May 8, 2024

Editor’s note: The following narrative includes sensitive mental health topics. Reader discretion is advised.

You’re no fool. You expected this. While, legally speaking, you weren’t in this situation of your own volition, that’s not quite true. You’re no stranger to lying, after all. But you chose to do what you’ve been told is the right thing, and now you’re here. Strapped down to a stretcher and imprisoned in an ambulance, like you’re some sort of fanatic Joker wannabe. 

You stare at your faint reflection in the window. You look around at the bins and cupboards filled with medical supplies that line the walls of the ambulance. You gnaw at your lip. You think. You ponder. You wonder just what awaits you at your destination, which you estimate to still be forty minutes away. You’ve been told to not be afraid; you’ve done research on these places in preparation for this exact scenario. You wouldn’t have been truthful if you hadn’t been willing to go. 

So why is there a growing pit in your stomach?

You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding in and attempt to get comfortable, closing your eyes. After what feels like an eternity, the double doors open, and the lady on the other side smiles at you. 

“Alright, sweetie, here we are.” 

You politely smile back at her. Another lady enters your view, and together, they extract you from the ambulance. 

You’re freed from the stretcher, and look out at the open road just beyond the parking lot, the moon shining in the sky beyond. Excellent, now I can make my grand escape, you think sarcastically. You’re corralled inside and to the front desk, where The Adults begin speaking with each other. You don’t really hear them. Your thoughts insulate your ears.

Eventually some of The Adults leave, and you’re taken to another room. Your escort enters what seems to be an office and types on his computer for a while. You stand there dumbly and gaze around the room, taking in all of the colored pictures hung on the walls. The pit in your stomach grows. Eventually, he hands you some papers and instructs you to fill them out at a small desk just outside the office.

You comply, and get to work. You write your name. You write your pronouns. You circle childish clipart images to indicate what your “boundaries” are and what “triggers” you. You finish, and another eternity passes as you wait for him to come and collect it, your only company being an overhead TV playing a bizarrely crude cartoon. Afterward, you’re taken to the “residential area,” where you’ll supposedly be staying for the next week. You pass a clock on the way. It’s midnight.

The Adults scramble to find you a room. They joke around, laugh and chat. Apparently some other kid had been put in the “group room” to sleep for misbehaving. The pit grows again. Another kid comes down the hallway to ask for a pencil. You exchange a look. He seems fairly ordinary. After a time, you’re taken down the hall to your room. The doors to all the other rooms are left open. The nurse stops in front of what you presume to be yours, and she informs you that it’s the same room that Misbehaving Kid is assigned to. 

Serendipitous. 

You enter your room. It’s a dump. There’s clothes and bedding everywhere. A strange turquoise substance is splattered across the walls. There’s a kid sleeping on a conglomerate of pillows and sheets on a bed frame.

“That one’s yours,” the nurse says, gesturing to a bare mattress with a pillow and bedding neatly folded and placed at its foot. You nod. She leaves. She doesn’t close the door. You make your bed, and lay down. You turn on your side to escape the hall light outside your room’s open door. The pit grows once more. You fall asleep.

The next day, you meet the other kids. Pencil Kid is here because he attempted suicide after his father’s death, and Misbehaving Kid is here because he was planning on murdering his father. The Adults placed them in the rooms directly next to each other. The Adults had them go to breakfast together. Miraculously, they got along, uniting under the common threat of the psych ward and its horrors. They talk to you. They compliment your outfit. They make you laugh. They impart some light into the swirling vortex of the unknown. You play dodgeball together during “gym time.” You make fun of the nurses together when they tell you to simply try having a positive attitude. They’re kids. Just like you.

And yet, the pit grows. You think of your friends, who you’ve ghosted against your will. The pit grows. You think of your teachers, looking at their rosters and seeing “Absent—Hospital” written next to your name. The pit grows. You think of your mom, who sat with you the whole day in the emergency room while you waited for the ambulance. The pit grows. You think of the essay you left on your desk, waiting to be completed. The pit grows. You think of your dog, who saw you walk out the door the previous morning yet had no explanation as to why you haven’t returned. 

The pit swallows you up from the inside, and the tears fall from your eyes in a deluge. Your selfish, bitter attempt to do the unthinkable; Your mother’s attempts to make the situation seem less dire than it is while sitting in the emergency room; How you feel like you are being punished for speaking up about your mental health. All of these thoughts tumble alongside you deep into the pit, and you realize that there’s no hope of being able to climb out of it.

That is, until you spy a hand reaching in to try and pull you out. Pencil Kid’s hand. And Misbehaving Kid is right behind him. They talk to you, and comfort you, and listen to your woes, sharing their own stories as well. They make you feel seen. They make you feel better. They laugh with you. They treat you like a person.

All while the nurse sits in the corner of the group room, silently filling out some paperwork.