by Ceylan Scott
‘I made an idiot of myself,’ I say.
‘Teenagers do that. They’ll have forgotten about it in a week,’ he says with a dismissive wave of the hand.
He’s wearing a new tie today. It has the structure of atoms swirled against a green background: electrons, protons, neutrons. It isn’t as friendly as his Periodic Table one.
‘So, you’re not going to cancel leave next week?’
‘Because of the party? No, of course not. I think you did extremely well, all things considered. I heard you didn’t self-harm.’
‘Were you expecting me to?’
He looks taken off guard. ‘Well – no, of course not, I mean . . .’ he says, looking flustered. ‘The point is that you didn’t, which you should celebrate.’
Somebody whip out the party poppers.
‘I didn’t feel like it. What happens if I feel like it?’
‘Well, I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit, for starters. You could have self-harmed, but you didn’t, which is admirable. Second, we need to start thinking of other things you can do in place of the self-harming.’
Snap a rubber band. Hold an ice cube. Punch a pillow.
‘Like what?’ I say. ‘Painting my nails doesn’t work.’
‘What about running?’ says Dr Flores.
I stopped running soon after Iris died. I was too slow, had started losing races. Not just missing out on the top-three medal spots, but properly losing, bringing up the humiliated rear, wheezing and spluttering. Running was my thing: I couldn’t lose. There was no point in doing it if it didn’t end with a cold medal pressed against my chest. At first, Toby had tried to persuade me to come to training, but I knew they didn’t need me. I was replaceable.
‘What about it?’ I say warily.
‘Well, how about it?’ he replies, crossing his legs purposefully.
‘I don’t run any more,’ I say flatly. ‘I stopped.’
‘And that’s exactly what I’m trying to say. How about, next Saturday, you take yourself on a short run – ten minutes, say? Then on Monday, you can come back and tell us all how it went.’
I know how it would go. I remember . . . I would stretch out on the path in the park, focusing on each area of my body from my toes up – hamstrings, thighs, shoulders – and then I would start running in the shoes that I hadn’t worn for two years. They would be too stiff, hardened from the crusted hunks of mud that had dried on to them, and the backs would dig into my heels and make them bleed. I’d manage five minutes, maybe six, with the monster squatting heavier and heavier on my back, and then I wouldn’t be able to run any more. I wouldn’t make ten minutes.
‘Why, though?’
‘Exercise is good,’ he says with a shrug. ‘It releases endorphins. It’s an adaptive coping strategy.’
Ah. He wants me to replace cold metal slitting my skin with a stitch in my abdomen.
‘No one’s saying you have to do competitions or anything, Tamar. We can make running something for you. The only person you need to better is yourself.’
It isn’t true, though, is it? I need to better every person around me ten times over before anyone will sit up and notice me. That’s how the world works. What does he think exams and sports and Nobel Prizes are for?
‘OK,’ I say. Whatever.
‘I’m really glad that you’re prepared to try. It will be good for you, I’m sure.’ He isn’t sure. Psychiatrists are never sure, but they pretend to be. ‘Speaking of next weekend, how does trying the whole two nights at home sound to you?’
Terrifying. Nauseating. Overwhelming.
‘Great,’ I say. ‘I’d love to go home for the whole weekend.’
‘I’m going to say that you’re written up for two nights’ leave, then, but I want you to ring up at any point if you’re not coping. In fact,’ he says, pulling out his diary and scribbling a note, ‘I’ll get someone on shift to give you a call on Saturday, just to check in . . .’
‘Can I have my phone back?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ he says, with a smile that says: God, teenagers! ‘Maybe for an hour or so each day?’
‘Sure,’ I say. ‘That’s fine. Thanks.’ Cooperating is the key.
‘Is there anything else you wanted to discuss?’ he asks in a tone that indicates the conversation is very much over.
‘Not really, no. Can I go?’
‘By all means,’ he says.
The door is heavier to push than usual.
