How To Stay Afloat (BxB)

Chapter 117: Back in the hood

The doorbell rang and I clicked on the publish button accidentally while editing. So I guess my hiatus is over now. Enjoy!

_____

There are a few things I learned over the course of seven weeks at a mental hospital:
Progress is never just in one direction.
Real friends are rare and I'm bessed with mine.
Having a lock on the bathroom door is a luxury I will never see as anything, but a luxury ever again.
Forgetting Austin is impossible and breaking up was probably my biggest mistake.

First things first. Therapy was okay. It was similar to drug rehab, just that I took it seriously this time.

I tried out a few different approaches with names like 'cognitive behavior therapy' and 'stress inoculation training'.

I'm gonna spare the details. It was a rocky road with a lot of very slow progress and multiple major setbacks. And I'm definitely not at the end of my journey, but I'm doing good.

The first week I couldn't sleep at all because I just felt so nervous and anxious. The following week I spent so much time in bed, sleeping, that the hair at the back of my head got so matted that the knots almost didn't get out although my longest hair is less than 10 cm.

What else is there to say?

I had one really bad dissociative episode which again lasted over a day after I talked about Noah. Apparently I was just spaced out, but was still doing all normal routines, so no one realized how spaced out I was until a few hours later.

I had to endure countless more flashbacks, but at some point I learned to tame the emotions that arose in me in certain situations.

The funniest thing was when we had group therapy and one girl started hyperventilating and crying and triggered someone else who triggered someone else and in the end half the room was crying and the other half was either awkward and left or started laughing uncontrollably and had to leave the room.

I was one of the three people who had tears in our eyes from laughing over the situation.

I once almost got kicked out for smoking weed that Louis brought me when he visited me.

Needless to say he's not allowed to visit there ever again.

Apart from that I was doing great there. Why did I have to stay so long? Drugs. My rehab was going great until 'my relapse' which was just me smoking one damn joint. Well, three joints, but I got caught with one. It made me end up staying two weeks longer.

Regardless, I probably would have had to stay longer because of my latest flashback that happened three weeks ago and resulted in some intense scratches on my arms.

Right now I don't think about drugs at all. They lost everything I craved for once I realized what they were actually doing to me and my body.

Lie.

That's what I convinced everyone of and that's what I've been preaching to myself. But honestly? The effect that morphine had was just so fucking good and I just cannot forget it.

But I have the craving under control now.

Carla and Harry visited me every other weekend and my family did, too. It was hard only seeing everyone for 3 hours a week, but I managed.

My family eventually also found out what really happened and why I had the cut on my neck. That happened around three weeks into my stay.

Some social worker there accidentally mentioned it to my mom and then my dad called the hospital and got all the information they had. When my parents confronted me about it a lot of tears were shed.