What it means to have scars *Rewritten*

Chapter 2 Avoidable

          Here I am, back to sitting in this uncomfortable chair, listening to the same speech every week. Either you're actively recovering or you're not. It doesn't matter, each meeting you have to either lie or admit the guilt of relapsing. Or if you've been clean for six months, guess what?? You still have to be here to answer the same questions with the same responses.

" yes I'm still clean",

"no I haven't relapsed",

"yes I'm doing fine".

But hey it all makes it worth it for the stale doughnuts at the end, if you can  manage to not walk out the moment you walk in. Gazing around the room  I recognize all of the usual hopeless faces. The one remotely "new" thing in the room is instead of the usual eight chairs set up there are nine.

Not everyone shows up every week like me. To be fair not everyone is required too like me. Some only come once a month for a check up then they disappear, Only to randomly show up  next month then disappear again.

Then there are the ones who show up twice a month.
I envy the few who at least have a week break, to relax from Dr. Anderson and his fake ass.

  Usually when you've been in a mental hospital you can tell the regulars from the ones who showed up fresh from the emergency room. I'm not quite a regular however I do know a large amount of patients from the hospital.

I wonder if the "mysterious" new member went to another hospital before coming here. Maybe I know them, I'd consider myself a "somewhat" friendly person and it would be good to talk with someone I've met. Truly all I can hope is that they have a decent sense of humor. Maybe they can liven up the doom and gloom feeling that is constantly in the air.

  The sadness here feels like a heavy blanket weighing down everyone in the rooms chest. As though you can't breath until you left the room, everyone's holding their breath until they can exhale as they leave in a large flood.

I constantly wonder how or why I ended up here but then I remember my parents. Then it dawns on me "oh yeah that's why". I mean getting sexually abused by your step-father talk about child trauma. I guess it had an impact on me but I don't see my coping as wrong.

Looking around I take in the landscape of the small room. The dim orange lighting that is throughout the building. Then the big frosted windows on each wall facing outside the obsidian building, why they would make the mental hospital on the third floor I'll never know. But if I'm being honest in some ways It's tempting all I'd have to do is break the glass and jump, escaping from the lies, from the doctors, the absent looks of the nurses, the fake smiles and fake encouragement. But what would I gain? i'd break a few bones just to be put in the hospital wing then be sent right back here.

I'm sorry that got dark there, I said I was recovering right? At least I'm trying. It hurts for me too look around the room and see these people hurting recovered or not. I genuinely don't believe it ever leaves you, the tiny pain etched in your heart. Waiting for the perfect moment to revert back to all the cracks.

Looking to the person next to me, Paisley, you could tell somethings was off from his constant scratching on his arm, hand or thigh at any given time. He looked normal and stable if you put the scratching aside. Otherwise no would have guessed that he had self-harm tendencies. That he struggled every day. His long black hair reaches his shoulders and his crystal blue eyes that hold a look of despair if you looked deep enough. 

The way the group works is we start with one person and then it goes from person to person as Dr. Anderson asks the same question.

"How have you been handling things?"

In his big scary Doctor voice he directs the question towards Paisley first. This will be interesting, he always manages to get in the strangest situations. I mean last week he told us about how he went to Mexico and ended up losing all his money in a game of poker against some thirteen year olds. Who does that?? To be fair it does sound fun in a chaotic bucket list kinda way. Now let's tune back into whatever yarn Paisley's spinning.

"So I was walking and decided to go to the beach and a man who was wearing all black, I mean trench coat and everything approaches me and says "Hey you want some Mary-Jane?" So of course I say hell yes and got high on the beach and stared at birds all day" He finishes his story looking proud of himself.

Dr. Anderson does not look amused
"Smoking is not the way to solve your problems, its obvious to me you need an adjustment if your medication" He finishes with an almost smirk if you looked close enough. The look in his eyes shows he's secretly happy he can exert his power over someone other then the nurses.

That's another thing I may have forgotten to mention if you "act out" at these meetings that means a change in medication. Or rather another ten, it depends how Dr. Anderson is feeling that day. Today I think he feels very pathetic, I think he's always pathetic but hey that's just me.

Now back to me, if I wore long sleeves I would look relatively normal, that is if its not a hot day. But if I were to wear short sleeves here and he saw my scars I'd instantly be prescribed about three medications.

I would like to say that my trying to kill myself and failing then turning to cutting was inevitable.
It was avoidable.
It was preventable I could have chosen not too but I did. And now here I was stuck in this neverending cycle of returning here.