I turn over for what feels like the millionth time that night, feeling the pain in my side as the stiff mattress refuses to give, and hearing the rustle of the paper scrubs they have given me to wear until my parents can get me ‘hazard-free clothing.’

I feel a tear slip down my face and know it won’t be the last one I shed here.

Not even the last one tonight.

I’m still shaking, my eyelids heavy but unable to stay shut for more than a second at a time before I hear a sound that makes me jump.

The murmur of the nurses in the hall, a muted flush in the next room over, the faint inhale and exhale pattern of the sleeping body occupying the other bed in the room. I pull the thin blanket up to my chin and count my breaths.

one

I think of the cold room they kept me in for hours as they asked me prying questions, wanting to know every single detail of my life.

two

I can still feel the cold hands of the ER nurses as they take my blood, the EMT telling me that ‘it get’s better.’

three

I can’t get the thought out of my head that I’m stuck here, and it’s not even my fault. I don’t belong here.

four

I replay the last few hours of my life, hoping that it’s all just a horrible dream, that I’ll wake up tomorrow in my bed back home and go back to my life.

No matter how much I hate it, anything is better than this.

My first 24 hours I refused to participate. Even when they told me I would stay until I did, I did nothing more than answer the basic questions in group therapy.

My name is Abby. I’m 13. I’m here because I’m depressed.

I shut my mouth and refuse to open it after that.

I cried for the entire hour we were in the gym, angry that they wouldn’t let me leave, wouldn’t let me call my mom, wouldn’t let me talk to anyone I actually knew. I felt trapped, no matter how much they told me I wasn’t.

The other girls tried to soothe me, tell me I was going to be OK.

I didn’t want to hear it.

During lunch I sat on the end of the table by myself, not speaking to anyone, hoping that maybe if I wish hard enough they’ll realize they made a mistake, that I shouldn’t be here and they’ll let me go home.

That night, I cried myself to sleep again for the second time in a row.

After the first day, I realized they wouldn’t let me out unless I showed ‘progress.’ So I talked, and I listened, and I realized that I wasn’t there because I was crazy.

I was there because I needed help to be happy again, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

No one ever tells you what really happens in psychiatric hospitals because it’s still stigmatized. Many people think that if you go to one, you must be insane.

They never tell you that those people make up an almost impossibly minuscule percentage of the population.

They never tell you that the people there are so kind and gentle and will do everything in their power to make you feel loved, and yet they can’t seem to find a way to love themselves.

My first roommate never had a bad word to say about anyone but herself, always smiling and laughing, cheering everyone else up, then crying herself to sleep at night.

The 16-year-old girl who came my second day refused to let anyone feel as if they were anything less than perfect, yet she didn’t feel her life was worth living.

I can still see the faces of every single person I met during all three of my stays.

The teen mom who wanted nothing more than to get better for her daughter, the tall brunette who loved to braid my hair every chance she got.

I still smile when I think of the blonde girl who gave me a piece of gum she had her mom sneak in during visiting time on my first day because she could tell I needed “some real sugar, not the fake crap they feed us here.”

I can still hear the loud red-head from Oklahoma call me shrimpy even though she was only three inches taller than me, the girl who had huge blue eyes and a voice like an angel.

I remember every person who told me I was a “good kid who is going places.” Sometimes that’s still what gets me through tough days.

I have never felt so much love as I did in those days I was there, and yet every single person there couldn’t see why they should still be alive.

It’s still weird to realize that I was one of them.