The hospital walls were a bland white. Although they say some colors are supposed to have a calming effect on you, this white did not do that for me. They should’ve made the walls a light blue. I’ve heard that that’s the most soothing color. In fact it’s scientifically proven to have a calming effect on people. However this white color did nothing for my mood and demeanor. I was on edge. And I had been ever since I’d arrived.

The night before last was absolute hell. I had never felt so off. I was not myself and I hadn’t been for a long time. I knew something like this was coming, I knew my parents (especially my mom) couldn’t handle this for much longer. There had been a lot of buildup to this one day where everything just fell to pieces.

It started out like all the other days had. I hadn’t gotten much sleep like usual, so I proceeded through my daily routine; sleep deprived and on edge. Today was a little harder than normal though. I tried to compose myself numerous times but could feel that it just wasn’t going to happen. From that point on in the day everything started to build up, nothing was going right. And to top that all of I could not stop crying and I had no idea why. This whole crying ordeal had been going on for what seems like forever but was really only a few weeks. We could not figure out was wrong and it seemed like we had been to every single doctor in the whole state. I had become a human pin cushion with all of the needles the doctors were stabbing into me. It seemed endless, the doctors appointments, the new medicines, and the crying. The crying was the worst.

The whole day is a blur, because our brains, being as smart as they are, attempt to block out traumatic events. The most prevailing memory happens to be the 2014 Fifa world cup and the taste of salt. I remember sitting on the couch with my mom crying, of course (which is where the salt taste comes from) but also watching the U.S. men's soccer team get crushed in all the games they played. The crying wasn’t the problem that had all the doctor's perplexed. It was the anxiety. I was experiencing extreme separation anxiety from my mom which prevented me from experiencing my summer as a normal almost 5th grader. This so called “illness” of mine caused so much stress on my parents mostly because they had absolutely no idea what was wrong with me. They watched my bright and energetic personality wash away in a matter of days and be replaced with the personality of a stranger. I had become less enthusiastic about everything. It caused so much anguish for them because they had absolutely no idea on how to help me.

This endless cycle of crying and watching game after game of the world cup eventually had to come to an end. When this time period ended I experienced a lot of firsts. My first trip to the ER. My first CAT scan. My first overnight in a hospital. My first ambulance ride. My first time feeling absolute utter terror. My first time in a mental hospital.

The absolute last thing I would want to do it relive that traumatic experience that my brain has worked so hard to suppress. The only thing that I will say, is that by the end of my very traumatizing week the chemically smell of hospital was burned permanently into my nose and the only thing that had come out of it was that the doctors finally figured out I had Lyme disease. Which I’ve had since I was four years old. The final thing that I told the attendants as I was leaving was that they should repaint the walls of the hospital a nice cool calming color, like blue.