The next few days I yo-yoed between one to one and five minute observations, frustrating both myself and the staff with my in ability to cope without self harm. I smashed a compact mirror and attacked myself with the pieces, I stole a rusty nail from a window sill, digging deep enough to hit a nerve for the first time. The pain rose and swelled, sending tingling tentacles from my hand to me elbow. I panicked and called in Alice from outside my room, and she took me down to the first aid room with a sigh. I returned to one to one observations, yet again.
The initial euphoria of finding the psychiatric ward not half as bad as I had been expecting was quickly wearing off. The smallest discrepancy would have me in tears, and since education had finished for the summer I spent most of my days curled up on my bed listening to music and trying to reign in my emotions.
The weekend came and only Dillon and I were left behind, me because I wasn’t on a high enough level to go home yet, and Dillon because he chose not to go. I meandered into the living room mid morning, more despondent than ever now that there were less people around to distract me. Dillon called me over and asked me which radio station I liked. I answered, and he flicked through television channels until he found the station, then we lay back on a bean bag and listened, talking about anything and everything, our homes, our pasts, our present. Half way through the conversation the song Same jeans on by The View blasted onto the TV.
We exchanged a simultaneous grin, leapt up and danced around the room, miming guitar and having a stab at ballroom dancing, my last experience of which was as a seven year old Brownie. The song finished and the tunes that followed could have been a play list designed for us. We danced until our limbs ached, sung until our throats were sore. Finally conceding defeat we flopped back on the beanbag, then glanced towards the door, and found the staff congregated at the door of the room, some smiling, some laughing. We burst into a fit of giggles that lasted minute after glorious minute, then rose and moved into the dining room for lunch.
That weekend was far better than anyone could have anticipated. Dillon and I battled each other at card games, pool and table tennis, wrote messages on the wipe board, teased the staff and tormented each other, and attempted to lay ambush for the patients returning on Sunday evening. It was a magical weekend, a lull between storms, the answer to the question of what is between a rock and hard place.
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’ – Oscar Wilde
‘It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.’ Sydney Carter
this is really really good! I've only just found it and you've made me stay here reading and not moving because i couldn't bear to stop. Needless to say i'm gutted it has stopped... what am i gona do now?!
*snuggles* really well done with this!
There will always be a happy ending. If its not happy then its not yet the end.
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
Despite the weekend my mood was a landslide waiting to happen. I felt bruised and beaten down by the depth of my depression and nothing anyone said or did made any difference. I stood in the art room with my hands deep in red paint for so long it set, wishing with all my heart it was blood pouring between my fingers. I scrawled out lyrics with a manic hand, clutched ice cubes until ice burns rendered the palms of my hands rough and raw, and still suicide loomed larger and larger.
Minute after minute, hour after hour, flashbacks plagued my mind, causing the world around me to roll away and revolve on without me, leaving me trapped, terrified, in the past. Self destruction slithered over my skin like a sickly serpent, deterred but not defeated. The melancholy lifted only when my mind turned to the oh so familiar task of plotting my own demise. Like a virus the thoughts spread to every aspect of my life-would that be wire be strong enough, would that patch of skin be weak enough, would the nail be sharp enough. Gradually my mind settled on a solution. The wires would do. The wires had a chance of working, the wires…I was on five minute observations now, in five minute, if I got the length and the drop just right…
I began experimenting, noosing the wires through my hands every precious, poisonous minute that I was left alone. Desperation and loneliness clung to every action I made, depression isolating me like a sheer, indestructible glass wall. I could see the world, almost reach out and touch it, but some invisible force held me back, trapped me in a prison. Time and time again I opened my mouth to speak to Em or Dillon, Alice or Gina, but the poison tarred my throat, building a barrier so that no word of truth could escape. Sickly phrases like ‘I’m ok,’ and ‘I feel fine,’ dripped from my mouth like honey.
My ending decided, all that remained to see was whether this time, my courage would hold out until death stole my final breath…
'Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.'
['There is only one thing we say to death. Not today'.']
'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.’ – Oscar Wilde
‘It’s hard to dance with the devil on your back.’ Sydney Carter