transitions

So I spent 8 days in a psychiatric ward.

In some ways, my entire world has been erased and re-written on crisp white paper. People know the truth now. The people who matter. I don't have to hide all of my struggles anymore.

Everything is different.

But I am still the same.

In my follow-up appointment with a psychiatrist, I had my medication switched from Prozac to Zoloft. Two weeks into the Prozac and I became an apathetic hollow empty shell of a human being. I hated it, but I couldn't seem to muster much emotion. Or any at all. I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't care. I was so tired all the time.

It was exactly like being horribly, horribly depressed.

So my doctor switched my medication. So far the Zoloft seems to be a little better? It's hard to tell. I've only been taking it for half a week. So far I've mostly felt a tiny bit less drowsy and much more nauseous and restless.

Sounds great, right?

But I do feel a little less numb. I just hope that doesn't go away in the next two weeks when the medication really starts kicking in.

I've never been on medication before.

And to be honest, so far it's mostly scared me.

I know I feel things too much. My emotions swing too far. They get out of control. I get out of control. It's not safe.

But I would rather feel everything too intensely than feel nothing at all.

I haven't given up hope. I know this is a tricky process, finding the right medication. I know there's lots of options. I know I have to be patient.

I'm afraid I'll never be happy without the help of drugs.

I'm afraid I'll lose important parts of me with my emotions. Like my creativity. My imagination.

I'm afraid I'll never find the right medication and I'll be a zombie for the rest of my life.

I had a nightmare the other night. I dreamed that I was reading the side effects of Zoloft and one of them was "uncontrollable eating." And I completely panicked because I was sure that Zoloft was going to make me lose all of my self control and gain back all the fat I'd lost. I woke up in a cold sweat. I had to look up the side effects online before I could convince myself it was a dream.

The nightmares we have, right?

I know this is going to sound slightly crazy, but I feel like a part of me, ok a large part of me, is grieving the loss of my intense emotions. I actually had a mild panic attack about it shortly after coming home. I felt like I didn't know who I was anymore, and to some extent, I still feel that way. These emotions, for better or for worse (mostly worse), have been such a huge part of my life for at least sixteen years. They were with me as I grew up and became the person I am. It's like someone cut off my arms and legs.

Sometimes I feel like my brain is trying really hard to find ways to still feel anxious and depressed. To somehow get around the drugs.

Sometimes I feel like I am totally crazy.

The Mr. has remained a constant shoulder for me to lean on. He's been amazing. Amazing is such a stupid way to describe it, but there aren't really any better words in the English language. He prompts me gently to talk, to keep from bottling everything up. He asks me what I'm thinking about. He listens. He doesn't try to fix it.

The hardest thing is food.

It's always food.

The Mr. has been great about that too. He doesn't push me to eat. He lets me eat my safe foods. He compromises. We have a shit ton of vitamins now. All gummy ones. Because we are secretly little kids at heart. He's been so patient.

But it's so hard.

I've been eating more often. Small amounts of things, but more frequently. This makes it harder to not eat more. It makes it almost impossible to skip meals. Which was how I would punish myself for eating too much. Or what I would do to plan for eating out with friends.

I feel out of control.

I talk to the Mr. now. I do. I tell him the truth. I don't hide it when I don't eat a lot or I skip meals. And it is a huge relief to not have to sneak around my own house. But at the same time, I hate putting this burden on him. I hate being needy. I hate feeling whiny. I hate feeling weak. I hate showing him this side of me. It's so ugly.

So far I haven't cut again. But I've wanted to.

They warned me in the hospital, over and over, that after you've cut once, the odds are staggering that you will do it again.

And I've wanted to.

Wanted to punish myself for eating certain things. For eating too much. For eating at all.

The Mr. put the hair cutting scissors out of sight. As well as my exacto knife and my pin cushion full of needles. He leaves work early to get home before I do. He goes into work late so he leaves at the same time as me. We make plans for me to hang out with my siblings or friends if he has to be gone.

I see all of this. I see what he does for me. What he has to do for me. And I feel both overwhelmed with love and guilt.

My head is a bramble patch. I don't know which way is up.

You see? In so many ways, I am still the same.

I got a stern talking to from the psychiatrist about not starting any therapy yet. And I know she's right. I can't just take some drugs and be magically cured. My head is far too messed up for that.

I did finally get the courage to contact that treatment center, the one for eating disorders. The initial assessment, that first appointment alone, costs almost $900.

I've been denied health insurance for my pre-existing conditions. I could get a special (really expensive) health insurance, but it won't cover any treatment for my pre-existing conditions for six months.

I know a lot of people are angry about Obamacare, but it will literally be saving my life. We can struggle by until January when the new health initiatives go into effect. And then I will finally be able to get health insurance. So I can continue to get help. So I don't kill myself.

The Mr. is determined that I will get whatever help I need, no matter the cost. So I did it. I signed up for that initial assessment. I also signed up for something called Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Both things strongly recommended by my psychiatrist at the hospital. I made the appointments today.

My first therapy session is Wednesday. This Wednesday. As in, the day after tomorrow.

My initial assessment for an eating disorder is October 14.

I am so scared.

I'm so certain the treatment center people will laugh at me. I know it's stupid, but it's just the plain blunt truth. I do not think I'm skinny enough to go to a treatment center for people with eating disorders. I honestly, genuinely believe that I need to lose at least 15 more pounds first.

I know I'm not the only person who feels that way.

Why do we create these mind games? These sick, twisted beauty pageants where the winner dies first?

I don't know.

I keep losing weight. Slowly. And I'm so thankful for that.

My parents are coming next weekend to visit.

I am the skinniest I've been since my senior year of highschool. When I was anorexic.

It still feels like it's not enough.

What else? Work? My first day back (1.5 days after being discharged), I walked in the door, looked at my boss, and burst into tears.

She handled it really well. I am seriously so lucky to have my boss. She struggled with depression, so she understands to a certain extent. She gave me a huge hug, a beautiful bouquet of flowers, and helped me transition slowly back into working.

But it's still hard. I get really anxious Sunday nights, the work week looming before me. It's so hard, now that I've shown so many people the truth, to wrestle that happy smiley mask back on. It's exhausting.

I worry that people will think that since I've been discharged that I'm "cured."

When really, I still can't honestly say that I'm ok.

Sometimes I feel ok.

Sometimes I wish I could lie down, close my eyes, and never ever wake back up.

I want to die.

Then I feel happy. I laugh. I smile.

I want to live.

The next moment I'm overwhelmed. Floundering.

But I'm not alone. There are people helping hold me up now. And they keep promising me that they won't let go. Even if I never change.

So I'll just keep holding on.

my life in a psychiatric ward pt. 3

And so the days continued.

“A couple of days” turned into more.

I talked. I went to groups. I laughed at Trey. I shared with Bill. I listened to Mia. I talked with Marie. I took my meds.

I picked at my food.

Trey watched me trying to eat a salad one afternoon with raised eyebrows. I was picking off vegetables with my fingers, one at a time, chewing each one at least twenty times.

“It’s going to take you ten years to finish that.” He glared at me, shuffling a deck of cards. We were supposed to be playing cards, but I couldn’t make myself eat any faster.

There was a scale in the lounge, but I wasn’t sure if I could use it. I wanted to use it. It was killing me that I had no idea how much I weighed. At home, I weighed myself every single morning. And now I had no idea where my weight was.

I had to meet with a dietician. I told her I had “safe foods.” She tried to talk to me about it for a while, and I was sort of cooperating. She told me I could write in anything I wanted on the menu and they would send it to me if they had it.

“You can even order double portions or two things if you want to try a little of each.” She smiled.

I forced a smile back and nodded back like I was totally alright with that. With requesting even more food. The very thought of it made me feel sick with panic.

Then she mentioned a treatment program for people with eating disorders. She asked if I would start therapy there after I was discharged. That’s when I closed up.

I met with a psychologist another day, bright and early in the morning. I hadn’t even had any coffee. I was immediately crabby about it. The psychologist was probably my age and pretty. I curled up in my chair and tried not to glare at her. She didn’t have any questions for me really, she was just there to listen if I wanted to talk. I thought about saying I didn’t want to talk, but then suddenly I was.

I talked about my mother. How she wanted to make sure no one knew where I was. That led into my childhood. And it just all came out. And she listened. She wasn’t like the school counselor I had seen in college. I don’t know why it was different, but it was. I talked for almost two hours without even realizing it.

And it was good.

It was really good.

