Psychodrama

The landscape spun disorderly fabric enveloping the stiflingly warm car with every turn. Horrid as the music of my father’s favorite radio station was, it grounded me in reality as nothing else could at the time. The digital clock readout pierced the atmosphere between the dashboard and my eye - an offensive bright green headache waiting to happen. In reality, neither the dizziness nor the heat nor the clock was the true source of my disdain. A few hours earlier, my parents had put on a thoroughly awkward display of affection as they swaddled me in the intense and overbearing brand of care which sometimes comes with the knowledge that your child is suicidal. They weren’t even supposed to know. A ragged fury prodded at my composure as the car drew nearer to its strange an unfamiliar destination. This was fury brought on by betrayal and fury at the unknown. Of course, fury was not my only traveling partner. Alongside it rode bluest depression and blackest longing for self-conclusion.

The entrance to the hospital came into view as the violent green numbers flashed 8:00. Night was falling in slow motion, in sharp contrast to my raging thoughts. Here was this dingy blue and grey mass of buildings, adeptly suited to further dim any dim mood and here I came, red with contempt radiant enough to ignite each one.

How could he tell them? Did he not understand the meaning of confidentiality?

The waiting room clock chugged along, carrying the burden of the hours in its hands. Before I knew it, 11:00 had come and passed. The admitting doctor was slow in calling me, but quick in processing me. Thorough and thoroughly professional, he managed to extract my basic information and case description and send me packing to an onsite residence and treatment unit. I endured another awkward emotional moment with my distraught parents as I entered the unit with a small bag of personal belongings and another recently processed patient, who was to be my roommate. In the entryway, which bore the name of the unit -Westview- in regal white and gold lettering,the clock showed 12 midnight - ominous.

Needless to say, sleep did not come easily that morbid night. I lay awake for an untold period of time, eyes wide open, imagining giant green digits looming over my bed, the seconds ticking away with the light snores of my roommate. Rage and displeasure kept me fully awake. With no other option, I rose from bed and padded down the hall toward the nurses’ station. Obviously unsatisfied with her job, the middle-aged nurse stared blankly at me and reminded me that I shouldn’t leave my room during the night. Disregarding her passionate reprimand, I found a seat on a sofa in the boys’ common room and sorted my mind into the color-coded bins which lined a large shelf to my left. Half an hour of that simple impromptu remedy in addition to a few cups of water from the fountain managed to bring me softly collapsing upon the spartan bed and sleep more deeply than I thought fit.

Morning had never been my time to shine. I woke, not daring to imagine the miserable state of my hair or my complexion. Shuffling groggily out of the room, I was jarred by a shriek of primal panic.

“Let me go! Get off of me! Let me go!” begged the voice. As I turned the corner, I could see a mass of blue shirts swarming around a boy roughly my age, who was throwing his fists, hissing and spitting to be released from the constraining grip of two male staff members.

“Let! Go! Of! Me!” he sputtered, beginning to tire out. He gradually discontinued his thrashing and, sensing a conclusion to the havoc, the blue shirts let him go. Placidly, as if nothing whatsoever had occurred, the boy strode down the hallway toward the common room. Before reaching the sofa, however, he turned abruptly and proceeded to shout obscenities and various I-hate-yous at the staff, lumbering at a near sprint to what was clearly his personal solitary cell, slamming the door, and slamming himself against the interior walls, shouting the same profanities over and over again.

I gave a puzzled look to one of the staff members, whose only response was to remind me that I was expected to attend a psychodrama meeting in ten minutes. Though I wasn’t sure what it consisted of, I didn’t like the idea of being required to go, or the prefix ‘psycho’. I was no psycho -not like that kid- and I resented the otherwise suggestion. But as much contempt as I held toward all of those who played a role in landing me here, I was incapable of refusal to attend the the psychodrama.

The clock ticked ferociously, albeit sluggishly, as the spectacled, gaudily-clad woman in purple explained the terms of the group.

“...and you will be supportive to all -regardless of what they say- and try your best to act out their situations with appropriate pathos.”

First up was Brittany, who played out an angry screaming match with Chris, representing her father. She tearfully shouted accusation after accusation, voicing her hatred and finally conceding that he above all others was the reason she turned to alcohol and self-mutilation as an emotional outlet. Next was Steven, my roommate, who quietly, morosely asked Ashley, his “mother” to come back home and be the support system he never had. Three or four others followed, sharing the most mortifying and heartbreaking aspects of their lives for the review of the whole room. Some ended in shouts or sobbing, some in silence. All were grounded in truest pathos.

These kids, no more than a year my junior or senior, were ravaged by poverty, abuse, neglect, and subsequent feelings of depression, anger, and anxiety. They told of rape, substance abuse, and witnessing horrors I had never been remotely subjected to. These kids deserved this retreat; this stable environment; these helpful and compassionate surroundings to at least think about healing. I, on the other hand, had nothing to retreat from, no instability to escape, and no wounds to heal. Though they indubitably had the full extent of my sympathy and the offer of my moral support whenever they needed it, I could not empathize with them. As the clock ticked away in a spritely manner, counting away the minutes of my precious edification, I sat attentively observing the psychodrama and expounding upon all I had to be thankful for.