BROKEN PEOPLE.

ANOTHER CONTENT/TRIGGER WARNING: swearing, mental illness, suicide/death, depression/anxiety, psych ward, hospitalization, self harm/blood, medication, minor mention of gun violence basically the biggest trigger warning you can imagine. You have been warned.

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Suicide jokes are only funny when they're not a joke.

You think I'm being crass?

You think I'm being cruel?

Well, maybe you are right.

But that doesn't make it any less true.

If you were to check into your local psych ward right now, wherever you are, the doctors and the nurses will inevitably ask you a variation of the five following questions:

Do you ever see things that other people don't see?

Do you ever hear things that other people don't hear?

Do you ever have the desire to hurt yourself?

Do you ever have the desire to hurt others?

On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your current mood?

When you consider your answers, remember that by this point, there are only two ways in which this day can end. You will either wake up tomorrow, in your own bed under strict supervision, or you will wake up in a room of generic hospital sheets and chairs that are too heavy to lift.

Pick your poison, I suppose, but you should know; once they start asking, they will never stop.

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age fifteen:

“COMING APART AT THE SEAMS”

the morning:

On a very insignificant day during my freshman year of high school, my history teacher handed me a picture of a rabbit.

I looked at it, then at him and he smiled at me, but it was a smile, a sort of look in his eye, that I didn't understand.

You look sad, he said; this is a picture of my daughter's bunny. You can keep it.

I went home after second period and put the picture on a corkboard above the desk that I never used. It's still there. I wonder what it sees now, an empty room, I suppose.

The nurse comes in at eight o'clock sharp. Sometimes they take blood samples in the morning but she doesn't today, just vitals; pulse, heart rate, temperature.

And then, of course.

[insert questions]

Rule number one: Elle Peters is a liar.

She smiles at me, and I can tell that she cares about what she does, about helping people, but I can still feel her pity.

“Breakfast will be in 10 minutes in the community room, so don't go back to sleep!” She says with unnecessary excitement. “I'll come remind you!”

I go back to sleep as soon as she leaves.

I didn't realize for a long time that ‘I would rather die than get out of bed in the morning’ was not a common feeling among the general public. Until this point, my will to die has only been overcome by the anxiety of living, and I don't know what they would do if I refused to move, but I don't have the energy to bear their worried eyes, so when she comes back, I get up and shuffle to the community room.

Being the new kid in a psych ward is kind of like being the new kid anywhere. Everyone stares at you, everyone sits there assessing you et cetera, but this time instead of judging your clothes (everyone is wearing scrubs) or your face, they're all just trying to figure out what could be so wrong with your head.

Now, every time you put a bunch of kids in a room, they're going to divide themselves into their little groups, it's just gonna happen, but when this particular bunch of kids happen to be teenagers who would all jump at the chance to throw themselves off a building, that's where it gets a little complicated.

Their first questions aren't ‘what's your name?’ or ‘how are you’ or introducing themselves or whatever. When I sit down at a table in the corner, the questions are more along the lines of ‘what's wrong with you?’ or ‘how did you fail?’

It's sort of like the mental illness version of ‘what are you in for.’

The guy across from me has curly hair and dark eyes, and when I shrug and say, “Everything.” he cracks a smile.

“Welcome to the club.”

“Dakota.” The lady at the food counter calls, and he raises his eyebrows at me and grins before turning toward the sound of his name.

I sit at the table alone, and I don't quite know what to do with myself. The community room has a little shelf in the back, filled with games and a few rows of books. I want so badly to browse the titles, to see if I can find something familiar in the pages, but the shelves are much too far away, and what if I'm not allowed to look before breakfast or something? I don't want that attention, so I turn my eyes to the little kitchenette sort of lunch counter beside it and watch Dakota stand there. He pours a tiny paper cup into his mouth and takes a drink, then opens his mouth wide while the nurse checks that he had swallowed the pills.

I suppose I'll have to do that too.

When Dakota comes back, he carries a big hospital tray filled with generic hospital food; he drops it lightly onto the table across from me and squeezes into the chairs, stuffed against those of another table. He winks at me and spits the pills into a napkin.

Another guy pushes into the chair beside him, and when the girl behind him shoves her chair back, she snaps at him.

“Fuck off Ash.”

But he only scowls.

Dakota looks mildly amused as he fights the butter out of a small plastic tray, but when another guy slumps into the chair next to me his expression only multiplies.

