by M. Billiter
A Divided Mind
M. Billiter
Contents
1. Tara
2. Branson
3. Tara
4. Branson
5. Tara
6. Tara
7. Branson
8. Tara
9. Branson
10. Tara
11. Branson
12. Tara
13. Branson
14. Tara
15. Branson
16. Tara
17. Branson
18. Tara
19. Branson
20. Tara
21. Branson
22. Tara
23. Branson
24. Branson
25. Branson
26. Tara
27. Branson
28. Tara
29. Tara
30. Trevor
31. Trevor
32. Trevor
33. Tara
34. Tara
35. Branson
36. Branson
37. Tara
38. Tara
39. Branson
Epilogue / Branson
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Publisher
Blurb
Sometimes that little voice in your head isn’t always yours.
What if the only friend you have isn’t real?
When the voices in his head begin to make sense, high school senior Branson Kovac turns to the one friend he’s still got… only to discover he’s not really there.
A Divided Mind © 2019 by M. Billiter
* * *
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any written, electronic, recorded, or photocopied format without the express permission from the author or publisher as allowed under the terms and conditions with which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution, circulation or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly. Thank you for respecting the work of this author.
A Divided Mind is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and places found therein are either from the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons alive or dead, actual events, locations, or organizations is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
For information, contact the publisher, Tangled Tree Publishing.
www.tangledtreepublishing.com
Editing: Hot Tree Editing
Cover Designer: Claire Smith
Formatting: Justine Littleton
ISBN: 978-1-925853-25-4
I love these pictures because they capture my beautiful boy. Kyle is never without a smile. And he’s always game for fun.
Kyle was the younger, smaller twin, who suffered the most from my premature labor. But from the moment the doctor placed him beside me in the operating room, he stole my heart. I saw determination in his captivating hazel eyes that never left mine. He was my survivor, my brave heart.
And this story wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for him.
When Kyle was in his senior year of high school and confessed he was “hearing voices,” my maternal instinct was to make them go away. Kyle’s reaction was to discover what was going on. My son and I navigated the world of mental health together without any clue of what was ahead. And again, I saw that drive to live and thrive in his eyes.
And once again, I felt powerless to help. In those times, I often found that the journalist in me surfaced. As a career journalist, I ask a lot of questions. My teenage son wasn’t too talkative. I asked questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers to. But what started as a search for answers grew into a fictionalized story of what could happen if a divided mind is left untreated.
Kyle let me into a world I never knew he had endured. But instead of resigning himself to this life, I saw a young man choosing to have a different path. He worked tirelessly with counselors and mental health experts until he found someone in the field who understood and knew how to treat him. There was never an “easy” solution, but Kyle’s determination to be more than his disease was heroic. And once again, my son stole my heart.
There were many times when we were writing this story that I wanted to take his hand and steal him away to a time when mental illness never touched his life. But Kyle stayed the course. I’ve never been more proud or in awe of someone. My son taught me what it means to live life on life’s terms and not our own.
So sweet, beautiful boy, this story is for you. By answering all my questions and delving into the darkness, you co-authored this and gave us a story that was unlike any I’ve written.
Kyle, you are my sunshine and bring me more happiness than is humanly possible. It is such an honor to be your mom. I will love you forever.
Mom
A note to our readers: While there are similarities to our journey through mental illness, this book is a work of fiction. In writing this story, Kyle and I imagined “What if…?” and let our imaginations run free. The gift of fiction is that it allows the what-ifs in life to live, if even for a moment in time.
If you struggle with depression or another mental illness, you’re not alone. Please reach out to someone.
Help can be found at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
or by calling their helpline: 866-415-8051
1
Tara
“When Branson was little, he always did everything first.” I glanced at the silver-haired man dressed in black slacks and a white shirt. He sat with his long legs crossed and a legal pad on his lap. His attire, like his demeanor, was monotone. He acknowledged me with a slight nod, the same gesture I gave when I interviewed a college applicant to indicate I was, indeed, actually listening.
“He had just turned a year old, and it was the anniversary of my father’s death. I remember because my dad died right after the twins were born, and all these firsts happened together. I was in the kitchen baking something for my mom.” I shrugged. “It’s just what I did. Anyway, we lived in a condo, and the kitchen was super small. But suddenly Branson appeared in the doorway.” I managed a smile and the man nodded again.
