I always felt stressed when my husband left me alone with the children. I hated that he had to leave our home for work. If he could have worked from home, I would have felt more secure. Not even having to talk to him. Not needing anything from him. Him simply existing in the space I was in was enough to reassure me. Reassure me of what exactly, I wasn't sure. Just feeling less alone. Less stuck in my own thoughts. Less afraid. He gave me a kiss before he left that morning.

"When will you be off tonight?" I asked, hoping for the best.

"Eight." He was just as unhappy about it as I was. For different reasons. He just hated working late. I hated him leaving me. Leaving us.

I groaned audibly, "You can't just skip work, can you?" I couldn't explain it. I just felt extra anxious today.

"No, Kimmy." He sighed like he did every time I suggested this exact thing. Which was far more often than I ever really should. Even though he hated work, I was sure he happily went just to get out of the house and away from all of us. He wasn't nearly as clingy as I was. Nor his two year old daughter. She was just as needy as me for his attention. If not more so. If either of us had a way of bribing him to remain with us, we would have done it.

"I understand." I did not understand. Rather, I understood why he needed to go, but not why he was so willing to go. Why was he always so willing to get away. Was it just the kids he liked space from? Or me. Was he tired of being around his crazy wife. Was he tired of how clingy I had become recently? He could have stayed with me if he really wanted to. Especially when he knew how much I needed him. But I let him go. He left me at the front door to see him off. Afterward, I went to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. Hopefully, I would be able to enjoy a cup at least before my children woke up. It was those few quiet moments that I lived for. Peace and quiet. I managed to make myself comfortable in my reclining chair with a book and a hot cup of vanilla coffee. No telling how long it would last, but the effort was what mattered.

"Will you read to me, Mommy?" My son asked after I was only a few paragraphs in. I let out a long sigh. I was reading a mystery novel that would have gone well above his little head anyway. But at the same time, I understood that he simply enjoyed me to read aloud to him. I glanced up from my book to find no one standing in front of me. Either he had asked this question only to run back to his room, or it was... psychosis. I waited few a few brief seconds to see if he would return. Nothing. Alright. Perfect. Psychosis it was. Thankfully, it was only a brief interruption. I returned to my book, even more determined to get into it if nothing but to spite my own psyche.

That was when I heard my husband's voice from down the hall. "Did you take your medication today?" My heart stopped in my chest. I froze like a deer in headlights for what seemed like ages before I lowered my book to peer towards the hallway. I heard that as clear as ever. No mistake about it. It was as if my husband never left. What made it even more frightening was that I definitely had forgotten to take my medication. But for some reason, I was rooted in my chair. Fear kept me pinned in place as if I was terrified to peer down the hall just to see a ghost or something there.

It's only your own mind playing tricks on you. You miss your husband. You wish he was here. Your brain has inserted him here as a matter of coping with being alone.

At least, that was what I tried to tell myself. This must have been my brain's manner of coping rather than a ghost or demon using my husband's voice to lure me into some kind of trap. What kind of trap could there even be? For what purpose? To kill me? Ridiculous. A powerful entity wouldn't need some silly trap to kill me. They would just do it.

It took me talking myself down a bit, but I was finally able to pry myself up from the chair. Real or imaginary– it was correct. I did need to take my medication. I started quietly down the hall, careful not to wake the children. I came to my nightstand and opened up one of my pill bottles to collect my prescription only to notice a folded piece of paper was inside, along with my medication. Strange. I slid my fingers into the bottle and took hold of the small, purple piece of paper. When I unfolded it, I found it was a post-it note. A post-it note that read in my own writing, "𝓓𝓸𝓷'𝓽 𝓽𝓪𝓴𝓮 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓹𝓲𝓵𝓵𝓼!"

I froze again. What? How? When? Why would I have left this note for myself? I certainly didn't remember writing this. Let alone why I did. How very odd. I stared at the note for several minutes in confusion while my stomach twisted into anxious knots. Maybe my husband wrote it? Maybe he somehow copied my handwriting as a prank? Maybe he was just trying to scare me? That was ridiculous. He wasn't the type to play pranks. Especially one like this. So, did I really write it and forget? My children were all too young to have done this. Why would I want for myself not to take my prescription? It just made no sense.