It’s a funny thing, surviving after trying to murder yourself. An overwhelming blankness, an aching numbness enveloped me and ran deep into my bones. The too-hot ambulance dropped me off under layers of sweaty sheets in a too-hot hospital because January is the month of heating bills. They rigged me up to heart monitors and gave me a hospital gown with broken straps. Was I the victim? Or the perpetrator? Who was the person in the body lying on the hospital bed? I don’t know. It wasn’t me.
A fly buzzed feebly in the artificially white light above my head. Being toasted alive. Why are they attracted to light? I wondered if the fly was thinking that now: Hmm, on second thoughts, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, now that I’m being frazzled. Too late buddy, too late. You’re a goner.
When the vomiting began, I started to cry, and the fly stopped buzzing, which meant it was dead. But I was not dead. The poison in my veins made me vomit into the bowls and on to the bedsheets and into my hair and it would not stop. But I didn’t care, because the pain coursed through me like I should be dead, no one can withstand this – my temples exploded and my oesophagus burnt. But with every retch I was reminded that I was so painfully alive. So very much a failure.
They pierced my grey skin with needles and rigged me up to a heart monitor and slipped a tube into my knuckle and a drip drip-dripped into my veins, but it did not stop the agony, because I was not dead. A nurse put a dressing on the friction burns around my neck.
‘You’ll be lovely and bruised in the morning,’ she said.
I was alone, because my parents could not bring themselves to look at my pathetic body contorted on a hospital bed, clinging on to the dear life that I did not want.
There was a toddler in the bed next to me who slept with raspy breaths, his mother on the chair next to him. A strange smell lingered in the air: musky sweat and scented bleach. The curtains on the paediatric ward were patterned with jungle animals – a failed attempt at giving the room personality. The air was thicker than honey, and my hair clung to my sweating forehead.
They gave me antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers. Because that’s all they could do. Other patients could talk for hours in their sweaty-palmed state about their anxiety disorder. The eating-disorder patients, trapped in their unhealthy relationships with food, some of them emaciated, others not a pound off normal. The patients with such crippling depression that even getting out of bed in the morning was an achievement worthy of more than a pat on the back.
The monster that had swallowed me was different. The experts soon exhausted their options: manic depression, schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder . . . But the monster didn’t need a label or a name. The monster was me.
I stayed in hospital for three days, as they pumped more and more chemicals into me to try and counteract the poison that had seeped into my blood and my organs and my nervous system. They told me that I was lucky; my organs were close to failing, I should thank God that I was alive. It was as if they were rubbing it in my face. I didn’t want them to save my organs.
On the third day, they pronounced me fully alive. They unstuck the tacky stickers on my chest and ankles and stomach, and rushed saline solution through my cannula so I felt icy cold rippling up through my veins. They did one more blood test and left the cannula in. Just in case.
They sent a psychiatrist and a support worker to see me in Outpatients: Dr Chance and Jacob. Dr Chance was wearing a feminist trouser suit. Jacob had a mildly uncomfortable expression on his face, but I couldn’t place an emotion.
Dr Chance took out a packet of gum from her bag, and looked at me. I twisted my hand around a rubber band I’d found in the corridor, watching the tips of my fingers turn slowly red. There was a Mickey Mouse plaster on my knuckle from where my cannula had been removed and I focused on the dark bruising from where the nurse had got the blood test wrong twice. I think my parents were in the building somewhere, but I didn’t want to see them. I couldn’t face what I’d done to them, not yet.
‘Would you like a piece?’ Dr Chance held out a strip of gum in the space between us. I shook my head. She took it for herself and began to chew slowly and methodically. ‘Have you eaten anything?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I still feel sick.’ I tensed my fist and watched as the veins seemed to rush to the surface of my skin.
‘I’m not surprised – that antidote is nasty stuff, but you really should – your body’s been through a lot in the last few days. Shall I ask the nurses to get you a sandwich?’
I didn’t respond. I just looked at her as pointedly as she was looking at me, until she lowered her gaze. We sat in silence.
‘God, it’s hot in here,’ Jacob said, peeling off his jumper. ‘That’s the thing with hospitals, they just can’t seem to regulate their temperature . . .’
