Outpatient

1

Never in my entire life would I have thought I would be sitting in a hospital waiting room at five in the morning answering a question that asks, 'how many friends do you have?' How is this relevant to my situation?

I can feel the stare of a boy in front of me and everything is silent except for a cooking show that's on tv. It is so hot and I want to leave. Maybe if I just would've wore longer sleeves none of this would have happened.

An odd looking girl walks in with bright pink hair and purple highlights. She is awfully skinny, and her dark makeup scares me. She sits down and pulls out a notebook.

After what felt like a million years I finally heard my name called. A woman with eyebrows that look like tadpoles smiles at me. She leads me to a room and the first thing my eyes land on is a huge scale placed right in the middle of the already uncomfortably small space.

"Hello, I am Lindsay. Please take off your shoes and step onto the scale backwards." I do as I'm told and can't help but continue to stare at her weird ass eyebrows which move up and down as she speaks.

"What brings you here today, Johanna?"

"Um..I might have cut myself?" I replied as if I wasn't sure. It felt weird to say it out loud. She nodded, taking notes on her clipboard. She asks me more questions related to the topic then she let me out and asks to see my parents.

As I wait, anxiety crawls up my body with each passing moment my parents are away. What could they be talking about? What if I have to stay here? My thoughts start to race and I feel myself start to have a panic attack. To try to distract myself I tune into the conversation of the girl with pink hair.

"I've never seen frozen." Her friend looks at her with shock. "Then you've never lived." He replies. She laughs and nods her head. "I have to call my mom and tell here that I'm gonna be staying here again. She's gonna kill me." She walks out of the room quickly.

A few minutes later I am called into the room to have a group discussion. Lindsay is the first to speak. "Johanna, we all think it would be best for you to do the outpatient program here. It is a three week program where we have many others who are in the same situation as you learn how to cope with self harm. The only negative side to this is that you would be missing school. What are your thoughts about this?"

Missing school for three weeks might sound like a dream come true to some, but to me its the worst thing on earth. In my school missing one day is like missing a whole year. If I miss three weeks I might have to redo the whole grade.

I shake my head. "No, thats not gonna happen you can't do that. I need to go to school." Lindsay gave me a look of pity as I start to panic. "No no you can't do this to me! I'm gonna drown in missing work!" She stopped me. "There is a school here and you'll be able to do your homework." I sigh and don't speak after that. My parents agree that its best for me to go after all and I'm told that I would be starting the next day.

This is going to be hell.