dear world,
it's been two years now. today's the day, two years ago, i was admitted to a mental hospital. it was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and one of the worst. two years ago about this time i was probably packing up my things, if not already on my way to the facility. none of the memories have faded away. names and faces are still blurry but i remember long dark hair and short red hair and the first night i came in i got to sleep alone because it was 4 am and they happened to have a room. they brought me in for evaluation and i downplayed everything like always, insisting i was fine. i remember the room, the table, the woman. i remember my parents getting angry and me wishing i could just go home and curl up in bed and forget this ever happened. i wasn't actually sure they were going to admit me at first, and i didnt know whether id have been happy or sad- id been trying to work up the courage to ask to go to a mental hospital for months, but once i was there i suddenly, distinctly wanted to be anywhere else. i still remember falling asleep in the lobby and eating the stupid biscuit and getting barely two hours of sleep alone with my fear and the dark and the unknown.
i still remember the cold and i think back on how i learned that they keep hospitals cold because it kills germs. im still wearing the hoodie my mom brought me and i dont know if itll still fit next year, which i dont know if i like or dislike. im wearing my shorts with the strings cut off because they wouldnt let us have any sort of string or rope-like material. i can see the shoes i wore.
i still remember it all; coloring in intricate flower drawings of vines in celtic knots, drawing my own dragon for the facility only to bring it home later, doing some sort of group activity with animals and i drew mine and the polar opposite of mine too. i remember the gym room and how tall the ceiling was and swapping stories about how we ended up there. i remembered being afraid of rooming with a pregnant girl, i remember long hot showers, i remember walking around outside, i remember the food because i hardly ate anything that wasnt salad, i remember group activities and therapy and being told over and over again that we cant say we are feeling "fine" or "okay," that we had to use actual feeling words to describe our feelings. i dont remember exactly what i said, but im sure it was a lot of sad and nervous and scared and grateful and probably just "neutral." i remember making friends and watching them leave. i remember the first three days and they brought me in and i realized i still wasnt ready to go home and i cried. they brought me in to see a therapist and my parents were there and i cried. they wouldn't let the hospital prescribe me medicine and i cried. i stood in the shower and i cried. i remember smelling the shampoo, i remember being excited that there was pizza, i remember watching the book of life, i remember long days of no phones, i remember nightly phone calls with the people i was there to avoid, i remember replaying my last conversation with him over and over, realizing i never got to respond. i dont think i realized, then, what was going to happen. it's been two years. ive seen him once for barely an hour or two. 17,520 hours and maybe 2 of them ive spent with him. today two years ago was the last time i saw him before everything came crashing down. the room, the letter, the tears, the shock, and everything that followed.
i wonder what he thought when i never texted him back?
- r
dear me,
i know. i know you still remember the dark nights and uncomfortable beds and doing your laundry and collecting your shampoo and the hairbrush they gave you. i know you remember flashing hearts at the newcomers. you were there for six days and it was painful and scary and it hurt like hell and you wanted to leave immediately and you wanted to stay forever. you wanted to get out of there, but you didnt want to go home. i remember. i know.
i know you still think about going back there. i know you brought it up to your therapist just last week. and i know you'll never work up the courage to ask your parents, just like the last time. better luck next year.
- me
dear past me,
you don't know what's coming to you.
you dont know. you dont know the two weeks of waiting thats going to come as your mom switches you to a new school. you dont know the day youre going to be embarrassed in ap bio as the teacher gives a quiz on something you've barely even heard of. you dont know that you're going to meet a girl in art class who falls in love with the way you talk about clothes and you dont know that youre going to break up because you forgot her birthday and tried to play it off like a dumb joke. you dont know that youre going to be an absolute idiot and go running back to him, and a day at starbucks instead of at the barn. that was january, and you messed up bad. you went and talked to him and your parents found out and you've never returned to riding because of that day. you missed a concert because of that day. you didnt celebrate your birthday because of that day. youre going to regret that for a long time.
you dont know youre going to be on the swim team for a year, and youre going to make it to varsity, and then the next year youre so indecisive that you end up not signing up and people are going to keep asking you why you didnt, right up until the very day im typing this. you dont know youre going to take ap physics, like a moron, and you dont know youre going to pass it just like every other class [even though you dont pass the exam].
you dont know they'll try you on one medication, and it wont work, and you go off it for a while, and then you pick up a new one,
and everyone says it helps even though you can still feel the smooth patches of skin. youre still depressed sometimes, still anxious a lot of the time, you still pick and pull at yourself metaphorically and literally. you dont magically stop being depressed [not that you ever thought you would] and life doesnt magically get easy. sometimes it'll seem to be heading downwards again. but youve got your therapist and your friends and the vast loneliness of the internet, and you'll be okay.
