“I mean, no, not split personality,” I rush to say. “I’m not crazy.” Her eyebrow raises the tiniest bit. Oh god, now I’ve said the one thing that all actually crazy people say. Nice going. Well, if she already thinks I’ve lost it, I might as well try to actually explain things, I guess. “It’s that—well, I dunno, I feel like it’s coming from somewhere else, you know?”

“What do you mean, somewhere else?” she asks calmly, like I’m making any sense at all.

I feel prickly all of a sudden, like there are little tiny ants underneath my skin. It makes me want to jump up and down, but I really would look crazy if I did that, so I just clench and unclench my fists a few times before continuing.

“It used to be that, when I would get mad, I knew what it was about. But now … now it’s like there’s all this stuff that just, like, jumps into my body and makes me go nuts. And it’s too much so I get mad and then when I get on the other side of it, it’s like I wasn’t even there.” I trail off, pulling my fists into my lap and looking at them so that I don’t have to look at her.

“When did this first start happening?” she asks, her voice totally neutral. She’s not mocking me or calling the men in the white coats yet, so … so far so good, I guess.

“I don’t know, a couple of months ago.” I shrug. “I only really noticed it at the start of this semester.”

“Do you get angry a lot?”

“What counts as a lot?” I snap, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. It feels like she’s digging into me and I’m afraid of what might come pouring out.

“Do you feel that your anger gets in the way of your day-to-day life? Or overpowers other emotions?” she asks calmly, not rising to whatever challenge I’m throwing down at her. I deflate and decide to cooperate a little while longer.

“I guess. I mean, I guess it overpowers the other stuff. When I’m mad, that’s all I can think about. But it’s not like I’m walking around super angry all the time, it’s—” I stop myself again, unsure about how much I want to say.

“It’s what?” she prods. Guess I’m not getting out of this. I close my eyes for a second, exhaling loudly, and decide to just let everything come out. Maybe if I do, she’ll stop digging and my skin will stop feeling like Pop Rocks.