The Problem is Me [EDITED)

Chapter 11

October, 2014

There is a new girl who has been admitted to the teen ward, she only looked about fifteen, I saw her briefly whilst she was being escorted in and fucking hell did she kick up a fuss. Her hair was unattractively stuck to her face as she screamed the entire place down about how this was 'preposterous' and that she had no reason to be stuck in this funny farm.

Behind all the screaming and tough show she was putting on, she seemed a little bit scared. I'm presuming it is her first trip to one of these places, so I guess she kind of has the right to be a bit scared. But seriously, if she'd just embrace her fear and start crying or something it would be a lot better than almost bursting everyone's eardrums.

I can probably guess what was going through her mind; her idea of the mental hospital was probably based pretty much on One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest and similar depictions.

She must have been thinking "They're going to dope me up with medicine without my consent!"

"I'll end up in a strait-jacket in a padded room!"

"I'll be surrounded by people who think they are Napoleon!"

"The nurses will torture me if I don't do what they say!"

"They'll try to keep me there against my will!"

Nope. Obviously, sometimes abuse can happen, just like abuse can happen in any kind of hospital or any place in the world, particularly to people who are too weak to fight back. But that is very unlikely.

Hell, I've never been abused in hospital and I think that if I were a doctor and met me; I would end up beating the sarcasm out of myself.

Even though you have the constitutional right to refuse medication, sometimes you'll be pressured into taking medication you don't want to take. But all of these are hospital-problems, not mental-hospital problems; if you wouldn't be scared of going for treatment for cancer because of the risk of abuse, you shouldn't be scared of going for treatment for depression or something along those lines.

The days are slow and there is little to nothing to do. Mostly, the mental hospital is really fucking boring.

There's a routine, which is comforting to a lot of people with mental illnesses: everything is utterly predictable, to the point that there is often a written schedule. They'll wake you up fairly early. You'll get meds, if you're taking them, and have your blood pressure and other vitals taken. There are three meals, plus snack times, a day.

Crafts are fairly common: I still have a vague suspicion that the sole purpose of art therapy is to entertain bored mental patients. You'll have about an hour, usually in the evening, for visitors. That's if you've got anyone to visit you, of course.

Somehow, and god knows how I've been here for just over two months. I have a few buddies, but I think I have to class Evan as a friend so he doesn't start crying.

After slowly finishing the dreadfully uncooked pizza, I made my way back up to the common room to find only a few younger kids playing card games and laughing with each other. I think they were playing that game called 'snap' where you have to shout the word snap when two cards match up. It made me wonder why they were in here, because they looked completely happy.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the 'new girl' sat at the table in the corner just staring at her hands. I've always hated the term 'new kid' or 'new girl'; it makes me sound like I'm the narrator on a teen high school drama or something.

I never quite got to look at her face when I saw her having a psycho moment earlier, but I have to admit that she is quite pretty for someone in here. I'm not going to go into that cliché "Her hair shone like diamonds, gently nestling itself on her angelic shoulder blades." Shit like that, because all I could genuinely tell you is that she had brown hair that was average length and she had blue eyes.