“I remember looking over the kitchen counter for Branson’s twin brother, but Aaron was still on the blanket where I left him, gumming some toy. Even though they’re identical, they’re nothing alike.” I paused, the awareness of that truth feeling as hollow as it sounded.
“Anyway.” I shook my head. “Branson must have crawled to the kitchen, because there he was. And then he stood up.” My hand went to my chest. “It was amazing. He was so proud of himself. Then he moved toward me. I dropped the kitchen towel and held out my arms because he had never walked. But I knew….” Tears flooded my eyes, and the only thing I could see was the sixteen-year-old memory.
“I knew he was going to fall, so I reached out for him.” My voice shook. “And now….” I bit my lip to stop it from trembling, but I couldn’t quell the inferno that threatened to erupt, drown me and wipe out my family. “I see him falling and I want to catch him. But I don’t know how.”
I lowered my head. My throat burned, raw from mourning every dream I had for my child that vanished with one phone call.
“Mom, when you get home, I need to talk to you about something.”
“What?” Even now I can hear my exasperation, the agitation from being bothered at work.
“It’s nothing. We can talk about it when you get home.”
“Branson.” My tone became more parental, more authoritative. It didn’t evoke a response from my teenager. “Bran, you have to tell me. You can’t do this, can’t leave me to wonder. I have a class to teach, and I won�
�t be home for a few hours. What’s going on?” I exhaled loudly enough for him to hear.
What I heard in reply reawakened a maternal instinct that had gone dormant once my sons outgrew the dangers of electrical outlets and choking hazards.
“It’s nothing.” His voice was flat, emotionless. “We can talk about it later.”
“No, tell me. What’s going on? Are you in trouble?” I held my breath while my heart beat so loudly I heard it in my ear.
“Mom, it’s just that….”
“What?” My mind raced: pregnant girlfriend, drugs, failing a class, fight at school? “Branson?”
There was a moment when the life I had envisioned for my child was still intact.
“I’m hearing voices.”
And then it was gone.
2
Branson
“So, Branson, tell me why you’re here.”
What do you mean, why am I here? You know why I’m here. Because I’m fucked up. I blacked out in school and came to with bloody knuckles.
I rested my left foot over my right thigh, leaned back in my chair, and said, “I’m just going through some stuff right now.”
“You want to be more specific?”
This therapist had to be in his fifties. No hair. Overweight. Heart attack waiting to happen. And his clothes weren’t right for a high school counselor. Way too formal. Along with his name. Clive? Oh brother.
I pulled on a loose thread on my frayed, faded jeans and looked at him without emotion. “I don’t feel what other people do.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“I don’t feel happiness, excitement. Basic emotions that make you happy. They’re gone.” His office was surrounded by white-painted bricks, like everything in the high school. But even if they dismantled the school brick by brick, as the construction crews outside were loudly and disruptively doing daily in the school’s grand remodeling scheme, it wouldn’t change the structure. Some institutions couldn’t be updated because they’d always be filled with memories of the people who have come through the hallways.
“Well—” Clive paused like he was carefully considering something. “The emergency intake counselor had it spot-on with depression.” This time he leaned forward and the confusion on his face was there before he said, “I’m just surprised she diagnosed you with post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Fucking awesome. I shifted in the uncomfortable side chair in his office and glanced at the framed picture of some Asian girl on his desk. Probably his daughter. Adopted? Or maybe his wife’s Asian?
“Is there any reason why you think you have post-traumatic stress disorder?”
“At a very young age, I was exposed to violence in my house by my father.” The response was instinctive. My past was part of my identity. I wore it the same way I wore number eighteen on my track speed suit, had for as long as I can remember. “But,” I broke script, “since it happened so long ago, I doubt that's the case. I don’t think it’s PTSD.”
“Then what do you think it is?”
I hate questions. You’re the therapist. You should already know the answer. “I’m not sure.”
Clive leaned back in his chair and glanced at his computer like there was something on it, but I couldn’t see it to be sure. Then he wrote something on his notepad, flipped back through the pages, and I waited. I’m always fucking waiting.
“I can see where she got the PTSD, but I don’t think it’s that.”
Didn’t we just cover this? For Christ’s sake, I just want to leave. I’m hot. Angry. And this guy is fucking irritating.
“Treating the depression is key, because it's like a train on its tracks. Once it falls off the tracks, it never quite gets back up. It’ll just continue to get worse as the tracks get older and are left unattended.”
