Autompne

nine

NINE

My symptoms were getting the best of me. My thoughts of suicide increased by the minute and it got to the point where I didn't think of it as such a terrible thing. It'd save a lot of people a lot of effort. Nothing would change at all. The sun would still come up in the morning and go down at night. The moon and stars would still light the way at night. It would be just another day for everyone else.

It was ridiculous that I was put under suicide watch. I'd told my therapist that I thought of death very often and she automatically called the doctors and asked them to watch me at all times and keep all sharp things away. They even went as far as to put me in a room with a window the size of a lizard.

Things weren't so bad at the hospital though, other than the fact that I had someone escort me to the bathroom and make sure I don't try to kill myself.

Like what am I going to do? Flush myself down the toilet?

I still had Autumn though and that alone kept me sane—just a little. We could hang out all the time and stay up talking all night. The hospital food wasn't all that bad and I'd occasionally have my mom cook up a meal and bring it to the hospital. She came to visit me daily and she wouldn't leave until after I fell asleep which normally was around eight o'clock at night. Then I would wake up and head over to Autumn's room. She definitely had someone to blame for her lack of sleep.

I was mostly glad to be away from school. I called it a perk of dying because it really was a perk of dying. I was done getting made fun of because right there, at the hospital, I belonged. We were all sick and screwed up so it didn't matter. Nothing did. We all knew how being judged by people who didn't get it felt like and I could talk to all of them about anything and everything. You'd be amazed at how much we talked about our MRI experiences and made jokes about it.

I was closer to Paul since we both shared the same disorder. I introduced my friends to Autumn as well and they seemed to really like her. Jessica even complimented her, even though she couldn't really see her. I had a second family at the hospital and Jessica was like my second mother. The hospital was my second home, believe it or not. And for now, it was my home. I was going to get worse here. I was going to sleep here. I was going to eat here. I was going to die here.

The more I stayed around the hospital the more I realized that being pessimistic about my disorder wasn't going to help me. I was only bringing myself down and my depressive episodes were enough. I didn't need negative energy around—I need to feel happy and I needed to be happy. I was going to try and live my life to the fullest and I wouldn't have been able to realize that had I never been hospitalized.

I guess getting hospitalized wasn't such a bad thing after all.