Title: Circular Insanity

Prompt(s):

- Write about the invention of a magical object, potion, or other creation for TQLFC

- Psychiatrist AU for TrueBeliever831 Ultimate AU Promptathon Challenge

- #395 for Angel N Darkness's Are You Crazy Enough to Do It Challenge

Word Count: 1,721

A/N: In the 1800's the words do and have are never in the same sentence. A woman couldn't be psychiatrist during this time period, but you know what, the woman suffrage and the second-wave of feminism came early. I've chosen to write about the discovery of a disorder.

March 3, 1849

A woman named Hufflepuff can't be all bad.

I sit in the waiting room, listening to the therapeutic click of the lead crystal clock. It is the same clock they keep in every waiting room. Tick. The miasma of iodoform is nauseating; I start to pace across the ceramic tile. Tock. I am cold, freezing; my skin is wan, I am dying. Tick. The paintings of flora and fauna placate me, but not for long. I am crazy. Tock.

She calls me into her office. I take my usual place, in the usual chair, on the usual empty afternoon. She is settling into her chair, and I watch as she twiddles her fingers. She mispronounces my name, and I correct her, as usual. This is how all psychiatric visits start.

"What brings you here today, Helena?" she asks, her eyes searching for mine; I look at the loose string dangling from her dress.

"I'm going crazy."

"Well, dear, don't beat around the bush," she says. "Jump right in."

"I'm going nuts. I mean, I am nuts. I've always been nuts. They've been telling me I am sick, dying. Am I dying? The nurses told me I am dying. I don't want to die. Are you going to tell me to start pushing up daisies?" I pull at my collar, caressing the blemished skin. I sigh, swinging my elbows, "why do the nurses think I am dying?"

"I believe they have no explanation for it; they've summed it up to you dying."

"See?" I say, and throw up my hands. "Exactly. I don't want to be dying. I definitely don't want to be buried in the dirt with the worms. It's dirty, and my white linen sheets will become sullied."

"You're not dying, dear."

"That is good— goodness," I say, suddenly flustered."I'm going on and on. I know you're busy. I know you have a million patients. Have I already used up my time?" I ask, a little panicked.

"No."

"Have I much time?"

"As much as you want, dear. This is a private practice. Take your time." She sits with her hands folded over her middle, and I admire her tawny flesh.

"Well," I sigh, slumping back in my chair — I notice I've been bolt upright the whole time — "thank Merlin." I lick my lips.

"May I ask you something?"

"Yes," I say, twisting a finger through my cotton dress, pulling at the lace.

"Do you talk this fast at all times?"

"Yes."

She nods. "Alright," she says. "Proceed."

"What was I saying?"

"Not wanting to die."

"Right," I rock my palm across the edge of my seat. "I believe that is it."

She smiles, "has anyone ever mentioned the word mania to you?"

"No."

"They haven't," she says. "I find that a little odd."

"I mean, I've heard of the word," I suck my lower lip. "I've just never heard it applied to me. Is that what you are saying?"

"It was, yes. Out of curiosity, what does mania mean?"

"Mania — well, going around like a maniac, I guess."

"Sort of," she says. "Anyway, you do not seem to be ill. You seem to be brimming with vitality."

"I do indeed," I say, raising my head. "Indeed I do."

"An unusual amount," she replies, narrowing her eyes at my tapping feet. "Is it in stages?"

I loll my head across the back of my chair, staring at the alabaster popcorn ceiling. "Yes. It happens in the afternoons, usually. I just want to crawl into bed and hide from the deluge outside and stop wondering, thinking. My head is reeling. It's an effort to breathe, to feel, to taste. It's like time is slowing down. It feels like I am being compressed in water. I don't want to work. I feel worthless; I am worthless." I shrug. "It passes. Then I am bounding across the halls."

She thinks I am crazy, I know it. Her eyes aren't looking at me, but her lips are tipped downwards in a frown. She is contemplating, knowing, disgusted. I said too much. I can't have that. She knows I am crazy. "Is there a pattern to the swings?"

"Swings?"

"Stages, I mean. Have you any idea when the stages come and go, dear? You know when the stages happen, yes? Do you see a pattern over, say, a few months?"

"No. They happen sporadically, sometimes I am normal, sometimes I am not. I'm just kind of moody. Which," I say, "is the issue. I'm horribly moody, sad, mad, glad; I'm all over. I'm out-of-my-mind moody. I want to scream. I'm going nuts. As I said."

