She wiped her tears away and continued, “If you want help, we are here, and you are going to get it. You will receive the help that you came here for. The truth is that some people, no matter how hard you try, just can’t be helped. With some people, no matter how far along in life they are, there’s just nothing that can be done.”
My thoughts went from hopeful to hopeless. What did she mean by that? I thought that she was going to say that we all could be helped, and that there was hope for all of us, but she didn’t. Her words were precise. That scared me.
After Dr. Bent’s coping skills group, I went back to the main unit feeling worse than I had when I’d woken up that morning. My mind stayed on the book. I wanted to go back to the room to get the book and continue to read more about Borderline Personality Disorder, but I was too scared to go back there alone. Mr. Sharp rang in my ears. He begged for my veins. Why?
Rocky’s death was affecting me more that I knew. Everyone’s fascination with how he’d done it. All of the details. The visions of his head in that box. His tongue extended from his mouth. Daniel’s cries.
Before the tears could even begin to fall, I went to the counselor’s desk where Geoffrey was sitting, keeping an eye on the unit. I asked for a pen and a sheet of paper. Without hesitation, Geoffrey handed me one sheet and a pencil, but demanded that I return the pencil when I was finished with it.
“Yes,” I said. “So that I won’t try to stick it in my eye. Right?” I sarcastically replied.
“Hey now, Kristen!” He seemed shocked.
The mood was not good in this place. I sat at a table where I was sure Geoffrey could see me. When I sat down, I waved at him because he was still staring. He rolled his eyes and looked away from me.
When Mr. Sharp had called out to me while I had been in public school, it had usually been easy to slip into the girls’ bathroom and get those feelings out. The blood would soak in and decorate the soft, white toilet paper. I used to like to watch the quilted pattern’s white, floral motif get painted red with the rouge lineage that spilled from my veins.
When I had been in a class like AP Chemistry or College Literature, it had been too difficult to escape. These classes had been taught by authority figures that were supposed to make us feel privileged and special, just because we could read a chapter or two ahead of the required assignment quicker than others in our class. They had decided that we were gifted, and put us there with teachers that had been hard asses and quick to knock us down to make us feel not so special and stupid because of their own insecurities. When I couldn’t escape, I had pulled out a random sheet of paper and had used my pencil, not to jam my own eye out with, but instead I’d bleed my thoughts onto the paper. I had decorated the white, less soft, college ruled, blue lined, motif paper with speckles of grey with words.
This time it was Geoffrey watching, instead of an uptight teacher.
I began:
What is it when you try?
Get to the end.
Succeed and die.
What is it when you fail?
Was it all just a fake?
A real way out?
An easy bail?
Carrying a heavy load upon my chest,
Without a helpful trailer.
Feeling sorry for myself?
A disastrous and complete...
I swear that it was the worst thing I had ever written. However, it had come from somewhere that needed to kick it out. Rocky’s face appeared in my mind. I remembered when Cadence had been obsessed with pestering him when he had first come to Bent Creek. I remembered when I had first spoken to him. The very first thing I had said directly to him was, “How did you do it?” or something like that. I had asked him how he’d tried to kill himself. Why had I asked him that, the exact day I had met him? What had I been thinking? He hadn’t answered me.
I read the last four lines of the poem again:
Carrying a heavy load upon my chest,
Without a helpful trailer.
Feeling sorry for myself?
A disastrous and complete...
Disgusted, I did not want to continue. Nevertheless, I pressed the pencil to the paper again to decorate the rest. Bleed in the gray.
...failure.
I read the poem silently to myself. I read it again. Then I read it once more. That made three times I read that horrible poem before I broke the pencil in half and threw it across the room. Both parts of the pencil hit the metal legs of the table across the way, and it made a loud clang. This made Geoffrey look up at me.
“Kristen!” he exclaimed.
I aggressively pushed the paper away from myself, and it slid off of the table. Geoffrey shook his head and looked away from me. He didn’t even ask me what was wrong. He didn’t tell me to pick up the broken pencil pieces. He just looked away. For some reason, this made me angrier. I got up from the table and stormed off to my room. I wished the doors had locks on them. I’d keep everyone out, just like at home. I could go in my room and just lock the door. Keep it shut and stay in there for hours. Mom didn’t care. I was out of her way. I sat on the edge of my bed and saw the BPD book sitting on the edge of the occasional table. I picked it up without hesitation.
“Tell me! Tell me what’s wrong with me! Tell me now!” I screamed at the book.
Of course it didn’t answer me back verbally. But Mr. Sharp was sure there. He was shining through those sharp butterfly wings that rested between the pages. I forgot I had left him in there. I shook the book to see what page he would fall out. He fell out of page 136 and landed on my lap. I kept the book open and looked at the page. Oh yes, I thought as I began to read page 136. It was on the chapter of symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder:
The constant feeling and fear of abandonment and being alone.
Frequent and sometimes extreme mood swings.
A changing and unsure sense of identity.
Over-sensitivity to criticism and real or imagined rejection.
