Never in my 14 years of life had I ever felt as alone as I did on the night of January 6th, wrapped up in a blanket of a fabric I couldn’t identify and ballroom dancing with myself. Here was my new home. Here, tucked away from the real world, my story was exposed and vulnerable for all to see, but my name was unknown. We were all nameless stories, faceless diagnoses: the tortured runaway, the walking panic attack, the bipolar pot enthusiast, the hostile pregnant girl, and me, the suicidal depressive.
It has been three years. I don’t remember the names of most of those girls, but I will never forget why they were in there with me.
A psychiatric hospital was the last place I had expected myself to end up that year. I was the shining straight-A freshman whom I believe to this day is the kind of student teachers dream of having. But my image was glass and my mind was dynamite; looking back, it’s no surprise I shattered.
The moment I stepped into that empty hospital room, I knew that my hands could no longer hold even the pieces of that fragile image. The constant success I had so looked forward to was gone forever. I’d failed, and I had to face my dynamite mind--alone.
And so there I was, my first night incarcerated, sitting in a corner forming shadow puppets on the lusterless walls, wondering if the other two beds in the room would be occupied. I had hoped that they wouldn’t be--I was a quiet girl who needed her own sanctum. But alas, there came two slightly older girls who were assigned to my room. They were the closest things I had to friends during my stay at the hospital. Roommates are family. Roommates take care of each other.
The morning of the 7th, a nurse opened our door and told us we needed to get up. To this day, I have no idea what time it was. There were no clocks in the psych hospital, but it didn’t matter. Most of us wanted to end our lives. We were already living on borrowed time.
I ate my tray of breakfast — cool waffles, a pint of milk, and some other assorted items — in the common room with the other new patients. Nobody was allowed to be escorted down to the dining hall until they’d been there at least 24 hours. This rule was not made apparent to me. I accidentally joined the veteran patients down in the dining hall. The overworked staff paid no attention to me. Quiet girls, I discovered, get away with everything.
Despite the unauthorized “privilege” of eating dining hall hamburgers instead of whatever limp leftovers the newbies were forced to consume, my first day was absolutely miserable. Because I had been transferred to the hospital directly from the emergency room, I, unlike most of the other girls, had not had any opportunity to pack my belongings. A nurse the night before strip-searched me and confiscated most of what I’d had in my coat pockets. She told me that my parents could bring bags to the front desk, and the things would be searched, processed, and delivered to me swiftly in the morning.
Something went wrong in the processing. By the evening, I still had nothing. I was already indisputably, clinically depressed, but there is nothing more depressing than having to wear the exact same change of clothes for more than one full day.
After visitation ended (which was 8 p.m., my parents told me), I asked a nurse on the floor if by any chance my bags had finished processing. She told me to stop complaining and be patient. I apathetically shuffled back to my room, trying to accept the fact that I would be wearing the same socks for the foreseeable future. But — lo and behold — on the desk next to my bed were piles of belongings. Among these things were three pairs of pajama pants, five fresh shirts, a dozen pairs of socks, my own toothpaste, shampoo, a brand new gel-handle hairbrush, and slippers. The light above the desk was on, illuminating my gifts. I did not see a wall lamp. I saw the light of God’s own smile beaming tenderly upon the amenities that, I realized, everyone so takes for granted.
Each morning brought more stories that I wish I had more time to tell — like the time one girl got in an argument with one of the nurses in front of all the other patients and I had to hear about it for the rest of that evening.
Or the time I snuck markers and crayons in my slippers (we weren’t allowed to have them in our rooms due to the threat of suicide by crayon consumption, but I was a writer, and nothing would have made me more insane than I already was than the lack of written expression).
Or the time I almost took another patient’s medication. Or the time I was so starved for fresh air that I listened to the fizzing in my watermelon-flavored water and pretended it was a summer breeze.
The seven days I spent in the hospital were not pleasant by any stretch of the imagination. There’s nothing pleasant about sleeping on paper thin, breathable, suffocation-proof pillows.
But, almost four tumultuous years later, I love those seven days.
I love how they shaped the rest of my journey through psychiatric hell and back again.
I love how they changed the way I look at other people and how I talk about mental health.
I love how they gave me a story worth telling, a story that I hope, one day, can be made into a memoir.
Most importantly, I love how they taught me that the worst of times can become our greatest adventures.
