Thanks for the Light

If you think you've been down and out, I recommend trying out a group program at an outpatient behavioral health hospital. There, the lighting resembles a parking lot at midnight with one lone streetlamp illuminating exactly one parking space, flickering, with moths attacking it. Except, it's inside, so, the lighting is like that except in a room with folding chairs and cold coffee in vats. If you want, yourself, to be fully illuminated, do not come here.

I don't remember any of their names, except one, who I later got a tattoo in honor of. I remember them only by diagnosis.

There was Meg; her husband had died and she was always shaking, but quietly, like an injured rabbit. After multiple group sessions she mentioned that he had shot himself in their bedroom. A retired veteran, depressed, and she found him. She said she took a lot of Xanax but it wasn't working. I wondered if any pill could fix her, or that situation. I only remember her because she sat in the same seat at the table every day - the one immediately to the right of the counselor. He would say, Meg, anything you'd like to share? I think about how, in the "real world", you can share that you are hungry, or tired, or stressed out. But Meg saw all that red, all that rawness, of PTSD, and she whispered out her story like a nun quietly repenting for something she had no fault in.

There was Amy, who had a rubber band around her wrist at all times. How she snapped it constantly so that the room always had a background noise of anxious fretting. Amy, what would you like to share? Amy would like to share that snapping the rubber band is a substitute for self harm. That the pain is milder but adequately does the job. I wondered what the job was. Amy frequently cried - she had three daughters, and I don't remember why I know that. I think I saw her trying to be brave, to be a mom. I still hear the snap snap snap when I think of jobs being done, of the job of having a mental illness.

I got a tattoo for Liz. A fiery red head who seemed to be in complete possession of herself - this is what drew me to her. Her fire. She was the skinniest person I had ever seen. Struggling with anorexia, she didn't take up a tenth of her seat. She was poised, and smart, and full of quips. After she died her brother had messaged me that she had been "found in her apartment." I don't know what that means. She had Bipolar I, which has a 15-20% mortality rate. I read his message and then read it again. The counselor asked, Liz, what would you like to share? But time blurs in mental hospitals. I can't remember what she shared. She shared her life with me and perhaps that is enough. A brief spark, a flame that illuminated.

When the counselor would get to me, I would never mention anything real. My road has bumps. It has curves like the statue of Venus. But I would smile through it, pretend I was there for no reason. What would you like to share? I would like to share that my road has been bumpy, but no amount of adjectives ever explains how you got to a destination.

Nothing but grit paves a road for someone mentally ill.

I would like to thank Meg, and Amy, and Liz - thanks for illuminating, for the light.