I found out I could use the scale. I waited until the lounge was mostly empty, no witnesses. Then I weighed myself. 115 lbs exactly. I walked away, smiling.

Then it was Friday. My doctor informed me that they would be checking back in on Monday. My hopes of being discharged before the weekend were crushed. I begged for my status to be changed so I could go on the daily walk outside. He studied me, and then granted me a tiny change in status. I couldn’t go on the walk, but I could go with a group to the gym if I wanted to.

I was excited about that. I was. But I hadn’t been outside in days and days and it was killing me.

So I went to the gym. We followed our chaperone through the maze of the hospital, past curious stares. I found myself hiding behind my hair again. I was wearing my scrubs and sandals. They were the only shoes I had to wear.

Because shoelaces are not allowed.

I didn’t care too much about my shoes. I walked on a treadmill and stared at the beautiful sunshine out the window and tried not to cry. I just wanted to be outside. I would have been ok with five security guards. They could handcuff me for all I cared. I just wanted to feel the wind on my face. To breathe.

At the gym I met a guy my age named Noah. He hopped on the treadmill next to me, grinning cheekily. “Let’s go on a walk!” He said in some sort of accent. Scottish? Irish? I couldn’t place it, but it startled a smile out of me.

We talked for a while. He told me he wanted to burn all the hospitals to the ground. He smiled so nicely as he said it. I had no idea how to respond. So he kept going. He didn’t think he had any problems. He wanted to get out. He hated hospitals. He wanted them to leave him alone.

I told him if it hadn’t been for this hospital, I would have killed myself.

“Oh.” He said, a little taken aback. We walked quietly for a while. Then he asked me what kind of music I liked.

Noah became my workout buddy. We walked on the treadmills every day. Sometimes he said rather frightening, startling things. Most of the time we talked about things like music or movies or hobbies. Sometimes we were just silent, which suited me fine.

I had visitors every single night. The Mr. never missed a day. My siblings came a few more times. My best friends. Some other friends surprised me. Not very many other people received visitors. I felt guilty about that, so eventually I stopped hiding my friends and family in corners and sat at the main tables in the lounge. Marie joined us often, telling my friends over and over about her book and how she didn’t talk to young people very often, but her goal was to change that. We played cards and board games and colored pictures.

I told my best friends some more of the truth. I told them that I struggled with food, which was a monumental step. I told the Mr. about the dietician recommending the eating disorder treatment center. He didn’t push me, but he gently encouraged me to think about it.

Friday night was hard. After my visitors left, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I was locked in a psych ward on a Friday night. I could have been home with the Mr. I could have been out with my friends. If only I’d just fucking….got it together. Stopped being so fucked up. Why couldn’t I stop being so fucked up?

Why can’t I?

So I sat down and I tried to read, but I ended up writing instead. And here I am. Left with the same question I started with. Why can’t I just stop being so fucked up?

….

It’s been almost two weeks now since I was discharged from the hospital.

But that Friday night still feels like yesterday.

That weekend was rough. I remember it clearly. All day Saturday I felt like I was in an escalating state of panic. To the point where I came close to trying to cut my arms up with my comb, but Bill’s warning kept ringing in my head.

Hospitals are hard.

You want to be honest. You’re supposed to be honest. But sometimes being honest will land you in a worse situation. Like in the other side of Orange 8, the ICU.

I asked Trey why the ward was split up one of those first days. I could see patients on the other side through the nurses’ station, but they were kept separated from us.

“That’s the ICU. That’s where all the really crazy people are.” He’d whispered.

I didn’t want them to take away my comb. Or take me away from my room, my nice roommate, and put me in the ICU with all the really crazy people.

I watched it happen to another patient.

He was admitted right before the weekend. He was always withdrawn, but he had a lot of visitors. On my last night (Monday night), he freaked out over taking one of his pills. I was sitting in the lounge, reading, listening to music over the wireless headphones you could use, when I was startled by a loud crash. I looked up to see the nursing staff advancing towards me, speaking very urgently. I took off the headphones to realize that patient was right behind me, throwing chairs. The nurses were yelling at me to get to my room to stay safe.

I scrambled into my room, shutting the door and standing in the darkness and watching out the window. The patient ended up right in front of my door. He kept shouting in broken English that this was a mental health hospital, and he did not have any mental health problems.

Six huge security guards showed up and escorted him into the ICU where I’m sure he was sedated. And that’s where he stayed. I never saw him again.

I know they had to do it. He could have easily hurt someone. He could have easily hurt me. But he didn’t. And I don't’ think he would have. But I can’t prove that. It’s just a feeling, and it could easily be wrong.

Still though. There were times when I felt like throwing chairs.

Trey was discharged before the weekend. “You’re gonna miss me once I’m gone.” He told me the day he left. I rolled my eyes at him, but he was right. Mia left the same day. And I missed them both.

So I started hanging out with Bill and Marie more. Both at least 30+ years older than me.

Bill and I wrote silly poetry together. Each of us taking four lines. I love reading and writing, but I’ve always despised poetry. Bill used to teach creative writing, so he was not put off my declaration of hatred. And I actually really enjoyed it. It was fantastical and imaginative and calming.

And when we weren’t writing, we talked. Particularly about the difficulties of using science to treat something like depression.

We both hated being asked the question, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how are you feeling today?”

Bill told me he stopped answering that question how they wanted him to and started answering it honestly, like saying “I feel teal today.”

I loved his answers. They always confused the nurses, but they made so much more sense to me.

Honestly, trying to catalogue the complicated messy mass of my emotions into a number is one of the most ridiculous things I have ever experienced.

Marie asked me a lot about the Mr. She slowly revealed throughout the week that her husband was terribly abusive. Which broke my heart.

“You’re best friends aren’t you?” She asked me one night after the Mr. left.

“Yes.” I answered simply. Because we are.

She looked off into the distance for a while. “I think that’s important.” She finally said quietly.

I do too.

I got braver. I talked to more patients, listened to their stories. There was always something I could relate to. Most of them were sad, desperate, lonely tales.

That Saturday, after I forced myself to put my comb back down, I sat in the lounge and folded about a dozen origami paper cranes. Just to give my fingers something to do that wasn’t destructive. The paper was bright and cheerful, so I ended up giving most of them away to other patients. I saw a few of them carrying those little birds around with them wherever they went.

Monday morning I got a new doctor. My favorite, the physician’s assistant or resident intern or whatever the hell they’re called, his “rotation” in the psych ward was over. I’d known this. He’d prepared me, but I was not prepared for the woman I got Monday morning.

First of all, she informed me that the 600 question personality test, the test that had taken me two hours to complete, had come back invalid.

I blinked at her. Invalid?

What the hell does that mean?

“Did you not understand the questions?” She asked, and I could hear the patronizing in her voice.

“I understood them.” I said tightly. “I answered them all honestly.”

Which was the truth.

I still don’t understand how I somehow failed their personality test, but it made Bill laugh so hard he cried, so I don’t mind so much now.

Then she tried to talk to me about my eating. Her brilliant solution? Just eat! Just eat and everything will be fine!

I stopped talking.

The meeting did not go very well. I was in a dark mood afterwards, certain that I’d just sentenced myself to another week in this place. So I was shocked later that morning when the doctor asked me how I felt about being discharged tomorrow.

How did I feel? I felt excited.

And terrified.

I told the doctor, yes. Yes, I would like to be discharged.

I will be honest, the majority of that decision was made up of a desperation to get outside.

I felt really anxious afterwards. I was terrified that I would struggle with wanting to cut myself. I was afraid of facing my boss. Of dealing with the real world and all it’s expectations again.

I talked to the psychologist again. I actually requested her. And that helped. I told her that I was considering the eating disorder treatment center. She said she thought that would be good. I told her my fear of being laughed at, of not being skinny enough. You know. If you’ve ever struggled with food, you know. She told me that if the therapist did that, I was to report that person’s name so she could get them fired.

And then it was Tuesday. Discharge Day.

I packed up all my stuff. Origami birds, art projects, poems, and everything. I collected all my belongings. Things I hadn’t thought about all week. Like my purse. Wallet. Makeup.

They gave me my meds. And instructions for going to the walk in psychiatry clinic within a week to get set up with a permanent doctor. Then the Mr. was there, and I was saying tearful goodbyes to the nurses, to the patients, and then we walked out those double locked doors.

I ripped off my armbands on the way to the elevator. All the people were overwhelming. As soon as I stepped outside into the fresh air, I started crying. I cried the entire way to the parking garage. The Mr. just held my hand and smiled.