The constant feelings of worthlessness that quickly alters to belief that one is deserving of better treatment and recognition than what is given.
Do you feel that everyone is ignoring you? Do you feel that no one cares? Do you feel that you are the one who goes out of your way for everyone else, but that no one is there for you? Is that what you feel you deserve? And at times do you feel that you are being wronged?
“This doesn’t make sense,” I said to the book. “What are you talking about?”
The need for attention.
The fear of being alone.
Pushing family and friends away and avoiding new contact in fear of being abandoned.
“What? I want her attention? But then I push her away? I called her!”
Impulsive behavior.
Depression.
Constant mood changes.
Violent outbursts.
Self injury and other self-destructive behavior such as the abuse of alcohol and drugs.
Suicidal hints and behavior.
Suicidal attempts that may be just to call for attention. Which sometimes leads to accidental suicide without the intention of succeeding.
I had nothing to say back to the book.
When it was time to meet with Dr. Pelchat, I didn’t speak about Rocky. Dr. Pelchat didn’t seem to be all the way there with me. I knew that it was because of Rocky’s death. I wanted to ask him, just to make sure it was true. Dr. Bent wouldn’t have said it was true if it actually wasn’t. I didn’t want to upset Dr. Pelchat anymore.
I told him that I had started to read the book on BPD. He was glad to hear that. He suggested that I read more. There was no talk about medication because he didn’t have a diagnosis for me yet. He assured me that the test results would be back in a few days. I didn’t know whether to be glad about that, because I didn’t want to worry for a while, or if I should be anxious and upset because I’d be finding out very soon if I did have Borderline Personality Disorder. From what I had read, it seemed like I understood too well
some of the words written down in that book.
“How are you feeling today, Kristen?” he asked.
I looked around the room and shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s been a weird day. How are you?”
“Is how I’m doing really what concerns you right now?”
“I’m curious.”
“You know, Kristen, I’m curious about something too.”
My heart began to beat fast. I waited to hear what he had to say.
“Did you hear about Rocky’s death?”
“Yes, I did,” I responded.
I could feel him staring at me. I still was not looking at him. Instead, I let my eyes roam around the room.
“How did it make you feel to hear that one of your peers actually succeeded in taking his life?”
I couldn’t believe he was asking me this. He’d caught me off guard. I didn’t say anything in response.
“Is it hard for you to talk about?”
“How did it make you feel, Dr. Pelchat? He was one of your patients.”
“My concern right now is you, Kristen.”
“Why is Rocky’s suicide your concern for me? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It makes perfect sense, Kristen.”
“How is that?”
“Look at your wrists.”
Anger began to well inside of me. I locked eyes with him. And when I did, I knew he had me. I couldn’t look away when he began to speak.
“You tried to kill yourself a little less than a month and a half ago. Your heart stopped beating, and you could have died. Do you realize that, Kristen?”
“Do you feel like you failed? Kristen?”
“I failed? Is that what this is about? I failed! And Rocky succeeded. He got out!” The anger and the tears flowed out of me.
“That’s how you see it? Rocky got out? And you failed because you didn’t?”
“Why do you say that? Why do you keep saying ‘failed’?”
“Isn’t that what you mean? Those were your words. You said ‘failed’.”
“What? No. You just said. You said, ‘You failed.’”
“I’m just repeating what you wrote.”
“What I wrote?”
Dr. Pelchat opened my chart and pulled out a wrinkled, sheet of paper. He reached out and handed it to me. I looked at it.
“My crappy poem.”
I had never seen Dr. Pelchat look so shocked. “Is that what you call it, Kristen?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“It doesn’t look like a crappy poem to me. It looks like a very deep piece of work created from an expression of serious emotion.”
I tried not to let his compliment affect the anger I was feeling inside.
“How did you get this?” I asked.
“I found it on the floor of the main unit right next to a broken pencil. The sitting area was being cleared out, and I asked Geoffrey who had taken paper and pencil from the counselor’s desk, and hadn’t returned the pencil. Your name was mentioned.”
“Right.”
“Why are you so angry, Kristen?”
“What makes you think I’m angry, Dr. Pelchat?” I only said his name because he kept saying mine every time he asked me a question.
“You are responding to me with some anger in your voice. Are you angry?”
“I’m upset.”
“What is that poem about?”
“It’s about the Devil,” I snapped. I was annoyed at him for asking me so many questions.
“The Devil? Help me understand, Kristen. How does the Devil tie into that?”
“It’s about how the Devil is evil. And we are evil. And we do evil things that the Devil likes. Like hurting people. Like hurting children. Like killing ourselves. And when we do this, we may not necessarily be trying to kill ourselves, but maybe we are trying to do something else.”
“Are you speaking about yourself?”
“I don’t know. Rocky killed himself. He got put in here because he had tried to kill himself. But then when he got in here, the place that was supposed to help him, well, he succeeded in killing himself.”
Dr. Pelchat did not respond. He just kept looking at me.
So I continued, “I tried to kill myself. I failed. But now I feel...” I stopped myself. “I mean, I feel confused.”
