Memories

I don't remember most of last fall. I remember what happened and the main events but I don't know about some of the details. I know that sometimes our body just shuts out painful memories or stores them so deep that we can get on with our lives without having to contemplate or try to understand the horrible parts of out lives. One thing I know for sure and will never forget, is that I spent 2 and half days in a mental institution last year. Part of me doesn't understand how I ended up there while the other half is what signed me in and made me feel like I finally belonged. Although many, many events led up to me signing myself into a psych ward, most of which make me sound totally normal but susceptible to incredibly bad luck, I still think a part of me really needed to be in a psych ward. My whole life I felt different from other people. I would be contemplating my place in the universe while my friends would worry about their first kiss. I remember one of my friends just told me to talk one time she said "yeah like you did that one time and it was really interesting." I felt so important then, like someone was listening and appreciated what I had to say. But things like that rarely happened and for the most part I felt like no one cared about the same grandiose things that I did.

So when I found myself face to face with a doctor that told me I had a disorder that sometimes manifested in depression and other times in rapid extraordinary thoughts, I just nodded thinking "finally, someone figured it out." I admited myself to a hospital earlier that day thinking that I was diabetic because I was drinking a ton of water and peeing a lot but felt hungry all the time. My blood sugar wasn't out of the norm enough to warrent a diagnosis of diabetes so they changed to a psych diagnosis. A doctor told me I would be transfered to a different floor because they thought I had some disorder or another. At first my mom cried, and I told her to. I told her to stop holding it in and to just let it out and cry. I wasn't sad, however. I remember calling my boyfriend at the time and telling him what happened. I don't remember what he said, but I think he told me that he would love me know matter what. I also told my aunt. She said that it didn't change who I was, which was one of the truest and best pieces of advice that someone could give at that moment.

So a nurse finally came and, wrapped in my hospital blanket, I walked to the third floor where psych evaluations took place.