While at the psych ward, I was much more confident. I could talk to people without any problems at all. I knew that this was a result of what had happened immediately before this, my episode, me being the second coming of Christ. And regardless of whether or not anything I had imagined was true, I could feel the change inside myself. I remembered what I had been imagining before, how it didn't matter whether or not what I imagined was true, as long as whatever I did, I didn't stop believing in myself.
I asked if I could go to the next ward. The next ward was the main part of the psych ward. The ward I was currently on, it was the quiet ward. Staff allowed me to hang out on the other ward for awhile.
I met some kids. Late teens, early twenties. People I would normally have trouble talking to. But it was fine. I could talk to them just fine.
They were both guys. However, there was something funny about them. One of them, I could tell was transgender. He was actually born a girl, but he presented himself as male. The other one was a guy who normally cross-dressed as a woman. They played music for me on the guitar.
The guy who normally cross-dressed as a woman, had a lot of strange fetishes and sexual deviations. Some of them were ones I had. I would never in a million years admit that out loud to them, though. Because I was ashamed. That's what I admired about this guy. He wasn't ashamed. He was very open about this kind of thing.
At one point, he was making up a song on his guitar, describing a situation, when he sang “...and that is another one.” Meaning another one of his sexual fantasies. I choked on my hot chocolate, because it was one of mine too, one of my incredibly odd ones. I laughed, and jumped up an high-fived him involuntarily. So they knew that there was something funny about me, too. It really took me by surprise.
I was sitting there, looking at the board, when I saw a quote that had been written on paper and hung up. “It's because of our choices that we are where we are today.” This made me angry. They were trying to make us feel guilty about what we had done, and that's how we had ended up in the psych ward. With a sudden burst of energy I jumped up and ripped it up. Then I turned the pieces over and wrote: “Accept me for who I am, we are all friends in the psych ward!” And I taped that up, to replace the other quote.
We played Pictionary. I did things related to God. God participating in a lesbian orgy. Then I drew a whole bunch of random boobs everywhere. In my mind, I was thinking that I was trying to warm them up to the idea of religion, in a subtle way, because they were opposed to it. The only reason I was trying to do this was because I was still very scared of the idea of hell, and I didn't want anyone to have to go there.
I went back to my ward. I made a sign that said, “Hell is a vibration- Get Saved.” I put it on my door in the hall. Then I would write stuff about hell. I wrote a piece of writing explaining faith, and put it on my door. I wrote another one explaining that hell isn't just a scare tactic, anymore than warning your kids not to play with fire or they will be burned is a scare tactic. Several people came up to me and told me they liked my signs.
I met tons of interesting people in the psych ward. Oddly enough, this psych ward visit was amazing, I was having a great time.
My mom still tried to argue with me about this being a mental illness. I told her it wasn't. Then, I got an idea. I called her and told her that I had changed my mind, it was a mental illness. She got excited. I was amazed that she believed me, I was just bullshitting.
But as time wore on, I slowly started to come down. Maybe it was a mental illness. Or at least, maybe all that stuff I had imagined before I was in the psych ward, wasn't true. Brandon bugging my house. Had Brandon really bugged my house? Probably not. That seemed very unlikely now.
The doctor kept visiting me and telling me my thinking was disjointed. He wanted to raise my meds to get rid of my behavioral quirks. Like this “thinking with the mind of God.” I would put my hand over my mouth, and whisper something like: “We are Beev and Feether Meeke – we don't know about withdrawal effects!”
“This is new. She wasn't doing this before.” My mom told the doctor. So they were going to medicate me, to try to get me back to the way I was before. Who they thought I was. Me, without my self-confidence. The thinking with the mind of God thing, it was just something I did because I was feeling self-confident.
This exasperated me. So I had finally make a change in my life. A good change. I had finally become the person I had always wanted to be. And now, the doctors are going to medicate me, to make me less confident, confused, submissive. To take away all the good qualities I had developed over the past several weeks. How could they do that to me? I was much happier now! It wasn't normal to them. They weren't used to it. They couldn't handle change. They couldn't accept that sometimes, experiences permanently change people. They had no idea what all I had gone through. They just saw it as abnormal, and wrong. Change her back. Change her back. Change her back.
