Diagnosed Chaos

Chapter 4 • Long Time, No See 👁

Kay.

"Hi, Kay. I wasn't expecting to see you here. What are you doing here?" I said as calmly as possible.
"Oh, I tried to kill myself again. Twice. After the doctor art Hartpledge sent me home. I sometimes have this uncontrollable urge to choke myself. But how are you?!" Suddenly the sadness in her voice disappeared. That's kind of how Kay worked.
"I'm hanging on by a thread, but that's something." I knew better than to relay details to this girl, she would find a way to use it against me. She was beautiful, tall, thin, long blonde hair. But she was also literally a psychopath.
"Well, nice seeing you! I'll see you again at dinner time, beautiful." She said. She leaned down and gave me a quick hug, and when she did she kissed my neck. I forgot : she was bisexual.

And madly in love with me.

And no, I do not have even the slightest idea why.

"Lauren E, I love you so much. I'm so glad you're here. We're going to have so much fun together!" She said as she clapped like shed just won the lotto. The Lauren lotto.
     She turned and walked away with her one-on-one, Joe. When you have a one-on-one, that means you can't be trusted to be alone, so they assign you your own worker. They follow you everywhere you go, all day everyday. They wait outside the shower for you, they go in the bathroom with you, and they watch you sleep. I am not kidding. I have never been assigned a one-on-one, but there is always at least one person who has one. This time it's Kay.
     Just then, the kids unit came marching through the door. The minimum age for this hospital is 8, and the maximum age to be with the kids is 12. There 7 kids with volleyballs, wearing street clothes sipping lemonade from Styrofoam cups. One little boy, who looked no older than 5, looked at me and gave me a big grin missing a few front teeth. That made me laugh.
"What's your name?" I asked him.
"DON'T TALK TO THE KIDS." Rang out from behind me. I nearly fell out of my chair.
I turned around to see one of my favorite Mental Health Techs, John, almost bent over with laughter because he scared me so bad. John was fresh out of college, he was only 19. I'd actually met him back when he was still in high school. He was extremely tall, he had jet black hair, big grey eyes, and he most certainly worked out. He was a sight for sore eyes. And he loved his job.
"JOHN! STOP DOING THAT." He did that to me the last time I was at Black Oak, but he had a super serious expression and it made me cry.
I turned back to the boy. "Sorry honey. What's your name?"
"Louis. I'm 8. Wanna see me chug my lemonade?"
"Ah. I'm Lauren. I don't think-" He was already downing it.
I didn't even see John running, he just popped up next to me where Louis was standing.
"Lauren! Don't encourage the kids to misbehave!" John says as he's prying the cup from Louis's hands.
"It wasn't me!"
"Sure." He winked at me. Ugh, stop. THAT would never work out. That would work out just as much as I do. Ha.
Not gonna lie and say I didn't enjoy it.
I went back to my coloring page. Can't a girl color in peace around here? I did. For about five minutes. Then it was time for GROUP THERAPY. Yay.
We had to move all the tables and put the chairs in a circle. A perfect. Fucking. Circle. Not an oval, squares are not acceptable, and God forbid a triangle is formed. A circle is the shape healing, apparently. The patients with OCD had their fun, but after 20 minutes of chair-adjustment I was getting a little pissed off. I understand how difficult that disorder is to live with, but please let me sit down. They finally got settled, and the therapist arrived.
"Hello everyone! My, what a big group we have today. My name is Janet, and today were going to be talking about coping skills."
     AAAAAAAAANNNNNDDDDD cue the giant sigh from everyone in the group. I laughed and everyone looked at me with the hungry eyes again. I decided I needed to learn to control that.
"Okay, so I want to go around the group and have everyone introduce themselves. Lets start with... you!" She points right at me. "I also want you say one coping skill that works best for you. It has to be positive, I don't believe in self-harm." Then everyone just stared at me expectantly.
"What, in the actual fuck, did you just say?" I said.
     Her jaw hit the floor.
"How dare you. How dare you say that self-harm isn't real. It is all too real for I'm sure, more than just myself in this room. It is very much a coping skill. Just the worst kind. Not everyone can do a fucking crossword puzzle or take 'deep breaths' and just automatically feel better. Are you even a therapist? Don't answer that." I stood up, and felt John's hand on my arm.
He led me down the girl's hall to the quiet room. When we got there, I shook my arm free of his grasp. He just looked at me and chuckled.
"What the hell, John?" I was bewildered that they let that woman speak to us. Let her in the building at all. How could she be so insensitive? I was also mad that John had dragged me away, and was now laughing at me.
"You need to cool down, princess." He said with a laugh.
"And you need to step back! I am sick of this place already and I've only been on the unit for two hours! What happened to the gender-separation rule? And what happened to the ACTUAL THERAPISTS? Do you know how many times I've been creepily stared at by the freaky giant 17 year old criminal? Many. Kay won't leave me alone. My cuts are singing in pain but I don't have time to worry about that because I'm to busy discussing REAL coping skills like singing and dancing and scrapbooking. For fucks sake, John. What is going on in here?"
Just then two nurses came busting through the door and John whipped around and put his arms in front of me.
"We heard yelling, so we brought the sedative. Is everything alright?" The nurse had a syringe in one hand and a bandaid in the other. The other had the mitts.
When you get loud, or crazy, or uncontrollable, they get out this syringe cocktail of medication called a Booty Dart. Because it goes in your butt cheek. Then they put you on a hard plastic bed, and they either hold you down, strap you down, or put giant fluffy mitts on your hands until you fall asleep. There's a paper that the parent signs during admission that permits this. Mom always signed.
"She's fine, just needed to cool down. The therapist was being very disrespectful and so Lauren gave her a piece of her mind, that's all. I'm sure she'll be alright." John said to them both. Then he motioned for them to leave.
"You can lay down in here and relax for a bit. I'll come get you in an hour. By the way, 12 other patients walked out of therapy after you did." John raised his eyebrows at me and cracked the door.

Haha troublemaker! I hope you're enjoying so far!
Chapter 5 • Drugs, Drugs, & Drugs tomorrow @ 5pm
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  National Suicide Hotline: 1-800-273-8255