by Love, Kristy
“Oh, good.”
She looked over her shoulder and motioned to someone. Jax followed her into the room. They sat in the chairs by my bed. “How are you feeling?”
I shrugged.
“I know, stupid question.” We sat in silence, even though there was so much I wanted to say to them. I didn’t see the point. Jax tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair and Ryanne sat forward in her chair as I continued my staring contest.
Ry cleared her throat. “Can I ask what happened?”
“Sure. Nothing happened.” My voice was flat.
“Obviously something happened, Will.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
We went back to uncomfortable, unbearable silence. In so many ways, I wished they would just leave.
“Is your nurse hot?” Jax asked. I actually turned my head to look at him and his lips twitched into a grin. Leave it to Jax to diffuse the tension in the room.
“She’s old and round.”
“That sucks. You deserve a hot nurse after all the shit you’ve been through.”
I felt my lips curl into a smile, which surprised me. I hadn’t thought I was capable of smiling. Ryanne elbowed Jax. “Do you know how long you’ll be gone?” Ry asked.
I shrugged. “No clue, though they told me at least two weeks.”
“I think it’s good that you’re going.” She reached over and touched my hand. I flinched from the contact, but feeling her skin again made the walls around my emotions crumble a bit.
“Probably.”
A nurse pushed open the door and came over, checking my vitals. “You’ll be transferred in about thirty minutes,” she said before she left.
I went back to staring at the ceiling. I had to say goodbye to Jax and Ryanne all over again and I wasn’t sure how to deal with that.
“We should probably leave so they can get you ready to move.” Ryanne stood and walked to the side of my bed. Bending slightly, she hugged me. I closed my eyes and clung to her, wishing her touch could make it all better. “You work on getting better,” she whispered in my ear. “We’ll be here whenever you get out, okay?” She grabbed my hand and squeezed it, offering a small smile.
“We’ll see you when you get out of here, okay?” Jax said with a nod, then left the room.
“I’m really glad you’re okay, Will.”
Then Ryanne was gone and I was left alone.
A few hours later, I sat on the bed in my new temporary home. The walls were a pale yellow, the floors were an off white color, and the beds were white. I had on a light blue, baggy outfit that was issued to me by the hospital—nothing sharp, no shoes, no laces.
I was directed into the psychiatric ward and given a basic orientation. I was only moments away from meeting my therapist for the first time, and nerves chewed away at my stomach. After so many months of blowing off my therapist, could I really do this? Spill my guts to a stranger and become better? What if this therapist was like my old one? My old therapist didn’t care about how I was doing or feeling as long as he got the money for my visit. I was worried, but I knew this was something I needed to do.
A nurse appeared in the doorway of my room. “Will, the doctor is ready for you now.”
I stood and followed her. At the end of a long hallway, we entered the TV room which was filled with people playing games, staring at the TV, and reading. A man in a wheelchair sat in the corner drooling on himself, and another woman sat in the corner pulling at her hair and muttering nonsense. I was overwhelmed and scared, wishing I could have the numbness back to deal with this crushing anxiety.
Down another long hallway, the nurse stopped and pointed at a door. “Dr. Thomas is waiting for you. I’ll be back at the end of your session to help you back to your room. I don’t want you to get lost.” She smiled at me.
“Thanks.” I turned the knob and walked inside. There was a large wooden desk in the middle of the room, covered in papers. Two plush chairs were lined up against the wall with another chair facing it. Dr. Thomas was sitting behind the desk and she looked up when I walked in, then stood and walked around the desk.
“Hi, Will,” she said, offering me her hand. “I’m Dr. Thomas. It’s nice to meet you.” She was younger than I thought she would be. Her hair was a honey-brown color and fell straight to her shoulders, and her eyes were a deep brown. When I shook her hand, I realized how small she was; several inches shorter than me. She smiled warmly and I tried to relax.
“Thanks. It’s nice to meet you too.”
“Come in and have a seat where ever you’d like.” She motioned toward the chairs. After I was seated, she sat across from me and put a pad of paper in her lap. “I know you don’t know me, so I’m not expecting you to trust me right away. I only want you to know that everything you say in here is completely confidential. I’m here to help you. You are free to talk about anything you want to talk about.” I nodded. “Why don’t we start with a little bit about you? Tell me what it was like growing up.”
“I had a pretty good childhood, I guess.” I fidgeted with my fingers in my lap. I felt put on the spot, though I knew this was the only way I would ever be able to cope with my life. “But I was pretty sheltered.”
“How were you sheltered?” She wrote something on the pad of paper.
“My mom homeschooled me and the only activities I was allowed to be involved in were church related.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“Fine, I guess. Though now I wish I would have been allowed to do more. Maybe if I had been allowed to do more, things would have ended differently.” I didn’t want to say anything negative about my parents. I had done enough to them.
