Institutionalized

Chapter Ten

During my second group therapy, there were a few familiar faces in the room—Roseanne, the chubby redhead from my first session, and the blushing guy whose name I didn’t know—but none of my new friends.

Before the session began, Roseanne waved me over to her side. I decided to be nice and chat with her for a few minutes. I learned after a few minutes of conversation with her that that was a horrible idea.

“Hey,” she started. “You’re the new chick. I remember seeing you in the self-harming therapy group. Your name’s Libby, right?”

“Lilly.”

“Lilly, right. Sorry, I’m, like, really bad with remembering names.” She cocked her head to one side and smiled at me. “So I heard from Kevin that you’re rooming with Marshall…”

“You mean Trinity? Yeah, she’s my roommate. Why?”

She sucked in her breath. “Well, don’t expect to last long in there. Marshall’s roommates are, like, super unlucky.” To emphasize her point, she wiggled her fingers at me.

I stared at her skeptically. “What do you mean by ‘super unlucky’?”

She gave me a surprised look. “You mean nobody’s told you?!” she cried. She rolled her eyes. “Of course, they never tell the new ones, they leave it all to me…OK, so, I think you know by this point that Marshall is weird. I mean, like, seriously weird. Every roommate she’s ever had asked for a new room within, like, the first week. There’s practically a club for her old roommates that lasted, like, three days before they changed rooms. And that’s not all.” She glanced around to make sure nobody was listening, and then dropped her voice to a whisper.

“Don’t tell anyone I told you this, but I heard she, like, attackedNicole Prince.”

She looked so scandalized by her own gossip that I almost laughed. Instead, I coughed and asked “Um. Is that so? Somehow I doubt that.”

“No, it’s, like, totally true!” she cried. “She got put in solitary for it. She’s, like, super scary.”
“
Yeah…thanks for the warning, but I don’t think I’m in any real danger.” I smiled at her. “Trinity’s a bit out there, but I don’t think she’d attack someone.” I remembered the story Trinity had told me about the perverted aide and quickly added “Who didn’t attack her first.”

Roseanne rolled her eyes. “Like, whatever. You can believe what you want, but Marshall is, like, seriously messed up. Oh hey, the session’s starting. C’mon, let’s, like, sit together.”

I plunked down in a plastic chair next to Roseanne, who continued to chatter endlessly about how she wished ‘that bitchy emo boy would, like, stop existing’ so that she could go after Kevin. It was all I could do to keep from slapping her to defend Mikhail’s honor. (I’m sure Kevin would have approved.)

Eventually, the session’s leader showed up (ten minutes late, might I add). She didn’t walk into the room—she freakin’ waltzed. She wore what could only be accurately described as a gauze robe, with feathers in her hair and oversized jewelry that clanked while she moved. The room seemed to shrink when she arrived.

“Hello, everyone,” she boomed.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Dupre,” the group chorused.

She breathed in deeply through her nose and waved her hands around her face, showing off her long, pink talons and the gold rings on each finger. “Todaaaaaay,” she began, “we’re going to discuss clearing our minds and cleansing ourselves of negativity, so that we may OUST the depressive natures from our psyche.” She made a broad sweeping gesture that caused her long purple sleeves to flap. “SWOOSH! Out the window they go!”

I was torn between being appalled and laughing my ass off. How did this woman have a degree in psychiatry? She acted more like one of the new-age shop owners that were popping up on almost every street corner in my hometown. Roseanne was enraptured, as were a lot of other girls in the group. A pair of guys were snickering at her, but they were doing a pretty good job of hiding it.

“NOW,” she commanded, “I am going to pair you off so you can work on finding your happiness, your drive, that which moves you…” She strode around the room purposefully, occasionally getting in someone’s face to prove a point. Roseanne was glowing.

“So that in finding your happiness, you come to understand—“ She paused when she came to my seat.

“And WHOOOOOOM are you? I don’t recall you being here yesterday,” she said while scowling at me.

“My name’s Lilly,” I squeaked. “I just got here yesterday and I was put in your group.”

She gave me a stink eye that would have melted glass. “Well, you really should have stood up and introduced yourself. On your road to overcoming depression, you must overcome your fears! And that includes public speaking!”

I wanted to tell her that I didn’t have a fear of public speaking, or that she should have known she was going to have a new patient arriving in her group. Instead I just nodded.

She swooshed approvingly. “Good. Now, I’ll begin pairing.”

In the end, she put me with the blushing guy from my first therapy session, whose name turned out to be Travis. After an awkward silence between the two of us, I cleared my throat and started off the conversation.

“I remember you,” I started. “You’re in Dr. Nakamura’s self-harm therapy, right?” He nodded. “So, Travis, what do you like to do?”

He bowed his head slightly and tried to rearrange his bangs to cover his face. “I really like to draw,” he whispered.

“Are you a good artist?”

He squirmed slightly. “Nicole says I am. But I don’t believe her.”

I took a deep breath. “How long have you been here?”

“I…I…I’ve been here for about a month,” he mumbled, shrinking a little bit. I felt bad for the guy. I’d been through a lot of questioning from a lot of people—my parents, Dr. Lowenstein, Dr. Woodson, Trinity, Roseanne—but he probably hadn’t, so he didn’t know how to answer when he was put on the spot.

“I’m making you uncomfortable, aren’t I?” He nodded rapidly. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Not your fault,” he muttered. “It’s my fault. My anxiety disorder’s really bad. I can barely interact normally with people. Nicole’s the only person I can really talk to without…without getting nervous.”

Nicole seemed to be an easy topic for him, so I decided to keep the conversation geared toward her.

“So you and Nicole are good friends? What’s she like?”

He nodded and his face brightened. “Yes, very. She’s really nice. She never forces me to talk, but we always end up talking a little bit anyway. Sometimes I get shy around her, but she’s OK with it. Usually she just watches me draw.”

“Did you meet her here?”

“Well, sort of,” he said with a shrug. “We used to be friends in grade school. She moved away at the start of sixth, and I haven’t seen her again until I came here. So it’s almost like we found each other, I guess.” He paused. “She’s schizophrenic, you know. But it doesn’t seem obvious. Her medication really keeps it under control, but sometimes she’ll have episodes. And that’s OK, because sometimes I can’t talk to her because of my anxiety.”

I wanted to ask him if the story I had heard about Nicole being attacked by Trinity was true, but Roseanne and a girl with dreadlocks were watching me from across the room, whispering to each other, so I decided to leave the topic alone.

“What about you?” he asked. “Have you got a lot of friends?”

“I’ve made a few friends here,” I responded. “Sort of. I mean, I’ve only just met them today, but they seem to like me well enough.”

“Trinity and her friends?”

I stared at him, which caused him to flush crimson. “W-What? Did I say something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” I assured him, patting his shoulder. “I’m just wondering how you knew.”

“Well, I saw you sitting with them. At breakfast and lunch. And you and Rachelle seemed to be getting pretty close at the last session we were in.” His blush lightened slightly. “Plus, Nicole pointed you out to me. She and Trinity don’t exactly get along, but she knows all of Trinity’s roommates…” He laughed a little bit. “When she saw you with Trinity, she turned to me and said ‘I give her three days before she cracks’.”

I smiled at him. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I plan on staying where I am for the time being.”

At that point, Dr. Dupre started bellowing about how we needed to return to our seats so she could finish up the session. Travis smiled at me and said “Good luck. Hope you do well here. Or that we can talk some more. Because you’re pretty cool.” With that, he blushed and turned away.