As I stared at the words CRANDLEWOOD HOSPITAL, a kind-looking, curly-haired, black nurse slid next to me, handed me some papers to sign.
I never saw her again.
People here came and went - the patients, the nurses, the social workers, the interns. From the moment they set foot in this building, they longed to leave, and when they did, they sighed with relief. I didn’t know if or when my moment of relief would come-- how many hours, days, weeks it may be before I was “free” again. “Free.”
Isn’t this what you wanted? To be away from them? Didn’t you complain they would not allow you out of the house? Didn’t you want to run away? You’ve got your wish! Confinement in their house or confinement in the mental hospital. What difference did it make?
Distractedly, I began to fill out the form. There was a space to indicate whether I had been brought to the hospital with the consent of my parents or if I had been taken by force. In such an event it said, the state could keep me in custody for up to six months if they deemed it necessary.
I protested, tried to reason with the nurse, who only said she could do nothing. The doctor who could sign release forms would not be in until Monday morning. Even so, release on the first day the doctor saw a patient was rare, if not impossible.
The boys’ rooms were on one side, ours were on the other. I walked sleepily into the room, tugging on the backpack full of clothes and books my mom had sent. I opened the bag, fumbling with the zipper. I had asked her for a copy of my school newspaper. She had forgotten.
There were three beds in the room; the one on the far left was empty. I dropped the bag and threw myself under the covers. I lay there confused, mulling over the events of the day, deciding and revising what I would change if I could go back twelve hours. The digital clock next to my head beeped, startling me. It was 02:00 AM. I thought of the articles left unwritten, of the friends who had waited for me after school, of Adam Cherkowitz who would ask where I was on Monday, of his friends who would laugh and tell him I was skipping class, of Mr. Cohen who would tell him that if I hadn’t been in his room all day there was probably a reason. Of my mother who sat at home crying as she prayed for me, of my father holding his tears back as he comforted her, of my brother who wondered why his sister hadn’t come home from school.


Light from the windows flooded the room. A tall, blond-haired man peered in. “Ishika! The doctor wants to see you!” he whispered. The weekend doctor was here to see me. He could not sign release papers, they said, but he would leave a report for the real doctor to see on Monday.
I walked into the room looking perfectly euphoric, a smile spread across my face, optimism in my voice, vigorously shaking his hand as if I there was no place I would rather be than in that mental hospital, speaking to him.
Looking and sounding happy has always come naturally to me. There is something about being around other people that allows me to escape my sadness, my “depression” as they called it there. I start believing that if I look happy to the world, then I will be happy. If other people think I don’t care that I am failing Chemistry, then I won’t care that I am failing Chemistry. If other people don’t know that my father kicked me out of the house that morning, then I will forget.
And so I talked at this doctor emphatically, excitedly, describing to him the utopia that was my life: my lovely parents, my adorable little brother, my love for school, my wonderful job on the newspaper. As for how I ended up here, It was a mistake.
And it was.

He asked if I was a spiritual person, encouraged me to pray. I told him I was Hindu, that my faith was unshakable, that I always attended temple with my parents. When I told him I worshipped Ganesh every night before bed, I let a little grin spread across my face.

Just two days ago, I stood in my Chemistry classroom -- my natural habitat, my most favorite place in the world, the only place where I felt perfectly safe.

“Mr. Cohen, I have brown food today!” I exclaimed, as we called the rotis and dal I brought for lunch every day.

“That’s great, Ishika,” he called back. “Now why don’t you get back to your Chemical Reactions worksheet?”

I looked down. __H20(l) + __KP(aq) = __(s). The symbols were gibberish to me.
“Adam Cherkowitz, will you pleease help me?” I pleaded, turning to my right.

“Why do you want me to help you? I thought you didn’t like me, Ishika,” he smirked, in that playfully condescending air that always came so naturally to him.

“Well, not to inflate your already-inflated ego or anything, but you are kind of smart, Adam Cherkowitz,” I retorted, feeling satisfied with myself as he turned red.

“If you quit moaning at me and actually did your homework, maybe I would want to help you Ishika,” he said, taking the worksheet from my hand.

“Ohh myy godd,” I protested, “I do not moan at you! I--”

“You know, I’m surprised she doesn’t say Oh my Ganesh,” he said, laughing as I pretended to hit him with my Chem textbook.

Now as I described the sanctimonious spirit of my religious practices to him, it hit me how disconnected I really am from religion. Perhaps I ought to make an effort in that arena -- perhaps my parents would appreciate my attempt to connect with my culture, perhaps that would change things at home.
Until now, I hadn’t really given much thought to my what I would do when I got back home.

