The long road.

It’s time to make your rounds. You don your pretend white coat and arm yourself with a make-belief stethoscope before you step out of your office. The hallway is long and has many doors. Because you have learned that fate is resourceful when molding the human mind, you once again brace yourself to face what’s behind each door.

The voice in your head taunts before you unlock the memory you keep behind each door. Are you sure you want to know what’s inside?

 Yes, of course. It’s my job. You assure the annoying, all-knowing voice. This conversation is old and fruitless.

Your job or your obsession? Have you made a difference yet?

Soon I will, I’m sure. But you hear the frisson of doubt in your words.

Can people change? Can anyone see themselves beyond their own psychosis? Unbelieve their paranoia? Lift their own depression? Set aside their neuroses, the messages that were internalized as a child? Can anyone change their personality? Can anyone objectively see their own flaws, skills and worth? Can anyone not only take that bold step into the unknown but also maintain that new course without falling back into old habits? Can any of this happen without assistance?

How many mistakes can one make before they stop trying? How many admonitions can one hear before they stop listening? How many rejections and snubs can one feel before they turn away?

Behind the first door you find your child that doesn’t understand society’s rules. Huddled in the corner, they're equally afraid of the darkness and their own shadow. Face turned to the wall they can’t decipher the chaos of light. Hands clasped over their ears; they won’t learn to break down the cacophony of sounds. Their brain has not learned to distinguish between “no” and “go away” or recognize a helping hand from a threat nor understand the difference between laughing at and laughing with.

And then there is your pubescent animal snarling when woken from its slumber. As it lurches at the cell door, the heavy chain sparks when it is dragged across the concrete. The growls become screams, overpowering all voices and overtures. The feral beast instinctively rejects all contact and can’t listen to reason or rebuke. It won’t take food or caresses from its handler.

Calmer now, standing in the middle of the room, eyes to the floor, arms alongside, believing that all eyes are on them, knowing that they are being judged for both doing and not doing, this one is frozen in anxiety, afraid of making a mistake. When they look up, they wordlessly ask what love is, what it feels like to be hugged, what others have that they don’t.

Cautiously you approach your twins who pull each other apart. One full of life, laughter, grandiose plans, and lively talk. The other silent, lost in self-doubt, fear, and despair. They only meet when time and space distort reality. When plans become failures, when laughter becomes hopelessness, when songs are swallowed by silent screams, and squares widen into bottomless pits.

You try to talk to the one who stares up at the window looking at the sky, seeing dreams in the clouds. Who yearns to be free but can’t hear the invitation to exit through the open door. Who imagines endless scenarios and possibilities but fears acting on their fantasies. Who will scribble their dreams on notes and sends them out the window, hoping someone will make use of them.

When your rounds are completed, you return to your office. Your own little room with a small desk and a window up high. You slide behind your computer and see their eyes, full of anguish, loneliness, cluelessness, and rigor reflected on the screen. Their staunch belief that the world is a scary, hostile place with demons and monsters lurking in corners, full of obstacles, pitfalls, and failures. You see their conviction that eventually they will make another mistake and will need to run and hide to avoid scrutiny and ridicule.

When you hear the door close, you look around your cell, which is like all the others, and then you focus on the screen again. Now you see your own eyes and the pain within. You see the you who doesn't believe you have the right to have your needs met. You see the prison you have built with your magical thinking. With each perceived rejection, with each overreaction to what you think of as flaws and mistakes, with each missed opportunity you have created more distance. Though your heart slams against your chest, your cold hands clench into fists, you look closer and realize that you have built this asylum around your own neurosis, phobias, and anxieties.

Hesitantly you stand, climb onto the top of your desk, and look out the window. There you see hundreds, thousands of asylums stretching into infinity. Some have courtyards, others have rooftop gardens. Some have skywalks connecting to other asylums. Others have smaller annexes sprouting from the main building. You see doors that open to a sidewalk with trees and flowers. You see people carefully stepping outside and testing the smoothness of the asphalt.

Though you are petrified, you shed your white coat armor and leave your play-stethoscope behind. On trembling legs, with your heart pounding in your dry throat, you open your cell door and walk down the hallway. You open each door begging everyone to join you. Slowly, wondering if together you are strong enough, you walk till you reach the end of the hall. Here is a door you’ve never tried before …

Each one of you - the feral teenager leading the child; the loner grasping the dreamer's hand; the twins on the same page for once - peek around the corner of the door and squint into the sharp daylight. Though your anxiety, your fear of the unknown is almost paralyzing, you look at the flowers and the trees, you smell the fresh air, feel the mild breeze.

You want to pull back, close the door and return to what you know when you see a woman walk past. She pauses, stops and watches you. She beckons you to come. Skittish, you look around. Other people are waiting at other walkways, welcoming whoever is huddled in their doorway. With a shuddering breath, holding on to each other, you carefully step over the threshold. Your eyes on the path, trying to avoid the cracks in the neglected walkway, you step forward. One tiny step at a time, groping in the unfamiliar light.

She waits patiently at the end of your path. The hand she holds out to you trembles, but never wavers. Are you going the same way? Shall we walk together?

Your lightning-quick glance sees your own fears and hesitations mirrored in her face. You feel she may be just like you, human, fallible, full of learned fears and insecurities. You sense that her courage may be as fleeting as yours. Grateful for the offered companionship, you take her hand knowing there might be strengths in numbers.

As time passes you have moments of bravery when you look up then you see that the road is long, with hills and valleys. Some days there is solace in seeing other people going the same way, many as broken as you, some more, some less. Every once in a while, you glimpse a ray of sunshine that lights up the road ahead.

You wonder, you hope that you will be there one day.