Being in the dark isn’t as scary when someone is sat with you. They’re holding your hand, and neither of you can see, but you know where each other are and you know that you’re not alone.
After 7 years of therapy and medication, I’ve come to the conclusion that neither are as good as friendship. Two different types of friendship, working together.
The first, my friends on the outside, they’re just as crazy as I am, which is why we get along, but they haven’t been caught yet. They’re the ones that I’ve know for years. We can sit and reminisce about all our old times and just eat junk food in our pyjamas for hours. We have a natural competitiveness and board games end in tears and bruises. They’ve seen me at my best, because they were there with me. They are my extended family, my siblings, I know their mums and dads as well as I know my own. I know their likes and dislikes, and I try to be the worst influence on them that I could possibly be. I judge their relationships like it’s high court, and God help the bastard that breaks their heart. Most importantly, they stayed. When I became intolerable, they tolerated me. When I went into hospital, they visited. When I was discharged, they were there. When others left, they stayed.
The other, I guess you can call them my friends on the inside. Inside not only being hospital, but the big fortress that I built around myself, they’re inside that too.
Making friends in hospital is another level. In all the books and all the advice on making friends, they tell you to find something in common. I guess I never expected it to be a psychiatrist. It’s strange. A psychiatric ward is possibly the most superficial environment in the world, yet its filled with the most genuine people. When you’re so ill, that you need to be admitted, you are raw. The last thing on my mind was making new friends, it was below brushing my hair on the to-do list. I didn’t need to impress anyone, I was just me, take me or leave me. What seemed to sparked my friendships was a mutual dislike of a member of staff, they clocked me rolling my eyes at something the staff member said and they were in full agreement that it was utter bullshit.We laughed. From there, a conversation, no need to beat around the bush, why were we both there? There was no need to lie, no need to make excuses, just honesty. I told them about my diagnosis and they told me about theirs, we found similarities in the challenges we faced in our day to day lives. How close we had been to the edge. We listened and we learned from each other.
Then, we saw each other. We saw each other at our worst. And in a mental health hospital, being at your worst is a scary place to be. They saw me switch, and at first, when Ben and Tee were incredibly destructive, they saw everything. They saw when the riot police came, they saw me in restraint night after night, they saw me in seclusion for days on end, they saw me scream in pain, they saw the bruises, they saw me get tranquilised, they saw staff running with ligature knives and crash trolleys, they saw me not shower, they saw me not eat, they saw me turn my family away, they saw me cry, they saw me struggle. And I saw them just the same. At the worst point in our lives, we saw each other.
Then, we acted. In the darkest times of our lives, we acted. We hugged loads, celebrating the smallest victories that people could never comprehend – getting out of seclusion, not purging your food, going for a lap around the garden, telling the staff you were struggling, getting through an hour without an incident, taking oral PRN, getting through without self harm, the list is endless. We were so proud of each other. We would make each other cards and drawings, sometimes, they would even have the staff blue-tacked them to the seclusion window so I could see them. We began to know each other inside out, we knew each others stories back to front, we understood the diagnosis, the triggers, what would help and we could catch each other before things got too bad. We noticed everything. When a bathroom trip was 10 seconds longer than it should have been, we noticed. We were very aware that we ‘grassed’ on each other constantly and secretly we loved each other even more for it, ‘she’s going to switch’, ‘shes up to something’, ‘she’s got a weapon’ – we cared so deeply for one and other. We developed our own little care plan for each other, what words we shouldn’t say, when is a good time to play cards, when do we say man the fuck up and when do we allow a full on breakdown. They all had their own relationships with Ben and Tee, I didn’t have to hide. We stuck up for each other, always. We were walking our paths together and we were more than willing to drag each other through. We were better than the staff, we weren’t paid, we never went off shift, we just loved each other, unconditionally.
Once I was discharged, that unconditional love remained. We watch each other make those small victories, and we feel the same pride. We maintain that understanding, of what each others worst looks like. We know the dark potential of each others minds. We care for each other. We text back, always. We make phone calls at 3am and they are answered, the phrase ‘a matter of life and death’ could be literal, and we know that.We reminisce, we laugh, a lot. We call each other crazy, and we mean it. We advise and we take advice. We matter to each other.
We are in the dark, we are holding hands, we are not alone.
definedisorder 