Chapter 29
Life is like a game of carpet bowls in a psychiatric clinic one
rainy afternoon in August. You never know how fucked up it
can be. Then again, you also never know how tempted you
can get to take out the "experts" with a mistimed backswing.
That's just the way it can be.
Especially when you find yourself (physically at least) suicidal as all hell, with a nervous breakdown to boot, in a private hospital at the sweet ole' age of twenty two. Add to that a non-existent self-esteem, a codependant relationship with an anorexic who lives sixteen hours by plane away, a housemate who enjoys shooting up speed in the bathroom while listening continuously to a diet of crappy bubble-gum eighties pop, a screwed up friend who has drug-related schizophrenia which causes bizarre hallucinations at 1AM, and last, but by no means least, a family history full of suicides, breakdowns, break-ups (but thankfully very little breakdancing) and you have all the reason in the world to be thinking of geriatricide by bowling ball at the end of a very tiring day of group therapy.
But, like life itself, there were some redeeming qualities to four months of intensive psychiatric care. Anyone with any experience of a group of depressives, bi-polars, bulimics and your general, run-of-the-mill, everyday psychotic, sitting around at 11 PM after a four hour caffeine binge, will know how rewarding that can be. I don't think I've ever laughed so much in my entire life, especially considering that in the afternoon I was pressing a razor blade to my left wrist. Watching Pink Floyd's "The Wall" was even better - ten of us in the common room, manic grins on our faces, all singing "So you thought you might like to go to the show?" . Treasured memories, but I guess you had to be there.
When the majority of joy in your life has become as shredded as the knife scars up and down your forearms, you come to appreciate the small things in life. Like carpet bowls on a rainy August afternoon. And the very special people on Unit 3.