When I got back to my room, the other girls were awake. The table next to the window reminded me of Mr. Cohen’s lab tables, black and glossy. Theresa and Julia smiled at me, asked me how late I had come in the previous night, told me what days are like around here. No questions asked, no judgments made. Unlike my parents, unlike the doctors, they did not ask what I was doing here, what sort of crazy sin I had committed to end up in the mental hospital. Together we were allies in this prison, confined indefinitely, sisters in a foreign world. We went down to the dining room together; breakfast was out at eight. Eyes watering, I chose the cartons of milk and cereal my mom had urged me to eat at our Lake Tahoe hotel last weekend, over the Twinkies that made my mouth water.
I met our supervisors for the morning, a tall blonde woman and a short black man, both sleepless and tired, purple bags visible under their eyes, irritation oozing from their expressions. They had been awake all night, checking on us every fifteen minutes as we slept. In a few hours, they would go home to their beds, leaving us with new supervisors who would watch over us for the duration of their shift. Then they, too, would leave.
I met Margorie,Greg, Nicole, Amy, and Ben, all teenagers just like me, with a few minor differences: all of them, except Greg and me, had attempted suicide on at least one occasion.
Here, everyone knew everyone’s story. They spoke to each other comfortably, just as I spoke to my own friends at school. They were one happy family, smiling, laughing, entertaining themselves, as they waited for the day their release form would be signed and they too would wave goodbye to the rest of us.
That night, sitting in the common room after dinner, Greg asked. Amy and Ben looked up.
“Oh yeah, how did you get here?”
And for the first time in last twenty-hours, I felt perfectly comfortable -- thinking about why I was there, what was wrong, what needed fixing. I did not need to justify anything. These were people who would not judge me, who would listen to me for the sake of understanding my pain. Who would not abandon me, like all the psychiatrist at San Francisco Children’s had.
Sharing my story with them, I did not feel forced. The words came naturally, flowing from my mouth.
Nicole told me she was raped when she was twelve, had her baby at thirteen. He left her there bleeding, she said, until her parents found her. Pulling up her sleeves, she showed me the cuts that covered her arms. She said she was adopted, was a fourth Indian.
When I told her I was Indian, she was ecstatic.
“We have the same heritage!” she told the blonde supervisor, who stared back at us pitifully.
“Nicole’s Indian too!” I explained.
“I think she means Native American,” the blonde smirked, her condescending expression looking down at me pitifully.
“No, I am Indian, from India,” Nicole explained.
I felt sour milk rising in my throat. Just because she is white, just because she does not look brown, this woman does not believe that Nicole is Indian.
Nicole wanted to know how I got used to wearing jeans and hoodies, how I gave up my traditional Indian dress. I left India when I was two, I told her, and growing up here I had always dressed American. When she was in elementary school, she said, she would wear salvaars and lehngas to school, until her principal called her into her office one day and made her stop.
Here was a white girl who had faced disgrace and hardship at every turn, who had no contact with any Indian relatives, yet who had the desire to keep her heritage close to her. And she expected me, a native-born Indian, who lived with her parents, ate dal and sabzi for every meal, had a wardrobe full of saris and ghagras, to share in that desire. Was that too much to ask?

After dinner that night, we stayed in the common room until lights out, playing UNO and chatting.
Within a day of hanging out with them, I was known as “the virgin.”
Our conversation shifted to smoking, drugs, sex.
“You do weed?” I asked Greg, incredulously.
“I don’t do weed,” he laughed. “I smoke weed.”
“Did you really say ‘do weed’? You’re soo cute!” Theresa cooed.
“I do my girlfriend,” Greg went on. “I don’t do weed.”

We all laughed.
Greg told me he was there because his mom had flipped out at him one night a few weeks ago and in all her rage, she had called the police and told them that he had attacked her. The police gave him two options: Jail or hospital. He chose hospital. He told me he was scheduled to be released last Friday, and so I asked him why he did not go home then. My parents didn’t want me back, he said simply.

