Inside the psycho

Sh....

They might hear you.

Who?

The voices.....

If there is anything I have learned from being in a mental hospital, it is that the craziest people in the world? Are not within these doors. I have never felt more at home than I have inside these rooms. Every door leading to another place where for the first time in my life, I am not ashamed to be. To simply be, with no contests. To finally, truly, exist in my own right without the added self loathing I am forced to wash myself with every time I shower.

I have spent what feels like a lifetime attempting to make myself feel "normal" as if it is a switch that I am able to simply turn on and off. Everyone trying to ascertain precisely what my problem is. What if I never was the problem? What if all of these instabilities have stemmed from a lack of voice because I allowed my importance to be drowned by those who I viewed as stronger? My resilience taken apart piece by piece until all that was left was a deep, dark, pit.

I could not tell you the last time I was able to sit and tolerate myself without some form of buffer. Medication, people, things. I used to sit for hours in meditation. I used to be able to stand being in the same room with myself. I don't recall what moment all of that changed.

Here, none of that existed anymore. I was not afraid. These were my people. The broken. The beaten. The damned. My favorite band of all time is a group called My Chemical Romance. Ironic, considering my issues with substance abuse all these years later. I remember the first time I walked into a place like this. It smelled of cleaning supplies and despair. I knew sitting in that little room waiting to be evaluated that I would finally be heard. This was the one place I finally controlled the narrative. I was finally able to harness my power, and acknowledge its existence without prejudice. I was finally able to say my own name.

I have spent so many years trying to find out why I would cut myself. Why I would take this to make myself feel like that. It was here I first discovered what I was. I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I remember this feeling of....elation, I suppose, that someone finally listened to me long enough to understand. According to my mother this was a phase and I just needed to grow up. I just needed to do better, and everything would go away if I finally decided to be responsible and "act my age." At 19, how do you even grasp what acting your age is? Is there some book somewhere that dictates how you must behave for each new year of your life, and where was it so that I could rigorously study it and avoid all of these episodes I keep having.

I believe the most important lessons I learned from the mental hospital are that beauty is found within all that is broken. That listening to yourself is the most important thing you can do. Truly feel yourself, and ask yourself the difficult questions. If you don't ask for help, how will you ever recieve it? If you aren't listening to yourself, how will you ever know that you have a problem? There is nothing wrong with admitting that you are in pain. There is no shame in being sad. Do not give into the dialogue that is fed to you. You are not a problem. You are not some defective piece of humanity. You do not need to be avoided. You need to be loved, and that starts with you. You start cleaning at home. Take time to truly listen to yourself. So much has been lost because we are not listening to who we are. We are listening to everyone elses versions of us.

At the end of the day, we walk through this world with one person. So why is that the last person we ever listen to?

Just some food for thought.