It was chillier now. It felt like fall. But we drove with the windows down anyways because I couldn’t get enough of the breeze.

And here I am. Back in the real world. And that transition has been wonderful, horrible, terrifying, overwhelming, stressful, and beautiful. I’ll write more about that later.

For now know that I'm not ok, but I am alive.

my life in a psychiatric ward pt. 2

I woke up in my room in Orange 8, panicked without knowing why. The blankets tangled around me as I bolted up. I was damp with sweat again and shivering. My roommate’s bed was empty. I stood up, blinking past my dry contacts for the second morning in a row, and went into our little bathroom.

The door was like the bathroom in the Emergency Room, one that didn’t reach the floor or the ceiling. I felt awkward about everyone being able to see my feet. Then I realized that the door not only didn’t lock, it didn’t even latch. It barely stayed shut, stubbornly staying open a tiny crack. Again there were no toilet roll holders, no sink faucet, no toilet handle. Everything was made of green plastic. The water in the sink came out of a hole like a drinking faucet. There were buttons to turn the water on and to flush.

Our toilet was slightly quieter than the Emergency Room toilet, but only slightly.

I could not stop shivering. My damp scrubs stuck to me. I had no idea what time it was. I could hear the tv in the lounge. What day was it? Wednesday? I’d been wearing these scrubs since Monday afternoon. I exited the bathroom, collected my tiny towel, generic bottle of “Hair and Body Wash,” and slunk over to the nurse’s station where I found out it was 7:00 am.

“Hi Kay! I’m Amy! I’m your nurse!” A girl about my age said cheerfully. I tried not to wince.

“Um, hi.” I said, low, my voice hoarse from sleep and last night's emotion. “Can I use the shower?”

Turns out my roommate was in the shower. I retreated to my bed, where I sat shivering, waiting for her to get out so I could get in. When she finally walked back in our room, her shoulder length hair sticking in every direction, she jumped when she saw me sitting on my bed.

“Good morning!” She chirped in her frail little voice. Her eyes were wide, giving her the impression of a gangly, startled bird. “Did I wake you up?”

“No.” I reassured her, although I wasn’t sure if that was the truth or not. Then I darted out to find my nurse.

I had three shower stalls to choose from, big open, tiled rooms with a shower head sticking out of the wall. Another button to turn the water on. It would run for about five minutes and then shut off.

“You’re going to want to let it run for a while.” My nurse warned me. “It takes a while to heat up.”

She finally left after informing me that they would knock on the door during rounds, and that I would have to yell that I was ok. Otherwise, they would come in and check on me. I accepted all this with a dull sort of numbness. By this time I was pretty used to not being trusted with myself.

As soon as the door latched behind her, I stripped out of my scrubs and stepped under the water. It was already hot, thanks to my roommate, and it felt like heaven. I stood there for a long time, my eyes closed, slowly starting to feel human again. The water shut off, and I pushed the button again. I examined the two arm bands I was wearing, one white and one orange with my information printed on it, wondering if they were waterproof. They seemed to hold up alright.

The cuts on wrist were looking better. The swelling had gone down, leaving angry red lines. The cuts on my legs were deeper and sported thicker scabs.

The knock came as I was washing my hair. “I’m all right!” I obediently yelled.

They had given me back my clothes, but I felt weird about wearing shorts. So I dressed in clean scrubs and socks and put my zip up hoodie on over top. I blow dried my hair under a hand dryer conveniently mounted high up on the wall. I didn’t even bother brushing my long hair. It dried half wavy and half bushy. I didn’t really care.

Did I mention the socks? They had rubber grippy things on the bottom, like the socks you used to wear when you were a kid. They were also completely square. I’m not sure if their creator had ever actually seen a human foot.

By the time I left the bathroom, most of the patients were sitting at the tables behind the lounge chairs, waiting for breakfast to arrive. I slunk past them back to my room to put my toiletries away. My roommate was back on her bed, curled up, facing the wall. I took a couple deep breaths, and then ventured out again in search of coffee.

I kept my head down, my long hair acting as an effective shield. I slipped into the snack room and grabbed a styrofoam cup, added one Sweet Life packet, and two powdered creamer packets. As I was pouring coffee in, two young girls approached me. They had badges on, but they looked nervous. I didn’t look at them.

“Hi.” Said the closest one, smiling brightly at me.

I glanced at them. Yep. They were talking to me. I mumbled something that sort of passed for a greeting.

They introduced themselves. They were medical students. They would be here observing and working with the patients for a couple days.

Great.

I let my hair fall over my face again and stirred my coffee methodically for way too long. I did not want to talk to chipper med students who were definitely younger than I was about how I am a sad depressed failure of a human being.

They tried to make small talk for a little while. I answered like a robot. They finally left me alone. I hid in my room again.

Way to look like a crazy person. I thought wryly as I curled up in my nook with my coffee and fought a mad desire to laugh. Or maybe cry. 

Because I am a crazy person.

Breakfast rolled in, a big metal box full of trays. My roommate rose from her bed and moved like a sleepwalker out of the room. I sat for a second, the thought of food making my stomach twist. Then I followed.

I wasn’t sure what to do. It looked like people were just grabbing trays and sitting down. So that’s what I did. I sort of numbly grabbed a tray and sat down. I opened the hot plate to discover two strips of bacon. I closed it again. There was a strawberry yogurt. I opened that and tried a bite. That’s when I noticed the receipt on the tray.

The receipt that had a name on it that wasn’t mine.

Shit. I just took someone else’s breakfast.

I wished the floor would swallow me whole. This was like middle school all over again, and I was the kid who wet her pants in gym class.

I stood up and walked over to a nurse, any nurse. “I’m sorry.” I said, my voice strangely detached. “I just took someone else’s breakfast. I didn’t know how it worked.”

The nurse was very nice about it. He found my tray, gave the patient the tray I had stolen, minus her yogurt. My actual breakfast was scrambled eggs and hashbrowns, a banana, orange juice, and milk. I drank some of the milk, and then put the tray back on the cart, hoping no one had noticed I hadn’t eaten any of it.

I got a second cup of coffee, and tried to retreat to my room again, but my nurse caught me first. She took my vitals and gave me my morning medication. Birth control and something for acid reflux. I vaguely remembered telling the doctor last night that I took those two medications every day. I swallowed them obediently down, and shook my head when she asked if I was hearing any voices or seeing anything no one else could see.

That was now the fourth or fifth time I’d been asked that question since coming into the hospital, but it was still weird. What if I was? How would I know? What if I was hallucinating this nurse asking me if I was seeing or hearing anything no one else could? And did anyone ever answer that question with yes?

She told me that I would meet with my doctor later that day, and that I should try to go to as many groups as possible. She showed me where the group schedule was. She left me there, trying to read it. I suddenly couldn’t remember what day it was, and the words were swimming all around in my head, making no sense. I gave up and wandered over one of the vinyl chairs. The tv was still talking about Syria. The white haired patient was still glued to the screen.

Someone plopped down in the chair next to me. I looked up, startled, to see the young guy with two black eyes.

“Hey.” He said, one eyebrow raised, a cocky smile playing across his face. “I’m Trey.”

“Hey.” I whispered back, watching him warily. “I’m Kay.”

“So what are you in here for?” He asked curiously, his swollen and bruised eyes never leaving my face.

I swallowed, but I was a little more prepared for that question this time. “I tried to kill myself.” I said, low.

“What?” He yelped, surprise and alarm crossing his face. I blinked at him, startled again. “But you’re so pretty!”

I blinked again.

Then I burst out laughing.

I’m so pretty? Seriously? Shit, if only I had realized I was pretty! All my problems would be over! I wouldn’t be depressed! I could live happily ever after!

He grinned at me, good naturedly, unaware that I was borderline hysterical.

“No seriously, dude.” He said when I finally managed to calm down to wild giggles. “You can’t kill yourself! Here’s what you need to do. Every morning, you need to get up and go look in the mirror and tell yourself, ‘I am beautiful. I am a genius. I am a sexy brunette.’ And then you won’t be depressed anymore.”

He flashed another arrogant, yet somehow perfectly genuine smile, like he was certain he’d just personally saved my life.

“I’ll work on that.” I said dryly.

“I bet you have a highschool diploma don’t you?” He said. I nodded. I have a college diploma too, but I kept that to myself.

He held out his right pointer finger. “I would cut off my finger for that.”

