"Can I talk to you?" I asked. "I feel like cutting myself again."
"Fine, but make it quick. I'm busy right now, I have a lot of work to do." he answered.
"Never mind, it's not that important." I replied as I slowly walked away, crushed that my life meant less than unfinished work to the tech.
Why was I in this place again? Oh that's right, I had another "episode" and the first thing people like to do when they know you've been through a hard time in the past and then you finally lose it is stick you in a mental hospital. Unfortunately, you most likely would have been better off if they had just waited a little while for you to cool down instead of called the police to take you away.
So there I was left, alone in my room at what I was told was the best place for me to get my life back together. My only view being the plain white walls and two beds. Of course there was the window, but it was boarded so as if the only purpose in it was to make your room even darker and remind you how you were trapped inside a hell secretly disguised as a mental institute. Even getting into the damned place was hell. I had already had I mental breakdown, but on top of that I was forced to wait six hours to even step onto the unit where I would stay and it isn't exactly easy to keep control of yourself after just previously being arrested and then notified that you will be placed in a psychiatric ward. The worse part was my parents had to pay thousands of dollars for me to stay in a depressing place with disgusting food and people who really didn't care for me or any of the other adolescents going through a hard time. How does the average family even afford to keep a child in an institute? I'm young, but not stupid. I could understand the people at Texana enough to know that we were not rich enough to pay on our own or poor enough to have government insurance help pay for us. It was just one of those situations where you didn't think things could get any worse but they somehow still did.
The people you meet in there aren't like most. They have each had some kind of awkward, traumatizing moment that have brought them there. All different kinds of kids from my age (thirteen) to seventeen. They all had different issues. Some were suicidal, homicidal, hallucinated, had anger problems and others were even terroristic threats. As you can easily assume, we didn't all get along very well with one another and there were many arguments and even fist fights.
An experience in a mental institute is unlike any other. Some people come out better, some exactly the same, and others even worse. You would think it's a place to get away from your problems and get help but it doesn't seem like it once you're there. The adolescents in there love to mess with you or try to start a fight and the people who's job it is to help you seem to only do it because it's there job. It wouldn't kill them to actually show a little concern, which they usually don't.
However, despite all the bad things that happen in that place you will find at least one person that does care and will try to help you and you have to be thankful because at least you know that someone thinks you matter. Even though my experience there was hell I can still say that It did make me stronger.