“Aww little emo prince didn't get enough sleep?” Dakota says.

The guy glares at him, raises his middle finger; a voice across the room calls, “Jasper! That counts as swearing. Cut it out.”

The guy next to me, Jasper, mocks her words as soon as she turns away.

When my name is finally called I brace myself for the onslaught of attention from the others and walk to the counter.

The nurse fakes a smile and hands me a small paper cup. The pills are really capsules, half green, half pale yellow. She looks at me expectantly and I wonder what she would do if I refused. But I don't have the energy for that attention either, so I down the pills with a gulp of water, get my food, and scamper back to the table like a scared puppy.

“What do they give you?” Dakota asks softly, pointing to his napkin full of wet pills.

“Prozac.” I say carefully, “Fluoxetine.”

Brand name and drug name.

I am surprised when Jasper beside me cracks a smile. “Classic.”

My mind flutters for a response, and I trip over my words as I speak, but none of them seem to mind.

“What about you guys?”

“Abilify,” Ash says, “Aripiprazole.”

“Zoloft—Sertraline.” Jasper says.

“Wellbutrin, Bupropion” Dakota says “And fluoxetine.”

I don't know why I am relieved to have one in common with them.

Ash picks at the food before him with a folded paper spoon, trying to balance a bite of cereal on the stiff paper. None of us have real silverware, not even plastic. I look at my own tray. Pancakes, side of bacon, chunky plastic mug filled with orange juice. And a paper spoon. No forks. No knives. Of course not.

I suppose this is a step up from my usual breakfast—but it's not hard to beat nothing.

“So you're new right?” Jasper asks, “What’s wrong with you then?”

I shrug and repeat what I said to Dakota. Everything.

Jasper laughs. “Welcome to the broken people club.”

Dakota rolls his eyes, but only I hear him mutter, “That's basically what I said.”

I brace myself for the question and practice the words in my head.

“What about you guys?”

Dakota scowls and for a second, I am scared that he will be angry with me for asking.

Instead he grumbles under his breath. “You try to wrap yourself around a lighting pole one time.”

Ash smirks and turns to meet my eyes. “Idiot wasn't going fast enough.”

Dakota glares at him. “Don't get all high and mighty Ash, at least I didn't bring a gun into a school, you fucking psycho.”

“It wasn't about hurting anyone,” Ash says quickly, “It was for the intimidation factor. A prop, to scare away my enemies.”

“Its high school, dude, not the fucking Mafia; besides, how many enemies could you possibly have?” Jasper says, but Ash just leans back in his chair and crosses his arms; he mumbles something under his breath but I don't hear it.

I am getting the feeling that they will redirect the question to me soon and my thoughts race for the right words to answer as Jasper speaks of his own failed attempt.

“You know how they say blood flows quicker in the bath or whatever?” He says, and pulls the sleeve of a hoodie (no strings, obviously) and his scrubs just enough for me to see the white bandage. “They fucking lied.”

He makes a pinched expression, but before he can say anything, Dakota asks, “What's your story?”

And I have the words now.

“Turns out people don't like it when you ditch school to jump off a bridge.”

“A bridge jump,” Dakota says, “I respect that.”

The other two nod and I am so relieved to have their acknowledgement that I find myself asking, “How long have you been here?”

“I'm five days.” Dakota says, “Jaspers about three, Ash got here yesterday.”

I have so many questions but I don't ask them.

A nurse strides by, smiling at us, and says, “What are we talking about over here guys?”

“Just music,” Dakota says immediately and the nurse seems disappointed. “Well, it looks like it's time to go anyway, but remember to keep your conversations appropriate.”

Across from me, Dakota scowls at his back and I follow when they get up to clear their trays.

Another nurse leads us back to the rooms to brush our teeth, she says, and then group.

When we all gather at the locked door that leads to the therapy room, I am relieved when Jasper and Ash come over to stand with me.

Jasper points at one of the girls, alone, leaning against the wall opposite ours, and says to me softly, “That’s Sarah, she's twelve or something and she's been here for like 3 weeks. I think that's the longest; Dakota would know.”

I look at the girl in a series of glances. She’s blonde, shorter than me; I can't see her eyes, but there is a delicate sort of…childhood to her features.

Again, Jasper points at someone behind us. “That's Jocelyn. They transferred her up from the ICU, pills or something.”

“How do you know?” I ask, scrambling for the words, but Jasper just shrugs.

“It's just what I've heard.” He says, then adds, “Besides, does it really matter if it's true?”