“I can understand that.” We spent some more time going over my relationship with my parents and the way it was when I was growing up. She wasn’t judgmental and I relaxed as we talked.
“I’d like to talk briefly about what happened last night before our time is over today.”
“Okay.” I shifted in my seat, not sure if I wanted to dive into this topic yet.
“Tell me what went through your mind.”
I sat there, toying with the adhesive securing the gauze to my arm, trying to think of how to describe what I had been feeling. Everything I could think of would trivialize it and that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted my words to convey how tortured I’d felt for months. “I was having flashbacks.”
She wrote on her paper. “What about?”
“About the accident.”
Her eyes met mine. “What accident?”
I tried to gather strength. This was where she would condemn me and tell me I was a horrible person and I deserved only awful things. I started at the beginning, telling her how I had lied to my parents and gone to a party. I left no detail out. When I finished speaking, it felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest. I could breathe.
“I’m very sorry that happened to you, Will. That is unfortunate and tragic.” She paused a few seconds. “I want you to know it wasn’t your fault. Yes, you should have made better decisions, but you didn’t intend for your parents to die. You were merely trying to exert some independence and experience life without your parents holding you back. You need to let go of the guilt.”
“I don’t think I deserve to let go of the guilt. I don’t deserve forgiveness.”
“Why?”
“They’re dead because of me.”
“What do you think your parents would do? Would they forgive you or would they torture you forever for one night of bad decisions?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about it.”
I knew my parents. If they were alive, they would have been disappointed in me and I definitely would have been punished, but they wouldn’t hold it over my head. They loved me too much. “I guess they would forgive me.”
“Then why are you denying yourself forgiveness?” There was no reply to that statement. I couldn’t think of a single one. “This was an excellent start for our f
irst session. We’ll meet again tomorrow and you can answer my question. If there is anything at all you need, tell one of the nurses and they will be more than happy to help you out.”
“Thank you.”
“I hope you find your stay here helpful, Will.”
“Me too.”
I left her office and went back to my plain room. Lying on the bed, I felt hope for the first time in months.
I could figure out a way to overcome everything.
I could come out the other side better, maybe not completely healed, but I could be better than I was.
Aunt Liv, Ryanne, and Jax were all on my side, and with Dr. Thomas’ help, I would figure it all out.
I could do this because I wasn’t alone.
Will
“YESTERDAY WE LEFT OFF WITH you thinking about why you are denying yourself forgiveness. Have you been able to come up with anything?” Dr. Thomas asked.
I fished an ice cube out of my cup and rubbed it against my arm. It was a method she’d suggested to help deal with the urge to cut, but so far, it only made the urge stronger. “Because I don’t deserve it.”
“We’ve established that, but why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think on it a minute, see what comes to mind.”
I sat there, staring at the ice melting and worried about the puddle it would make. It didn’t stop me from holding it against my arm until it burned from the cold. “I’m an awful person. I disobeyed my parents, I drank illegally, I convinced my clearly drunk friend to drive me home, and I killed my parents.”
“Will,” she said with so much authority that my eyes snapped up to hers. “Everything you just described isn’t who you are. Those are actions, not who Will Mathers is.”
“I still did them.”
“Yes, you did. And the outcome was regrettable, but that doesn’t make you an awful person.”
“If someone murders someone else, they are awful.”
“Are you a murderer?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you a murderer?”
“I made my friend drive drunk and then we were in an accident that killed my parents.”
“That seems like a stretch to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you want to harm your parents?”
“No.”
“Did you hate your parents?”
“No.”
“Did you go to that party, drink alcohol, and ask your drunk friend to drive you home in hopes of killing your parents?”
“No, of course not. I didn’t want them to die.”
“I think murder usually has some kind of intent to harm, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think to be a murderer you have to actually kill someone and actually want to kill them.”
“I did actually murder them though.”
“I think this is where the disconnect is, Will. You didn’t murder your parents. They were involved in an unfortunate and tragic accident.”
“That I caused.”
“You didn’t cause the accident. You didn’t make your friend drive in the car drunk. You didn’t make him pass out at the wheel. You didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt. It was an accident.”
“I convinced him to drive.”
“Why are you so ready to condemn yourself?”
“My parents would be alive right now if it weren’t for me.”
“If your parents were alive right now, what would you be doing?”
“I would be at home or at church. My mom would be homeschooling me. And after that party, I would have still lost all my friends because I saw who they really were, so I’d be alone.”
“So you’d be alone and living the same life you had been living that you admitted to disliking?”
“I guess so.”
“How is your life now? What have you been doing before you came to the hospital?”
“I have a group of friends. I hang out a lot with Jax and Ryanne and live with Aunt Liv. I go to regular school and I’m experiencing things.”
