Family is Forever

69- a chemical imbalance

"Oh Ali. You're weight is exactly the same as it was before Christmas. And you have an appointment with our in house psychiatrist about everything that happened over a Christmas. Your cousin Ollie told us about all that." Claire looked at Ali as she stepped off the scale "Oh and Happy new year." Claire smiled
"Thanks." Ali laughed "you too."
She went into the group room and was attacked into a hug by Elsie. Although a few people had come and gone from day treatment  Ali and Elsie's bond was unbreakable. They had FaceTimed almost everyday but hadn't talked face to face in over 2 weeks. Elsie's asthma had calmed down too and she only spent one night in the hospital. They hugged for at least 30 seconds.
They all spoke about their Christmasses and how they had been. Ali left out the planned suicide out. Elsie knew about it and the clinicians did. She didn't feel comfortable sharing it. She knew she was supposed to but thought it might trigger some of the other girls in the day treatment group. Most people had struggled a little. They spoke a lot about getting back on track after Christmas. After morning snack Ali was brought into a tiny room with a psychiatrist. "I'm Dr Angela Collins, nice to meet you Natalia."
"You too." Ali smiled shyly.
"How old are you Natalia?"
"Sixteen."
"Would you like to explain to me what happened on Boxing Day?" Dr Collins asked kindly.
"Don't you already know?" Ali asked
"I do but I want to hear it in your words."
"I don't really remember. So Wigilia was hard, that's Christmas Eve in Polish we had a big meal and I threw up but didn't tell Zosia or Ollie, I didn't want to upset them. It was the most important day for us Poles and the day after was one of the most important days for brits I didn't want to upset then. On Christmas Day we had Ollie's mum over, Ollie's my cousins boyfriend by the way, she was really posh and rude and I didn't like her. Anyway she upset Zosia , thats my cousin, she has bipolar disorder and is in a depressive episode right now, anyway Blanche upset Zosia in some way and her reaction was to self harm- which I don't think she's done before but I have, I found her."
The psychiatrist inturuped Ali "can you put in to words how you felt when you saw Sorcha?"
"It's Zosia." Ali said "it's a Polish name."
"Sorry, can you articulate how you felt when you saw Zosia self harming."
"I truly wanted to grab the razor off of her and cut myself, but I went to get Ollie instead." She looked at the psychiatrist who motioned for her to continue "anyway Ollie told me to get the first aid kit, and then go to my room. I did but I heard Zosia say 'I heard Natalia saying on the phone that it' she meant cutting 'calms her down' and that that's why she had cut. So I knew that it was because of me. That I wasn't helping. I'd been thinking for a while that I didn't do anything... what's the words..contribute to society I just took from everyone and made stuff bad for people. So I thought it would be better if I wasn't there. So I thought I'd kill myself, I was coming back into my room and was going to take the paracetamol but Colette was there. She's like a family friend."
"Ok." The doctor said "thank you for being so honest. I think a course of antidepressants might help you." The psychiatrist explained to Ali how SSRIs worked, that there would hopefully be more serotonin in her body. What the side effects might be, when and how to take them "Natalia, it is not you're fault, it's a chemical imbalance in your brain." This was the first time it dawned on Ali. It wasn't her fault, it was a fault of her brain, that she couldn't control.