Hospital V

I know, I know it's been ages. Sorry for the delay. Here's the next installment!

Part Four Hospital IV Tuesday Evening

Wednesday and Thursday Morning

Day two. And I feel light. Gone is my lead heart, hanging heavy in my chest. Easy is my breathing. Shaking hands are strong. I see a flash of color. I remember what thriving tastes like, smells like, feels like. 

I get ready for the day. Light. Listening to a radio loaned to me by the recreational therapist when she realized how much I missed music. At breakfast I converse with my fellow patients. At group I learn that I am a level three. I can leave the unit.

After a family meeting, she and I go for a walk. Exchanging stories. She and I play games. Clue. Nertz. We fangirl. 

At dinner we have so many fangirl feels that a nurse comes to make sure every one is safe and okay. "Just here to make sure those are happy sounds..." We burst into fits of stifled laughter. 

And truly, just as Tolkien wrote: "Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."

On Thursday, I wake up in a fog.

November the first. Two thousand and twelve.

Today was going to be the day.

Today is not going to be the day.

relieved sad thwarted sad lonely sad grateful sad what do I do now sad

November the first.

With the fog, I am slow moving. Quick to tears. Easily frustrated. Lonely. So alone in this hospital where nobody touches me except to take my vitals. Maybe a brief brush of the fingertips when passing around sheets of paper.  Pass me a pen. Here's your medicine.

I struggle to remember the lightness of yesterday.

In Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, I am argumentative and irritable:

Therapist: Sometimes we can change our self talk by thinking about what the true facts are. Has anyone had any experience with that?

Me: No that's not true.

because there is no such thing as objective truth now is there and I only see the world around me through my eyes no matter how I try to see through different perspectives and every thing is biased and what is truth what are facts shh slow down breathe breathe you'll just upset yourself breathe

Therapist: Care to explain to the rest of us?

Me: Well it's obvious isn't it?

Therapist: Maybe not to everyone.

Me: I know that I finished two years of college while in high school. I know that I was valedictorian and got straight As. I know that I finished my undergraduate before I turned twenty years old. I know that I am in graduate school. Those are all the "facts," wouldn't you say? And yet I fully believe that I am stupid, unintelligent, and ignorant. I am stupid and worthless and bound for failure.

Therapist: But..

Me: No, the facts do not argue me out of that belief.

I see her, my fellow game playing, walk going, fangirl and new friend. Already so near and dear to my heart. She is nodding her head in agreement. Suddenly. It hits.

If I talked to my friends the way I talked to myself, I wouldn't have any friends.

If I talked to my friends the way I talked to myself. I wouldn't have any friends.