One cold January weekend two months ago, I had become physically sick of sitting at home, shut away from the outside world. For hours, I had listened to my parents yelling at each other, blaming each other for how their daughter had turned out.
-How dare she went out with her friends last week? This is what you are teaching your daughter?
-Don’t you be blaming it on me! You spoiled her in the first place!
-Mind your language when you talk to me woman! Aren’t you the one who said she tells you everything?! That b****, that slut, that whore, I will take her phone away, I will get her facebook shut down, I will...I will...
I fumbled through my backpack, tossing out blank Chemistry worksheets, Venn diagrams, pages covered in interviews I had meant to write articles from. Grabbing my iPod. I jammed the headphones into my ears, turned the volume up high. As Tujhe dekha to ye jaana sanam filled my ears, I banged my fists down on the bed. Angry at hearing Hindi yet again, I switched to Home by Jay Sean.
Twenty minutes later, I couldn’t take it any longer. I went up to my mom, told her I needed to get out, get a breath of fresh air.
She told me she wasn’t giving me permission to leave the house, that if I wanted to go anywhere I had to ask my father for permission. This was ridiculous, I decided. If I wanted to go out for a run, I would. And so I left. I ran down Ridgewood Drive, over the bridge, down Woodland Road, over the hills, past Lakeside Station. Forty minutes later, I was back at home, knocking on the front door. I saw through the window, my father blocking the doorway, not letting my mom open the door for me.
You left. I told you not to. Now you bear the consequences, I could hear her saying.
Get lost, you whore! You can’t obey my rules in my house can you? You need to leave don’t you? NOW I AM TELLING YOU TO LEAVE! PLEASE GET LOST! Never set foot in my house again, you slut! he said.
I stood there awhile, waiting. Then I left. Hungry and sleep-deprived, but not frightened or upset in the least, I headed off randomly, feeling liberated. Eventually, I stopped paying attention to where I was going. I wanted to be lost. I wanted to feel fear. I wanted it to hit me that I had just been kicked out of the house. I had no place to go.
I began to plan how I would get to school the next morning, how I would justify not having my homework. Or my backpack, for that matter. What I would do if my dad showed up at school looking for me.
Eventually I ended up on streets I had never seen before, with no idea where I was or where I was going. I took my phone out of my pocket. It was dead. I stopped caring. I kept going and going.
I ended up at the neighborhood mall. I went into the Albertson’s, washed my face in the bathroom, took a couple food samples from the smiling white-haired lady at the table. I walked into the Howe’s Bagel Bakery, sitting there for hours, trying to sleep, trying to be inconspicuous. After all, I had not run away from home, had I?

Around seven pm, my dad drove up with an Indian friend from the next building over, scouring all the shop windows for any sight of me. When they came in, I refused to get up. He told me to come home.
Why? I demanded. So you can do that to me again? Do you think I am a toy? You think I am your property?
He looked tired. Yet he ordered, calmly and very slowly: Ishika, get in the car.
As if what I was saying was not worth his time. As if I had no choice but to listen to him.
I refused. All those years of keeping my thoughts shut up inside me in the name of “respect for elders,” had done this to me. This time, I would not back down. I would demand my rights. All of them.
Across the bakery, I saw a young man on his laptop look up at us from his work, obviously distracted by our commotion but not wanting to appear rude.
The servers looked over at us, whispering to each other. My father’s friend walked over to the counter.
Don’t make a scene, Ishika, my father said. Come home.
Why? Are you going to change? I feel suffocated every time I set foot in that apartment, I spat. I cannot stay after school for newspaper Paste-Up because I am your daughter, can I? I cannot speak my mind or say how I feel about anything because I am your daughter, can I? I cannot eat normal food because I am your daughter, can I? I am not allowed to wear perfectly decent dresses because I am your daughter, am I? BUT WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE THAT I AM NOT ALLOWED TO GO OUT AND BREATHE FRESH AIR BECAUSE I AM YOUR DAUGHTER?! I am a human being and you better agree to treat me like one if you want me to set foot in your shanty apartment ever again!!
Okay, he said. Come home.
No! I yelled. It is NOT OKAY! What are you going to change? I cannot sleep at night because I constantly hear you bitching about me to Mom! I cannot concentrate in school because all I can think of is you telling me that I am a failure, I always was a failure and I always will be! Every time I try to study, every time I try to improve myself, I can only imagine you taunting me, ‘Why are you pretending to study now, you slut? You think I don’t know what you’re up to, b****? Who do you think you’re fooling? God knows how you’ve landed in my house, you whore!’...
Somewhere in there, I fainted. Heart pounding hard, head feeling hot, I dozed off, unable to think and unwilling to go on. I woke up in bed at home, my mom’s hand on my head, my parents on either side of me. For a minute, it felt like something may have actually changed.

The next morning, the jet-black-haired supervisor said she needed help bringing boxes of lunch up from the kitchen. Ben, Margorie, and I went down to the kitchen with her. We were on the second floor, the kitchen was in the basement. On the first floor was the adult wing of the hospital. I glanced at the door to the first floor. Someone had stuck a piece of paper on it with masking tape. ESCAPE RISK!, it warned. Ben walked over to the door, taking in the sunlight. Ben, could you stay here with us?, the supervisor called. What the f***, I thought. Does he not have the right to fresh air?!
We carried the styrofoam boxes back up to the second floor. Eleven boxes of meat and one labeled “Veg.”

