I hate hospitals. How they look, that phony “welcome” feeling whoever designed the place tried to achieve. No one wants to be at the hospital, ever, for any reason, so why do they try to fake it? What they imply: death, sickness, disease, maybe sometimes life being forced back into somebody’s lungs.

And the smell, God, the smell is the worst: sterile, clean, too clean. It’s unnatural. Fitting, I guess, since being here is unnatural. I should be at my house, with what most people would call my family. Yet, here we are.

They put me here, you know, my “family”. The way I see it, I did nothing wrong. All I did was finally tell the truth for the first time in my life. I reached out and this is where it got me. I am going to miss so much at school, my friends might need me, and I won’t be there all because I told my parents about her.

The look on their faces told me it was a mistake from the moment the last sentence came tumbling out of me. I had rushed it all out, but they had caught every word anyway. From then on, I was diseased. My mother would hardly look at me and my father looked as if he wanted to hit me, to smack the abnormality right out of me.

My parents are under the delusion that they have an image in this pitiful excuse for a city. What they fail to comprehend is that no one notices them. The world does not hang on their every word. They aren’t a part of the community and they have hardly five people between them that can qualify as friends.

Most of those people on my father’s side come from the AA meetings. He says he is over twenty years sober, but sometimes I really wonder what he is out doing at eleven o’clock when he should be at home. I wonder if, on those nights, if he is drinking again. It would not surprise me in the least if it turned out to be true.

When I said the words “multiple personality disorder”, I knew he had had enough. I could tell he thought either I was lying for attention or I was telling the truth. Either way, I had to go. He told me to go upstairs and pack a bag, fast. He called the hospital while I was in my room. It was late, but he was not going to take no for an answer. I was being admitted, that night.

The thirty-minute drive was silent. We had to go out of our way to a different town just to get rid of me. The hospital in our city has no adolescent psych ward. I usually would have listened to music, read, or something, but I just didn’t feel like it. So I stared at the rain, listened to it bounce off the windshield of the car as it cruised fifty-five down the highway. It’s supposed to rain all week.

I was admitted Saturday night. It’s Wednesday now and I still have not been allowed to speak with a soul outside of this place. I believe that is my parents’ doing. It has rained every day with no hint of stopping any time soon. I can see the rain from my window, but I cannot hear it. That is what is driving me mad. Not the nurses, or the physiatrist with a smile as fake as her long, glistening red nails, or even the other kids here with more problems then I could ever imagine. The one thing making my skin crawl is not being able to hear the rain. I feel isolated, claustrophobic, encased in a shell too small for my entire body. If I ever wonder later on in life what it’s like being held in a cage, all I have to do is think back and put myself here and I will know.

By law, I can only be here for a week. Three more days of this h*ll on Earth, that is all I have to survive. I have to be good even though I want to punch a wall every time I see that d*mned physiatrist. Have you ever seen a person who honestly loathes their job and the people surrounding them? This woman is the poster child for being dissatisfied with how your life turned out. Shane wants to tell her some not very pleasant things, but I keep stopping her every time she tries to. I don’t want to end up locked away from everyone else.

Did I forget to mention Shane? She is the reason I’m here, though it is not her fault. She just is not supposed to exist. I hear her every day. Her voice is deafening a lot of the time. Banging my fists against my temples or shouting for her to leave usually keeps her quiet, but not for long.





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It’s Friday now; I’m allowed to leave tomorrow. I’m already packed and oh so ready to go. There is a boy here and we have jumped into the beginning stages of friendship. I hope he gets out soon. He promised he would find me once he got free and I pray he doesn’t forget me.

My friend with the red nails gave me prescriptions for God-knows-what. She filled them out and faxed them to a pharmacy in my town right in front of my face, but would not explain to me what they would do to me. She said it was a matter to discuss with my parents and my doctor. I thought she was the therapist! The one I was supposed spill my guts to.

D*mn, it really is sad; the lengths people will go to hide what they are afraid of. My flesh and blood locked me out of sight because they could not bring themselves to understand. The pair of them are willing to destroy everything I am with drugs and I’m their daughter!

I will not let it happen. Shane taught me long ago how to pretend. I will become who they are praying I will be. The perfect princess of their dreams, always smiling and happy, not a brain in my head. That is what they will see. It’s only a couple more years until I can escape. I can keep up the charade for that long, easy. My parents will fail to change me as will anyone else who tries. I cannot be fixed. I was never broken to begin with.