LIVING DEAD GIRL

       I wasn’t expecting my mother to have such a negative reaction to my secret. I mean, I understand that most parents would be alarmed to learn that their daughter witnessed her dead friend crawl out from under her bed, but I wasn’t prepared for the shit storm that followed. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that she asked me to help her look for her missing limbs. I also probably shouldn’t have mentioned that I found her missing limbs in my toy box. Apparently, to my mother, this meant that I was suffering from hallucinations brought on by trauma caused by the funeral. But, I was just telling her the truth because I was concerned for my dearly departed friend. I was trying to be a nice person. Can you honestly tell me that if your friend asked you to help her look for her missing limbs, you would tell her no? Okay, please don't answer that.

       As if the whole “crawling out from under the bed” scenario wasn’t bad enough, my mom needed just one more visual hallucination to validate whether or not I was in need of immediate psychiatric attention. The only problem was that we were broke, so seeking professional help was out of the question. This didn’t make her a bad mother, it just meant she had to be clever. It wasn't long before her own diagnosis shifted from hallucinations to night terrors. This caused her to switch to a more unconventional method of therapy. She went out and purchased a little wooden box, presumably from the black market, with what appeared to be six tiny voodoo dolls. They were faceless, had twigs for legs, and smelled like mint. My mom persuaded me that placing these “worry dolls” under my pillow would take away my nightmares. I truly believed with all my little heart that these things were bursting with magical voodoo nightmare-stealing properties. I also thought I would go to hell for using them, but that’s not the point. Oddly enough, they worked for a short while, but it wasn’t long before the dolls began to disappear. They probably fell under my bed only to later be sucked up by the vacuum, but I was completely convinced that my dead friend ate them while I slept.

       White noise was my mom’s next weapon of choice. She thought a fan would lull me to sleep and keep me unconscious despite the fact that there was a dead girl at my bedside whispering my name. Needless to say, most nights ended with me sneaking into my parents’ room and cuddling on the floor with the family pitbull. That dog took shit from no one, not even my possibly real, possibly imaginary, once alive, but now clearly dead ghost friend.

       My mom’s next theory was that I was just incredibly lonely, so my mind had constructed this new identity as an imaginary friend, though she was horrifying. She thought buying me a new pet would help numb the loneliness. This didn’t exactly pan out, however, because not long after we got the animal, some man in a big truck came barreling down the road and split my kitty in half. It wasn’t long after that I became convinced I was seeing my dead cat everywhere. His favorite resting spot was on top of the air conditioner, which I thought was because he wanted to keep his body preserved in some sort of cryogenically-frozen-dead-cat way. My mom insisted he wasn’t there, but I clearly saw him, shredded tissue, missing eyeball, and all. At this point, I was collecting either dead imaginary friends or imaginary dead friends. I’m still not entirely certain. It wasn’t long after this that she attempted to get me out of the house more often. She began dropping me off at my grandpa’s house, hoping he could reintroduce me to normalcy. Instead, he handed me a caffeinated beverage, a BB gun, and turned me loose in the woods. I had the time of my life.

       When my mom forced me into a girl scout troop, everything really went downhill. I was so desperate to fit in, but those girls were little bitches with overweight mothers who smelled like cigarettes and collected ugly dolls. I hated it. I only liked selling cookies because I knew that not only would my mom buy some, but she would also share them with me. I eventually left girl scouts to become a recluse-in-training and it was something I was damn good at. I became a pro at avoiding people lest they die tragically, appear at my bedside, and interrupt my sleep. Again.

       Although my mom originally insisted that what I was going through was my way of coping with trauma, there was still a part of her that feared I was suffering from paranormal experiences. Quick to avoid the potential situation of a dead child haunting her house, she purchased a book for me that would, in her mind, undoubtedly ease my anxiety. Buying me a book and taking advantage of my love for reading wasn’t the worst thing she could have done. Who knew a book about the paranormal would be found in the self-help section? Unfortunately, I learned the book was not totally equipped to help me with my situation, because it mentioned nothing about corpse limbs appearing in my toy box or dead girls under my bed. It also failed to provide advice for when deceased friends ask for help in locating their missing body parts. However, I did learn how to cleanse a house, call upon my higher self, and use baking powder to find footprints left by unsuspecting 'ghosties'.