I blinked.

“I bet you have a job too don’t you?” He barrelled on. I nodded again.

He held his whole hand out. “I would cut off all my fingers for a job. I bet you have a car too, huh?”

I shrank down in my seat a little, nodding a third time.

He balled up his fist. “I would cut off my whole hand for a car. Do you have a house too?”

I nodded a fourth time.

He stared at me. “I would cut off my whole arm for all of that. I dropped out of highschool. I don’t got a job or a car. I’m living on the streets, homeless. Why are you depressed?”

I shrugged, tears pricking at my eyes, cause I really didn’t know. I knew I had everything. And yet it wasn’t enough. Why wasn’t it enough?

He chuckled suddenly. “Hey, you wanna play foosball?”

I hate foosball. But what else was I going to do? So I played foosball. I played like six fucking games of foosball. And, hey, I got some good shots in. As we played, we talked. According to him, Trey didn’t know why he was in here. He just got jumped, man. Why the hell would he need to be in here cause he got jumped? They were trying to commit him, but there was no way in hell he was gonna let that happen. His movements were jittery. He was twenty-one. He’d done just about every drug ever. This was his fifth or sixth time in a psych ward. He thought I was “eighteen or something.” That set me off laughing again. He was slightly shocked when I finally managed to tell him that I was in fact twenty-six.

It did not deter him, though. He was perhaps the most forward flirt I’d ever met. I told him I was happily married. He told me he was gonna flirt with me anyways. He told me several times I was beautiful, which was slightly obnoxious, but I will admit sort of flattering. Considering I had wild hair and no makeup. He stopped flirting with me though to flirt with any pretty young nurse who happened to walk by, so I didn’t mind him too much. He was a good distraction.

An elderly woman wandered over to watch us play. When two women in white lab coats showed up and called Trey away (who rolled his eyes and huffed an angry sigh), she took over his place without really asking me if I wanted to play more. (I didn’t). She hit the ball into her own goal. Then she continually got it stuck in a corner where neither of us could reach it. I patiently blew it out of the corner over and over. She stared unnervingly at me over her glasses.

“My name is Marie.” She told me.

“I'm Kay. Marie is my middle name.” I told her.

“Oh.” She gave me a particularly long stare. “That’s nice.”

Eventually she wandered away, mumbling that I had won. I sighed in relief, and retreated to my room again.

A nurse announced that the first group was starting a few minutes later. Something called Jump Start. It proved to be simple enough. Those of us who came sat at the tables, went around the circle and introduced ourselves, stated how we were feeling, what our plan was for the day, and answered a random question.

“Susan, do you want to come up with a question?” The nurse asked the patient with the shockingly white hair.

She furrowed her brow. “How about, what day is it?” She finally said decisively.

I stared at her. What day is it? Really? But then again, could I even answer that question?

The nurse politely asked for a new question, which someone else offered. I forget what it was. When it was my turn, I said my name, that I felt kind of anxious, and that my plan was to meet my doctor.

Simple. And honest. Ok. That’s a good start.

After Jump Start was a more serious group called IMR, which stood for Illness Management and Recovery. Trey followed me into the room, surprising the nurse leading the group. I got the feeling he didn’t typically attend many groups. I sat next to my roommate and we talked about stress and anxiety and how to manage it. We checked off the symptoms we had on a worksheet. I had most of them. It was mostly simple things I knew, but it was sort of nice. Trey talked a lot about how he couldn’t focus on anything. Which was pretty obvious.

After IMR, I apologized to the girl who’s breakfast I had accidentally stolen. Her name was Mia. She told me not to worry about it, and I knew right then we would be friends.

Grooming Group was next. Set up on tables was makeup and fingernail polish and razors and shaving cream. My eyes lit up.

“Can I shave my legs?” I asked the nurse.

She said I could, so I sat in the corner and shaved with a disposable razor that I had to “check out” and use under the supervision of the nurse.

Because I can’t have sharps. Unsupervised.

With freshly shaved legs, I felt even better. So I painted my nails bright pink. The man shaving his face next to me grinned a toothy smile. He was short and balding and spoke hardly any English.

“Call me Angel Gabriel, Bonita.” He told me in a thick Mexican accent, and I couldn’t help but smile.

They had a whole selection of shampoo and conditioners that we could take little sample cups of for our next showers. I was browsing the selection when a man in a white lab coat came to fetch me.

Turns out he was the resident intern to my doctor. He was about my age, and he was a part of my team. He brought me out to the lounge and introduced me to them next. There was a female resident intern, and I immediately liked both of them. Then there was a social worker who typed furiously away a laptop and didn’t really look at me. I liked her less.

We sat at a table in the middle of the lounge. None of them seemed to care that everyone was milling around within earshot. I guess it made sense that privacy didn’t really matter, since we were all crazy. I curled up on the chair, as small as possible, and answered their questions from behind my hair. It came out slowly, jumbled, but I was honest. Well, mostly.

I told them that I knew I’d been struggling with depression for most of my life. I was always sad, so I fixated on the saddest things I could think of, to try to give it a reason. In the last couple years, the anxiety had shown up. I felt like I was on a roller coaster. When I was happy, I was really happy. When I was sad, I could hardly function.

I told them the vague details about my mother.

I glossed over my use of calorie counting and restricting as a way of coping.

Then they asked me to tell them what had happened on Monday.

I pulled my knees tight against my chest and told them, my voice expressionless. I told them about how Sunday night, I’d suddenly swung way down. I’d had a panic attack, over nothing. But I’d managed to go to sleep. Monday morning, I got up, I got all ready for work, and then I put my hand on the door knob. And I couldn’t turn it.

I couldn’t make my hand turn the damn door knob.

So I’d turned around, dumped all my stuff on the floor, texted my boss that I was sick, and that’s when I started hyperventilating.

I called a hotline, trying to calm down. Several hotlines, actually. I hung up on a few of them. I paced around. That feeling was in my chest, the feeling that’s similar to when your feet are suddenly tangled in the sheets and you panic, trying to get them free. Overwhelming. Tightening. I couldn’t breathe right. I’d had it before, but this time was so much worse. And I had to do something, anything to make it stop.

So I’d picked up those sharp haircutting scissors. And I’d started on my legs. And it had helped. The pain. In a weird, twisted, sick sort of way. Cutting helped. But it wasn’t enough. So I started on my wrist. And I started pushing harder.

My suicide plan had always been to slit my wrists.

At first I think I just wanted to see if I could even cut myself. To see if I was brave enough.

But then I couldn’t stop.

And all I could think was how nothing was ever going to change. I would never get better. I would always be the same.

And I think I knew. I knew the moment I didn’t open that door, that maybe I would do it. I would finally kill myself.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the Mr.

So I called one more suicide hotline. I couldn’t stop cutting my wrist, even while I was talking to Marta. We talked for a long time before she finally convinced me to call the hospital. And by the time I talked to Sue at the Crisis Intervention Center, I’d hit rock bottom. My wrist and legs were covered in cuts, cuts that I would have to explain to the Mr. To my friends. To my boss. Sue was gently, but persistently asking me to come into the hospital. And in my perspective, I had two options:

Go to the hospital or press harder and kill myself.

And that’s when I completely shut down. I told Sue I’d be there in ten minutes. I threw on some clothes. I grabbed my water bottle. I drove to the hospital.

The two interns listened intently, and I was so thankful to see that there was no pity on their faces.

I was exhausted. They thanked me, and I retreated again to my room, where I pretended to read. Lunch came. I sat in my room and watched everyone else get their trays. I wondered if anyone would notice if I didn’t eat anything. Finally I decided that I should choose my battles. I could play the game. Lunch was beef stroganoff. I slowly ate the canned green beans that were on the side, one at a time. Everyone else cleared their trays away, but I was still there, slowly eating one bean at a time.

A concerned nurse sat next to me and asked me if I knew about the menus that came with the breakfast trays. It sounded vaguely familiar. Someone had probably told me, and it had probably slipped through the cracks. He told me that tomorrow morning I should fill it out so I could have what I wanted to eat. He told me it was breaking his heart watching me pick at my food. I forced a smile and told him I would fill the menu out tomorrow.

I didn’t tell him that food itself was a general problem.

After lunch, I paced. I paced up and down, across the ward. It wasn’t really helping though. I felt trapped. I felt overwhelmed. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. 

So I found a blank coloring sheet and a box of crayons and started coloring. As I colored, a quiet older man, a patient, sat in the corner and began softly playing a guitar. It was nice, soothing.

