[ WP ] After a disturbing experience a psychiatrist starts to question their own sanity .

I turned around. 
 
 Fifteen years of this job, fifteen years of looking at everyone else's head, and I have n't ever considered to look behind me. 
 
 It's just my shadow. I suppose. Sometimes I see the people I've helped, the people who have gone on their way... most have just had a few minor issues, something common and normal... and I do n't suppose what I have right now is common or normal. 
 
 They used to call people with my job an alienist. Someone who works with alienation. Sometimes, I wonder how people who are alienated really feel, if they can feel the blood oscillating perpetually across their faces like a brigade of marching oxygenated soldiers, advancing, retreating, advancing, and retreating. I can feel my blood in absolute waves. 
 
 It was three days ago that this happened. Three days since I've slept, three days since I've breathed with a calm and pacific mind, collected as I commonly am. 
 Three days ago I saw a whisper and heard a buzzing of lights behind me, some odd and lysergic muddling of senses that I do n't really know how to classify with my disoriented state at the moment. 
 
 I've ruled out all of the other possibilities - I'm not ill, that I am certain of, and I am certainly not dreaming ( although if I were I'd be concerned similarly ) because there is a certain odd lucidity about me that is n't remotely dreamlike. I have n't consumed anything of questionable value. Thus I've concluded in finality, that I am in some way entirely insane. Yet somehow, I realize this, which disorients me to even further heights. 
 
 There is nothing behind me. I've turned back around to my desk and my mirror, and I see only myself.
