The Door Girl, Part 23

Sitting in a hard metal chair to fill out all of the forms, I stare at the glass and the metal sign affixed to it that reads, “Mental Ward.” And the only words in my head are, “Are you fucking happy now?” To everyone who had ever hurt me, pushed me, left me. There I was in a mental hospital.

        Did you know that you aren’t allowed to have plastic knives (understandable) or plastic forks in a mental ward? Do you know how hard it is to spread cream cheese on a bagel with a plastic spoon? I never did master the art. Thankfully, I wasn’t there long enough to figure it out.

        The people at the hospital were fascinating to me. Paul, for example, wore the same t-shirt every day with a Pokemon design on it. It was stained with ketchup and mustard all over it, but he wore it with pride. I commented on it one day and he told me that he had designed it himself.

        Then there was Gary who had one leg and was in a wheelchair. I got his plate and took him to his seat one day, without saying a word, without taking away his dignity. And Gary, who never said a word to anyone, nodded at me, straight-faced and I thought I was flying over the moon.

        I met a teenage homeschooler there who always kept to herself and was very pretty in a natural beauty sort of way. We smiled at each other half-heartedly in the hallways. She started sitting by me during meals. One day I asked her why she was there and she very bluntly confessed, “I tried to kill myself with a steak knife in front of my mother in the kitchen.” And my heart ached for her because I knew what it felt like to want to disappear.