I Think I Can Do Better

“It’s important to talk about. It’s important to speak. To express yourself. I understand your writings and your drawings, but now I want to hear from you. I want you to trust this space and open up. That is the way to healing. To process these things, to say them aloud to someone that is present and listening. You need to be present and willing. Understand, time is not necessarily a problem here. We have time for you to breathe, to collect your thoughts before you begin. But this is what will help. This is how you get out.”

“…No.”

 “…Take your time, and –“

“I said, no.”

“Okay, I understand, but you are going to have to do better than that.”

“Fuck no.”

“You can be defensive. I’m not going to engage, but understand that you are under an obligation to complete these sessions. Just focus on me, not the students; they aren’t here.”

When she walked through the mental unit's conference room: the white brick walls and faux wood metal doors —intended to create a homey feel about the renovated Academia Hospital – was immediately betrayed by the overpowering scent of bleach. The patient had taken her time, staring down every person in the doorway before sitting down in the center chair to repeat the process. She was told this was a typical therapy session. The rectangular room could seat forty and usually acts as a movie room for the wards. They had pushed all the chairs against the walls, placing one in the center, as the eye. Directly across from where the doctor would sit while students completed the cyclops’ squared mouth. One of the common area’s coffee tables was brought in – as the unfortunate Hitler stache - splayed with patient records and advertisement notepads - to create a therapy session lesson.

“I’m supposed to ignore 20 people?” Sarcasm being a notable disorder within the patient and prevalent throughout her innermost thoughts, the pervasion was infectious.

“Yes. They are merely here to observe.”

She had calculated in silence as the doctor spoke to her, intentionally staring daggers at each student. Five had cruelty in their eyes and were no different from herself except seat position, and five looked away too quickly to be of service to anyone at the moment. At the same time, seven tried to hold contact and remain unpitying but firm and understanding – only four succeeded. Three would do just fine in their chosen fields. They looked justifiably concerned but curious. There was no perceptible scrunching of the face, unconscious or otherwise. They empathized by looking around the room and observing the patient and the other students and the doctor’s reactions. She would have preferred them over the doctor – for they would check under the box of indifference.

A part of the patient enjoyed the attention and was somewhat amused by the spectacle. But the overriding emotion was that of a caged animal, a lab rat. She came to these places to reset and was fortunate enough to afford such luxuries as healthcare – especially when geared toward mental health. She had support systems and angels, but they weren’t enough because she felt she wasn’t enough. Her mind would sour like milk, chunking up and clustering thoughts until spoiling beyond consumption and morphing into something else.

However, this time, she had essentially admitted herself after a few lackluster suicide attempts and exasperating all her negative outlets. There was a defining moment when the leather woven belt was around her neck, and she thought about a Law and Order episode where this had become a teen fad – the leverage wasn’t proper, and her heart wasn’t in it. The night before, she took a handful of her sleep medication and just had a restful night's sleep. The day before, she mixed ecstasy with cocaine and pain medication and again felt normal and had a good night's rest. Of course, during this time, the voices in her head had screamed themselves dull. Like when you listen to a heavy metal album on repeat, after a while, it's just one song in the background, no matter how loud it gets.

The fact of the matter, she was horribly unwell and needed this. She started Electroculvise Therapy last week, and her mind was like radio static now. It's too sharp for her to handle; her awareness only goes so far. She blames the doctor for this, for being stuck here, for being made to participate in her care actively. She wanted to finish War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and sort out her novel ideas while letting the litany of medications settle in her system and balance what it could. So her head doesn’t find itself constantly up her ass. She wanted to talk; she was the patient here, but unresentful words escaped her.

Nothing but a bloodbath played before her eyes, a scene straight out of an action-horror thriller that sets up the plot of an escaped mental patient on the loose – as she tore everybody in the room apart with her bare hands. But then, in the absurdity of her mind, she couldn’t help but morph the escapee into Susan – the woman that roams the hall at night asking for her “two-percent milk, nothing more, nothing less.” Then being directed to the grocery store when the credits roll and the enflamed town can rest once more.

She genuinely wanted to be better or relatively normal. To hold a steady job, pay her own bills, maintain healthy relationships, etc., etc. She also wanted to join the military to become a trained sniper and learn to survive in the wilderness and disappear off the maps, destined to be called some form of the word ghost. While she lives in a cabin in the mountains with an internet connection and a hidden weed farm in the cave systems. Or just become a writer. The passion to do something was there. But what and why were the constant questions that shut down production of herself.

That’s when she sought outside help.

The building was burning, and all that was her was turning to ash in the fire. She only hoped someone would call 911 while she sat on the corner and warmed herself under the glow of her colossal failures. This time she asked her mother to take her to the hospital to get a hug from the church lady and a drip from the nurse lady. She told herself, one of these days, I’ll figure it out. It's there. The fact that she put herself there was a clear sign of change instead of waking up in the hospital or the ambulance after being found. The selfishness was astounding, but she was chained up inside nonetheless. The controls were set on random, and she swallowed the access key, but it was an act of desperation. She was blind and numb, robotic and genuinely unaware. She can blame herself, add guilt to that truth. She was not in control and never really has been.

There were still choices made. Hands swatted away calls unanswered, understandable concepts made unrelatable, turned into a curse only she was destined to bear. Only she could scratch and climb to the peak of the world to relieve the stress that damned her soul. Only she could decide to do better, to actively participate in her well-being, in her own story. To create something tangible for the future instead of dwelling in a past, unwilling to heal.

It took its own time.

But sitting in a room, surrounded by eyes that resent, pity, and concern her; that want to learn, judge, and cure her. She realized she didn’t want to be there. She didn’t want to trust these people and this doctor with her care.

Then it clicked.

“I understand that I have to participate in my well-being. I’m learning to manage my highs and lows. I also feel the ECTs are really helping to clear my mind. I think I can do better. Keep these good habits when I’m in the outside world. I feel safe with myself. And I’m just ready to go home.”

“That’s all we wanted to hear.”

She walks out of the conference room, and past the common area, down the hall to her shared room. Her roommate is in family meetings at this time, and Susan is sedated. She looks out the razorwire patterned window, and the thought of smashing her head against the glass passes like a whisper before she moved instead to grab her book and journal from the wooden desk and sat down on her assigned bed. There wasn’t really time for either, however. The nurse would be coming any minute to take her blood and administer her early afternoon medication. She forgot it was her Electroculvise Therapy day as well. So, she just laid down, as her bed made a little whine and her overstarched sheets rustled against her band tee and sweatpants, secretly charging themselves to give her another type of shock on the wheelchair when they take her down to the procedure rooms.

But as she gazed up at the cardboard ceiling, losing count of the panel's dots, she made a solemn vow to herself to decide she was enough but capable of so much more. And for the first time honestly thought she could do better.