I was sent to a hospital for a few weeks during high school because of depression and things like that. Suicidal tendencies mostly. It helped me, but it didn’t let me leave without a few stories to share.

My first day there was a terrifying experience, but it changed fairly quickly. As soon as they separated me from my parents, they took my bag and went through my clothes and everything I had, I guess to make sure I didn’t have anything dangerous or whatever. They ripped and cut all the strings out of my pants, then put all my belongings in a paper bag and gave it to me. They took me into a room, where I was stripped down to my boxers and they had to mark down any markings or whatever so they know how to describe me if I were to run away. At like two o’clock in the morning I finally got to sleep. When I woke up, everyone was just sitting around, talking and getting themselves ready for the day. Everyone greeted me and was fairly accepting. Then things got kind of weird.

There were strict schedules every day. Up by eight, ready to walk to breakfast by nine, back by nine-thirty, therapy for an hour, etc. There was a therapist that we saw only once. She was new. Didn’t really know what she was doing, but meant well nonetheless. She didn’t really have much of a plan for therapy that day, so she decided to have us play hangman. Yeah… A bunch of suicidal, angry kids, some drug addicts, were playing hangman. We did not see that therapist again after that day. I wonder what happened to her.

I initially roomed with a guy who didn’t talk much. He was just kind of there. He didn’t usually say anything during downtime, but participated during therapy sessions. One night while rooming with him, some of the night crew came into our room and woke him up, telling him to come with them. I didn’t see him until the next morning when we were all getting ready. Apparently they took him to a room where he was alone. At the time I thought this was weird, but I mean this was a hospital so not everything needed to make sense to me. I later found out during one of the therapy sessions that he was there for homicidal thoughts. This guy wanted to kill someone. And they had me rooming with him. What if he tried to kill me while I was asleep?
A few days later my parents came to visit. They were about to leave and before they could I pulled them aside and told them that I had a roommate that wanted to kill someone. I told them how terrified I was of this guy. They just kind of laughed and said they’ll talk to one of the nurses. My dad then told me to make sure I don’t make any connections because people you meet in a hospital like this aren’t the type you want to have a relationship with. The nurses pulled me aside a few hours later and told me that they’re going to change my room to a different one.

Every night, they had people walk around the halls and peek into the room to make sure everyone’s still asleep and in their beds and all that. Which was kind of a pain because I was trying to sleep and all I would hear was the door open and some footsteps, then the door would close. Every morning around six o’clock or so they would wake us up one at a time to check our vitals. They would tell us to sit up, then put something on our finger, strap a blood pressure thing to our arms and take our temperature. After all that they would tell us to go back to sleep. And we would. Waking up less than two hours later for the day to get started. One morning, one of the guys went into our room to do all our vitals, as usual, and about halfway through it he asks me, “Hey, how tall are you?”

“Six-one,” I said, in my scratchy, tired voice.

“Stand up,” he said. I slowly roll out of bed, eyes almost completely closed. I couldn’t really see what he looked like, just a blur really. I got up, facing him. Almost eye to eye. I was an inch or two taller than him, I guess that’s what he wanted to see. After a second or two of him looking at me, I wasn’t even looking back at him. If anything I was looking through him, not being able to focus on anything. “Lie back down,” he said in a demanding voice. So I followed his request and fell back to sleep when he started taking my roommate’s vitals.

There were people there for different reasons, but they were there for help nonetheless. One guy, Michael, was there because he was about to jump off a bridge and kill himself. He was literally on the bridge about to jump off when they got him down. Another guy was there because of anger and he would almost hit his grandmother all the time. So many people there for drugs and stuff too. But I wasn’t in the D&A (drug and alcohol) group. I passed the drug test they made me take for intake.

One day, we were sitting around during one of the later therapy sessions we were discussing the sessions of the day, and there was one girl in the group who didn’t have a good relationship with her dad, and she called him to ask him to come visit her. Well, he didn’t come. She was in tears complaining about how he didn’t show up and says, “All I asked was for him to come visit me, that’s it. I didn’t ask him for money or anything.” We were all there and the therapist was trying to help when she said something to exaggerate how she was feeling. She said, “It’s not like I asked him to jump off a bridge or anything.”

This was followed by a few seconds of silence, only to be broken by one word., delivered eloquently by Michael. “Damn” he said. That was it. One word. I couldn’t handle myself. I absolutely lost it. I spent a good five minutes laughing almost to the point of tears. I loved it. And I still tell people about it.