Capitulation

It is one year to the day since you realized something was wrong with you. I mean really realized. You had been thinking for a while that you really shouldn’t exist—that you were pretty much a burden on everyone around you. You tried removing yourself from social situations, spending more alone time in that claustrophobic red room than you liked, but it didn’t help. The calls still came—calls from worried friends—and it was pretty obvious that you were causing more trouble than you were worth. You wanted to make them stop worrying. You wanted to make them stop caring, because all you did was hurt them. You tried to do it safely; you went to the doctor, lied through your teeth about how you recognized your depression and wanted to fix it, and you took the stupid little pink pills once a day like they told you. At first.

 After a few weeks of spending the days going through the motions of a happy life and the nights shut up in your room with your box of sharp objects, you started brooding more on the pills they gave you. One pink pill eased the pain. It softened the blow when you caught that look that you weren’t supposed to see—the one between your friends, wondering      how long this calm was going to last. The few times you took more than one, it was less of a safety net and more of a sedative. It was as though your entire body was stuck in that stage between full awareness and sleep: the tingling feeling that starts in your toes and gets worse and worse until your whole foot is asleep; only it consumed your entire body and it was a bit more comfortable. Two pills made you miss the look between friends entirely.

So, what would three pills do? Four? What was the worst that could happen? You started experimenting and each time you added a pill to your cocktail of pink, you became more numb, until eventually you stopped feeling everything all together. Words came out slurred when you even bothered with them, but it didn’t matter. You were pretty sure that this was not the purpose of the medication, but it felt a hell of a lot better than the constant ache of depression.

You try not to remember that night too clearly (not that you could recall a whole lot of it anyway): the night you took one too many pills. There wasn't a specific reason that everything had bubbled up on this particular day, but bubble it did. You knew you couldn’t stand one more moment of pretending everything was okay, when it was clear to you, and it was clear to them, and it was clear to you that it was clear to them, that nothing was, in fact, okay. You wanted to take yourself out of their world. You could not inflict upon them one more drugged-up phone call asking them to drive you somewhere or help you walk down the stairs.

The night you tried to kill yourself for the first time was the same night you first thought that maybe something stronger was at work here. Maybe you were chemically unstable, rather than simply insane. Well, no matter whether or not it was true, you chose to believe that this was the case, and without even realizing you were doing it, you began to use it as an excuse.

Slowly, your friends faded into the background. Few stayed to watch the rest of the Freak Show. The past year has been a downward spiral; a tornado of addictions, eating disorders, and self-harm. There have been more times similar to your first suicide attempt than you’d like to remember. You have refused help and not known why. You have gone through long periods of thinking you were okay—just different. You have gone through longer periods of time thinking you were mentally insane, but unworthy of help. You realize now that the past year has all been leading up to this moment.

It seems to you like the car is moving maybe an inch every few minutes. Every once in a while, you become aware that the girl next to you is squeezing your hand. She gave up holding back her tears a long time ago, but you’ve only just recently started noticing the steady flow. You wonder vaguely how long you have been this shell—this poor imitation of her best friend, who cannot even bother to see her pain. Your flashes of compassion and remorse are much like the hot flashes from the withdrawal of your medication: few and far between, but more intense than anything you think you could possibly feel.

She kisses your hand and says something in a language you don’t quite recognize as your own. You are too far gone. You forget why you are even in this car until you find what she is looking at: you have arrived. You stare out the window for a moment, turning on your mental defrost. Everything takes a little bit longer to register in your mind. You start shaking as you take in the sight of the huge brick building with its huge, white, Greek columns and the rows upon rows of opaque windows that line the upper two floors. Then you realize that it’s not you shaking at all. It’s her, and she’s sobbing again. She seems to be clinging to you for dear life, apologizing for something, desperate for forgiveness… acknowledgment… anything. Slowly, you turn your head back toward her and in a wave of recognition that threatens to throw you overboard, you see through the tears, straight to the broken girl inside. You have done this—the same way you did it to your family and to your other friends. The others gave up on you, it would seem. But this girl refuses to give up. She will see you well again. And that, you remember, is why you have let her bring you here.

You know she did not want to say it—that much had been clear in her fidgeting during the days leading up to her suggestion—but you did not react to being institutionalized the way she had feared you would. It had almost been a relief. It was obviously something that everyone had been thinking of for quite some time, but had been too afraid to drop the name of the place. You were too fragile. Just the thought could have sent you over the edge. You had known it was there, on everyone’s mind, but you played dumb, fearing for yourself as much as they were. The look in her eyes as she’d hesitantly brought up the subject—the plain and obvious pain on her face, present in every feature, and no longer hidden, for you’d stopped noticing her facial expressions months ago—had brought you out of the dark corner of your mind long enough to realize what you were doing to people. To yourself.

You open the car door on your own. It is, sadly, a great feat for you, but you feel the need to go out with a bang. Having gotten used to repeating things to you time and time again, she has explained several times the procedure of checking yourself in—signing your body and mind over to these doctors until they deem you stable. It’s the walk to the door you’re worried about.

Your mind spins wildly as you stand up a little too fast, and before you can even catch your balance on your own, she is there, holding your arm, closing your door. You wanted to make this walk alone—a symbol of your willingness to do this for her and for yourself. But who knows how long it will be before you can touch her again? Her hands have wiped away your tears in times of depression, dressed you in times of weakness, and cleaned you in times of nothingness.