And then he started playing "The Boxer" by Simon and Garfunkel.

I picked that song to be my favorite song when I was four years old. I used to dance to it in our living room, wearing this white satin slip that I called my “skip dress.” It’s remained one of my favorite songs for my entire life. And he was playing it.

I kept coloring, but I just started crying, fat tears dripping onto my coloring page. No one noticed, or at least, no one said anything. And I was thankful for that, because these tears weren't the panicky, frightened ones from last night. These were just sad. I needed these tears. I needed that moment.

The song ended. I wiped my face. The medical students came back and tried to make more awkward small talk. Trey showed up again and told me bluntly that I needed to pull my hair back because I looked “fucking depressed” which made me laugh again.

Then my team came back. This time with my doctor. Well, my two doctors. That made six of us that filed into a small private room. The residents had told the doctors what I had said, but they made me tell it all again. Again, I found myself curling up into a small ball, talking to the table, my voice numb.

Until one of the doctors suddenly asked me if I felt guilty.

And then I was suddenly sobbing.

Sobbing because I did feel guilty. I felt guilty about everything. Especially about my younger siblings. About how I couldn’t protect them from our mother. About how they struggled just as much as I did, all of us in our own ways. And how I carried the weight of that. I hadn’t even realized how heavy that weight was until that moment, when I sobbed it all out for six strangers.

They asked some more specific questions about my eating. So I finally told them about how I’d started not eating to feel like I was in control. So I wouldn’t think about how I wanted to kill myself. But then somewhere along the line, it had switched. It wasn’t working as a coping mechanism anymore. Now eating was a huge trigger. I confessed that maybe I knew it was risky. Because sometimes I didn’t get enough nutrients. I hadn’t meant to tell them all of that, but I was too emotionally exhausted to really care.

They told me they were going to start me on medication. Klonopin for anxiety. Prozac for depression. Prozac is good for people with eating disorders, they said. I stiffened, but I didn’t argue.

That afternoon, I worked up my courage and approached Bill, the older man who had played the guitar earlier. I shyly sat down next to him and we started talking, and it was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I knew as soon as we started talking that we were, as Anne of Green Gables would say, kindred spirits. He’s a dreamer, like I am, and he also walked into the ER after a sort of failed suicide attempt.

I cannot ever express in words how wonderful it was to have someone who so deeply understood the turbulent emotions in my head. Emotions that are nearly impossible to explain. All I had to do was say a few simple words, and he just knew. He knew what I meant. What I felt.

After dinner, which I hardly touched, the Mr. and my little brother and sister came to visit. It was a good visit, draining, but good. There were a few tears, but not many. I could feel myself slipping back into old habits, trying to be lighthearted and smile. I could tell my siblings were fascinated and intimidated and nervous about the other patients. It was then that I realized how accustomed to them I had become.

There was the man who prowled the lounge like a lion, muttering and occasionally shouting and things and people no one else could see. “Faggot! Get out of there, faggot!” He screamed at one point as he pedaled furiously on the exercise bike.

There was the girl who had thrown the fit about her pills. She wandered around, occasionally spouting off sentences of disturbing gibberish. “They know. They put me in closet, and they hit me. They beat me and say ‘Shhhhh.’”

There was Sue who waited impatiently for the phones to be turned on in the morning so she could make a series of calls. She always spoke very urgently. Strange things about birds missing and the FBI having a file on it and the government being full of corruption. These conversations never seemed to go well. At one point she shouted fiercely into the phone, “No I do NOT have paranoid delusions about the government!”

There was a woman who erupted with fury whenever a nurse would speak with her. A man who steadfastly refused to let anyone take his blood pressure. Marie, who loved to join conversations and tell people about the book she was going to write.
]
Yet there was something comforting about them. We were all fucked up, all of us. And even though most of the people denied having any problems, there was still an unspoken sort of community. We had each other, and for some, we were all they had.
]
The Mr. brought me some clothes and books from home. My favorite jeans, a comfy sweatshirt, and underwear. I have never been so happy to see my own underwear. I held his hand through our entire visit. He updated me on everything going on. He had informed all our family and friends. Everyone was worried, but wanted me to know they loved me.

Although my sister let it slip that my mother was frantically trying to keep this quiet. You know, the scandal of how her oldest daughter was locked in a psych ward.

I tried to let it roll off my shoulders, but it got stuck at the base of my skull and stayed there.

I took my first dose of Klonopin that night. I answered no, that I still wasn’t seeing or hearing anything no one else was, and then I went to bed early. My roommate had turned in at approximately 7:00 pm. I tiptoed around the room, trying not to wake her. I took my contacts out after three solid days of wear, and my eyes gasped in relief.

I cried again, that second night in Orange 8, but this time I did so quietly in my bed. And when the nurses shined the flashlight through the window in our door during rounds, I kept my face to the wall and pretended to sleep until eventually I did.

my life in a psychiatric ward, pt. 1

I wrote this while I was still a patient in the hospital. I would be the last one up, sitting in the lounge, scribbling my story in a notepad a nurse had given me. I was afraid I would forget things, but more than that, I was compelled to write, as I always have been. This is the true account of my time in a psychiatric ward. Names have been changed for privacy reasons. 

I like to think about the imagery of a phoenix rising from the ashes. It’s beautiful. It’s powerful. It’s full of hope and an ancient sort of power. It’s the stuff stories are made of.

I would like to apply this image to my own life, but truthfully I am simply myself, sitting in ash, charred and burnt.

I’m writing this with a pen that I am not sure I’m technically allowed to have. Where did I get it? I don’t remember. I don’t remember a lot of things lately. Things have been slipping through cracks in my head. I know I’m supposed to be making some lists, but I don’t remember what is supposed to go on them.

Like I don’t remember where I got this pen.

Is a pen considered a sharp? I don’t know. Can you hurt yourself with a pen? I would by lying if I said I hadn’t entertained that question, if I said I hadn’t slowly pulled the pen apart, examining the pieces like a grave scientist would pour over the innards of some poor long dead thing.

I’m not allowed to have sharps.

It all started when I walked through the wide yawning doors of the Emergency Room at approximately three o’clock in the afternoon on a Monday. I was wearing pink shorts I had purchased on my honeymoon six years ago, a thin grey tank top, and a tattered turquoise zip-up hoodie with grey paint splattered on the sleeves. I was clutching a bright blue water bottle I had brought from home.

Why did I bring the water bottle? I don’t know. I guess now that I’m thinking about it, I was thirsty. I was so thirsty it was hard to swallow. My mouth was bone dry.

It was 90 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

This would explain the thirst and the water bottle, but not the sweater. The sweater was too much, too warm. I remember being warm, in a sort of strange removed way.

I wore the sweater because I couldn’t let anyone see the dozens of angry red cuts covering my left wrist.

I had to ask a security guard where to go. The woman on the phone had given me directions to the door, but lost in the frantic swarm of the Emergency Room, I had no idea where to go next.

“Where is the Crisis Intervention Center?” I asked in a voice I barely recognized as my own.

He seemed confused. “You mean the Acute Psychiatric Services?”

Those words frightened me. I clutched my water bottle tighter. “I don’t know.” I finally said, hysteria flirting on the edge of my voice. “They just said the Crisis Intervention Center.”

He looked alarmed. He nodded and pointed and then I was walking numbly through a door with those terrifying words printed neatly on the glass. “Acute Psychiatric Services.”

The receptionist wanted to know why I was there. I stared blankly at her.

It hadn’t occurred to me that I would need to explain.

“I talked with someone on the phone.” I finally said, not helpfully. It was the only thing I could say.

She wanted to know who. I couldn’t remember because the cracks were already swallowing things like names. I finally got it out that the National Suicide Hotline had given me the number, and that’s when her whole face changed.

She had me come behind the desk to sit next to her. She asked me in a low voice if I was feeling suicidal, which seemed like a pretty obvious answer to me, but I whispered yes nonetheless. She started asking me other questions, easier questions, taking my information, which I parroted off. Or at least I think I did. I must have. I don’t remember much of it. I do remember that she took my blood pressure and that she asked to look at my wrist, which I slowly, reluctantly revealed.

The cuts were deemed superficial. No medical attention necessary. I wondered how I could ever explain that they were far from superficial to me. To me, that blade had cut me into a thousand little pieces.

Or maybe I had picked up that blade because I was already in a thousand little pieces.