I argued that I was manic because of the huge amount of coffee I had been drinking. They told me that the coffee was decaf. I hadn't known that. The placebo effect! It could still effect me like regular if I didn't know it was decaf. I made a sign: “Behold! The placebo effect! The power of belief!” I put it on my door. I made the connection between the placebo effect being the power of belief, and getting saved being the power of belief.
They put me on lithium, and took away my Adderall, which made me unhappy. At first I thought, now that I have gone off Adderall, I will just stop showering. To prove to them that I was much better on Adderall. But I couldn't keep it up. I started showering again. Because I had been in the hospital for three weeks now. And I just wanted to get out.
All the time, while I was in the hospital, I had been thinking about Chance. I had talked to him. That conversation had gone really well. Once out of the hospital, I would have to talk to him again. What should I say?
Something indicating that it was over. “Fire exit escape ladder,” I thought at first. That was what I would say to him. No. Maybe something related to computer programming, like something about an escape sequence. I thought on that for awhile, and decided against it. “Fire exit escape ladder” was good.
In the hospital, I had access to computers. We weren't supposed to go on Facebook, but some of the staff let us go on anyway. So I logged in, the day before I was leaving, and sent Chance a message:
“Fire exit escape ladder.”
I was getting out of the hospital. This whole time, I had been eager to talk to Chance. I needed his help, plus, I was interested in him romantically.
As I stood in the lobby of the hospital, recollecting the stuff I had brought in... my parents told me they weren't going to allow me access to my lap top. Murderous visions danced through my mind as I thought about how much I loathed them. I didn't really want them dead, but.... it was the ultimate act of revenge for all the shit they had pulled on me.
When I got out of the hospital, I used the computers at the gym, my mom's computer, and Matthew's computer. I got a response from Chance to my statement:
“North side or south side of the building?”
In my mind, I imagined that he was talking about me wanting to leave the hospital.
“It's okay, they let me out the front door. Did you talk to Brandon?”
Over days, this conversation progressed, since we weren't always online at the same time. This was the determining answer right here. If he had talked to him, that meant the stuff about him watching me was true, and I was not delusional at all. If he had not, it was my brain. It meant I had made this entire bugged house scenario up.
“No, but I'm familiar with whom you speak.”
So that was it. I had been delusional. But really, it wasn't a big deal. It wasn't. Because I had grown enormously from this imaginary experience. And, it had started a good conversation between me and Chance.
“Oh really? I thought I was the only person who knew about him. Him and I played a game. It was a fun game. Do you want to hear about the game?”
I wrote him this message at the gym and then left. Mostly because I had started this conversation and didn't know what to say next. Partially because I wanted to show off. I was referring to the lasagna pan game.
I left, and I grew nervous. Would he find this odd? Was this a weird question to ask right off the bat? Because if I told him about the lasagna pan game, I would also have to go over the back story of my relationship with Brandon... And that would take quite a bit of explaining. But on the other hand, if I opened up to him, maybe this relationship would go somewhere. I wasn't sure where though, maybe we would become friends.
I wrote a status. I intended it for Chance. But I wrote it publicly. “Be forewarned that I am crazy. But I think I am a lot more fun now that I am crazy than when I was supposedly sane.”
After the gym, I went over to Matthew's house. I saw that Todd had written a comment on my status. “I know you're weird... That's why we're friends.”
I sat in the smelly basement and contemplated what was going on. I had written Chance this message. Chance was now online. He had not responded. Was that too weird? Was that too much to start out with? Oh God... I didn't know. I felt horrible.
Then I looked at Todd's comment. It had one like. I hovered the curser over it to see who it was. Chance. Chance had liked the status. Meaning things were okay. Holy shit, things were okay! Relief and warmth spread through my body.
He wrote back to me. “Okay sure.”
“Do you want to hear the long version or the short version?”
“Whichever brings greater clarity.”
“Good answer!”
I thought about going on a long drawn out explanation right then, decided against it and excused myself. I wasn't in the right frame of mind to start talking about this at that moment.
