something called Sirenomelia, or mermaid syndrome. Jesse didn’t have that.
But maybe he had something.
Something he couldn’t help.
Sophie shifted in her bed, rolling groggily to her side as she let her sleepy mind make comparisons. She’d been to a dozen therapists, put on a cocktail of meds for anxiety, for depression, for social anxiety, for everything they couldn’t cure because they didn’t know what made her look different, didn’t know how to help her stop hating herself, stop hating the world around her. Her Aunt Izzy was always their unspoken consultant who would tell her parents what to ask and what to object to as the pill regimen changed, tapered off, and finally ended.
He looked so miserable. He hated himself. Does he believe... really believe?
“Talking to you made me feel better,” Sophie interjected. “I think I’m going to go get a hot shower and see if I can rest. I didn’t sleep well. Thanks.”
“Oh. Sure! Anytime. You’re my special chica, you know that, right?”
“I know!” she giggled softly. She did know. Her family had always shown unconditional, unwavering love to her while she struggled.
She had not carried on the tradition.
Maybe Jesse was an utter jerk and a total asshole. Or, he might be a person sinking lower and lower into a delusion who needed love and friendship to get help.
“I think it’s great you even asked about this young man, Sophie. You’d be surprised by how many people give immediate compassion and aid to cancer victims, burn victims, people with physical disabilities, but they have no tolerance for mentalhealth. ‘It’s all in your head.’ ‘Get over it’. ‘You’re making it up, you just want attention.’ Ughhh! Don’t tell my new boss, but I would dearly love to smack some self-righteous faces.”
Sophie put a protective hand to her cheek. “I won’t tell.”
