Alice’s Wonderland Syndrome

"Is it just me, or is the sun swallowing up the sky?" A little girl with blonde hair and looking-glass eyes squinted against the searing light that only she seemed affected by. "It's gotten quite large. I can't even see the floating sheep above us anymore."

Her mother, with a wide-brimmed hat obscuring her cat-like eyes, sighed. "It is just you, Alice. We must find you a new shrink, dear... one that doesn't smoke a pipe indoors or rush around with a broken wristwatch. A normal one to make you normal."

"But I liked both Dr. Caterpillar and Dr. Hare, Cheshire-mum." Alice whined.

"Why must you call everyone an animal?" Her mother asked her for what felt like the umpteenth time.

"Because you all look like some, even ones I make up. Like Jabberwork-father and Brownie-brother!"

She's as mad as a hatter. They walked into the office's waiting room.

"This room's very small." The girl struggled move any further, her guardian having to push her through the door and make her sit down.

"Alice, please just stay here and-" her mother glanced down to the table before them. "Have some of those biscuits and juice. They won't take long, I hope..."

The girl followed her eyes to the tray with snacks on napkins and cups, a label reading "take one of each" in front of it. She picked up the juice and sipped, kicking her legs about.

Her eyes widened as she suddenly looked around wildly. "Oh, the room is normal now. I shrinked, mother!"

"Uh-huh." Alice's mum was reading a magazine, trying to ignore the concerned looks her daughter was getting from the receptionist. "That's wonderful, sweetie."

The girl only got louder when she bit into one of the biscuits. "I'm big again! Is the room changing, or am I changing?"

Neither, the mother thought, flipping a page. I've raised a crazy.

"Carroll, Alice," the receptionist, who was seen as a butterfly in the girl's eyes, called out.

The mother grabbed her hand and led her to an office. As soon as they entered this next red-themed room, Mrs. Caroll heard a splash and thud next to her. Alice had dropped her snacks on the carpeted floor.

"Pardon her," she began as her daughter hollered, "Evil Queen of Hearts!"

"Let's see: visual and sensory hallucinations involving micro, macro, pelo, and teleopsia, frequent migraines, insomnia, loss of sense of time, paranoia outbursts of emotion when distortions are denied..." Their newest psychiatrist was already taking detailed notes of Alice's condition as she stab her with a pen from her desk.

"I know exactly what your daughter has, and it shares her name too." The 'Queen', Dr. Ducksworth, swiftly took the pen from the girl's hand and lightly pushed her into a seat across from her desk. "It is known as Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, a neurological condition that usually occurs in children and can disappear in adolescence."

"Are her made-up names for everyone- including you, I'm sorry- also a symptom?" Her mother had done a little research on the Syndrome, but hadn't connected the dots to her daughter so quickly.

"Oh, dear no." The doctor smiled. "That is simple childhood imagination, not any other kind of illness. However, this AiW Syndrome most likely makes her daydreams all the more vivid, even more so towards loved ones in her life."

Mrs. Caroll had to continue to restrain Alice from "beheading the Evil Queen" as she asked, "And what is the treatment?"

"In the common childhood case your daughter has, we can wait and watch it go away own," The psychiatrist answered. "However, if the Syndrome is getting in the way of her development, I can perscribe certain medications or even hyp-"

"NO!" Alice was at full volume again. "The Queen is trying to poison me, Cheshire-mum!"

Her mother leaned forward in her seat, speaking quietly now. "I'd like to look at the alternatives to waiting, Dr. Duckworth."

The doctor nodded in response.

As they continued their conversation just out of Alice earshot, she stared off and kept mumbling to herself, "Is it just me, or are the clouds now farther away than the sun? Is it just me, or do the trees look smaller? Is it just me..."