I wandered around the neighborhood. I needed nutrients. Nutrients in the form of drugs.
Something to throw my body out or whack so that I would feel confident again. When my body was out of whack, I felt confident. When my conscious state was slightly askew, I felt confident.Because it negated the effects of the antipsychotics.
I was going to drink. I couldn't find my ID. I went out and tried to smoke my joint. Got a couple puffs in, got a little high but not a big enough one. Went to the store and downed an energy drink.
Later that night. I came back when he wasn't online and started explaining. Started at the beginning of college, told him I was the hall drunk, I passed out naked and went to the ER, told him about Crystal. The puke. I could tell he enjoyed that story because he was online part of the time and responded. He hated her too, just from hearing about her.
It took a couple days for me to tell the entire story. I finally got through lasagna pan.
“So was that a good story? I actually don't know, I haven't told anyone else this story.”
No response. No response. I could tell he had been online, but... no response.
“Oh God that was way too weird of a story for someone I didn't know very well.”
No response. Oh shit.
“So how are you?”
He responded finally, saying he was in a bit of a funk since he was out of shape and unemployed, but it was nothing he couldn't overcome. I asked him what kind of job he wanted, and he said anything. I suggested some jobs. Peruvian flute player. Unlicensed masseuse. I wasn't serious.
“I do have magic fingers.”
“Well as long as you do happy endings you're set!”
And that was the end of that conversation. I felt downtrodden. I had thought lasagna pan was a good story. Obviously it was not. Now I had weirded him out in a bad way. Well, that was the end of it. That was the end of it. I had destroyed that opportunity. Time to keep going, and live on knowing that I had ruined my one opportunity with a guy whom I was hopelessly fixated on for no reason at all.
I posted many statuses.
If it were up to my parents, I'd be a lesbian.
This is when Chance responded.
“Go for it.”
Hmm. Well... Maybe he was still thinking about me after all.
I was off Adderall. I desperately wanted to go back on it. Being off Adderall was like death. The life was drained out of me. I tried to be happy, I tried to keep my spirits up, and I was okay, but only okay. Why didn't they understand this? Why didn't they understand that the reason I was so adamantly opposed to being without it was because I felt horrible naturally, when not on stimulant medication?
It was okay, though. The doctor was going to prescribe it again. Sometime soon. I just had to wait.
In the meantime, I had taken to taking my dad's ritalin again. I would sneak into his office while he was asleep and steal a couple from his briefcase. The sting of the betrayal was wearing off. It was a normal, everyday activity.
My dad came home one day from work while I was on the computer in the computer room.
“Rachel's been taking my ritalin, I think. I just put a new bottle of it in my brief case and there are now only three left.”
Shit. I was on Ativan, though. So I wasn't as horrified and embarrassed as I usually was. I admitted to it. And he didn't get mad. He was mad. But he didn't act mad towards me.
I was sitting at the computer one day when Chance messaged me.
“Lasagna lately?”
This started a conversation. We talked for a little bit. He was talking about frozen yogurt, which made me think he was going to ask me out. But he didn't. Just when I thought he was going to, he changed the subject. We talked about drugs. Hallucinogens. Marijuana. My sister. My parents. It was a short but memorable conversation.
The next day, Todd messaged me, for the first time. We talked for a little bit, and agreed to meet. We met up later that week, had sushi, drank in the park, went back to his place and smoked weed. It went well. We had a good time. We agreed that we would hang out again.
I continued to try to write good facebook posts. I was still on a roll, even on the higher dose of invega, and no Adderall.
This problem would be fixed by an orgy.
Chance would comment on a bunch of my posts now. I wrote a post about a dream I had had early that year. There was a town of hicks. Everyone was born very ugly from the inbreeding. At birth, everyone was given a certain amount of money, which they used for plastic surgery. This was their chance to be pretty. Everyone would get plastic surgery, and then the other townsfolk would do something like punch them in the face to botch the surgery. So no one was ever pretty. But there was always that hope beforehand. Like, maybe for me, no one will botch my plastic surgery.
