Thursday, 20 November 2020
I remember the expression on my dad's face.
I remember the words my doctor spoke quietly, as if she was afraid to spook me, while she attended to wrists.
I remember what I was wearing the day I entered the hospital.
I remember, I remember as if it was yesterday.
I didn't want to be in inpatient. I begged and begged, I just wanted was to go home. But it was too late for me to get better by myself.
Too dangerous.
And yet, I was still dying of fright.
Of course I was, after everything I had see in movies.
I kept trying to be reasonable but the idea of angry nurses and deadly roommates was impossible to forget.
Instead of all the monsters I was imagining, what I found there was exactly what this generation has come to be.
Suicidal kids, depression, eating disorders and PTSD. Mostly.
We were all kids, from 10 to 18 years old, but I realized quickly that none of us acted as such. Not even little James.
It seemed like a big class of damage teens and kids.
As I got to know them I understood we were all the same, but so different.
They all had something. Either it was singing or dancing, running or drawing, science or writing. They were all caring. They had the potential of having great lives and being great people.
I couldn't help but wonder how did they end up in a place like that.
How did I?
I have so many stories I could make a whole book about my time in the hospital. The nurses, the
friends I made, the girl I liked, the things we did.
Some moments were beautiful, some were not at all. Which is expected since we were all hurting, in one way or another.
We were there for a reason, it wasn't supposed to be a vacation.
We had group counseling, and I hated it. I'm pretty none of us enjoyed.
And we had some... peculiar activities, like the tree.
Today, in my sociology class, my teacher asked us to do the exact same exercise.
I felt my heart shatter all over again.
For a few seconds I wasn't even in the classroom.
Memories that I had to keep quiet surfaced in me.
Questions I still didn't have the answer to started ringing in my ears.
I was sixteen again.
I was out of control again.
I was screaming.
It's as if ghosts from the past are still after me.
Of course they are.
I'm still running away from them.
YOU ARE READING
Head High
Non-FictionI am eighteen now, and still scared. I haven't always been a scared person, life somehow made me that way at some point. Over the summer I learnt to fight back. I am still scared, but you don't know. Because I have my head held high. And mark my wor...