She asked if I felt safe waiting in the waiting room for the doctor. I looked out at where a scarecrow of a man was pacing around, trying to tell anyone who walked by the beginning of a sad story.

“...I got kicked outta my house, man. I got nowhere to go. I need some meds…”

She answered for me. The answer was no. I was relieved. It wasn’t until later that I realized she put me in the back because it was obvious that I wasn’t safe. I would have sat for maybe two minutes. Maybe five. But then I would have walked right back out.

Because the small part of me that was still functioning was insisting that I was fine. It’d been insisting that for a long time. As I had sliced into my wrist over and over, it told me that this was perfectly normal.

There was a shift change, a flurry of faces all smiling, then concerned. Names I don’t remember. But every single one was so kind. It surprised me. I don’t know why. I suppose it would make sense that nurses would be kind. Maybe it was simply because I couldn’t find the strength to give a fuck what happened to me, and I had somehow convinced myself that no one else cared either.

I was escorted back by at least three nurses and a burly security guard who assured me several times it was simply protocol. Just protocol. Nothing more. Did I even respond? I don’t know. I walked. I clutched my water bottle. I popped the lid open and shut and open and shut and open and shut.

A middle-aged woman stopped us, beaming. Before I could respond, she was hugging me. “You talked to me on the phone. I’m so glad you’re here.” She said tearfully.

I think I mumbled something like “thanks.” Was that the right response? Was I glad? I don’t know. I didn’t feel much of anything. She said her name was Anna. Anna. That’s right. I repeated it in my head. Anna. I’d talked to Anna on the phone. I’d told her I was way too old for this shit, and she’d laughed.

They took me through a locked door and sat me on a bench. A bench like you would find in a diner booth. Except there was no table. Just a long, unending bench.

“We need your purse and belongings.” They said.

“Protocol.” The burly security officer repeated.

Removed of my belongings, I sat, and my escorts dissipated. To my right a woman flipped through a magazine. She was wearing scrubs, a blanket draped around her shoulders. To my left, a man in a wheelchair sat silently. I stared at the floor, twisting the tattered sleeves of my sweatshirt into knots, then untying them, then knotting, untying, knotting, untying. I tried really hard not to think about anything at all.

Eventually I was given my own set of scrubs, a turquoise top and rust red bottoms, and a room. The room was about the size of a large walk-in closet and contained a couch that wasn’t quite a couch but not a bed either, a chair that was actually a chair, and a small round table. The blinds were closed. And behind glass. Glass, then blinds, then glass. 

It made sense, I thought numbly. They wouldn't want me to make it all the way here only to hang myself in the Emergency Room.

I changed into my scrubs. The pants were too big, so I took a handful of the loose fabric at my waist and tied it with the hair-tie I’d had around my wrist to keep the pants from falling off my hips.

I don’t know why I didn't simply ask for smaller pants. The thought didn't even occur to me.

I handed over my clothes, the last remaining pieces of my identity. Then I retreated to my closet room where I sat on the not-quite-a-couch and tried to make myself as small as physically possible. I wished I could disappear.

And after a while, it almost seemed like I did. Disappear, I mean. I couldn't see out the window. There was no clock. Was the sun still shining? Had darkness fallen? How long had I been sitting? Two minutes? Three hours? A whole day?

People came eventually. A nurse, round and soft and kind. The type of person you find yourself wishing was your grandmother. She told me the time. It was four o’clock. I rationalized that I still had a little bit of time before I had to call the Mr. He got off work at five. He didn't know where I was.

Unless he came home early because he was worried about me.

Then he would find me gone.

An empty house.

Would he notice the scissors on my desk?

I mumbled out my story to the floor. The nurse told me gently that I did not have to be embarrassed. Was I embarrassed? I don’t know. I didn’t feel much of anything.

“I see you keep looking down.” She said. “You don’t have to be ashamed. Lots of people go through this. People get sick. Yours is just here.”

She brought her hands up to frame her head, her eyes on me were so kind.

“I need to call my husband.” I mumbled.

They gave me a cordless phone. No blinds. No cords. They had to call the Mr. with the desk phone because his cell phone number was long distance. A male nurse dialed the number, asked if he was speaking to the Mr., then transferred the call to the wireless phone I was holding. I had a brief, panicked moment where I wondered how to go about telling the person you love most that you’re in the hospital because you tried to kill yourself.

I answered the phone. His voice came through, confused, but polite. He didn’t know it was me.

“Hey.” I said.

“Hey...” He said back, and it sounded like a question.

So I told him.





There was one bathroom and six or seven little rooms like mine. The bathroom was located in the “lounge,” which consisted of the unending bench, two chairs, and a tv. The bathroom door didn’t quite reach the floor or the ceiling and had a terribly frustrating trick in latching. A trick I could not figure out. The toilet paper roll was placed inside a perfectly toilet paper roll shaped enclave. No roll dispenser. There was a sink, but no soap. You had to push a button to turn the water on. There was another button to flush the toilet, which when pushed, roared to life with echoing thunder and enough strength to suck down a small lap dog.

Most people didn’t flush, and I couldn’t find it in me to blame them.

If you wanted to wash your hands with soap, you had to make the trek down the hall, past the staff who sat safe behind a wall of glass. I kept my head down, hiding behind my wall of long dark hair. I could feel their eyes follow me though, like you might watch a pacing tiger at the zoo. Curious, but wary.

There was a mirror too. In the bathroom. If you could call it a mirror. My reflection looked back at me, my pale face dim and vaguely distorted like in a funhouse at the carnival. It was this way because the mirror wasn’t glass.

Because glass is sharp.

I was in the bathroom when the Mr. arrived, trying to re-secure my overly large pants with the hair-tie. He was sitting in the chair that was actually a chair, still dressed in his work clothes since he’d come straight to the hospital. I looked at his shoes first, shiny black patent leather. Then up his slim dark jeans to the blue button down shirt tucked in.

By the time I looked at his face, he was standing. His eyes were wet. His mouth was pressed into a line that was breaking, but that was ok because I broke first.

He enfolded me into his arms, and I was crying onto his nice shirt and he was crying into my hair and neither of us had any brilliant words, but that was ok too. Because our whole world had flipped inside out, and there was no carefully composed script for us to follow.

I tried to tell him I was sorry, but he didn’t even let me finish. He didn’t care, not about the worry I had caused, not about the fact that I was in the hospital with no health insurance to cover it. He was just so fervently glad I was ok, that I was here, that I was alive. “I love you.” He told me over and over and again and all I could do was nod. Because I knew. It was that love that gave me the strength to lay down those scissors, the sharp ones I used to cut his hair, and pick up the phone.

We sat together on the not-quite-a-couch. Sometimes talking. Sometimes silent. And I didn’t care so much anymore that I had no idea if the sun or the moon was in the sky.

The doctor finally came, and I tried to focus on what he said, but his words came at me like shrapnel. The prognosis: admitted. To the hospital. Just a few days. Starting anti-depressants. Meeting with psychiatrists. Psychologists. Group therapy.

Admitted.

The doctor left. The Mr. and I sat curled into each other in a silent daze.

Dinner was delivered. Lasagna, steamed broccoli, a cup of fruit from a can, a dinner roll. I ate the broccoli slowly. Slower than molasses, my great-grandmother would have said. The Mr. watched me, and I could see the doctor’s words still rattling around in his head. I blew bubbles in my milk to make him laugh. My stomach churned.

The nurse returned to take my mostly untouched tray without a word. I wondered how long I could get away with it.

I eventually made the Mr. leave to get some dinner for himself. And magazines for me. He fidgeted. Stalled. “You’ll be here when I get back right?” He finally whispered, fear in his eyes. Guilt broke my heart.

"I promise." I whispered.

One of the magazines he brought screamed the headline, “Miley finally admits: ‘I’m a TOTAL MESS!’” Outside my room, a woman demanded furiously that she be released. “I’m a German Citizen! I have a very important dentist appointment! You cannot keep me here!”

They gave her a toothbrush, and that seemed to satisfy her. I crept out of my room and asked timidly for a toothbrush too. The toothpaste tasted like thinly disguised baking soda. I brushed my teeth meticulously once. Then I brushed them again.

The Mr. reluctantly went home as visiting hours came to an end. “You’ll be here when I come back, right?” He whispered again, and again I promised that I would be. I closed the heavy metal door behind him and watched him leave through the glass window. The glass window that allowed the staff to watch me at all times. I curled up on the not-quite-a-bed and read about Miley being a total mess until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer.





