Day 7

Today was another that I was given a great breakfast I had fried eggs, bacon, sausage, a bowl of fresh fruit, and coffee. I don't know why they switched up the meals but I won't complain it's a welcome change. I have been sitting here all day just wondering about things that I haven't really made peace with but it has been somewhat refreshing to finally look into my mind and really try to sort some of the shit that hides in there. It was a welcome distraction from this room. I still want out of here but I have come to terms with my fate for now. They did say that I could shower tomorrow and then it's back here after that. I still haven't been told just how long this will last but seeing as tomorrow is Saturday I'm planning for at least to more days since I know the shrink isn't here on the weekend. I think I may be starting to respect her determination it rivals mine. I wonder who will hold out longer. Not really I know my resolve is stronger and I'll stay firm in my demands because I have no where to go I have to be here for the duration of this so called recovery and that has no set end point it was told to me that I was here until my daughter decided that I'd made sufficeint progress whatever that means. I have taken to killing time drawing on my walls they are littered with random sketches. I may get in trouble for this but I can't be sure I've seen many of the rooms have little doodles on them or curses on them from other patients. It is another form of release for me so that I can let out some of the frustration that I have locked up inside my mind. I enjoyed the chance to get out of my room but they only let me have 10 minutes to shower so I knew it would be rushed and then I got to the shower to find only cold water so I just stood there with the water running. I stood out side the shower and watched the droplets bouncing around as they splashed down on the tile floor. When the orderly yelled my time was up I turned off the shower and took my time pretending to get dressed. After about five more minutes he finally made it known that my time was up and I was to come out or be dragged back to my room even if I was nude. Sadly I made my way out of the showers and back to my room. Back inside my prison I began to draw on the walls again this time I had decided to draw a path that lead to nowhere and focused on trying to outline some of the plants that would hug the path after a few hours of drawing I had managed to lay in a bunch of bushes and flowers and a single half dead tree that hung angrily over the path. The path was coming to life and it seemed like something from a horror movie seeing as how none of the plants were normal but it made sense to me. I saw it as the path leading into the far reaches of my mind every new addition seemed to pull me further in and along that path. I have no idea how this journey will play out but I like the way it has begun to set itself up. I couldn't help but feel proud of what was coming to life on my wall. I only stopped because they brought me dinner and to my surprise they had brought me a great meal it was fresh salmon, asparagus, a nice salad, baked sweet potato, and a lovely slice of chocolate cake. I had a glass of something I couldn't quite place but it was delicious as well. I could get used to this new meal plan I seemed to be on. It gave me something to look forward to during the day not that it was much but the little victories right. I was completely lost in thought when the shrink stepped into my room. She stood there for quite some time before speaking to me and she made it clear that the new meals were from her and that if I would start to comply that she would make sure they kept coming and that Monday I would be off of my punishment. She said that I could think it over until our session and then she would need my answer. I know that she just wants me to break but I won't but I will be nicer and try to do some of the things she wants me to try. I still want my answers as well though. I asked about the cold shower and she told me that was just because they were working on the hot water heater and had had no luck repairing it. I offered to fix it but was denied she said that I wasn't allowed to do any work around here as it was a violation of the policies in place. After she left I started drawing again but about five minutes in I gave up on it as my eyes had grown heavy from the fact that my belly was truly full for the first time since I'd arrived here. I just wanted to sleep so I decided to write this really quick before I layed down so I'll see you tomorrow.