I opened my box. Mashed potatoes, bread, apple sauce, and a brownie. I looked at the brownie intently, before I bit into it and began to chew, savoring every bite.

At the Sophomore Sleepover on Saturday night two weeks ago, I had gotten a little rowdier than usual. I went into the field house, where I found Adam Cherkowitz playing badminton. A water bottle in hand, I went up to him. Hey Adam Cherkowitz!, I yelled, opening the bottle. Within ten seconds, his sweatshirt was soaking wet. What the f***, he yelled. I had expected him to laugh it off, but instead he reached for my arm. I turned and ran for it. He caught up when I had nearly reached the door, snatching the water bottle from my hand, and next thing I knew, I was drenched too.
On Monday, Adam Cherkowitz refused to speak to me in Math class. Across the room from him, I quietly told Mikaela what had happened. Ishika, that was a mean prank! she said. Disheartened and guilty, I went back and sat down in my seat, next to Adam Cherkowitz. After lunch that day, a friend of his came up to me. Ishika did you really dump water on Adam Cherkowitz’s head? He was telling our table at lunch that your friend yelled at you about doing that to him, and you got really sad cuz you thought he was mad at you.
In Chemistry class, our water-bottle incident had become the talk of the town. Today, we didn’t sit next to each other. From across the room, we yelled.
You’ve been going around telling people about this, haven’t you Ishika?
Me??? You’re the one who’s been telling people!
People have come up to me and ASKED if Ishika dumped a bottle of water on my head.

People have come up to me and said that you were talking about me at lunch! Saying that I was SAD about YOU in class! Why the hell would you tell people I was sad about you?? What makes you think you have such a significant impact on my life Adam Cherkowitz?

You didn’t say a word the whole class after Mikaela yelled at you!

Mikaela yelled at me?? We were on the other side of the room! You were really paying close attention to what I was doing, weren’t you?

I never understood why not speaking to each other was a big deal for either of us.
I made him brownies that night, placing them side by side in one of my mother’s plastic boxes, with a little note on top: I’M SORRY ADAM CHERKOWITZ
I saw him in the hallway that day, and I took my box of brownies up to him. I’m sorry Adam Cherkowitz, I said.
He just stared at me.
I can’t take those. I’m going into the library, he said.
So put them in your backpack!
I don’t have room in my backpack Ishika!!, he yelled.
You could take something out of your back and put the brownies in there instead if you wanted to, I retorted, turning away.
You can give them to me in Chem, he called after me.
The asshole. He wanted everyone to know I had made him brownies. What a stud.
Who’s that from? Kevin asked. Ishika?
I smiled. That’s cute, he told Adam Cherkowitz.
But that idiot, he refused to eat the brownies.
Adam, really, just eat them, Jake told him.
They have nuts in them! I don’t like nuts! he complained.
Thoroughly disgusted, I left to get my lunch.
Why did I make brownies for this self-centered idiot? Not only does he have an inflated ego, he has no conscience either.
Ishika, he ran up behind me in the hallway. I’m really sorry. I really appreciate it. It’s just that...my sister is allergic to nuts and I’ve seen her have reactions, so...eating nuts is difficult for me.
Mhmm, I muttered.
Now, as I chewed my mental-hospital-brownie, I wished it had nuts in it.

The next morning, I woke up just in time for Group therapy. Word had it that the more you attended Group, the sooner you got out of there. I went to every Group session that weekend. In that particular one, they gave us Crayola Model Magic. Ben suggested we make things that piss us off and smash them with our fists.

I made two figures -- one red, white, and blue; the other green, orange, and white with a dark blue wheel in the center. Then I took them both, smushed them together, and ended up with a big blob of brown that looked strikingly like my skin.

All weekend, I had managed to keep a smile on my face, to have conversations with all the supervisors, to talk to the social workers, to hang out with the interns, to say hello to the nurses. If it were not for them, if it were not for their support throughout the last two and half days, if it were not for the kind reports they had left about me, the next months of my life may have turned out very differently.

The tall, black supervisor who had been there on my first day at Crandlewood came into Group and told me to pack my stuff.
I was leaving.
I shrieked and jumped, elated. I breathed a sigh of relief, the relief I had seen many a time on the faces of the morning supervisors, the social workers and the interns as they left every evening. The very relief that had taunted me every minute of the last two and a half days. Within a few hours, I knew, I would be back with my own friends, narrating my story to Mr. Cohen, giving out newspaper assignments, flirting with Adam Cherkowitz, rebelling against my parents.
But as I turned back and looked into the eyes of Theresa, Margorie, Amy, Ben, Julia, and Greg, I realized that my time had come as well, to leave the rest of them behind and walk on alone on my own journey.