The knock startled me. I bolted upright, tangled in blankets, my contacts sticking to my dry eyes. A young male nurse was wheeling a machine into my room, regarding me as warily as I was regarding him. “I need to check your vitals.”

I brushed my tangled hair out of my face and obediently stuck out an arm. My skin was clammy. The blood pressure cuff stuck to my skin. He peeled it off and left me trying to peer between the cracks in the blinds. Was it midnight? Was it six in the morning? I was shivering, my skin damp with sweat.

What time is it? What time is it? When is it?

Eventually I couldn’t take not knowing anymore. I crawled out of the blankets, venturing out of my room to peer at the clock hanging behind the staff behind the glass. The little hand was on the eleven. The big hand was on the six. I retreated to my room and blearily tried to remember how to read a clock. Eleven thirty right? That’s what those things meant? Eleven thirty?

I fell asleep before I was sure. I woke up again, startled awake by the tv in the lounge turning on. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton. I stumbled out of my room again to see a small, roughly ten year old boy staring at me from where he was eating lasagna in a chair. I looked at the clock. Four thirty in the morning. I asked the nurse behind the glass for some water. She asked if I was ok, and I said through chattering teeth that I was cold. Another nurse got up, leaving the safety of the glass to fetch me another blanket. This one was warm, straight from the dryer. I went back to my room, and tried to stop shivering.

I woke up a third time, listening to a nurse questioning a patient about getting in a fight with another patient. I couldn’t make out the man’s wild mumbled reply. I heard the clomp of boots, the firm voice of security guards. They took him away. Where, I don’t know. I lay there, shaking, until I fell asleep again. 

I was awake this time, when another nurse came in to take my morning vitals. He told me breakfast would be here soon and asked if I was hungry. I said no. I asked if there was coffee, and he shook his head. “We have tea, though.” He said.

Relief coursed through me. “Could I please have some tea?” I whispered. He smiled again and nodded.

Breakfast was french toast, bacon, a banana, milk, and orange juice. The nurse brought me a cup of tea. I drank it black, grateful for the warmth. I tried a tiny bit of banana and my stomach rebelled. I put the lid back on the plate and sat back, sipping my tea. The same nurse came and took my tray, frowning. “You don’t want your orange juice?” He asked. I shook my head. He frowned at me again, but left.

And I waited.

I waited for twenty-nine hours.

That’s how long I waited in that little room.

A nice nurse opened the blinds for me in the morning. She asked if I wanted to talk. I mumbled that I wasn’t very good at talking. She told me she’d be here if I changed my mind.

The Mr. was able to be with me most of the time. We read magazines and books and inbetween that I slowly told him the truth. It did not come easy. I hadn’t lied to that nurse. I’d spent my entire life telling lies, and now the truth caught in my throat. I found myself thinking that perhaps I could just tell him part of it. Maybe I could pick and choose truths like cheese from an assorted cheese tray. But the problem with both truth and cheese trays is that everything eventually gets so mixed together that you end up accidentally eating swiss.

So it all came out, everything that I had been so afraid to tell. Everything that I had spent so much energy hiding. And you know what he did? He held me tighter. He whispered that he was so sorry. He told me he loved me.

And I was left trying to remember why I had kept any of this secret at all.

He left a few times to make more phone calls, to take care of everything. He told me over and over that I didn't have to worry about anything. He would let our family and friends know. He would call my boss. He would take care of it. Of everything.

I spent a lot of time looking out the window. Outside people laughed and talked and walked and biked and made angry gestures in their cars and kissed and smoked and were free to come and go as they pleased. I promised myself I would never take that freedom for granted ever again.

At eight o’clock, they finally brought me upstairs. To be admitted, officially. “I’ll be your chauffeur tonight.” The nurse joked, pulling up a cherry red wheelchair. “Here is your limousine.”

I don’t think I laughed.

I felt so small as he wheeled me through the hospital, past curious stares of everyday people and nurses and doctors. I wondered what they saw. I caught a glimpse of myself in the polished metal of the elevator doors and I saw a girl, frightened, dressed in turquoise scrubs with unwashed hair, clinging to a toothbrush.

The nurse pushing me did not take the bumps gently. My teeth rattled around with my fragmented thoughts.

The further we went, the farther away I retreated into my own head. By the time we went through the double locked doors of Orange 8, I was a shell of a scared girl clutching a toothbrush.

That shell got out of the wheelchair and sat obediently to have her vitals taken. Normal blood pressure. Normal temperature. I weighed in at 116.8 lbs, which both surprised me and secretly made me glad. Somewhere between home and here, I’d lost a pound.

In the background a young woman was screaming at a nurse in broken English. “You not my mother!” The nurse continued to calmly request that she take her pills. Other people milled around the room, looking at me with varying degrees of curiosity and disinterest.

“...evil in the world. Evil men killin evil men…” A muttering wanderer passed by.

The screaming girl did not take her pills. She went in her room instead, slamming the door. A nurse was arguing with another nurse about where I needed to go. I stood there, vacant, as they tried to sort it out. The Mr. had followed us up and was standing in my peripheral. Every time I glanced at him he mouthed, it’s ok. I tried to rearrange my face into something that looked slightly less terrified.

The confusion was finally sorted out. I was returned to the lounge where the Mr. waited with patients and nurses. There were about a dozen strangely square vinyl chairs arranged around a flat screen tv where someone was speaking very urgently about Syria. No one in the room seemed to be paying attention except one patient with shockingly white hair. She’d pulled a chair all the way up to the television, where she was watching intently.

Visiting hours were ending, so the nurse gave me a few minutes to say goodbye to the Mr. I tried to be brave. I promised I’d be here when he got back. He was trying to be brave too. He promised to come back as soon as he could.

Then he was gone, and the double doors locked behind him.

A nurse gave me a tour, and I tried hard to keep my shit together. There was the laundry room where we could do laundry. It was also the showers. The door was locked. You had to ask a nurse to get in. There was the closet with extra blankets and clean scrubs. There was the snack room if you wanted graham crackers, saltines, bread, jelly, peanut butter, or fruit. The fridge was full of individual milk cartons. There was juice and tea, but best of all there was coffee.

Honestly though, I am telling you these things having lived here a couple days. That night, I didn’t really remember anything from that tour. All of that information just poured down the cracks. Every ounce of my energy was going towards holding myself together.

The irony of it is not lost on me. That there I was, getting a tour of the psychiatric ward I’d been admitted to, and I was worried about was holding myself together.

My roommate was a whisper thin creature, a middle aged woman also being admitted that night. She said hello, introduced herself very politely, and then curled up on her bed, facing the wall. She remained there, still as a statue, for the rest of the night.

A nurse named Kevin brought me into a room and asked me a few questions. Mostly questions I’d already answered downstairs, but I suppose they wanted their own records. What happened? Why are you here? He had thick rimmed glasses and pure white hair. When he smiled he looked like a jolly elf. It didn’t help that I was almost taller than him. When he sat in his office chair, his feet didn’t touch the ground.

After my interview with Kevin, I was taken back for a physical with my nurse, Cindy, and a doctor whose name I've forgotten. They took me into a room that the doctor unlocked with a key. From the outside, I could have sworn it was just a closet, but it turned out to be a miniature doctor’s office, complete with the paper covered chair. I sat and laid down and she listened to my heart, my lungs, felt my stomach for lumps, and checked my reflexes. She asked me to show her the cuts on my wrist and the cuts on my thighs. I did all of this obediently vacant.

She asked about medications I was taking. About my sleeping habits and appetite. I told her the same thing I’d told Kevin, that I’d told the ER nurse, that I’d told the ER psychiatrist. I’m a night owl. I often stay up too late, but I don’t usually have trouble sleeping. I don’t eat much. That’s normal. Yes, I’d recently lost a lot of weight, but that was on purpose. To be healthier. Yes, I exercised a lot. That was also to be healthier.

They brought me back to my ward. I stood sort of uncertainly by as they discussed things. A young guy was flirting with one of the nurses. He had two black eyes and a fat lip. He looked at me and smiled.

“It’s not so bad.” He said.

"What?" I asked numbly.

"It's not so bad here." He repeated patiently.

Finally they turned me loose, and I found myself idly sort of moving in no general direction with no purpose. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet, so going to bed seemed strange. But I had no idea what to do with myself either. So I just floated between the chairs as the pressure built up in my chest. Panic. Fear. Anxiety. What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here?

“Hey, what’s your story?”

