[Buttons.]

Within minutes Kellie was beside me. She reached out to touch my shoulder and I jerked away, breathing far too fast. The space behind the staircase was beginning to spin, and I slid into a sitting position against the wall. Kellie followed suit, murmuring soothing advice on how to slow my breathing and get things back under control. Gradually, counting my breaths carefully in and out I regained some control, and the swimming space was replaced with pins and needles in my hands and face.


“What happened there?” Kellie inquired casually, as though we were discussing soap operas again. I paused before answering the question, weighing up the merits and potential for opening up to backfire on me. I sighed, and began to speak. What else did I have to lose, really? “Eating isn’t my strongest point,” I padded around the subject of the bulimia, not quite ready to broach it just yet. Kellie waited, focusing carefully on every word I said. “I kind of…I…find it hard to keep food down after a meal, especially a meal with a lot of people at the table, I feel like they’re all looking at me and thinking…things.”


I laid my head on my crooked knees, unable to meet Kellie’s eyes. “I hate talking about that…the eating. Self harm, I can cope with talking about, it’s been in the spotlight for so long I think I’ve kind of gotten desensitised to talking about it. The eating stuff though…I’ve never been any good at talking about that. It’s so scary, the thoughts around it, I don’t really want to share them just yet, just in case anyone confirms them and makes eating even harder. I’m nowhere near as bad as I was, don’t get me wrong, it’s gone from barely eating and purging everything I ate to only purging when something tips the balance but…I’m still not ready to take a good look at it, do you know what I mean?” Kellie nodded and spoke softly and reassuringly, reminded me to slow my breathing when panic threatened to rear it’s ugly head from time to time in the conversation.

Eventually I felt so much better Kellie managed to persuade me to go into the lounge where the rest of the patients and most of the staff were situated. We walked through a room with a pool table and a wipe board with various amusing comments and the rules for pool and snooker on it. Stepping over the pool cues, I followed Kellie into the lounge. Again, it was a pleasant surprise. There were three comfortable looking sofas, a giant blue bean bag, bookcase full of DVDs and videos, and a TV that Dillon and a nurse called Nate were trying unsuccessfully to persuade into clear definition for a play station game.


I hovered, unsure of where to sit, whom to sit with, when a girl with a sweep of black hair and soft eyes patted the seat beside her on the nearest sofa. Half smiling I slid into place next to her, and we began to chat. She introduced herself as Catherine, and we were soon having a heated discussion on the merits (or lack there of), of emo music. A third girl, Riana walked in and directed to Kellie “Will you take me and Catherine to Morrison now please?” Kellie nodded, and Catherine piped up “Oh, can Katy come too? Please?” Kellie shook her head and smiled kindly at me “When she’s on lower observations she is more than welcome to come alone, but for now she’ll have to stay put.”

I didn’t bother arguing, knowing a losing battle when I see one, but I couldn’t stop the sinking feeling of shame and disappointment. Not even allowed to go to the supermarket down the road. I felt like a six year old child again. Catherine argued for a while then accepted defeat. The small group left, leaving Dillon, Rick, Em and Sasha the only patients left behind. All of them had the level of observations needed to go, but obviously Morrisons had exhausted it’s appeal. A bubble of laughter rose and died in my throat. I had gotten excited about going to ****ing Morrisons. What a sad case.


A short time later I retreated to my room, an evening/night shift nurse Sue sitting in the chair in my doorway, when there was a soft knock at the door, and I looked up to see Catherine and Riana standing a tad awkwardly in my doorway. I indicated they could come in, and they smiled and walked over to the bed. “We brought you some sherbet back,” said Catherine, holding out the cardboard yellow tube. A warm sensation of gratitude for this small act of kindness welled up inside me, and I had to blink back tears.


Catherine returned to her room shortly after depositing the sherbet, but Riana stayed behind. We listened to music, and I gently teased her about her strong Scouse accent whilst we played Uno. I asked Sue whether I was allowed to take my jacket off even though my scars would show, as I was in my own room, and she said that she thought it would be ok. I checked with Riana that it wouldn’t trigger her, then shrugged out of my jacket, relieved-it was a hot summer’s night and my window barely opened a crack.

A nurse popped her head round the door and introduced herself as my care team coordinator, then spotted Riana in my room, and my exposed arms. She berated me for being selfish and ignoring the rules, despite Sue confessing that she had told me she thought it would be ok. I felt a flickering flame of fury at Y.S, and for whoever picked her to be my care coordinator. Shrugging back into my jacket as Riana hastily left the room, I asked if it was ok to have my scars showing when there was just a staff member in my room with me, if I was on observations. “Well, it would be better manners to keep them covered, don’t you think, it’s hardly pleasant.” I sent a scorching glare at Y.S. I had battled for so long with insecurities about my scars, and now here were my worst fears confirmed. I retreated to the other end of my bed as she left, and Sue smiled apologetically at me.

A few minutes later I heard voices out on the night station, and gathering my courage around me like a cloak, I went out to investigate. Dillon, Em, Catherine, Riana, Sasha and Rick and the night staff were all sat around, laughing and joking, reading out magazine articles and winding each other up. Dillon greeted me with a wide smile on his thin face, and he held out his phone. “My friend Helen says she knows you from CAMHS, she’s told me to look after you, do you remember her?” Of course I remembered Helen. She attended the self harm support group I usually attended, and there was an affiliation between us as the only self harmers currently attending the group who had bad keloid scarring. I was touched that she had bothered to text her friend to ask him to take care of me, and remembered only at that moment that she herself had been in the unit for a few months last year, and had come out of it ok.


I smiled at Dillon and reassured him that of course I remembered her, asked how she was and fell into meaningless pleasantries. He leaned back against the wall and said “Bored yet?” with a knowing smile, and I shrugged. “Yeah me too, do you want a game of cards or something?” I nodded, and went to fetch my pack of cards. Within minutes I was teaching Dillon a card game I’d picked up on holiday in Devon one year, which involved yelling ‘SLAM!’ very loudly at various intervals, and racing the other player to win the game. Within minutes both of us were focused entirely on the game, competitive edges sharpening as the number of rounds grew higher and we found we were reasonably equally matched. Staff and patients had begun to watch us now, placing joking bets on who would eventually win out. Finally the game was finished and I playfully swiped at Dillon for claiming he had let me win because I was new, and then said “Wait here, I’ve got something you’ll love.”

Rummaging in the drawers in my room, I found the green foam that my friend had sent me, brought it out and threw it to Dillon. He shrieked at the odd feel to it, then tore a bit off, and chucked the rest of it back to me. We made a variety of foam animals and shapes, then Em asked me shyly if she could have some, and I tore a chunk off and handed it to her. Soon the ceiling was turning vaguely green as Dillon tried to persuade the foam to stick to it. Y.S materialised from downstairs, and I had a moment of apprehension over how she would take this latest development. I needn’t have worried. A smile split over her face and she cried “Aw cool!” and stole a bit of Em’s foam to play with. Eventually even the foam exhausted it’s amusement factor and Dillon and the others followed me into my room to play Uno.


Y.S came in with us, and joined in the game, and though I still stung from her earlier comments, I began to come round to the opinion that she was not malicious as I had initially thought, just a tad tactless. We laughed and played, then I nipped off with a nurse for my nightly asthma medication and returned for a few more rounds of Uno. Despite the merriment around me my mood was beginning to dip, and I hoped that nice as they were, people would begin to take the hint and leave. Y.S seemed to notice me flagging and ordered people off to their rooms to get ready for bed. Moaning and muttering the group dissipated and I was once again left alone with my thoughts, and Y.S hovering on observations by the door.