"What's happening?"

"I have these rages," I confess, dropping my head, ashamed. "I go into these ugly rages and wind up in bloody heaps, hollering, and crying."

"Any particular reason?"

"I don't — I don't know! That's the thing. It just happens. It comes out of nowhere. It usually spawns when the night is dead. I'm crazy, but in the morning, I'm flat. So, at night, I have these rages and destroy all these things, and I —" I dither, "I want to die. I mean, not die die. I never want to really die."

She nods amiably. "Do you ever wish you were dead, dear?"

I consider it. "I wish I wasn't insane."

"Have you attempted suicide?"

"Not exactly."

She purses her lips, then skips on. "Did you ever have an eating disorder?"

I twist in my seat, tracing the sunflowers on my dress. "Yes. When I was eight. I was chunky; I am chunky. I started to get the hang of it when I was thirty, though."

"What about cutting, any history of cutting?"

"Cutting?" I ask, and she leans back into her chair, pulling at the skin of her wrist. I copy her movements. "Did you ever cut yourself with a knife on purpose?" she answers.

"Oh, yes, years ago." I'm torn, I'm crazy. She will tell me I am dying. I am already dead. My burial is just outside these walls; your favorite flowers are at my desk. I do not want to be crazy.

"What about drinking? Drugs?"

I drink until my flesh is a rotten green. I drink until I am no longer crazy. She can't know that; she will write me up. I will be dead, to the loony bin, to my early grave. It is my last hope to keep myself from going over the edge. "No drugs. I only drink on holidays."

"Are you impulsive? Do you make snap decisions? Take sudden trips?"

I only nod, my head pounding as I try to mask my overwhelming shame with my hands.

"Do your thoughts race?"

I glance up. "That's it," I say. "That what I mean when I say I'm crazy: I can't get the thoughts to stop. It's torture. I can't breathe."

"Do you ever feel numb, like your not in your own body?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"During the rages, when I'm happy; when I'm sobbing into my mattress. It comes and goes."

"Does it bother you?"

"I don't think so. It's weird. It feels like I might just fly away."

"Does anything make the feeling go away?"

"I slap my wrist."

"Does it work?"

"No."

"Do you ever cut yourself?"

"Not anymore."

"When you did, did it help?"

"Yes," I say. I don't look at her.

"Good for you for not doing it anymore."

"I slipped once. Nearly split the artery in my wrist. My mother found me before I bled to death."

"Slipped?" she says.

"Slipped."

She lets it slide.

"How far apart are the mood swings?" She keeps saying that! What's she talking about? "Every few days, weeks, months? Is it periodic, last for hours on end, or a few seconds?"

"You keep saying that, I don't — wouldn't know anything about mood swings." I look out the window, watching the birds build their nest. "It's not specific, I think —" Mother did not appreciate my crazy, she appreciated the calm of the mind. I will be still for three hours before I am raining plates on my feet. "I just can't control myself. I am laughing at nothing one moment and the next I am on my knees, covered in pitcher glass. I'll be talking to my mother when suddenly I'm up and pushing her around the house. It's maddening. I'm maddening. I just want to be normal."

"What about sleep, do you sleep? Can't fall asleep or can't stay asleep? Wake up early or stay up all night?"

"I'd kill for a good nights sleep. I twist and turn for hours, then pick the dead skin from my heels all night. By morning, everything is hazy, and I stumble into the dresser."

"Nightmares?"

"My mother believes a demon possesses me when I sleep."

She's studying my face. "Do you ever feel hopeless?"

The word yawns open in my sternum. "Not really," I say, looking at her nose. It has a mole.

"But sometimes?"

"Sometimes."

"When?"

"When I stop to think about it," I say, pulling at the dry skin on my lip with my teeth.

"About this?"

"About being crazy. About dying." I look at her; her eyes pretty blue. "It's getting worse," I say, "It's getting hard not to think about it."

"Does anything help?"

A drink. A glass of wine. "No," I say. "Not really."

She frowns, then scribbles something on her parchment. She looks at me. "You are not dying, dear, that is certain."

"Then what is wrong with me?"

"I don't know, yet, dear. But I will."

...

November 12, 1851

It was an article — Discovering Circular Insanity by Helga Hufflepuff.

I am crazy.

But as I read, the relief starts to set in.

I am crazy.

It is a genetic disconnection, she writes. Severe depression to a manic excitement.

I am crazy.

To a patient. To a friend. To someone in need.

I am not crazy.