Chance commented. “Is this hick town south east Portland?”
I replied, “It was unclear.”
I was thinking about the Swiffer commercial with the bowling ball and the mop. A woman buys a Swiffer mop, and ditches her mop in the basement.
“Don't worry, he'll find someone else.”
Implying that the woman had some sort of romantic relationship with her mop. Down in the basement, the mop falls in love with the bowling bowl.
It's easy to imagine a mop having sex with a bowling ball.
This was my status. Chance started asking questions about this, and this started a very silly conversation between Chance, Erik, and me, regarding an abusive relationship between the mop and the bowling ball. This was the side of the story the Swiffer commercials don't show.
I hung out with Jeremy a few times too. I got home one night, to find a funny post by Adam, Chance's friend.
“I write stuff on facebook to gain confidence for every day life.”
“Way to go Adam! (self high-five)”
I was drunk and high, and laughing at all the stuff Adam said as he was making fun of facebook. Chance was responding to him. I liked a bunch of Adam's comments, but not Chance's.
Later on, I got home from the mall and checked Facebook. Chance had written a comment on one of pictures. It wasn't about the picture, however. It was about how Adam had told him that I was in the smart math classes with him, and demonstrated great skills for mathematics.
I liked it. “How did he know I was any good at it?” He didn't respond.
He also liked one of my posts.
...And some people don't understand what it's like to be sixteen and pathetic.
This post was about the situation with Ted. Erik had told me that my sister would have a problem with it, more so than I thought she would.
I thought about writing to Chance. I thought long and hard about it. I thought about saying something random. But I couldn't think of anything I thought was good enough. So I thought, fuck it. Fuck it. Maybe he would write me back. A decision I would later regret.
I developed an odd, new fixation on Chance's circle of friends. I was a little bit obsessed with all of them. Chance looked like he had some pretty good friends. I wished I had a close circle of friends like that. I wasn't sure if that was what it was, or if it was more than that. I would picture read Chance, mostly, but I would picture read the rest of them as well, from time to time.
My fixation with Chance's friends wasn't a big whoop, but it was something. It was like a small scale version of my obsession with Matthew's issue, or my obsession with Erik's issue. I was interested in all of them, fascinated by what they had to say on facebook. I wondered why I had these fixations, odd fixations, for seemingly no reason.
I had developed an odd habit. I would create odd alternate facebook profiles, then friend request Brandon from them. The first one I made was Weird Zombie Boy. Weird Zombie Boy had a maniacal grin plastered on his face and was in love with Weird Zombie Girl. I made Rachel Zombie Chryst, Rachel Zombie Whore, Dead Sister Sophie, amongst others. Some were stupid, some were funny. I didn't really expect it to go anywhere. I was hopeful, yes. But I knew it wouldn't. I had changed since I had last written to him. I knew that was what everyone said, when trying to get back together with someone. They've changed. But I really had changed. I hoped Brandon would see it too, but I didn't expect him to.
In September I went to send him one, after many months of sending him friend requests every once in awhile. I located his page to hit add friend. When I did so, there was no add friend button. I got a sinking feeling. He had changed his settings as to not allow friend requests.
This is when I really started to hate him. He was such a sourpuss. It wasn't a big deal though, really. Honestly, I was more into Chance right now, wherever that was going, if nowhere at all. I knew this was the equivalent of being blocked, in a way. But it didn't matter anymore. I was no longer emotionally dependent on his approval. I did care, a little bit. But not enough to actually give a damn. So I said, to fuck with him. To fuck with him. I was done caring. Seriously, it mattered a little bit, but I was over it very quickly.
I was proud of myself. I had gotten through this. This dependency on his approval. Because that's what it was.
I had overcome an obstacle of my past.
Meanwhile, I kept hanging out with Todd.
I had gone to school with Todd, all the way since the fifth grade. I had had a crush on him. He was goofy, quirky, spunky. He was different. Other kids made fun of him because he was different. I gave in a little bit sometimes, but I didn't really mean it. I liked him. He was quirky in a good way. I had had a crush on him for a long time. For a long, long time.
In the fall of that year, we entered in to a relationship.
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