*plonks self down and puts marshmallows on the campfire*
Wake me up before I change again
Remind me the story that I won't get insane
Tell me why it's always the same
Explain me the reason why I'm so much in pain.
A while later Gina and I heard a happy commotion outside the room. I looked questioningly at Gina. ‘Joseph’s leaving now,’ she said. I gasped. ****. I’d completely forgotten. I had to say goodbye. I knew full well that promises of keeping in touch after leaving the unit were pretty empty. No one likes to be reminded so solidly of such a bad time in their life, and besides, that bond, that link, that thing that brought you together has been severed, trying to mend the ends back together? That just hurts.
I held eye contact with Gina. ‘Please can I go and say goodbye to him. I won’t do anything or go anywhere I swear, I just need to say goodbye to him.’ Gina shook her head. ‘You know that while you have those tablets I can’t let you do that. I hovered next to my seat, thoughts racing. I knew that the only way I would be allowed to say goodbye to Joseph was to give up the pills, but I’d held onto them for so long… I imagined handing in the pills, my last hope of escape gone. I imagined Joseph’s face when he realised I was not among the faces wishing him well.
I handed over the pills. Gina called Kit and the consultant in and they checked the pack for how many I had managed to secret away and tallied them with the amount I was producing from up my sleeves and in my pockets. Eventually, once they had them all, I asked Kit whether I could go and say goodbye to Joseph. For one awful, gut wrenching moment she seemed to be considering saying no. Then she met my eye, smiled and said ‘Yes.’
Last edited by Buttons. : 28-05-2009 at 10:27 AM.
'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
We’ve got obsessions
I want to erase every nasty thought that bugs me every day of every week
We’ve got obsessions
You never tell me what it is that makes you strong and what it is that makes you weak.
Saying goodbye to Joseph was harder than I could have anticipated. Looking into those fiery eyes and knowing that there was a good chance that this wonderful, funny angry boy would not make it out there, running from him self. The unit had failed him as had the rest of us. I would go on to ring him once when we were both out in the world and be greeted by a slurred voice and the harsh tones of reality. We never spoke again after that.
For Joseph’s goodbye we did the usual line up, staff on one side, patients on the other. Em produced the goodbye book that she and I had organised quickly at the last minute the other night, filled with hopes for the future and the scrawling of well wishers. Before he left I had ensured that he signed my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, my own private version of a memory book. After hugs and a few teary eyed smiles we waved Joseph off into life and returned to the bubble where real life couldn’t get to us.
On Gina and my way up stairs (I was still on one to one arms length observations) we ran into a new boy who would be coming for the days. His eyes were furtive and his face pulled in a permanently threatened and fearful expression. I smiled at him and said ‘Hi,’ receiving no response. Sandra, the nurse accompanying him for the mandatory introductory one to one observations smiled at me. ‘John doesn’t like to talk much,’ she offered. I nodded, smiled again at John then returned to my room to be alone with my own problems, one of which being that I was of course, not alone. Gina sat agonisingly close to me and I moaned. I tried to shift away round the corner and she shifted her chair with me.
I lay back on the bed and curled up on my side. My stomach ache was back with a vengeance and I had to bite my lip hard so as not to cry out. Misery washed over me, wave after wave of it until my physical pain was not the only reason I was biting my lip. If only I had managed to take the pills before running into Sandra…if only. Out on the night station I could hear Sandra trying to persuade John to look at her, talk to her, or at least play a game of Scrabble. My old, slightly rusty and ragged desire to help marshalled my misery off centre stage. I got up, still holding my stomach and called ‘I’ll get in on that game of Scrabble if it’s going!’ Gina smiled at me and said more gently than usual ‘You don’t have to you know Katy.’
‘I know.’
We left my room and I sat down on the floor next to John’s chair, helping Sandra lay out the scrabble board and pieces for Gina, John, Sandra and I. Sandra kept up a pleasant stream of conversation to John to try and get him involved. The game began and I too talked to John, acting as though he was responding to me keeping up a patter about the unit, the food, what I liked to do, how to wind up the nurses, anything I could think of. Occasionally I got a slight raise of the head or the twitch of a smile. The message was clear. Gratitude doesn’t need words.
We played on until my depression became too deep to keep fighting through and I returned to my room. Gina commented that I had done a nice thing. I brushed her off and huddled on my bed, arms around my knees. ‘When do you think Kit will take me off arms length observations?’ I asked her tiredly. Gina said she wasn’t sure. ‘Why?’ she asked. I chewed my lip.
‘Well for starters I hate it,’ I began then added ‘Plus I really need the loo and don’t particularly want you there watching.’ Gina smiled at me, reading my embarrassment and headed downstairs with me in tow to ask someone to find Kit. Kit arrived in my room minutes later, asked a few perfunctory questions about my intentions regarding life, then wandered off to do the paperwork to put me back on fifteen minute observations, which though not the half hour ones that I had grown used to seemed like a haven of privacy compared to this.
'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
