Pendulum

11. I don't really want to die (Tobirama)

Patient name: Tobirama Senju

Date of birth: 25/04/1995

Journal entry: 25/04/2023, admittance journal entry

Past medical history: Please see final journal entry of last in-patient treatment

Currently: Re-admittance. Patient has been standing at the edge of the Thomson bridge to jump. Stopped by patient's partner who is also a co-patient. Patient escorted to the ward by police, six policemen needed. Patient is immediately written in under the Compulsory Psychiatric Care Act. Impossible to hold patient for long enough to inject him why it is deemed necessary for patient's and staff's safety to belt him. Haloperidol injected successfully upon belting, limited effect. Alcohol in blood 4,3 per mille. Belted for a total time of 5 hours 14 minutes before deemed safe to release patient. Patient tired upon release, does not fight.

Psychiatric status: No formal contact. Enormously agitated. Violent. No external signs of self-harm

Planning: Talk tomorrow with patient about medication. 

Something changed for Izuna.

I watched in awe as I saw it. It was like sitting on a beach, watching the most beautiful orange globe of sunrise swallow the night whole. He started smiling. He laughed and God, he had the most beautiful laugh. He moved more energetically now he ate better. He was still slender as a stick figure but gained some colour and roundness to his cheeks that lifted it to the skies.

And all I could do was watch as I saw the man I loved slip through my fingers.

It made me feel terrible. He had been nothing but supportive when I got better. Genuinely happy for me. But now when it was his turn, I seemed unable to do the same.

I didn't avoid him. Oh, God, I couldn't avoid him for the life of me, not anymore. I loved him so much. He was the colour filling in the outlines of my life. My life clung to him as if it depended on it, as it did. I knew it was unhealthy. But I gave myself some space to deal with that when I got better.

If I got better. I was losing hope. I was losing each and every single dew drop of hope on the drying patch of grass covering my life.

"I can't do this anymore", I told the doctor. I hated how my voice sounded. It also cracked.

"Do what?"

"Life."

"Why would you say that now?"

It was provocative to me how calm the doctor was. Couldn't he see it was pointless? That everything was pointless? In what world did they live in that was dyed?

"Because I became better", I answered through gritted teeth, forcing myself to stay calm; they'd had their fair share of my bullshit. "Because I was better and then I deteriorated again. How will I ever be able to trust that I have the ability to stay happy?! Not happy even! I've given up on that. Normal. That would be enough. I want to be normal!"

I realised I had raised my voice, but the doctor took no notice of that.

"What is normal to you, Tobirama?" he asked instead.

Every instinct of me told me to get up and leave. I was so offended by the imagined inappropriateness of the question that I felt panic bubbling up within me, the panic that always rose when I desired to leave this place, but knew I was unable to. I trembled as I tried to calm myself down. I closed my eyes, felt the soft sensation of my brows furrowing, enhanced by the lack of visual impression. I tried to force myself to think about the question, to answer it politely; I knew the doctor did not deserve my wrath.