I thought on it for a moment longer. Trying to wrap my mind around it. I looked over my pills. Was there something wrong with them? They were the same ones from earlier. I checked both bottles. There was the same note staring back at me from both. Somebody, or me, made extra effort for me to see these. Maybe I would talk to my doctor about it. They could reassure me. Then I thought of how dumb that would be trying to explain it. Ultimately, I made the executive decision to simply take my daily prescription. It was supposed to help me with the voices. I had to weigh that with any paranoia I now had concerning my medication. I had no reason not to keep up with it except for the two notes. Two notes I never remembered writing. I crumbled the post-it notes into tight balls and tossed them into the trash.

I kept myself busy for the day. Keeping my mind focused on chores was one of the only ways I was able to leave my troubling thoughts for a moment. Laundry was a constant throughout the day. Then, I needed to go down my checklist of daily chores to make sure I hadn't missed anything. I had divided the house into different days of the week. Today was the day I needed to clean out the refrigerator and make sure the kitchen and the appliances were all cleaned and wiped down. I would need to dust and wipe the lights on the ceiling as well.

All of this, while also feeding and changing the baby. She loved to be held nonstop. Which put me in an awkward position often. Trying to fold laundry with one arm and a baby on my hip. My older children could play amongst themselves for the most part, but still asked for things throughout the day. Mostly snacks, drinks, to watch a certain movie, for me to read to them, to help them with whatever toy they were playing with, etc. It was often that I would need to stop my daily projects and tend to their needs. A mother's job is never completed. There was always something our children needed from us.

By the time my husband returned from work, I was worn out. He noticed that I was feeding our infant, so he took it upon himself to start dinner. I was so grateful when he stepped up with initiative to help me in any way around the house. Cooking was my least favorite thing to do, but a necessity. I was a horrible cook. I was capable of burning water. Actually had at one point in the past, but that is a story for another time. Whereas, my husband was quite the chef. He grew up in a home where he had the opportunity and guidance to properly make meals. I preferred his cooking over mine. I am sure all of us did.

Tonight was a simple spaghetti night. As we gathered around the table to eat, I felt someone tug on my ponytail from behind. I whipped my head around to see if my hair had simply caught on something. There was nothing there. Meanwhile, everyone at the table looked at me strangely.

"You good?" My husband smiled, thinking perhaps that I was the prankster in this scenario.

"I felt someone pull my hair." I kept looking behind me and stroking my own hair, trying to recreate the feeling for myself. As if that would somehow clear it all up. I know what I felt. It wasn't a trick of my mind. It was someone full-on touching and tugging back on my hair. I couldn't have imagined that.

"Maybe it was the air conditioning blowing your hair?" He suggested. That was frustrating to hear. As if I couldn't tell the difference? It reminded me of those scenes you'd see in a videogame. When you shoot a guard and slip back into hiding. The guard asks, "What was that?" After not seeing the player upon a quick search, even with an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, the guard will say, "must have been the wind."

"No," I tried to explain, "It was hard. Deliberate. Like someone had a full grip on my ponytail."

"Did you take your medication today?" He said his famous and predictable line.

"Yes." I told him honestly, "Feeling my hair being pulled isn't a hallucination. That was.." I wasn't even sure what to call it. Crazy? I wondered if he even believed me half the time when I experienced these things, "Different." I finally settled for that.

"That's never happened before." He pointed out. My children were so focused on their food that they ignored our conversation. I preferred it. My husband already thought I was crazy. I didn't want my children to ever think the same. Maybe I should start keeping my experiences from my husband, too. Make him think I am all better and "normal" again.

"No, it hasn't." I agreed. Maybe I was just overreacting. Maybe that was just the air kicking on, and I felt the breeze of it flowing past my hair. That made way more sense. All of this was in my head anyway. Add that with paranoia, and it was so easy for me to make mountains out of molehills. This wasn't something I should be concerned with. Something I shouldn't be concerning anyone else with either. I would be telling my husband a lot less moving forward. It wasn't his problem anyway. All I had to do was make it for another year or so. This was a postpartum condition. Given time and patience, it would resolve itself, and everything would go back to how it used to be two years ago. That was the hope, anyway.