Chamberlain

by Rebecca Muhlbauer

10:00 P.M. November 20, 2016

“I don’t think you did something wrong. But, hey, it looks like you could use a break from that house for a bit.”, the officer says to me, looking back at me from the driver’s seat of the police car. I find some sort of tranquility in hearing that and rest my head against the window, watching the flashing lights fade away from my home. I twiddle my thumbs, my wrists bound together by handcuffs. I try to distract myself from my current reality on the drive to Stony Brook’s CPEP (Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program).

10:40 P.M. November 20, 2016

I go about the routine that I am all too familiar with. Weight, height, vitals. Then alone with a nurse in a small room for a body examination. I pull down my pants, and the nurse’s face looks as if she saw a ghost. But what she sees is a softball-sized bruise on my outer-left thigh. I am used to the reaction of horror and worry from the faces of school personnel as I showed up with many different shapes and sizes of bruises that would miraculously appear on my skin in ninth grade. Soon after, I go lay down on a hospital bed and fall asleep.

12:15 A.M. November 21, 2016

I open my eyes and remember where I am. A nurse is standing over me and states, “The doctor is here to speak with you”. I get up and walk over to a small, white room. There are chairs lined up against the walls and nothing else. I do not want to go back to the hospital. “I’m going to residential in a week, so there is no reason to admit me now. I’ll be safe at home”, I tell the doctor. I know that my last sentence will be difficult to convince him of.

3:00 A.M. November 21, 2016

“You can get up now.”, I hear the nurse say, “You are being discharged”. Yes! Freedom! I get up, am handed a bag of my belongings from the nurse, and make my way to the heavy, locked door that leads out of the unit. We step through a series of locked doors and tiny rooms in between. It feels like a maze. I stand in the lobby, and see my father waiting for me. Suddenly I wish I was back behind all of those locked doors again. The nurse wishes me good luck and then I am all alone. I fear the car ride back home. I wish I had not tried to convince the doctor to let me leave. I wish I was not going away somewhere so soon. It feels like I belong nowhere.

8:00 A.M. November 28, 2016

As my eyes slowly widen, I am thrust back into the consciousness of my life. I prop myself up to glance at the clock parallel to my bed. I try to fall back to sleep and forget about the wretched reality that I will soon have to face. Just as I feel myself fading into slumber, my mom enters my room to tell me to get up and ready. I feel the perspiration on my palms and my stomach sinking. I do not know exactly what it is that will happen, but I know it is something to be terrified of. Even if I knew in that very moment what I know now, my mind would not be able to comprehend the extent of pain and fear I would endure over the next eighteen months. But somehow, in the lightheadedness I felt and sinking feeling, my body knew that from that point forward: I was not safe. I reluctantly rise from my bed. I need to wear something comfortable for the four-hour car ride ahead. I dress myself in a red crewneck sweatshirt and black leggings. I make my way downstairs. This day seems so unreal to me that it almost feels like I’m floating. I arrive downstairs. I see that my mom is in the driveway with a few strangers. I go through the house and go out through the garage to see what’s happening. I see two men and one woman. There’s a school bus at the end of the driveway. I don’t have to ask; I know that they are here to take me. It feels like my heart is trying to lung through my chest and run away from me. The fear sets in and I realize that there is no escape. These people are going to take me, the easy way or the hard way, and there is nothing I can do. I feel an overwhelming urge to run, scream, fight. Why is this happening to me? Am I really this bad of a kid?

2:00 P.M. November 28, 2016

I am sitting on the floor, looking out the sidelight of the door, watching the road that led me here. I came to a house built sometime in the 1700s. It looks miserable. The awful, perpetuating smell that fills the house reeked as if it were a representation of the horrors this building has seen. Every room has ceilings so tall that no matter where you stand, you feel small. Yet the rooms are all closed off from one another and cramped. No matter how much cleaning we would be forced to do each day, the house stayed filled with dirt and dust. Many doors were broken, and many walls had been torn through in fits of rage. The furniture is covered with stains and springs popping out of the cushions. The other eleven girls that live in the house look even more miserable. As I see my mom drive away, I realize that I am completely and utterly alone. There is nothing I could do to escape this time.

9:30 P.M. November 28, 2016

I lay in my bunk bed surrounded by three other girls who were now my roommates. Some of the strongest and most influential people I have ever met. Now one of them is a meth addict, couch surfing throughout the Midwest. One of them is a drug dealer in Boston. And the last has fallen off the face of the Earth. I look down from the top bunk at the two singles beds that take up most of the room. Four dressers and a closed off fireplace are what line each of the walls. The single beds cut off the only two windows. There is barely enough space to walk. Light floods into the room from the hallway. There is no door. A few staff are sitting out there on a couch talking. Never being alone is something I have to get used to. As I try to sleep, I rack my brain of all the reasons I deserve to be home and safe and loved. I did not know that by the time I would finally leave, that I would submit into the program and believe that I was truly troubled. But in this moment, as tears ran down my face and onto my pillow, I still had hope that I was a good person in a bad situation. I felt a longing to be back in my own bed. Even if I wasn’t safe there, it was a situation that I could run from and feel some control over. Now I had lost all control over everything I did. I couldn’t be alone by myself for any amount of time. I could not go outside. I had to ask permission for everything I did or be punished. To use the bathroom, leave a room, eat, shower, clean, everything. As I fall off to sleep, I dreamt of the person I used to be. From each day forward, I would slowly forget about the girl who deserved better.

Forgot My Helmet - Shiloh Benincasa Marker on Paper

Orion - Samantha Von Eiff Acrylic on Canvas

Autumn - Kathy Brown Acrylic on paper