Evelyn's Lesson In Recovery

Adjusted

I wake up in the same white room. Someone comes in and gives me my medicine. I've been here for eight days. I hate this room and place so much!! I have only have smoothies to eat and the only water I get is the cup with my medicine. My door opens and I don't cower, I just sit, staring forward, completely numb. "Come on." Zoe says. I stand and follow her. I don't feel any emotions; I just feel entirely numb. "How're you doing?" she asks.

"I feel really really numb." I answer honestly. I had already had my medicine, so I'm not anxious about speaking. "That's fine, it's what your medicine does. You just need it slightly changed, just probably one less anti-depressant. You're on three different ones and there's one specific one that makes you feel numb. While that's good when you're extremely depressed and suicidal, when you're trying to recover you need to be able to feel emotions and not just the total numbness. The numbness is also known to lead to being self injurious; we don't want that. We want you to be able to manage your feelings and the occasionally numbness without needing physical pain" Zoe explains, bringing me to her office.

"So, have you adjusted pretty well?" she asks, closing her office door behind us. I shrug and say "I guess so." "What helped with that?" she asks. "Being alone for a period of time helped me adjust. It let me regulate my anxiety and fear of change alone." I explain, sitting down. I smile, my anxiety has gotten a lot lower now that I'm adjusted and my anxiety medicine has been perfected. "Well, that's a good note for helping you feel better." Zoe says. I shrug, still smiling.

"Well, do you want to talk about anything?" she asks. "I'm feeling a bit bad about how abusive my family was to me." I say, blushing slightly. "Why do you feel bad about that?" she asks gently. "I feel like it was my fault." I answer, tears appearing in my eyes. I wipe them away and force a smile. "Abuse is not the victim's fault. They did it to you. You didn't do it to yourself, nor did you ask them to do it to you. Don't blame yourself for their stupidity." Zoe says calmly. I feel better. "Thanks, I feel better about that situation now. They did it; I can't blame myself for their problems and mistakes" I say with a smile. Zoe nods and asks if I need to talk about anything else.

"What is the policy here on suicidal thoughts and self injury?" I ask, crossing my legs. "If you're having suicidal thoughts you are to report them immediately, so you can be put in an actual hospital and if you have a relapse in self injury, you must report it so we can clean your cuts and figure out a plan for further treatment. Sometimes that means going to the actual hospital, other times, it means intensifying your therapies. Most of the time, it's the second one because we want to help you learn to deal with the relapses. We're also not going to take any sharp objects away from you because those objects are in the real world and we try to model that environment as much as possible while still creating a healing atmosphere." Zoe explains. I nod and sigh. "That will be hard to do." I say honestly. "It will, but healing is hard, so you just have to try." she says. I nod and stand to leave. "Where are you going?" she asks. I shrug. I don't really know. I just don't feel like being in here and talking anymore. I say that and she takes me a different building where I'm assigned a room and a roommate. I go in and sit on the bed. I see a bag of toiletries. They included a razor.

I'm not going to do this. I can't do that to myself. I'm worth more than that. My mind continues to scream at me.  I throw the bag across the room and sit on the bed.  I find a notebook on the night stand that has my name on it.  I think about wether I should write in it or wait to be told what to do with it.  I decide to write.  I quickly write every thought in my head out.  I sigh and close the book.  I feel a lot better now and my mind has fallen silent.  I smile and look around again.  This room looks like a college dorm room.  It's nothing like a hospital room.  I realize this is a really strange place.  It seems like you have to break down entirely for them to help you build back up.  I just can't get over that.  It's so weird.  If they want someone completely broken down, why don't they take people straight from the hospital to here?  I mean I was completely broken down after my suicide attempt.  I should have came straight here and cut a step out of their 'treatment'.  The only good thing is Zoe is actually nice and she seems to be helpful enough.