‘Can we open a window?’
Both Jacob and Dr Chance stood up and fumbled with the latch on the sticky window.
‘That’s better,’ Dr Chance said, shooting me an awkwardly warm smile. ‘Now, where do you want start? How are you doing at the moment?’
I shrugged.
‘Scale of one to ten?’ Jacob interjected unhelpfully.
‘Two, maybe three, I guess.’
‘So, not fantastic,’ said Dr Chance with an air of forced sympathy. ‘You’ve had quite the few days, so I’m not surprised.’ She paused and scribbled something on her pad of paper. I didn’t wonder what she was writing. I just flicked the rubber band against my skin, and focused on the stinging it brought with it.
‘And tell me, how has your sleep been recently?’
Recently? Hours? Weeks? Months?
‘Fine. I mean, I sleep.’
‘How many hours on average? Eight? Nine?’
‘Something like that.’
Jacob’s phone went off. He stared at the screen for a few seconds, then flicked it to silent.
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. Dr Chance gave him the same falsely jovial beam she had given me.
‘How about eating?’ she said. ‘I know you’re not hungry now, but how has your appetite been in general?’
I didn’t reply. What was the point? Tick-tock.
‘OK,’ she said softly, scribbling something on her notepad. ‘Can we talk about what happened, would that be all right?’
She was going to ask me about it even if it wasn’t all right.
‘Take your time,’ said Jacob unhelpfully. ‘We’re not in a hurry.’
I told them what happened. I told them what I did, how I did it, how tight the noose felt as it dug into my soft flesh, how my eyeballs felt like they were going to burst out of my sockets and I could feel my brain swelling against my skull, and how all at once the rail had broken, and I had fallen on to my bedroom floor with a crash, and how I had the bruises on my knee to prove it.
‘Did you want to die? Was that your plan?’
Oh, OK, you asked it. You’ve said it now.
‘There wasn’t a plan,’ I responded, my gaze returning to the rubber band on my wrist.
‘I understand. But what were you thinking at the time? What were you thinking when you overdosed?’
‘I wanted . . . I don’t know, I wasn’t thinking much . . .’ I said. ‘It’s difficult to say.’
‘We know it’s difficult to say, Tamar, but we need you to really try so that we can work out how best to help you,’ said Jacob, patronizingly. ‘We’re not mind readers.’ They both laughed.
‘I don’t need your help,’ I snapped.
‘Why not? Do you think you don’t deserve it?’
I needed to get out. They were staring at me, the leg-pulling, gum-chewing pair of them, demanding an answer that I could not give so that they could tap into the computer: We asked her. We assessed her risk and she told us she wasn’t suicidal. Sorry, but it’s not our fault she’s now dead. It’s not our fault she lied.
‘The reason why we ask this is because we’re worried about you. We’re wondering if an admission to an inpatient unit might help keep you safe. It’s not far, and it wouldn’t be for long . . .’
And before I knew it, I was standing up and I was swearing and shouting and storming out of the room. I was angry. How could they say that? Did they not understand? And they had laughed, as if it was funny. It wasn’t funny at all.
‘Piss off, you fucking, fucking idiots!’
And then there were other people around the nurses’ station and I had to get away, so I turned around and ran into the toilet. I could hear someone calling my name behind me but I didn’t care. The lock was stiff but I pulled it across and I remember vaguely hoping that it would never open again. The ceiling seemed an awfully long way away and I squeezed the side of the toilet with one hand and clenched my hair in a fist with the other. It was just me and four walls, four shiny white walls with chipped paint. There was noise from the outside of the room, I could hear it, but it was muffled and for a few seconds I made absolutely no noise just in case someone heard me breathe. And then the four walls spun and blurred and I couldn’t hold back the tears any more. And they came fast and tumbled down my face and I knelt on all fours and watched them fall on to the floor. Drip, drip.
