Ashes

I don’t know where to start.

Is she still talking?

I wanted to get better, but I just got worse. I don’t even want to process it. Was it even that bad? You’re being a baby. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

Is she still talking?

I went to Tennessee to get better. I left for a therapeutic program that stated it would help me in a month, that I would still get to keep my laptop and my phone, and most of all would still be able to talk to my family.

The universe didn’t want me to get there. The first day I tried to fly, I sat in the plane on the tarmac for three hours before being booted off. Only to sit in line for two hours waiting for them to tell me that my flight would now be so late that my layover would be 18 hours long. I cried and didn’t get on the plane. I called the place, and they got me a new flight for the next day. My boyfriend picked me up, and I shakily accepted that I would have to do all that again tomorrow. The next day I sat at the airport eight hours for a flight that just wouldn’t come. The flight itself was fine. Luckily, I just slept through it.

I got to the place at 4 in the morning where they made me sign my life away while barely awake. I have no idea what I signed.

Then they go through my bags and taking away all my electronics.

“What is that for?” I asked.

“You can’t have your electronics here.”

“But they said online that you could-”

“Nope, you can’t have them.”

“Oh, by the way, you should make your last call,” another tech chimed in.

"My last call?"

“You can’t have your cell phone here, and you can’t use our phone for five days.”

Tears started to fall. I took my cell phone and texted people quick goodbyes, called my boyfriend, and braced myself. I told myself it wouldn’t be that bad. That it all wasn’t a bad omen for things to come.

At 5am they sent me to bed saying they would wake me in less than two hours to send me off to therapy school (that’s what I always called it).

I woke up and couldn’t eat, got in a van full of people I didn’t know, and went to therapy school. It was long, 8 hours of group therapy that never seemed to end. I ended up passed out on a table by the end of it.

Eight hours of therapy six days a week. That even wasn’t what was bad about it. The bad part was the housing. The fuck boys across the street trying to get laid all the time, the pointless drama that turned to fist fights and glass getting thrown. The lack of care by the techs when a girl self harms in front of you and you try to do anything to stop it and all they do is ignore you. When they don’t seem to care when the girl says she’s suicidal and they tell you she’s just “attention seeking.” When they don’t care when you’re on the floor crying because you’re so triggered that you can’t function.

That’s the bad part.

Maybe the worst part was when I processed about feeling like I think everyone hates me.

“I think everyone is tired of me complaining about the same things,” I said through tears. “But I don’t know what to do. I’m so upset. I can’t think about anything else.”

“Well, don’t you think it wears on people?” the therapist said.

And my worst fears were confirmed. I can’t even tell if he was right. Maybe I really should just shut up.

“Is she still talking?” I hear someone say loudly from the hallway. Except it wasn't somebody, it was my friend.

Is she still talking?

Is she still talking?

Is she still talking?

I sob. I am annoying after all.

No. That’s a lie I will not tell myself. I will be a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Right now I am a pile of gray but tomorrow the flame, and then later, I will soar.