I pause. I think I will save his words for later.

— — — — —

The first thing they ask in these kinds of groups are just different variations of the questions™ but in front of a bunch of troubled strangers.

“Why don't we all go around and say our name, how old we are, and how we're feeling, on a scale of 1-10.” The nurse is smiling like this is the most exciting question she could have asked. “Who wants to go first?”

Nobody raises their hand, but she glosses over it with her optimism and turns to Jasper sitting on Ash’s other side. “Alright Jasper, why don't you start?”

Jasper looks uncomfortable, but he gets his answers out quickly.

Jasper, sixteen, solid five.

He turns both ways, to Ash and then the other beside him, in question to the nurse (a very common occurrence).

“We’ll go around,” the nurse says, “Ash! Why don't you go next?”

And oh my god, that means I go after him. I shuffle to remember the questions and ready my answers. Elle, fifteen, four. Not technically a lie. I don't think they have an option for feeling nothing.

Next to me, Ash looks disgruntled, his face pinched, but he answers the questions in quick succession. Ash, fifteen, six, (I guess?) And then it is my turn.

“Elle,” I say, but the nurse looks at me. “Would you speak up honey?”

I hold my breath. I wish I could disappear forever.

Louder, I say, “Elle,fifteen,four.”

If I lean back enough maybe I will become the chair. I don't think I would mind being a chair.

The person after me turns out to be ‘Jeremy, age sixteen, doing good, a solid seven.’

I don't listen after that.

It is inevitable, in a place like this, for a therapy group to go uninterrupted. The doctors have their shit to do—treatment plans, medication changes, individual therapy—so when they need to speak to you, you're on their clock.

A man opens the door quietly, but he doesn't say anything until perky little ‘Anne, seventeen, feeling good, a hard nine’, finishes speaking.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he says, speaking to the nurses. “Elle Peters?”

His eyes round the circle and I raise my hand ever so slightly. He smiles when he sees me. “Hey Elle! Could I borrow you for a bit?”

I pause, as if I could refuse.

“Watch out for the glasses guy,” Ash says under his breath, “He's a piece of shit.”

I walk across the room and leave with the doctor. “I'll bring her back,” he jokes, “Promise!” The nurses laugh, but I don't think they really mean it.

He doesn't say anything, so I don't either, and we walk in eerie silence to a door by the therapy room. He pulls out an ID badge and scans it against a reader on the adjoined wall. I follow him through to another hallway.

He keeps walking. All of the hallways look the same.

When we finally come to a stop, it is in front of a door equipped with the same reader device. I wait, but he doesnt pull out his ID, he knocks instead.

The guy that opens the door has glasses. I wonder if he is as bad as Ash claims.

“Hi Elle,” He says, real happy, “It's good to meet you!”

I don't say anything but he doesn't seem to care, and gestures to the table before him. I sit as ‘in the back corner’ as I can and he takes his seat across from me. They all sit on the same side, five in total, and I find myself thinking that they look like a panel of judges.

Glasses sits, fumbling with his papers and the others speak softly to each other. He scribbles something on a notepad and glances at the panelists like they’re doing a group presentation. He looks back at me.

“How are you Elle?” He says, his fingers laced together, leaning forward on the table. “My name is Dr. Mitchell, I'm going to serve as your case manager while you're here with us, okay?” He speaks as if talking to a toddler and leans low on his elbows. His smile is tight lipped and he looks like he’s trying to pick a color for the flowers he’ll have to send to my parents.

Dr. Glasses—Mitchell, gestures to his colleagues, “I'll just let everyone introduce themselves. We're going to be your treatment team while you're here with us. How does that sound, Elle?”

I don't know what to say. But its doesn't matter.

They speak from left to right:

Dr Jones is my psychiatrist. He has a faded wedding ring tan.

Dr Smith is my therapist. She looks like she believes in crystals.

Dr Talbot is my under 18 child advocate. He looks like a Ken doll. In a bad way.

Dr Theodore is my treatment manager. She wears a very purple sweater.

“We're all just here to make you feel better, Elle.” Glasses says, and his voice is more chipper than it should be. They all smile at me.

There's the look again.

Dr Purple Sweater will give my parents marigolds.

Dr Ken will give them white roses.

Dr Crystals will not let them leave without a hug.

Dr Wedding ring will give them daffodils, the fancy ones.

I look back at Dr Glasses.

He has settled on roses, pink ones.