“About what?”
“I thought that I wanted to die.”
“Do you not feel like you want to die?”
“Sometimes.”
“How about right now?”
“Frustrated. Confused.”
“I see. Does Rocky’s suicide make you feel frustrated and confused about your own feelings towards what you had tried to do to yourself?”
I thought about his question. Rocky seemed to really want to die. He had tried it and even when he was brought in to Bent Creek, the feeling seemed not to leave him. Maybe he was in the wrong place. Maybe he needed to be somewhere long term, like Janine. Was he hopeless, as Dr. Bent had said that some people are? Was I hopeless too?
“Yes,” I answered Dr. Pelchat. “It does change my feelings. I do sometimes feel like I would be better off gone, but then I feel like…”
“Yes? Like what, Kristen?”
“Like it can’t all be hopeless. Right?”
“No,” Dr. Pelchat assured me. “You’re not hopeless. If you are hopeless, then, what are we both doing here?”
I don’t know, I thought to myself. I sank back in my seat feeling calm, but still a bit frustrated. I wanted to understand what it felt like to be hopeful and actually want to get through all of this. I needed to know what it meant to cope, survive, and not feel like I wanted to die.
Dr. Pelchat opened my chart and began to write. I tried to sit up to see what he was writing. Doctors were good at scribbling so that no one could understand what they were writing except other doctors and nurses. It seemed like a secret code only doctors used.
Finally, Dr. Pelchat looked back up at me. He said, “You are making great progress. You should know that, Kristen.”
Even more confused, I said with a sarcastic smile, “That’s good to know, Dr. Pelchat.”
Going to bed that night was lonesome. Even though I didn’t really like Mena, it felt strange not having her there in the bed next to mine. Mr. Sharp wasn’t creeping around me. He always appeared in my lonely and empty times. He hadn’t bothered me since that day I’d denied him. He’d said he wouldn’t come back, and that scared me. I snuggled under Janine’s blanket. I started thinking about if Mr. Sharp really had left me. I felt my heart jump. How lonely would I really be if he actually had left? I’d be lost and empty.
I closed my eyes and tried to stop thinking. But the more I tried not to think, the faster my mind raced. Too many thoughts, and no pen or paper to write. No Mr. Sharp to bleed it away. No relief. Just myself, alone, in the dark, underneath the blanket, in a cold and empty room. Scared, I lay still and let my mind take over.
I thought back to when I’d picked up the pills and had swallowed them down. I ran my fingers over the stitches and felt them. I felt the scars. I thought of when I’d picked up the knife. I thought of when I’d begun to slice. I thought of when I’d dialed Lexus on the phone and it had rung with no answer. I’d hung up and tried again. That time it had gone straight to voice mail.
Lexus had said that she missed me. She had said that she was coming to visit me the next day. I tried to smile and focus on the next day. I felt a tear come out of my eye. If only she had known...
CHAPTER 44
Keeping true to what she had said, Lexus was the first person to show up for visiting hours the next day. I was surprised that she was the first, because she was a very busy person. She showed up with a sweet smile, and presented me with a warm embrace. She smelled sweet, like wild cherries. Her hair was down and sweeping over her shoulders. Her gorgeous smile made me feel like old times when we were really friends, and nothing was fake. Not even our smiles and hugs.
After we hugged ea
ch other, Lexus removed her sweater, commenting that it was too warm inside the main unit. Then we sat down at a table together. We gave each other awkward smiles, not really knowing what to say or where to begin our conversation.
I finally said, “Thank you for coming to visit me.” Then I smiled again.
She returned the smile, even warmer than before. “Of course,” she said. “I told you that I was coming. We hung up kind of weird yesterday.”
“Yeah,” I laughed nervously. “I had to go. I didn’t really get to say goodbye, because my doctor was coming and I wasn’t really supposed to be on the phone.”
“Oh!” she chuckled. “That’s a shame. John wanted to say hi to you.”
I rolled my eyes coldly at her.
She noticed. Changing the subject, she suddenly asked, “Are you comfortable?”
I had to think about it for a second before I answered. “Well,” I replied, “It’s okay. I am as comfortable as I’m going to be in a mental hospital.”
“I guess so,” she said, with her fake smile.
“How’s your family?” I asked, because I wanted to change the subject.
She smiled what seemed like a genuine smile while looking down at her hands as they rested in her lap underneath the table.
“Everyone is doing great,” she said. “My mom just bought a new SUV. Yeah, so that’s cool. Dad’s happy about it, because he doesn’t have to share the truck with her anymore.” She laughed to herself, seemingly amused.
I tried to smile back at her. “That’s nice,” I told her.
The mood was too awkward. I wasn’t feeling cheerful and chatty. There was something eating at me from the inside. I didn’t want it to come out, because I knew that if it did, it would ruin the whole visit. It was something about her smile. It was the way she looked nice and smelled so good. It was making me angry inside. I wanted to tell her to stop faking her smiles with me, and let’s be real. But I didn’t want to mess things up.
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