Elliot Granger & The Clueless Brigade

Chapter One: Lost souls recognize others of its kin

The smell of the building that held group was one of the many awful things I was growing to get used to. Human beings are extremely adaptable creatures, and that will be our downfall. I stare at the people in scrubs and clean skin and play electronica music in my head hoping it makes it all less terrifying. Sometimes I worry once I'm on the wrong side of the metal detectors that the doctors will decide I can't leave. Every day I felt less and less in control over my life. Part of me was scared by this, but another part, a part that was growing in strength, was deciding not to care—this concerned me. I wanted help, I wanted to figure out a way to not feel like climbing out of my skin, but this group wasn't helping. Actually, I was becoming quite convinced it was causing me to get worse.

After rushed and tired hands patted down my legs, and various machines beeped indicated things I didn't know, I passed by the guards who I wished were less intimidating. They all looked at me like fresh meat, like their thoughts didn't end in my favor. I'm not sure if their true intentions were to hurt me, or if that was just my fear.

So much scared me.

The wooden door with thick, tinted glass in the center was propped opened. White chairs. White walls. White tile floor covered in places by white area rugs.

All the white made me feel like an experiment. The smell of bleach only assisted this feeling. All the staff wore white scrubs. When the row of workers all in white sat behind a long white desk checking people in, I felt like I'd just been picked up by an alien ray into a ship that was now my new home. Every time, I walked through the doors after writing my name on a clipboard I felt like my sense of reality was stripped away from me along with my watch and shoelaces. The oldest of the women took my sealed bag of belongings that the guards had just collected and guided me to the proper door with the extension of her finger.

I stepped into the large square room with chairs and tables spread casualty throughout the immense and sterile space. Puzzles and various games were scattered across the tabletops at an attempt to invite all the misguided youth to intermingle. Wandering around the room attempting not to socialize with anyone and avoid any scenario where I had to play a board game with any of the others for one full hour before the group therapy started. I really scratched my head how any one person could think this was a good idea. There was staff around, but they were talking to each other not really paying attention to what we were saying to each other. Not one nurse knew Robbie sold drugs to more than half of the patients, or that Margo had sex with everyone in the supply closet and used this to snag high strength pills. Nope. They collected the troubled youth sprinkled all over Northern New Jersey and dropped them into one room. I thought me going was a bad idea the moment it came out of Joan's perfectly lined lips, but I couldn't have possibly begun to understand how much of one it really was.

***

The room the held group therapy which made up the last three hours was broken into three different themes with two breaks that weren't nearly long enough shoved in there. The room, like everywhere else was, you guessed it, all white. The longer I was there, the more unstable I became. I honestly felt like this place was breaking me, chewing at my sanity. I felt like most of the people here were rooting for me to fail. I felt exposed, and I hated it. Some of the worst, more excruciating aspects of the forced day was when everyone was sitting down right before the group started, at least, it was for me. The social interactions and forced sentences continuously repeated were worse the moment before we were all expected to bare our souls to each other for some reason or another. The last digs or pleas for friendship before Sue, the group leader, came and sat in the highest chair. I didn't see why her chair needed to be higher up than all the others. It felt like a purposeful decision, the motivations behind a decision like that are part of pieces I have that makes me think this place isn't going to help me. Their intention is just to watch me. I found out there was a significant distinction between the two.