The muttering wanderer from earlier stopped me, interrupting my wild thoughts. He was chewing on something, a weird white canister, which I later learned was the hospital’s version of an e-cigarette. I shrank away from him.

“Come on, let’s go sit and talk.” He urged me.

I had no idea if I should be frightened or not. The nurses weren’t reacting at all. I was nervous about his muttering from earlier, but I was about ten seconds away from a massive public meltdown. So I sat.

“So why are you here?” He asked, folding his hands on the table across from me, his brown eyes intently on me.

I stared at him. All I could think about was that pilot episode of Orange is the New Black that I’d watched weeks ago. Weren’t you not supposed to ask other people why they were locked in a psych ward? Wasn’t that some unspoken rule?

“I tried to kill myself.” I finally mumbled.

“Now why would you do that?” He exclaimed. “Life is so beautiful!”

I shrugged. Wasn’t that the question of the hour. Of the year. Of my life.

“Come here, I wanna show you something.” He got up from the table and moved gracefully over to where a laptop sat on a rolling stand. He pulled up a second chair for me. I sat.

“This is what I look at when I feel down.” He said and then typed in www.sacred-texts.com. A poorly designed website appeared with a long list of links. The Bible. The Quran. The Apocrypha. Every sacred text from every religion was on this website. He started going to different ones, pulling up his favorite passages.

“This one. This one right here. Read this, starting here. Out loud. Read it out loud.” He looked at me expectantly.

I knew that normally this sort of thing would annoy the shit out of me. Normally I would have said, no thanks, I’m going to bed. Normally I would not sit at a computer with a stranger and allow him to command me to read the Quran out loud.

But I was five seconds away from a massive public meltdown, so I read.

I read passages listing all the things you should never do if you’re a Hindu. Things you should not eat if you were Islamic. I read about the Raven God of the Native American’s. I read about Adam and Eve going to the Cave of Treasures after they were banished from the Garden of Eden. He pulled up passages and I read them. I don’t remember much of what I read, but in a strange way, it helped. Words. I understood words. I knew how to read them. And so I read quietly, vacantly, and focused on the words.

He pulled up some images from various religions. Diagrams about different spirits and crystals that existed inside you. How to balance them, how to meditate.

“Now I’m going to give you a gift.” He said suddenly, standing up.

 I looked at him warily. “A gift?” I repeated, standing up as well.

He led me to the snack room. He took a cup and filled it with ice. Then he filled it with hot water from the coffee maker. He handed it to me. “This is pure water.” He said. “If you don’t drink enough pure water, you get depressed.”

We went back to the computer and read about a sermon that baby Jesus preached from the cradle. I drank my pure water and ignored the part of me that was rolling my eyes. A nurse brought me another warm blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“What is your name? Sorry if you’ve already told me, I’m having trouble remembering names.” I suddenly asked.

“Peter.” He answered calmly. “And that’s alright. That happens.”

He pulled up a new passage, something about Adam and Eve. “I’ll leave you with this.” He said. “I’m being discharged tomorrow. I wish you the best.” And then he was gone.

I sat at the computer and stared at the passage. I couldn’t read it. Now that he wasn’t there, gently instructing me to read out loud, my brain went right back down that panicky spiral.

What am I doing here? What am I doing here?

I wished I was dead.

I got up and went to my room. My roommate hadn’t moved from where she was curled up on her bed. I looked at my bed, but instead went to the window. There was a small nook next to the window created by the bathroom wall and my dresser. I sat in it. I looked out the window. And then I started crying.

And once I started crying, I couldn’t stop.

I’ve always been really good at crying without making any noise. That’s a skill you quickly develop when you devote your life to making everyone else think you’re ok.

A nurse came in with a paper bag. She looked around, saw me on the floor, and dropped the bag on my bed, hurrying to my side.

“What’s wrong? What happened?” She asked in a thick Asian accent, worried.

I tried to say I was fine, but it was such a ridiculous lie that I couldn’t even get the words out. I just sobbed harder. She left and came back with a box of kleenex. Then she sat on the floor next to me as I tried so very hard to get some control. She brushed my hair out of my face and asked me again what was wrong.

“It’s just a lot.” Was what I finally managed to choke out. Then I started crying harder. I realized I was going to wake up my roommate, if I hadn’t already. But I couldn’t stop.

She sat with me on the floor for a long time. She started talking, low and gentle. I don’t remember what all she said, but she encouraged me to be strong. She told me I was going to be ok, that I was safe. She told me that I would get help. She brushed my hair back. She rubbed my arm. She handed me more kleenex. Eventually she asked me if I wanted something to help me calm down or go to sleep. I asked for something to help me sleep because I couldn’t imagine how I could possibly fall asleep in here.

She left and I got up off the floor and crawled into my bed. A few minutes later another nurse showed up with a pill and a strange handheld device like a scanner. Which was exactly what it was. She scanned my armband and gave me the pill. She told me what it was, but I didn’t really care.

I curled up and faced the wall, and eventually I realized that my sobs and quieted to hiccupy sniffs. And then before I realized it, I was asleep.

To be continued...

i'm not ok, but i'm alive

Did you know you can access the internet from a hospital psychiatric ward?

I didn't either.

I'll tell you the whole story, I promise.

But it will have to wait.

it's a good day to totally lose your mind

I got up this morning.

I showered.

I got dressed.

I tried to breathe normal.

I put my shoes on.

I put my hand on the door knob.

Then I turned around and sat on the couch.

I gave up on trying to breathe normal.

I texted my boss. Told her I was sick.

I ripped off my shoes and my shirt.

I paced around my bedroom.

I curled up on my bed and called a suicide hotline.

It sounded like I was on speakerphone. The woman I spoke to sounded increasingly annoyed that I didn't know how she could help me. Isn't it their job to figure that out? I finally whispered, "I don't know. I'm sorry." And then I hung up.

I paced around again.

I smashed my forearm into the doorframe a few times.

I went downstairs and looked at the scissors. The really sharp ones I use to cut the Mr.'s hair.

I went back upstairs and called another suicide hotline.

"Hello?" A woman answered. She sounded nice. I hung up.

I stood in front of the window and cried. I wished that first lady would have traced my phone and called the cops. I wished somebody would get help because I couldn't fucking get the words out.

I called the second hotline back. This time I stayed on the phone. I cried the whole time. Sherry was so nice. She told me I deserved help. I didn't deserve to live like this. She asked if I thought about suicide. I told her every day. She asked if I had a plan. I told her I would cut my wrists with those haircutting scissors. She asked if I needed to go to the hospital. Yes. I thought. "No." I said numbly. "I don't have health insurance." She talked to me for a while, she gave me some numbers to call. I pretended I was ok. We hung up.

I cried some more.

I pulled out a big thick sewing needle and started pushing it into the soft skin of my arm. It made lines, but no blood. I tried another needle. It broke through the top layer of skin. No blood. I moved on to an exacto knife. It was dull. I went back down and looked at the haircutting scissors. I pulled out my big butcher knife from the knife block in the kitchen. I pressed it against my arm, not hard enough to cut, and felt sick. I put it back. I went back upstairs and started the circle over again, but this time when I went back and looked at the scissors, I pulled them out. I pressed them into my arm and pushed down. This line looked deeper. Then a tiny bit of blood welled up.

My first cut.

Ten minutes later, there were fourteen cuts on my upper thigh.

The Mr. called. "Are you at work?" He asked. "No." I said. "Are you ok?" He said, worry in his voice. "I had an anxiety attack." I whispered. "Oh." He said. I could see him, his brow furrowed anxiously. "Are you ok?" He repeated. "I'm fine." I said and my voice didn't shake at all.

He told me he loved me. That he would see me at home. I said ok.

I took a shot of vodka.

I wrote this blog post.

I am losing my mind.

round and round in circles we go

I want a drink.

I want a drink really bad.

But I can't trust myself with a drink right now. I know better.

I always tell myself I won't, but the pattern stays the same. I drink. I feel happy and light and strong and normal.

Then my happy, light, strong, normal self tells me that it's ok to eat something.

So I eat something.

And I feel great.

I'm totally ok that I'm eating something. Even though I promised myself I wouldn't. Because that's what normal people do. They eat things.

Then I sober up.

Crazy people don't know they're crazy.

There is something wrong with me. I know that.

So obviously I'm fine.

Right?

hey, september...

1 cup of broccoli. 1 cup of cherry tomatoes. 1 tablespoon of peanut butter.

1 cup of lavender honey tea.

Hey, September, fuck you.