I awoke on the first morning groggy with an odd taste in my mouth. Even though there was no one to impress, I still went through my daily routine to make sure I looked good. Once dressed I walked down the hallway to the front desk.
"So, what've we got goin on today?" I asked the woman there who was more preoccupied with the paperwork in front of her instead of the stellar conversation I brought to the table.
"You're about to go to breakfast. Then meds. Then group."
"I was wondering if I could also book a massage in my room for 3 o'clock."
She stared at me, completely unamused.
"Right. Ok. I'm gonna go smoke now." I said to her as I turned to walk towards The Box. The whole way there I stared at the ground to avoid eye contact with everyone else.
Luckily this time I was in there alone and allowed my guard to drop slightly. I became fully immersed in the stories on the walls. My personal favorite was, "God's last name isn't damnit!" Unfortunately, due to my intense concentration I didn't notice Joseph was right behind me until he spoke.
"Good morning."
"Jesus!" I screamed as I spun around to put my back against the wall as well as put more distance between him and myself.
"Don't take my name in vain. Can I have a cigarette, please?" His face never changed as he spoke.
"Sure, here." I could foresee this being a problem, with me only having brought three packs.
I disposed of my smoke before it was finished, went inside and a few minutes later they took us to the kitchen for breakfast. I had cereal, soggy bacon and powdered eggs shaped to give the impression of being real and scrambled. I sat down at the table, joined by a huge mentally disabled man with tourette's syndrome to my left, the naked crazy lady to my right and joker and another religious fanatic directly in front of me.
The food was abhorrent. The eggs disintegrated when I poked them with my fork and the bacon (one of my favorite foods) left much to be desired. From that moment on, I ate a lot of cereal.
The conversation at my table was deafening as well as incoherent. Everyone was shouting to themselves and not taking in anything said by another person. Joseph was sent back to our wing due to a violent outburst and we followed not long after.
I noticed during breakfast and when I drank some water later that the awful, metallic taste from earlier in the morning had only intensified. As I pondered this mystery I noticed the patients forming a line and, since I had nothing better to do, hopped in along with them. When I reached the end I found myself to a window similar to one you'd find at at drive through.
"Name?" The woman I'd previously chatted up at the desk asked me through the glass.
"What's this line for?" I asked.
She sighed deeply. "This is where you get your meds. You need to come here twice a day and take them."
"Ok. What are they?"
"Let me check. What's your name?"
"Wait a minute. You're in charge of medications and you don't know our names? You're surrounded by mental patients. Joseph over there said he was Jesus this morning."
"Look, if you keep talking to me like that you're going to be in here a lot longer than you'd like. What's your name?"
"I'm Dav-lin Stew-art." I told her while drawing out each syllable, just to piss her off.
She then handed me a Dixie cup with three pills and another one filled with water. I gagged while consuming the contents of each.
Once that unpleasantness was over I went with my fellow crazies to my first group session. The counselor was a beautiful woman a few years older than myself and she left me transfixed. Since this kind of group wasn't the type who could articulate their feelings with fully constructed sentences, she opted instead for a very simplistic board game. She led conversation casually as we all struggled to get through it together.
"How do you feel being in here?" She asked me when it was my turn.
"I'm 22 years old," I replied while shaking the dice in my hand, "and I'm so emotionally screwed up I had to check myself into a mental hospital." I rolled the dice. "If I'm being honest. I'm not really sure what to feel right now."
"What's the hardest thing about it?
"I miss my music so bad it hurts."
Her eyes flashed with understanding. "If you could hear any band right now, who would it be?"
"Right now? Blue October, hands down."
Thirty minutes later group ended and we went back to our wing. This time, when we returned there was a scared kid sitting alone at one of the tables. His eyes darted in our direction and studied us all. He was terrified. I went over to him and sat down.
"Hey, man. My name's Davlin. Rough morning?"
"Hi. Eric. I'm freaking out."
"What happened?"
"My mom, man. She pushes me too hard in school. Like, it's crazy. I just want to be able to live my own life, but she won't let me. This morning I took 8 Tylenol in front of her. I just wanted to scare her; to show her how she makes me feel."
"Then what happened?"
"She called the paramedics, who gave me a charcoal pill and sent me here. My mouth still tastes like shit"
"That fucking sucks, man. How old are you?"
"19."
To make him feel better, I told him this story:
“There was this one day a couple of years ago I was feeling really depressed. I was watching TV feeling sad and bored when I picked up my belt. It was one of those that had leather threaded together, to allow you to put the notch anywhere you wanted. So, I wrapped it around my neck and buckled it as tight as it would go. I then just sat there for a couple of minutes. It was more uncomfortable than anything, so I got bored with it and gave up. After a couple of hours I went over to my girlfriend’s place and she asked what was wrong with my neck. The belt had burst all the blood vessels around my throat and you could see the perfect outline of the leather threads. I still don’t remember how I explained that one.”
“Hahaha...You did that? That was dumb.”
“Oh, really? I’m gonna get shit from you, Mr. 8 Tylenol?”
After that, we became inseparable in there. Unfortunately, this is also when the pills I ingested earlier started taking effect, causing the memories of the rest of my stay to splinter.
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