‘Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit.’ This could not be happening. And I collapsed back on to the floor and felt my whole body heating up. Banged my head against the wall softly and the rhythm of it offered some comfort. There was only one voice outside the door now. I could barely register what he was saying but his voice held steady and calm and somehow it leached into my frantic mind. I groaned and rolled over on to my side like my stomach hurt, which perhaps it did. At that moment, everything hurt.
‘Tamar, why don’t you open the door and we can talk?’ He carried on speaking but his voice was lost in another wave of uncontrollable despair and I crouched, face against the floor, not caring about hygiene, not caring that I could smell the musty material and make out every imperfection in it, not caring that the tears were streaking down my face and soaking into my pyjamas.
I can’t do this. I can’t. Oh, God. Please make it end. Then I grabbed my neck with my two hands and squeezed it tightly, digging my nails into the sweaty skin, and looked up. The ceiling was so far away but suddenly the walls felt like they were closing in and I couldn’t even stretch my legs out fully. This was how it was going to end. I’d be swallowed by a tiny room with no daylight, gasping for air, crying and crying, vision fuzzy. And I let go of my neck and watched colour flowing back into my white fingertips and took a large gulp of air.
‘Tamar, if you don’t come out, I’m going to call the police.’ Did he say that? I don’t know. Perhaps I needed an excuse to leave that room before it swallowed me whole, but I forced my way to my knees and slid back the lock and used the doorknob to pull myself up and opened the door. I stared into the face of someone who was quite insane, with hair that was matted and static and dyed an uncomfortable shade of pink. Her face was too white in some places and too red in others; snot had somehow made its way to above her eyebrows. In the few moments it took to notice that this was me, – I had become this – Jacob had gone into the toilet and was thrusting more tissues than necessary into my trembling hands. I blew my nose. Soaked the paper in water and used it to wipe my face, like that was the problem.
Jacob took me into the corridor and filled up a cup of water from the machine. I bit my lip, trying to stop the relentless flow of tears.
‘Shall we go back into the room?’ said Jacob. I nodded numbly and followed him. ‘You can have the sofa.’ I ignored him and sat in a chair closest to the doo
r and buried my head in my hands and started bawling again. Why can’t I control myself? My anger had dissipated slightly but now all that was left was a dull hollowness in my chest, which fell somewhere between fear and confusion. I could feel my whole body shaking. I was grateful for my hair because, although it was dry and tangled, it offered a curtain between me and the room around me.
Whenever I consider cutting my hair short I remember the way it protected me from the world for those few minutes and I change my mind.
I’d heard about psychiatric hospitals. I knew that they restrained you and forced injections into you and threw you into padded cells if you didn’t behave. I wasn’t mad. How could they do that?
I attempted to make myself look more presentable, changed into clothes. I turned on the taps and held my hands under the cold until they began to ache, then swapped them to the hot tap and splashed my face, dried it with the paper from the dispenser. My arm itched under the dressings.
We walked slowly through the car park. I calculated my every move: how I was walking, how I held my arms, how fast I breathed. I was horribly aware of myself. Jacob started to tell me a story about some ducks but he had lost me by the second sentence and I tuned out. I wanted to get away and disappear into the alleys and curl up and die without anyone disturbing me or trying to convince me that life was worth living. Then, all of a sudden, I found myself running in the opposite direction but I didn’t get far because my legs buckled, like I was made of rotten wood, and I sat down on the parched pavement, my head spinning. Jacob stooped down to my level, a slight smirk on his face.
‘What was that about?’
‘I–I can’t be fucked . . .’ And I tried to smile back at him but I felt tears creeping back into my eyes so I bit my lip and stood back up. ‘I’m not going to run away.’
‘Listen, we’ve found you a bed. It’s a little further away than we’d hoped, but you can go tonight.’
Collect your thoughts and travel two towns to the west.
‘It’s for your own safety, we’re just trying to keep you safe. It won’t be for long. Lime Grove is a nice place. It’s not as scary as it sounds, don’t worry about it, you’ll be looked after there. I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go home to pack, Tamar; your parents will do that tomorrow. You need to head to Lime Grove as soon as possible. I can give you a lift if you really can’t go with your parents. If you’re quick, you might even be there in time for dinner!’
