"It's a situation more common than you would think. It's not a disorder despite what they may have taught your parents, grandparents, or even you. With technology we have been able to research this phenomena more closely, and it may be the furthest thing from a disorder..."
That’s what they will teach you. Feed you statistics and brain waves. Waves of charts and stats. Sure, its not a disorder of any sorts. Its no handicap until you realize it's there. Like a stranger telling you of a smudge on your face you've had all day. Only I have no napkin. And how do I know if he's a stranger. I don't even know if he's real.
Pachycephal Disorder was what it was first called. First official name for diagnosis. Pachy coming from the Greek word for "thick", and Cephal meaning “skull”. I'm sure the first ones may have been considered evil or something corrupt like that in the past. From what I hear I look like I'm sure they couldn't think of any other reasonable explanation. They probably confined them to cages put on display. The opposite of what I apparently go through. From what I hear I am very familiar with white walls. Unknown to me, I have apparently been confined to hospital walls since I was a child. During the day, placed in padded rooms with blank books and a television set to static. This is what I was told last week.
I can't be sure of much these days, and I've been meeting more submissive people. People with their eyes focused on the cracks in the sidewalk. People who don't stop to look up at the clock tower when it rings 6:00. I used to look down, still find myself with my chin on my chest every now and then. I used to look down to see the lions. The lions laying in the grass meadows, how dandy they were. The hue of yellow like cold mustard contrasting on a warm hot dog in the stale summer air. The memories still warm my chest, yet I've been finding it less often that I smile. Now it seems I'm looking back on a movie and the smiles of those days don't belong to me anymore. I've been robbed of my past and only look down and see the worms squirming after a long rainfall.
What it is, according to Dr. Prattson, is all because of my skull. The average human skull is about 6mm thick. Apparently mine is about 8.44mm. 2.44 millimeters that make a world of a difference. He says it may have been from my mother not getting enough protein when pregnant with me. It could have also been that she took LSD or an array of opiums. I wouldn't know. I guess my brain simply decided I didn't need a mother in my life. The rest of my body is fully functional except he says he wouldn't be surprised if I were to get strong arthritis in my left ankle. "Real" sounds go through my eardrums, but when passing through my thick skull, get distorted and muffled. He stated that what my brain hears is a large combination of hums and whistles. Since I've been hearing them since birth, it is the normal for me and I would know any different. That’s also what they hear when I talk. He is able to communicate with me through some kind of computer as large as a kitchen apparently. I'm the first one that they have been able to get it to work completely on. I'm apparently a breakthrough for the world of mental health. I thought I was a 15 year old with a slight lisp and a view of love too saturated to be achieved. Instead, according to this doctor, about 90% of everything I know is based on an extreme case of schizophrenia. So extreme they are considering naming it a new mental illness. I wasn't ill until I got this diagnosis. A disease with no symptoms, only side effects.

Around the 1980’s they switched the name to Pachycephal Syndrome. They wanted it to sounds less negative and more like a phenomena or mystery instead. After taking brain scans of many people with this syndrome, they noticed that people they once thought were “suffering” had some of the highest levels of Seratotin and Dopamine levels they’ve ever seen. Pattson says that this was the first breakthrough to come from Pachycephal Disorder. It explained that when under the most isolated situations, the brain has the ability to calm the body and bring complete happiness. Brain tricking the mind. If I had never made up my world, I would be trapped in their world. Apparently. Stuck inside my body, never able to understand anything around me. What I still ponder over is, if my brain is working to calm me and bring me happiness, why are there still elements of tragedy in my life. They have never been able to tell anyone with this that they have it. I‘m sure if they could take my brain scans now they would have some new charts. New breakthroughs.

When I first went to school and all the mothers were dropping their kids off, I didn’t understand. Learning I lacked a mother figure and what I was missing out killed me as a child. If I really was tricking myself to be happy, why not just make my mother a healthy stay at home mom who does arts and crafts and yoga when I would take a nap? Or a nurse to work at the hospital with my dad, with opposite schedule so I would have someone at the house when I went to sleep? Prattson said that humans need to feel tragedy to appreciate triumph. I am happy with my life but I could have still had a mother. One that ignored me when I brought home an A on a test, but was at least there. That would have made me happier.
After getting off the computer I thought was in my room, I walked down to what I thought was my kitchen and heated up what I thought to be day old lasagna. It had no taste and I put it down to the floor for my dog. She didn't rush to it like I expected. Turns out she had been locked in the bathroom accidentally. I turned on the news while I waited for my dad to get home. I usually don't watch the news at night. While I eat my cereal in the morning I will watch the good morning news with different celebrity appearances and a humorous, big hearted weatherman. The nightly news was different. War, murder, and terrorism where the first features, followed by corruption and lies in The White House. I clicked the power button and began to let my mind float off. Letting it go further than it’s ever gone before. Letting in new thoughts, hidden from existence, flow in like an open dam.
I began to wonder if my thoughts were real. If my mind was making 90% of my life up, were my thoughts really my thoughts? Or were they thoughts that my mind is telling me to think that I really wouldn't think if my skull were normally sized? Was I the same person with the same thoughts as I would be without any disorder? Was it just everything I perceived that wasn't real? What was my perception? If I knew most of what I saw was fake, my whole perception was wrong. With no perception is there reality? Decrartes said "I think therefore I am." I had always taken that as, since you have your thoughts you know that at the very least, you are real. You have your proof that you are real and everything else was believed to be true. Nothing could be real for all you know, but you know you are real because you have your thoughts. If I don't have my thoughts, am I real? If I am not sure if what I think are my thoughts then do I really exist?
I left it at that and put on some headphones to silence my mind. I felt The Sounds of Silence was an appropriate song choice and I let the lyrics absorb into my 8 millimeter skull. I don't know if I made up Simon and Garfunkle, but if I did, sorry you guys don't get to experience them. The music from what I perceive to be my past is always superior. The past seems like a much cleaner place. From what I made up, the people seemed more peaceful with less fear and troubled hearts. But I know it could all just be that I think the grass is greener on the other side. I still feel that my mind should have put me in a different decade. If I'm making it all up, shouldn't I be able to make up I'm a hitchhiker in the 60's, walking down a straight, one lane dirt road? Staring at the sun on the horizon, thumb out to the left. Wearing short shorts and dirty hair grown two years too long. Why can't I imagine that?
There's a procedure, a surgery. Prattson joked and told me they take a nail file and simply file my skull away. It came off as a joke. As I think back he never did go on to tell me the "real" process. I assume that they know what they are doing. He gave me this weekend to decide. Its never been tested before but has been researched for years. He is asking me to go into it with no odds for or against me. No ratios to judge by. No waves of statistics to push me to a shore.
But when the waters all through the dam, all that’s left is doubt to trickle through the concrete cracks. And I begin to wonder, who is Mr. Prattson and what makes him any different than my dead mother?