Okay, dude, I understand it can get worse. That’s why I’m here, so it won’t. Still, as annoying as he was, there was something about him that I liked. Maybe it was the dragon posters in his office. And there was no doubt my mind was off the rails.
“Besides the depression, let’s talk about what happened at school last week.”
I put both feet on the ground, rested my elbows on my knees, leaned forward and stared at him. “I don’t remember what happened. I just remember coming to in the bathroom with bloody knuckles.”
“Do you remember anything before that?”
My stare intensified. “Not at all.”
Clive typed something on his computer and then sat back in his chair. It looked more comfortable than mine, but the guy was seriously pushing the suspension. He had to be like two-fifty plus. “I read that you had a disagreement with a classmate?”
“Yeah, some girl in my poli sci class was using some language I didn’t agree with toward one of our foreign exchange students.”
“What did she say?”
“This girl was bugging this kid because he was saying ‘negro’ and she's partially black, I guess. I dunno. She looks white to me, but…” I shrugged. “She flipped a bitch on this kid and said, ‘You need to fuck off and quit saying that word.’ But he’s from Spain and they use ‘negro’ to refer to the color black. He didn’t mean to be offensive. It’s a cultural thing. But she flipped out, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
Clive’s round face made one of his blackish brown eyes look bigger than the other. He was like an Escher painting. “When this girl in your class got upset with the foreign exchange student, do you remember what you felt?”
“Anger.”
Clive nodded. “And when you get angry, what happens?”
“I black out.”
“What was it about this girl or this situation that angered you?”
“Just the way she was speaking to him.” I leaned back and gripped the armrest of the chair until whatever fingernails I had left dug into the fake leather. “She was being mean.”
“That could be said of many situations in high school. What was different about this one?”
“It was just….”
I tightened my hold on the chair and looked at Clive. He leaned forward and his gut hung over his pants. The lines on his forehead crinkled like he was genuinely interested in what I had to say—like it really mattered.
“Look,” I said, ready for him to change his position about me. Ready for him to lose interest. But the sincerity on his face never wavered. I loosened my grip and spoke directly to him. “She was being really mean. And this kid….” I paused and my voice lost its anger. “He couldn’t defend himself.”
Clive seemed to chill and slightly smiled. “Understood.” He steadied me with his eyes. “And the bloodied knuckles?”
I relaxed against the back of the chair and shrugged. “I guess I punched the bathroom wall.”
A full smile broke on Clive’s face. “Better the wall than….”
“I would never hurt someone.” I couldn’t seem to get across to anyone who would listen to me or actually hear me that, while I may have been losing my grip on reality, I wasn’t going to lose my shit on someone else. “I took my anger out on the bathroom wall.”
“And hurt yourself in the meantime.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s kind of like that saying 'If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, did it still make a sound?'”
Clive shook his head. “If you don’t remember punching cinder block, does your hand still hurt afterward?”
“And the answer would be?”
“It hurt like hell.”
When Clive laughed, his whole belly shook. That made me smile, but then as if on cue, my blistered and scabbed-over knuckles began to sting. “They itch real bad,” I said, glancing at my bruised fist. “But my mom told me to leave them alone or it would stop the healing process. How is that even possible?” I looked at my therapist. “Sometimes she makes up the craziest shit just so we won’t do something.”
“You’ve got a great sense of humor,” he said with a chuckle.
I shrugged. �
��Sometimes you gotta laugh at this shit or it'll drive you crazy.”
He nodded. “So let’s talk about your other symptoms. How long have you had these voices?”
“Since around eighth grade, but I never said anything to anyone because I thought maybe they’d go away. But they’ve never been this bad before.”
He scribbled something on his notepad.
Yeah, do the math. It’s going on five years now. Five years of suffering. It’s been a slow build, so actually five long years of slowly suffering.
“Do they tell you to hurt yourself? To hurt others?”
“No.” My tone was sharp and piercing, like one of the many knives I collected. Knives I had to give my mom when I told her about the "static" in my head. I stared at him. “I would never intentionally hurt myself or someone else.”
“How often do these voices occur?”
“Most every day.” It didn't quite feel like a punch to the gut when I admitted it that time. When I told my mom about the static, it hurt like a pain I'd never felt. I never wanted to have to tell anyone. I could see the sadness in her green eyes, but I just couldn’t live with it anymore.
“Now about these intrusive thoughts. Can you tell me about them?”
“I wouldn’t like to.”
“You don’t have to go into detail, but every little bit helps.”