“Do you hate your life now?”
I thought for a moment, unsure how to answer. “No. I love having friends, and Jax and Ryanne are amazing. Aunt Liv has been wonderful. With the exception of the guilt and everything involved with my parents’ deaths, I would say I have a pretty good life.”
“Would your parents be happy for you?”
“I think so. I think they would be happy that I’m so happy.”
“This may make you uncomfortable, but I’m going to throw something out there and then we’ll be done for today, okay?” I nodded. “What if this is the life you were supposed to live right now? Your parents loved you, but you felt suffocated and alone. Now, you have the potential to live a life full of love, laughter, and color. All you need to do is forgive yourself and embrace it.”
My legs bounced at an insanely fast rate and I was picking open a scab on my arm from one of the older cuts. My anxiety had been too high to handle since my last session, so I was meeting with Dr. Thomas as soon as she came in. I was scared of what I’d do if this continued.
Dr. Thomas swept into the room and set down her things. She took one look at me and immediately sat down, shrugging out of her coat and throwing it on her desk as she moved. “Talk to me, Will. Tell me what has you so distressed.”
“I’m not a murderer.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“But I still caused my parents’ death.”
“You aren’t guilty, Will. It was an accident.”
“It was an accident,” I said, then nodded. I truly believed that now, but for some reason, that left me uneasy. I had been clinging so heavily to my guilt that I felt listless without it.
“Good, I’m glad you recognize that. What else is upsetting you?”
“I really want to cut.”
“Have you been using the ice?”
“I went through an entire ice bucket last night. I couldn’t even feel my arms anymore so I moved onto my legs and it isn’t working!” I shoved my hands through my hair and yanked on it. The pain from that helped, so I kept pulling.
“Will,” she said, her stern voice causing me to pause. “Stop.” She reached slowly over and untangled my hands from my hair. When she was sure I was okay, she went over to her desk and got a rubber band, then walked back over and handed it to me. “Try this. This might help more than the ice.”
I slipped the rubber band around my wrist and snapped it. The bite from it caused my heart to slow a little.
“That isn’t going to be a permanent solution, but we need to help you deal with the anxiety. You’re still very new into this process, so we have to find ways for you to deal with the urge to cut. Cutting has become your coping mechanism and right now, you are operating without that. Your anxiety will be heightened and you will feel more out of control until we can work more on this.”
I nodded as I snapped the rubber band again.
“You aren’t alone, Will. You aren’t in this alone. You have me to help you and guide you. Together, we will help you.”
Her words calmed me in ways the rubber band couldn’t.
I wasn’t alone.
I wasn’t alone.
One Week Later
“I see your wrist is healing nicely,” Dr. Thomas said, smiling at me.
My wrist had been swollen and red from snapping the rubber band. The first week of therapy had been intense, and I’d found myself anxious between sessions and overusing the rubber band, so Dr. Thomas had told me to stop using the rubber band and gave me a notebook and pen instead. She told me to write out my feelings and that, combined with the therapy, had been helping a lot. The urge to cut was slowly dwindling.
“I wanted to talk about your parents today.”
I shifted in my chair. “What about them?”
“You’ve made it clear that you were sheltered. Tell me more about that.”
“I wasn’t allowed to do anythi
ng. Ever. My parents had to approve my friends and I was only allowed to do certain activities.”
“Like what?”
“I was allowed two friends because their families went to our church.”
“Did that bother you?”
“No, not really. I thought Nick was a good friend. At least until the end.”
“How did you feel about everything having to center around the church?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t mind it. I liked church and the community, but it would have been nice to be able to expand my life a little more. I know my parents wanted what was best for me, but I felt like I was suffocating.”
“Explain that more. Why did you feel like you were suffocating?”
“I wasn’t allowed a cellphone. I was only allowed on the computer during school research projects and only if my mom was sitting next to me. I wasn’t allowed to pick music I liked or play video games. I wasn’t even allowed to ride a bike.” Anger swirled inside me. “Why wasn’t I allowed a bike? What could I possibly done that would be bad with a bike? When I was really little, there was a boy across the street who I was allowed to play with. My parents would sit outside and we would play. Then, the family switched churches and I was no longer allowed to play with him.”
“Why?”
“Because they didn’t go to my parents’ church. They didn’t fit the idea my parents had for me.”
“What idea did they have for you?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. They wanted me to be smart and involved in the church. They talked all the time about me being a minister. My mom geared all of my classes toward that goal.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t pick anything for myself. I couldn’t pick what kinds of clothes to wear or what friends to have or what music to listen to.” The longer I talked, the more agitated I got and the louder my voice got. “I couldn’t even pick what career to have as an adult! Why? Did they think I was going to ruin my entire life? Was I that awful at decision making?”
“I don’t think you are bad at decision making.”