“Lila, I had to sedate you. Do you understand why I did it?”
Yes, I knew why, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak. It hurt too much, so I resorted to basic communication through facial expressions and head movements. I nodded and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in his eyes. Not his too. I would listen to anything he had to say, but I couldn’t bear to see that look.
One of the things I loved about my doctor was how perceptive he was and how he seemed to believe in me. If it wasn’t for him in the past, I wouldn’t have made it. And here he was again, bandaging me up so I could pretend to exist enough until…what? Until I decided I was done. Until I left and found something better or…
“Here’s the plan. I’m giving you a new prescription. You’re going to take it exactly as I prescribe it. And if you’re still having insomnia you need to start taking the sleeping pills in conjunction. You will go to bed at ten p.m. each night. You will get up at six and shower, get dressed, eat something and go to work. I want to see you every Friday after work at six p.m. No drinking, no bars. Friends are allowed to see you, but only if they’re supportive of you and don’t interfere with your therapy.”
I swallowed hard. What friends? Caroline? Andrew? Would they even want to be around me when I was a black hole of a being? I didn’t care. What would I say anyway?
“If you agree and sign the release paperwork, then you can go home afterward. Any questions?” he asked, patting my arm.
He was being firm but also empathetic, and I didn’t deserve it. Any of it.
“How long?” I asked in a whisper of a breath so I didn’t crack in half from the pain.
He knew what I meant, and gave me a sympathetic smile before dealing my fate. “Indefinitely. You’ll be on the medication until we get you going with some serious trauma therapy. This episode, this ‘parataxic distortion’ you experienced, it will come back. It always does until it’s dealt with. But with how fragile you are right now, we have to wait until you can handle it because it will dig at your core and bring up all sorts of nasty memories you’ve suppressed and buried for years.”
Just say it…say the word… Broken. A step away from being institutionalized.
But he didn’t. There was no way I could come up with a better plan, and I was scared to do the trauma work. I’d avoided it in the past with him, because I didn’t want to go that deep… because I knew I couldn’t survive it. So, I did what I always did. I nodded my head like a good little girl, swallowed my terror, signed a damn paper and went on my way.
When signing my release, I looked at the date on the form and was stunned to see it was Saturday. It didn’t seem like that much time had passed to me. Hours, maybe, but in actuality it was a little over three days.
Dr. Morgenson called me a cab after he gave me my personal belongings, and I stepped back into the ninth circle of hell: my condo. An empty inferno where I would suffer alone.
Two days without Nathan, and I had nothing but my pain to keep me company…at least until Monday, when I returned to work and entered a whole other, deeper level of hell.
The pills did their job, though I didn’t end up needing the sleeping pills. Sleep was something my mind begged for so I could shut out the pain. I didn’t dream much, for which I was thankful. The other pills kept my mind groggy, and I felt like I was sleepwalking through the day.