Admitting to being strange is like admitting to your mother of a lie you told of what really happened on a night out with your friends; even though it brings many consequences, it can never override the fact that it feels good. My kind of strange is not the kind you can pick off a shelf in a supermarket or rent for a few hours. My strange is the one that’s mental; to look completely "normal" on the outside but in reality there are jigsaw pieces that don't quite fit together. That's my life, a representation of the mixed match puzzle pieces forming nothing but an array of mess. Most people have different reactions that coincide to the same conclusion; that my teenage hormones are the things messing me up inside. Don't get me wrong I know my hormones have a tendency to cause chaos throughout my body, but my mental stability is not affected that way. I believe that for them coming to the simplest of conclusions may seem like a way of comforting me, but in all truthfulness it makes them feel better to say I'm not "crazy". Whatever. Let them think what they want but I can assure you that if they were to try being in my shoes for one day, they'd fall the first step. They don't know what it likes to feel and hear and see things that aren't there. The mentality of a person is like being in a void. For some it's simple and easy and they can navigate through it without any doubt. But for others, like me for example, it's much more complicated than that. These people cannot navigate the void and if they try, many obstacles block the way. My void used to be silent; I liked it silent. It gave me time to think and be still. Time to feel the space around me; to become the void rather than to navigate it. That was before the voices came. They were quiet at first; merely whispers murmuring in the distance and then they grew louder and louder until my own thoughts were drowned out. I could no longer be still. Think. Become the void. No matter how hard I tried the voices seemed only to get louder and I had no other choice but to navigate the void. Hadn't I realised sooner that someone like me could not navigate the void? In my trying I ended up to where I am now. Lost, empty, surrounded by the shadows and shouts of the voices. Though I'm not afraid anymore; the void has a way of changing you, forming you into something that doesn't try to overcome it, but adapt to it. Then after a while you don't just adapt to the void, you become what's wrong with you. You are the voices or the shadows. You cannot seem to separate fantasy from reality; you know it's not real but in your mind, to you, it's as evident as the hairs on your head. That's what people are afraid to admit about mental illness. That it is real. There are so many hidden depths to it that seem to frighten the "mentally stable". They don't like the idea that their perfect voids could turn against them at any point in their lives. So they pinpoint mental illness as an imperfection or an ugly flaw. But they're so wrong. Mental illness is beautiful; now I do sound crazy but it's beautiful because it makes fantasy become reality. People who are "mentally ill" have a way of contacting to fantasy while still being in the real world. My senses are both active in the real and fantasy world. Mental people are not a drawback in the human race; they are more highly developed than the norm. There will be a day when mental illness is not studied so it can be ridded of, but rather so it can be furthered and used. I guess, until then I can hide in my void where the voices are the only silence I can hear.