Pendulum

12. Step outside (Izuna)

Patient name: Izuna Uchiha

Date of birth: 13/09/1985

Journal entry: 15/05/2023, final journal entry.

Currently: Meeting with patient with plan to dismiss him from the ward. Patient says he's not suicidal and is feeling less depressed. Says he's able to feel positive emotions such as happiness for the first time. He is happy to have started Prozac, no adverse effects, aware it might take a few more weeks before effect is noted. Happy with Melatonin, sleeps well on this. Eats six meals a day according to schedule, does not remove or separate foods before ingesting. Patient has plans to go back to work as an aerodynamic engineer, plans to move for this job. Regarding patient's boyfriend he affirms he's worried but not to an abnormal amount. Reasons spontaneously that most people would worry about their partner in his situation. Patient is deemed to no longer be in need of in-patient treatment. Write off the Psychiatric Health Care Act. Patient is written out. Expresses no worry.

Psychiatric status: Clean exterior. Good formal, acceptable emotional contact. Patient smiles several times during conversation, laughs twice when we speak about his former eating habits. Uses body language and facial expressions sparsely but still an increase from before, which was nil. Partakes in conversation, paints a good picture of the scenarios talked about, respects turn-taking. Nothing psychotic. Denies suicidal thoughts or plans. If such would occur, the patient agrees he will phone the ward nurses.

Planning: Follow-up within the week as out-patient. Contact with out-patient psychiatry once a week. There is room for increase in Prozac dose. Continues with Melatonin at night and Alimemazine if needed.

He got back on his medication, just as he promised. 

He seemed to be a man to keep his promises. I appreciated that. I was afraid I was a man who couldn't be with someone who didn't keep their promises. It would break me too much.

He needed softness from me. He was fragile, and very much so. I didn't mind. I found it quite adorable. At the same time, I was ashamed I found it adorable as he truly suffered because of it. He held it back for my sake, I could tell, but it was crystal clear to me; Tobirama, happy as he was to see me get better, was terrified it would cause me to leave him because I wouldn't need him anymore.

How could I make him understand? How could I make him understand that my love for him had nothing to do with me needing him, with me being sick, with him being sick? How could I make him understand that to me, it was about him, who he was as a person, how clearly he could read me, and how clearly I could read him? How could I make him understand that for the first time in my life, I could envision a future for myself, and that future involved him, waking up next to me every day in a way I would never, ever let anyone else do?

I tried to figure out a way to tell him but failed. I could only be there for him. Giving him that softness he had promised me, and given me when he fucked me. I would come to his room in the ward at night and just hold him, and he would let himself be held as I whispered words of comfort into his ear. The words differed from time to time, ranging from our future together to things I'd done that day to funny things I'd come over on Reddit. Sometimes, I would even explain the physics of planes for him.

"The airplane wing, if cut through vertically, is not flat. The bottom part is flat. But the top part is convex. So the airflow on the top of the wing is faster than the airflow below, causing the air pressure to be higher below the wing and above it. That's why the wings can make the plane lift."