Borderline

Thirteen

  TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC MENTION OF SELF HARM

 I had caught enough times to land myself back on 1 to 1. I was about to head to a treatment team meeting deciding if my single room was going to be taken from me. I was devastated. I couldn't believe I'd let myself get this low. I sat outside the meeting room with Lily a few feet away watching like a hawk. "I'm nervous," I tell her.

   "Why?" she asked me. I shifted in my seat anxiously and looked away. 

   "I know I've been messing up a lot lately but I don't want my privacy stripped from me. I feel like it'll only make things worse."

   "Your single room won't be given to anyone."

   "I guess that's a relief." Then the door opened and Mali motioned for me to come inside. I gave Lily one more glance and she gave me a thumbs up. I turned away and walked inside. The room had all the doctors and therapists on my case sitting in a semi-circle with an empty chair at the head. I sat down in the chair and tried not to give off how anxious I actually was. "Hello," I said under my breath. Dr.Peters looked up at me and smiled.

   "How are you today, Margo?" he asks.

   "I'm o- actually I'm really anxious. This whole room thing has got me in my head. I really want to know." He nodded and wrote something down.

   "For the past month Margo you've been experiencing incident after incident, so we've decided for now that you need to at least be in a double room." Dr.Peters watched me, waiting for my response.  

   "I..um...ok."

   "How are you now, Margo?" Mali asks me.

   "I'll be honest, I'm kind of bummed but I guess I expected this. It's my fault." I look down at my hands.

   "Take this as a learning experience," says Peters, "you now know the consequences of your actions and in the future, you can take that into account when you're thinking about hurting yourself."

   "It's not that easy," I mumbled.

   "What was that?" He asked me. I spoke up.

   "It's not as simple as that. I can't just go 'oh I'll lose my single room!' then suddenly I'm cured."

   "I'm not expecting that."

   "Ok. Can I go now? I need to pack up my room and move into a new one now." Everyone in the room looked at each other. Peters nodded at Mali and she stood up and opened the door for me. "Thanks." As I'm walking out Mali says something to me.

   "I'll be talking to you later for a one on one session."She says, I said okay under my breathe and left the room. I waited until the door was shut then I let the tears flow. Lily walked over to me.

   "You lost your room?"

   "I did," I said through tears, "but I'm not even upset about that really. I'm more upset that I can't keep myself together ever." I took a deep breath and attempted to compose myself. I met Lily's eyes. "I'm tired of this. I hate that I'm here. I knew I'd end up here eventually but I never actually believed that it would happen and look at me now, here I am." Lily gave me a concerned smile and nodded, she didn't know what to say. Shit, I wouldn't know what to say to me either. "Ok, Lily, let's go get my shit together." I started walking and she quickly followed behind.

***

   I sat on my desk and looked at my nearly bare room. Decorations still hung on the walls, some shirts stayed in the closet, there were things scattered here and there.  I took a deep breath and grabbed the last of my shirts I had decided to take with me and left my room. As I set the last of my stuff down I turned to Lily, "Who am I rooming with?"