your fandoms. god, you don't know the fandoms youre going to enter. you're in the hospital when undertale is first released, but you catch onto it over winter break and youre in love by the time you come back to school in january and meet the new kid and she loves it just as much as you do. she stays long enough to give you a birthday comic and then she leaves on her bus for the last time and as you hug her and tell her goodbye you realize you might be a little bit in love. then your cousin tells you about homestuck, shows you a bizarre-looking family tree and tells you to go read it. you do [and you still havent finished it, even now], and youve never loved something more in your life. you only start reading it the weekend before it ends; you wish you could go back to the amphitheater in seventh grade and make yourself read it. you dont know the pain of reading crooked kingdom, the excitement you still feel for wings of fire, the hours you'll rack up playing ark, the number of times you cry listening to the hamilton soundtrack, the bittersweet joy of discovering hi im case, and voltron.
voltron.
someone very important introduces you to voltron.
he's someone who makes you forget that ren ever existed. he makes you forget the old hurt, the old love, the old ways. the ways things used to be. it's all gone. it's all the inky darkness of space and he's the sun repelling it all far, far away from you. he's new. he's new and exciting and you dont know it now but you're pretty sure youre a little bit in love with him. he loves homestuck and he introduces you to voltron and he cosplays and as it turns out, ironically, you've already met him once, in full homestuck cosplay. you wouldnt have ever known it if it hadn't been for the things that happened two years ago today.
things would've been so different if it hadn't been for the things that happened two years ago today.
but he's here. he's here and you wouldn't change any of it because he is bright and beautiful and gives your life more light and warmth than the sun, and he's more handsome than the stars and kinder than any person you've ever met and its been so long but it still feels like novas in your chest when you think of how much you love him. you'd do anything for him. you're so determined not to let your relationship with him become anything like it did with ren; youre so scared that it will anyway. you're terrified of hurting him and you know he's had a life like yours and he's too used to being punished to give you his honest opinion because he thinks you'll hate him and you dont know how to tell him that there is nothing he could do that would change the way you think of him. he's the boy that hung the moon and youre sure theres stars in your eyes when you think of him.
you don't know it now, but he'll become your moirail. it isn't a word you knew two years ago, because it comes from homestuck like the two of you do. he's your platonic soulmate. he means everything to you, you'd do anything in the world for him, you tell him over and over and over you swear by all the stars you'll never leave him. you'll love him. you'll love him so much. you'll know the day you meet him that you'll have to be his friend, but you won't imagine what he becomes to you. he's indispensable. he's incredible. he's perfect and he doesn't even know it.
he worries you. he doesn't eat much, and he's depressed, and he's been hurt pretty damn badly, and you want more than anything to take everything away from him and send him somewhere far far away where no one will hurt him again. youre worried that you hurt him; youre worried every day that you've messed up terribly and he's just too nice or shy or both to tell you. there are some days and some conversations and some words that make you think of ren and you're there again and he's here again and here you go thinking about chai tea with chocolate milk and rainy mornings and silent libraries and bus ramps and big halls and stupid smiling greek boys who give good hugs [not that you'd know].
you'll learn a lot of things. you'll learn, for example, that he volunteers at an organization near you. you meet him there, once.
that's august and it's stupid and you'll know you never should have done it but you missed him and you hurt for him and you needed him and you didnt know your moirail would be there soon. you messed up really bad with that one, but your parents forgive you with time [you think], and you'll move on. it's been over a year since you've seen him. you know things you didnt used to know;
for example, you know that he's trans and he has a dog named tobias and he's figuring himself out-- and so are you, and so is your moirail--you're all getting ready for the biggest transformations of your damn lives and you dont know it yet.
you dont know it yet, but theres a lot coming your way, kid.
there's so much to tell you. you start driving. you make new friends. you get into d&d. you make him a promise. you get close to seeing him again. you realize he was in love with you and you realize, belatedly and stunningly, you were in love with him too.
you get accepted into national honors society. you join the school newspaper, you take ap art, you start spending every morning with your moirail and every moment yearning for something more than you got. you start seriously looking at colleges. you move across the county with your dad! you get into flight rising again, your moirail gets you hooked on rhythm games and now you start playing osu, hiveswap comes out and you love every minute of it. you draw, and you cosplay when you can, and you work hard at school and stay up late with your moirail and you take your meds and keep seeing your therapist every few weeks and things are rough but youre getting close to independence and you think, sometimes, that you might be okay.
two years ago today, i was admitted to a mental hospital. it's a lot to think about.
- future you
