6- Honesty Circle

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“Before we get started today, I want everybody to give our new friend, Ana, a nice welcome,” The man who is sitting at the front of our circle says with a warm smile as he waves his hand towards me in our wide circle. I shuffle my feet below me and look down at my lap to ignore all of the eyes that are now on me.

It’s Friday now, which means that I’ve been here for a full work week and on Fridays, other than cheesecake for dessert, we also have this thing called honesty circle and it happens right after lunch in some wide open room. There’s three honesty circles in three different rooms and I was assigned to Group B, which is also the circle that Johnny is in so we’re sitting beside each other now because I guess we’re friends. I’m also friends with Mia and Renée as well, because we always eat together and hang out in the common area a lot and play games or watch TV or just talk about random stuff. I like them a lot, which is surprising because I don’t like many people.

“Hello, Ana,” Everybody responds in a monotonous tone, looking over at me but I’m ignoring them until it’s over and then I offer everyone in the group a small little wave.

“Now, does anybody have something on their mind that they would like to discuss today?” Jake, who is the lead speaker dude in the group. He’s about thirty and he has a degree in something but he isn’t a therapist, he just works honesty circle most of the time. At least, that’s what he told us at the beginning of this circle, when he introduced himself, mostly for my benefit since everybody else already knows him. “Ana, since you’re new, why don’t you start us out today? Go ahead and tell us about yourself.”

Have I mentioned how much I hate attention? Because I hate it so much. I just meekly shrug. “Uh. Well, my name is Ana and I’m eighteen. I’ve been in and out of these rehab places for the past three years but I’d been well into recovery for about a year now until I recently relapsed.”

“Why’d you do that?” Somebody in the circle asks me. “If I’d been out for a whole year, I would never come back to a place like this.”

“It’s a long story,” I mumble quietly.

“This is honesty circle,” A girl across from me tells me as if I didn’t already know that.

I nod in agreement. “Yeah, well honestly, it’s a long story,” I rephrase my statement from before to fit her needs.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about right now,” Jake tells me. “You are more than welcome to share whenever you’d like, but we encourage you to share at your own pace. You should never feel pressure to share something that you feel uncomfortable about telling us.”

“Awesome,” I sigh.

“Anyway, what we were talking about last week was communication with your family. How you talk to them about what’s happened to you,” He says. “Some families can find it hard to accept the kind of things that go through your head. Would anybody like to elaborate on our conversation from last week?”

Somebody raises her hand and then when Jake nods at her, she starts speaking. “Well, I called my mom a few days ago and when she asked me how I was feeling, I told her that I was upset because I couldn’t find one of my favorite pictures that I keep on my desk. She got so scared that I was going to go off and try to hurt myself again. I don’t know, it just bugs me that she, and most of the people that I know, don’t realize that just because sometimes, I’ve been diagnosed as suicidal and depressed, that doesn’t mean that I can’t feel upset about little things without wanting to put a bullet in my brain.”

“My parents are like that too,” Another guy adds to the discussion. “They freak out every time I look just a little less than rainbows and sunshine. It’s annoying.”

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