Am I Here?(In This Room)

                                                              Devilock 1

 
                    "Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is
                      more common and also more hard to bear."
                                                             - C. S. Lewis


Everything about the room was basically the same compared to my two previous 51/50's: two beds for two patients, two beside tables with two drawers for cloths, and a window. The only difference this time was my roommate and I had our own bathroom with a shower. The one thing I hated most about the mental hospital was there were no locks on the bathroom doors, because I later walked in on my roommate right after he had gotten out of the shower, and I got myself a perfect view of his hairy fat ass. I mean, I understand that there can't be locked doors for us mental patients to be behind, other than the doors which keep us from leaving the building, but, shit, I saw the man's ass. It ain't that hard for the orderlies to carry keys for the bathroom door. The only way a suicide-case could kill themselves in those particular bathrooms was to drown themselves in the toilet. And I've never heard of anyone committing suicide by shoving their head in a toilet bowl.
     There was also something else different about the room. Not what was inside, but the fact that on this third 51/50 I was on the third floor, and the view outside was actually decent. The first two times in the hospital my room was in a one-story building with view outside the window being nothing more than green leaves from a large bush behind a chainlink fence. This time I could see blue sky with meek looking clouds sprawled all around on a sunny day. But that was only half of it, literally. The lower half was the top of the building next door made of brown brick.
     The first morning of my third 51/50 I sat on my bed staring at this view thinking how comparable, yet opposite, the image before me was to the infamous phrase: Glass half full, half empty.
     I remember thinking, Half blue sky, half brick wall. What's good is on top. What's bad is on bottom.
     My roommate was behind me in his half of the room, pacing back and forth around his bed, stomping his feet on the hardwood floor with each step. Every once in a while he'd raise his forearms in front of his face in a kind of defensive manner. He mumbled things, but I couldn't understand a word he was saying. I felt bad for him, and I also felt bad for those who would never try to empathize with him -- if they ever could, that is. I definitely could, because I was as bad as him the two previous times, but at least, other people could understand the words I was saying.
     I stared at the decent view outside, remembering everything which led me to that room -- every detail of each day, every second of each hour -- but I forgot the most important thing of all: how great it felt to be alive.
     What got me in that room on that particular occasion was simple: I attempted suicide and failed. The person who saved me simply wanted a residence to smoke weed at instead of in a public place. My best friend, Mario, called me to make sure I was home alone because he wanted to get high and watch a movie with me.
     "Yeah, okay," I said, "but I don't think I'll be conscious to answer the door when you knock on it. If I no longer can walk by the time you arrive I want to apologize to you now. You'll have to find a good hidden spot to park your car and smoke a blunt in the hope no Pig will smell you."
     There was a long pause that must've lasted almost two minutes. I could tell he was high already.
     "What?" he uttered finally in the receiver.
     "Look, man," I began to explain, "I swallowed a bunch of pills with the intent to overdose and die. So if I can't answer the fucking door by the time you get here, you'll have to find somewhere else to get high. Is that registering in your brain, Mario?"
     "Olavi, you did what?!" he yelled into his cell phone, causing static on my end.
     For a second I thought my hearing was going bad, and wondered if that was the first to go before the body began shutting down.
     "I'm already on my way," Mario said, breathing heavily. "Stop swallowing pills. Unlock your front door. We're going to the hospital soon as I get there."
     "Okay," I said, then hung up.
     I walked to the front door, unlocked it as my friend commanded. I then stood still, looking out the living room window, waiting for Mario's arrival like an obedient dog waits for the master of the house.
     I don't really remember the moment I decided I was going to kill myself. People would say I decided when I began swallowing a pill one at a time that very morning, not stopping until pill number twenty-five, because the bottle was empty, but that would not be the actual truth. I believe I made the decision way before I was truly happy, back when I was a teenager, way before I was officially diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.
     In my younger years I always seemed unhappy, always would stress and worry about things with no reasonable justification in doing so. What brought joy to others seemed to be a weight on my shoulders, holding me down emotionally, and spiritually. Sometimes I'd be alone in my bedroom crying, hoping I wouldn't wake up the next morning. Dreams were my safe-space -- mental disorder seemed not to effect me in dreams, even if it were a nightmare.
     Even after recovering from my suicide attempt, it took me years to realize, and accept, I didn't have to live behind bars to be in a prison. This is what most people don't understand about manic depression: on a beautiful spring day the sun burned, the wind stabbed, and when I looked down, all I could see was dirt.
     To be honest, in my experience with being Bipolar, being depressed wasn't the worst part of it. Yeah, I eventually tried to kill myself when I was at the lowest in the spectrum of Bipolar emotions, but it was when I was on the highest end, the manic experiences which had me at my most self-destructive. When a cokehead aims a loaded gun right at you, and you laugh at the idiot, you got problems you definitely need to rectify.
     Anyways. Mario's car pulled up on the curb in front of my house. Before he could make his way to the door I was already outside, locking the front door.
     "What are you doing, man?" he said, raising his hands over his head. "You fuckin' with me, or what?"
     "No," I replied, turning away from the door, put my keys inside my pocket, and started walking to the car. "I'm starting to feel like my head got an elephant sitting on it."
     "How many pills you fucking take, Olavi?"
     "Twenty-five." I went to open the door, but it was locked. "I ran out." I pulled the car door's lever again to no avail. "You gonna unlock the fucking door, man. If I pass out, you're gonna have to carry my fat ass."
     Mario sat back in his car and unlocked the passenger door for me. I sat in the carseat, noticing my butt seemed heavier. I pondered if slow death felt like being pulled into the ground, maybe into Hell, even though there wasn't such a place.
     "Why is your engine off?" I asked.
     "Cause I thought you were fucking making a cruel joke," Mario said. "I mean, you of all people killing yourself. I wouldn't have ever fathomed such a thing. Why? Why the fuck you doing this?" He  was shocked, angry, and didn't seem to believe what was happening.
     "Just drive me to the emergency room. Third times a fucking charm."
     He started the car and took off, tires screeching through the streets of my neighborhood. If we weren't pulled over by the cops, it would be a miracle.
     "What happened to your hair?" He asked. He must have wanted to keep me awake and talking.
     "I cut off my devilock so my parents would maybe put it in a picture frame, cause I want to be cremated."
     "What's wrong with you, man?" he asked, shaking his head and staring down the road.
     I began crying, and said, "I just felt ashamed."
     "Ashamed of what?......"