Day 8

So where do I begin today I guess I start by saying I'm so ready for tomorrow. Hopefully my shrink won't banish me back to my room for something I'll try to mind my manners a little better when we talk. I've spent most of the day just adding to the growing mural on the wall of my room it seems to be getting darker each time I add to it. The scene is beginning to gain detail in the plants and trees, the road has started to resemble an old cobblestone path like something out of the middle ages. It seems to be a path into a haunted forest each of the trees seem to be clawing there way out of the 2D drawing as if they are alive and trying to escape their own prison. The whole thing like it's a poisoned wasteland, the shadows swirling about seem to move on their own I don't recall when I added them in but they pull the whole thing into one cognitive piece. It feels strange knowing I drew it and I have never had an artistic bone in my body. I feel like the scene is calling to me and begging me to add to it with each whispered scream that comes forth from it. The pain present is obvious and I know that I shouldn't but I can only see the beauty that it holds deep within as if I see beyond the pain into the serenity of the hidden places that can't be seen. I hope that maybe I'll finish it and be able to get a photo of it before I leave here and it disappears forever. I had another round of amazing meals today and was offered a hot shower since the one yesterday was ice cold and I gladly accepted and to my surprise I was not rushed. I took my time to soak my pains away in the fiery waterfall that was falling from above me and let myself slip away to a world somewhere completely seperate from this place. I let myself hear sounds that weren't there, the birds calling, insects buzzing, the whistle of the wind through made up trees, and most of all the crashing of the waterfall as it came to a sudden halt into the river below. I smelled the flowers blooming around the base of the fall, the sweetness of the fruits that hung around the banks, and the smell of a fresh rain that seemed like it should be lost in the midst of all the other water that was here. I don't know how but I was free of the place I was in just minutes before and could barely remember what was the reality of my situation because this new place seemed so real that I couldn't let myself lose the serenity here. After what had to have been an hour or so I heard a loud knock at the door to the showers and the orderly asking if I was okay. Sadly, that was all it took to rip me away from the beautiful place and back to the dull colors of the hospital that I currently called home. I called out to him that I was fine and proceeded to wash myself clean before stepping out onto the cold tiles outside the shower. As I dressed I thought about the fact that I had been so lost in what had to be a daydream. It was just so nice and peaceful I don't know how I was able to bring that place to life like that but I knew that if that was possible here then I would definitely try to keep doing it. I lost myself to it and I couldn't believe it because it had been maybe fifteen years since I'd had a dream. My mind always locked me out of those parts I never dreamed, drew, wrote, or had any sense of creativity for that matter not since the accident where I'd lost my wife so long ago. I realized how I had missed it today. I gave up on all the things I had loved so much that day and I really don't know why she wouldn't have wanted that for me but I felt that I deserved to be in my personal Hell. I had survived and she had died for what I thought was my fault, I mean if I had listened to her when she told me we should have called a cab she may still be here. We had gone for dinner that night after I'd had a long week at work about half way through our meal I had started to get tired, I told her I was fine to drive and she agreed to let me. SO WHY THE FUCK SHOULDN'T I BLAME ME? I knew I shouldn't have been driving but I was too proud to admit that I couldn't handle the load I had place on myself. That was the day I began to fall apart. I was dead and decaying inside, I started to push everyone away to keep myself from feeling that kind of a loss again. I quit speaking to my friends and family, I worked every minute I could just to be away from home. I went from being a great husband and father to hating being home as I couldn't face that place and I hated to go home to listen to my kids crying for their mother who I'd killed I felt so guilty. I started to drink heavily finding solice it the druken stupers that I would find myself in almost everyday, it was the only time I didn't hate myself. I suffered in that silent pain driven cycle for nearly a decade before my daughter finally had to come and pick me up in a bar where they had taken my keys and refused to let me leave after drinking myself stupid and puking everything up all over the bar. Luckily I knew the bartender and the owner both so they took me to the booth in the back where they hid me away to attempt to sleep a little bit of it off before she got there. When my daughter came in the owner appologized to her and made her promise to tell me that he was sorry for it getting this bad and he hoped that I would be able to turn things around. I looked at my daughter and I only saw my wife I began to cry and confess my regret for that night and I lost myself in the moment I poured my heart out to the most beautiful woman I had ever seen my wife who shone so beautifully through my daughter. I knew that was the day I had to stop I had to gain control. It was so hard the dt's keep me drinking for months luckily my child was a better parent to me than I had been to her, she brought me through it all. For almost three months she would sit with me for hours on end and make sure that I didn't choke on my own vomit and to make sure that I only drank enough to keep me from dying. I would cry to her each night as she would tuck me into bed and thank her for her patience. She would just smile at me and kiss my forehead and tell me to sleep. I will never forget the love in her eyes for a man that wasn't worthy of the name father but she still looked at me like a hero. I don't think I would have made it without her she was my Hero and she saved me. I can never repay her and I know that but I will show her just how