I was sitting in my room staring at all that I had thrown across the floor. Clothes and books were scattered in every direction. What had caused this mess? Well to be honest my mind was in complete chaos and my thoughts were burning. I was trying to imagine my life in different ways, but no matter what I tried to imagine nothing could prevent what was happening at this moment. Even the past could not prepare me for what was going to happen.
The day had started out normal. I woke up at six thirty and went downstairs to have breakfast. After breakfast I started on the dishes. My dishwashing partner, Arianna, was washing the dishes and I was drying them. In the middle of drying a plate I heard my name on the speaker to come up to medical and get my meds. Leaving the kitchen I went up to my room to get my water bottle. But being me, I got distracted.
That happened a lot in my life, I got distracted. Maybe that was a little bit of the reason I was here at this place. At my house I would be assigned many chores to do when I got home after school. But if I didn’t do those chores right or if I forgot to do it I would have more to do. This happened every day of my life. After a while this caused strife between me and my mom. Getting sick of all the strife she sent me to the place I was at right now. Mercy Multiplied in Nashville, Tennessee. Seven and a half hours away. And this is where it all brought me, to this exact moment in time.
After a little while my roommate Abbie came into the room looking at me strangely as I was sprawled out on the floor. After collecting herself she said that she wanted to show me a cool trick that she had learned back at home. I happily told her that I wanted to see it. Quietly, because we were not allowed to be in our rooms, she took a pen from her nightstand drawer and then went to the desk and got a piece of paper. Sitting down, she took the pen apart until all she had was the ink tube. Putting it her mouth on it, she blew on it until the ink started to pour out onto the paper. I watched her, captivated with what she was doing. I told her that I wanted to try. She said that I could but that she had to go into the bathroom.
Left by myself I scrambled around to find all the pens that I could. Quickly I took them apart and blew all the ink out. When I had finished I started to put the ink onto my foot. When Abbie came back I had all the pens scattered around the room and the ink sitting in a pile and some smeared on my foot.
I asked her if it was bad that I put the ink on my foot but she said that someone she knew had done that before and it was safe.
Safety was something that I had never really cared about. I would climb trees, sleep in trees, ride my bike in the middle of the road, and just do other careless things. My whole life I never really cared how much trouble I got in or how hurt I got over little accidents. This was why I listened to my dumb ideas. I did not care what the outcome would be.
Hours went by and as they did my condition worsened. I started to wander around the building hiding from people and noises. At random points I would laugh hysterically and say things that I don’t remember saying. Before I knew it, I was in an ambulance going to the hospital. Because of the condition that I was in, I ended up being admitted to the hospital and stayed there overnight. At that point I had been off my meds for more than 24 hours.
When I awoke it was around nine in the morning and I was feeling nauseous, dizzy, and out of balance. I told the staff that worked there about my medication and they said that they would get it for me. About two and a half hours later I took my medicine. Unfortunately, it took a long time for it to finally kick in. After it had finally kicked in I became someone that I recognized again.
The reason I was taking these medications was strange and made little sense to me. My physiatrist had tried meds after meds until he found the “right” ones. I ended up on two medications for almost the exact same problems. They were so similar to each other that they had a stronger effect on me when I forgot to take them.
Looking back to this time in my life I now realize what this cost me. I ended up leaving the place I was staying at because the people that worked there had forgotten to give me my medication. And because I left that place my mom and her husband ended up sending me away for a month because I left. Also, it cost me my relationship with my family. No longer could I live at their house in peace but I had to leave. I couldn’t stay with the one that had adopted me. So today I look at what took me to this point and I regret all of it. I regret everything that happened to get me to go to the place in Tennessee. But now it is too late to go back and change the past.
So instead of trying to change the past I started to work on how to improve the future. The future, I promised myself, would be filled with responsibility and trust of no one but myself. Others I figured out could not be trusted but I could. I would have to be careful about who I put my trust in. Instead of relying on people to help me out when I most needed it I would have to rely on myself. There are just a few people that I could trust but others I would have to analyze to see if they could be trusted.
