When I was only six years old, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia, because of a voice that has haunted me for as long as I can remember. It was a low, malevolent voice, barely a whisper, that called my name in the dark, after I’d gone to bed. “Billyyyyy.”
At least, that’s how it began.
My memory of the early years is hazy at best, but I know when I was very young, it didn’t phase me at all. I thought it may have even been my mother, hushing me to sleep. Whenever I told her about it however, she always gave me this look; it was the same frown she made when I was being silly or I’d done something wrong. When I was four or five, I pieced it together and realised the voice wasn’t normal at all. A little while later, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and prescribed anti-psych meds.
It was around this time I began to be afraid of the voice inside my head. It felt so real to me.
“Billyyyyy.”
“Let me in, Billyyy.”
“I’m hungry, Billyyyyy.”
I would lay awake most nights, silently soaking the sheets in my tears, and sometimes my urine. If it got unbearable, I shouted for mum. She’d come thudding along the hall in her dressing gown and snap the lights on, cradling my weary head in her arms. She was all I had, after dad went away.
One reason I found it so hard to separate the voice from reality, is that I could locate the sound. “Billyyyy.” It wasn’t like it was coming from inside my head at all angles. If I stayed awake and just listened to the noise without focusing on the fear, which to be fair was difficult, I could at least clearly tell where it was coming from.
It was just beyond my bedroom door.
I went through periods where I totally did believe in the voice, where I dreaded bedtime more than death itself. During such times I would steal a knife from the kitchen and hide it under my pillow, just in case the creature or whatever terrifying entity finally decided to break entry.
Or I would try talking to it. Ask it questions. What it was. Why it was tormenting me. I only realised when I was much older how insane I must have sounded to my mother listening in the other room.
Oh, and just in case you’re curious, it never answered me.
I also developed theories about what it could be. At first came the image of a gruff man with a snarling face. Later, inspired perhaps by horror fiction I’d consumed, a pale, slender, androgynous alien.
I told my mother about the theories, but she always said not to dwell on it, since it only gave fuel to my condition. I would do it anyway. I couldn’t help it. When you hear a voice almost every night, it has a habit of consuming a lot of your energy.
I would also discuss my thoughts with a psychiatrist, which I saw fortnightly - or weekly, in times where the condition was out of control. He would always remark how strange it was that my symptoms only presented themselves under very particular situations; when it was dark, after I’d gone to bed, only if I was alone, etc. Since, by the time I was eleven, I’d had multiple friends around and never once heard the voice those nights. And, of course, only ever at night, in bed.
When he asked me why I thought that was, I couldn’t really answer. “Well, unless…”
“Go on…”
Sitting on my psychiatrist’s couch at thirteen years old, a cold shiver snaked its way up my spinal cord and tickled the fear centre of my brain. “No, no. It’s nothing.” I said, staring at the table.
“Go on. What is it?” My psychiatrist leaned a little closer.
“Well, I-I, I mean…” I could barely get the words out. “Unless it was my mother.” And then I added immediately after: “But there’s no way.” And then I said a second later. “ I mean, why would she even do that?” I said, staring into my psychiatrist’s soul for some reassurance.
My psychiatrist - his name was Tom - leaned back on his armchair and stroked his chin. His expression was solemn. Then, after two seconds of contemplation, he slowly leaned in so that his face was halfway across the table. “I’m going to tell you something I’m not sure you’re ready to hear, Bill. But now is as good a time as any.” As he continued, my heart began to race and I could feel sweat forming in my armpits. “I’m going to tell you now what I’ve suspected for the past couple of years, and I’m so sorry, but it’s not going to be easy for you.”
He reached his wrinkly hand over the table and squeezed my shoulder. “I don’t think you have schizophrenia.” I felt sick as he said those words.
“What the hell?” I said, on the verge of tears, absolutely disgusted.
“Bill, I’ve been in this business for over ten years - I’ve known you almost as long - and I’ve grown to respect you and what you’ve had to deal with. And I know it’s unprofessional so forgive me for saying this, but I love you.” He swallowed. “I’ve encountered many clients with your condition. And, while it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that you are indeed suffering from some kind of illness, I believe there may be another explanation.”
“No.” I kept repeating the word over and over again. “No, no, no.” Drowning out the rest of his words, until I finally got up and left.
I remember being outraged for the rest of the week at the pure bile of this sick, misguided old man who I had once deeply respected and trusted. After I explained the experience to my mother, she moved me to another psychiatrist and tried to have Tom struck off. Unfortunately, there was no evidence of what he said to me.
I didn’t hear the voice for almost a year after that. I began to feel much better - like a normal person. I slept much better. Days got sunnier. The dark got brighter. It were as if a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I remember that time so vividly. So filled with sunshine and laughter. Events flowing like a seamless stream. My mother’s smile, and her wavy brown hair swaying in the breeze. Silly jokes with my best friend, and young love - that’s another story altogether.
But, of course, it had to return. I had a mental illness, after all. They don’t just go away like a cut or a bruise. They’re married to you for life. Something Tom clearly never understood despite his years of study in the field.
Soon enough things were back to normal. I would be laying awake, or almost asleep, when that soft, eerie whisper trickled its way under the door. “Billyyyyyy.” And I was plunged back into my nightmares, into terror, isolation.
You might think that the rest of my life wouldn’t have to suffer because of a single voice I heard at night, but you’re wrong. Apart from the fact it tormented me for hours, stunted my sleep and filled me with mortal terror, it also served as a constant reminder that I was different - a freak. I was lonely with the voice, since I couldn’t really talk about it much to anyone, except my mother, who while tried to understand could never truly connect with my suffering on a fundamental level.
I was lonely, afraid and depressed. I attempted suicide, twice. Once by cutting my arms in the shower and another by getting drunk, putting a plastic bag over my head and hanging my neck from the bedroom door handle with a belt. Both times failed because my mother walked in on me.
Being cared for in the hospital was the lowest point in my life, but it brought me to a place of reckoning. Laying on the white bed with stitches in my arms, I told myself, “This time, I will do what I have never done. I’m going to confront this son of a bitch or die trying.”
A tiny part of me warned that my condition was taking ahold, but it was too powerful for me anyway. I had given up trying to control it.
It was that same night in the hospital that I heard the voice again. The son of a bitch was behind the cubicle curtain. I could even see the fucker’s silhouette. “Billyyyyyy.” Its faint and raspy tone came through clearer than ever. “Time to extract your soul, Billyyyyy.” Unfortunately, it walked away before I could pull back the curtain.
When I was back at home a few nights later, I heard the bastard again. “Billyyyyy. I’m getting closer to opening this door, you know. I can’t wait to rip you limb from limb. Billyyyyyyyyyy.”
I gently peeled the covers, snatched a screwdriver I kept under the mattress and tiptoed across my bedroom floorboards. In one fell swoop, I snapped the light switch, retracted my arm and swung the door open, full-force.
I ferociously thrashed into the space beyond, but couldn’t see anything as my eyes were still adjusting to the light. I knew I’d hit something though, because I’d felt it in a big way. Heard it - too.
Finally, I was face-to-face with the creature that had tormented me my entire life.
My mother was knelt down, her forehead impaled by the screwdriver I had flailed moments ago. Her motionless eyes, through streams of blood like thick syrup, stared back with cold malevolence.
It was then I realised what Tom was trying to tell me. What I had suspected myself in flashing moments but dared never admit.
I wasn’t sick. My mother was.