much I care. After a year of the same song and dance I could finally go without a drink and not puke my guts up, I had finally started getting my appetite back though I still couldn't eat much. I still remember the day I was finally back to myself, well the me I was now, she had come in and told me she wanted to take me out for my birthday I hadn't even remembered it but she did. She took me to the resturant where I had taken my wife so many times before and I didn't want to go in but she made me and we had a great meal. That was when she had told me about the night she came to the bar to get me and how she knew what I had been going through. She told me that she understood why I had gotten lost and how broken I truly was. That night she had intended to take me home and put me to bed then she was going to just drive until she found a place to plant new roots she had given up on me. If I hadn't fallen apart I would have drank myself to death all alone with noone to miss me when I was gone. She said she knew that day she had to help me to get out of the dark and then she would leave. That was her plan but the more days she held me and the more I suffered to try to get better the less she wanted to leave. I had finally proven to her in a way that I had never intended to that I truly did love her and it was a point when I could have hated myself more because I was willing to suffer so bad to try to make things right by her. I will forever be in her debt, I don't think she knows just how much I love her. I made her a promise that day to always try to do better and I've been working had to keep that promises everyday since but I have had my moments. That's why she put me here she wants her dad back but I don't think I can ever be the man I was before my wife died. I'm here because thats what she asked of me and I agreed. If she wanted to save me from myself and the darkness that I had been surrounded by for so long not then I was going to do what she asked. I'm done I can't do this anymore today I don't know why I even write in this thing AAAHHHHHH!!!!! I hate this shit I don't think I'll be writing anymore. So fuck this and fuck the shrink if she doens't like it I won't be this broken.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Day 9

Yeah so yesterday took me way down a path that I didn't want to go down and opened some deep wounds. I just couldn't go any farther with that. Today was good and the shrink actually caved and agreed to answer some of my questions only simple questions though so it's a start. It shows that she really wants to know about me and I have began to put in a little effort to help with that. I simply don't know how deep I'm willing to dive into myself and my mind for anyone even myself. I know they are gonna make me do some soul searching if I ever want to go home but I just don't think that I will be able to get them what they want from me. How can I tell the shrink things that I refuse to tell myself and most of it I don't want to think about? How do you make yourself face your demons if you are afraid of them? I have no idea how far I can go into that but if I want to do better with this I guess that I'm going to have to learn to face those demons and confront them even though I'm terrified of that. I have some things that I haven't ever discussed with anyone and don't know if I ever can. My life started out on a bad leg and only ever got worse as I grew up. That is the hardest part of doing all this because I know that I'll have to dive into these things at some point and I plan to die with those stories. I hope that they will respect that and not make me push into that area of my life. I can try to open up about somethings and not about others. The hardest one for me is the story of my mom and I have refused to talk about her for a long time now. She was a good woman with many problems of her own and I don't know them all but she talked to me about some of it when I was young. She was always worried about us finding out on our own and the stories being worse. She was a great person when she was younger but life being what it is she eventually gave in to the bad things in life and it was a spiral to rival any I've ever seen. After she met my stepdad she started to go out and party with him and his friends introduced her to drugs. She began to explore with harder and harder drugs until she found cocain. That was her vice she fell in head first and never could get out. The drugs overtook her life she would disappear for a few days at a time when it all started to fall apart. The longer it went on the longer those disappearences became. She would be gone for weeks at a time do whatever with whoever never checking in until it was all over with then she wanted to come back in like nothing had ever happened. Not one time was there ever an apology or explanations the first she just wanted to pretend that she was never gone. We were just expected to not talk about it and that was just the way it was. She continued with this pattern for years until one day she left and didn't come home for whatever reason. When she left the last time she never called, never wrote, never even rode by to check in. I was fourteen years old that year and I haven't heard a word since. I don't know how to take that even for myself much less how to express the ways that has damaged me inside. She was just gone without a trace, we have nothing to use to try to find out what happened because we don't know anything about where she went or when she moved around or who she was running with. There was no leads to follow I don't know why she left or why this time was different, but when she left that was it she walked into a black hole and never came back. I wish that I knew at least what happened to her or if she was alive. I don't know if I really want details but just to know the basics. I think that it would be too hard to handle the truth of the matter if it was something as simple as she just didn't want to be here with us anymore or something along those lines but some kind of closure may help to deal with it. Enough of that though hopefully tomorrow will be a good day as well as the walls that are built in between me and the shrink begin to fall away and our relationship grows maybe we can start to understand one another and maybe it will be the beginning of my road that will lead me back home.