my time at outpatient 'rehab' (for mental health), in the people i met there

₊✩‧₊˚౨ S ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

S was one of the first people i met there. i was kind of freshly new, in a very uncomfortable way. i'd just met someone who made me feel legitimately unsafe, not in the sense that i thought i was in physical danger, i just mean i didn't feel safe to be myself (someone made shitty jokes about stealing my stuff off the back of my wheelchair that i took literally because i had no evidence to not). that was the half-day i was there for. the very next day, i saw him. he said hi, asked how i was. he was kind of a tough guy, or trying to be, i thought, but also really fucking weird. autistic (i could tell). both endearing and off-putting. he had this fake, high-pitched laugh he would do instead of a real one, because he didn't want anyone to hear his real laugh. when one of the group leaders (of group therapy) asked everyone in the room what they were looking forward to after they got back home, i said, "uhhhhhhh-- Fortnite" and he said, "porn!" he played Roblox. his Robloxsona, and his fursona, was a cute, white little mouse. we became fast friends. he felt like a long-lost brother of sorts. when i shared my story, he spoke up, and said he really related to me. apparently it was one of the first times he'd actually been vocal in group. (in retrospect, and even at the time, i recognized it was none of their goddamned business, but as they were pretending it was, i did feel a bit flattered. he felt safe with me. or so i thought.) another time he actually spoke up was when he shared that one of the therapists at the program told him if he didn't get a job (far before he was ready, mentally) he would have to go back to jail. (he didn't end up having to because charges for whatever he apparently did were dropped, but for that to have even been a threat...) at around the same time, my health was starting to decline & i could tell. suddenly, i was seized with a sense of not only sympathy but relative urgency. i texted him, asking did he want to...hang out, just us, and cuddle. a bit. before he went to jail and i, i dunno, died? became too miserable to have him over? well, anyway, that was where my head was at. and i couldn't believe it, but he said yes. he said yes, and then he stopped responding to texts. he actually left, in the middle of a Roblox game, and just never came back. i couldn't believe that either. i guess he no longer felt safe with me. i still saw him in person after that. i had to leave the room because i started crying once when i saw him speaking to someone else so fucking earnestly & openly and i realized what i'd lost.

₊✩‧₊˚౨ L ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

L i met a few weeks into going to 'rehab' when he threw lint at me. from a rug, he was kinda picking at it. he was this twenty-year-old (or so) 'kid' who looked so nervous and unhappy to be there and he was wearing this fancy ass colorful furry jacket. wine country parents. i shared a story in group about how my ex abandoned me, and he half-apprehensively half-numbed out said he did the same to his. and i should hate him, 'cause he's a stupid piece of shit. "no," i told him, "it's actually a bigger problem if i love you." (this was around the time that one fucking group leader correctly told me my type is basically alcoholics. or, sorry, that sounds grotesque. what she meant - or, rather, what i mean - is that i tend to look towards people who know deep suffering, and all the mess that comes with it, for solidarity - i love shitty men because i am one - which gives me a predisposition towards alcoholics & addicts. although, really, it could be anyone. it's not that i'm attracted solely to alcoholics, even i admit that would be strange; certainly reductive & limiting.) and, lord, it was. he was gay as hell, but straight. one time i texted him telling him that, and telling him that if he really was straight, he was the fucking kindest, most earnest, charming, goofiest & silliest straight boy ever ("you sang along to Natasha Bedingfield, for crying out loud!"), and he texted back thanking me. i didn't just enjoy being his friend, i enjoyed seeing him make friends, because he seemed lonely. it was his own fault, of course (or, well, that's what people who don't love alcoholics will tell you, and even i admit it's kind of backwards to leave someone you love more than anything else), but i know, because i asked...he missed her. i missed him, too, when my health did decline and i began my series of absences-into-disappearing. not the second time, with my being gone for good, but the first time, and when i came back from that first time, it was him that had left. i haven't seen him in person since. he and i texted occasionally after that, but then he stopped. i think he went to another rehab. the last message i sent him was this, "you're kind of a bad friend. you're still my friend, and it's not to the point where i hate you. you as a person are great. but you're kind of bad at this. with me, at least....sorry, maybe i wasn't clear. i'm happy to be your friend even though you're not great at being mine. and i'd appreciate it if you kept trying (it was my way of saying, you're not doomed, this isn't doomed, please agree, you're not doomed)?" i haven't gotten any response. oh, well, at least he warned me, in a way. there, it happened again. i suppose that's the trouble. i suppose that's why that one fucking group leader even said that; it seems like you sure fall easy for alcoholics & addicts, benny, you should fix that or you'll get hurt. and y'know, i almost don't care. 'pain is worth it. people are people. the risk of loss is always worth the chance of connection. to me, at least. to me. he's still not a stupid piece of shit.

₊✩‧₊˚౨ G ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

i've already written about G. the pretty boy i was definitively crushing on. but there's always more to say about G. he warmed me. i could talk about how much i wanted to be with him for a long time. but i already have, so i'll simply add, we made each other blush. when he showed me this thing he painted that i knew was heavy, i asked how he got it. he said he lifted it, all by himself. 'dude was so light i could've picked him up. so, nah. i knew it, nah. i showed as much. another conversation we had went like this. "benny, don't be so mean." "hey, i'm allowed to be as mean as i want to be." "no you're not." "says who?" "me." "do i belong to you, G?" "...no..." (i swear, in that moment, i almost blurted out, "can i?" as in, "can i belong to you?") god, i loved that smile of his. so sparkly. sparkly, pretty boy. with the goddamed semi-regular seizures. and the chronic migraine. brain damage. god, G, i hope you're okay. he refused my solidarity when he refused my friendship, my...other desires, but i still feel no small amount of solidarity-as-a-feeling towards him. he was suicidal. i don't blame him. we're both not-so-secretly sick as fuck. i know you're tired of the pain. me too.

T.

T showed up a little after L arrived and a little before G left, and while i was trying to not fade out of their lives, while i was still unsure of how to approach either of them, or even if i should, within a week of knowing them both she was apparently extremely close with them, close enough to be having a private little conversation with them. and that's not my complaint. my complaint is that when i said i felt socially out of place, and like nobody wanted me around, which could've had nothing to do with that, she responded, without my asking, with this, "oh, you shouldn't worry. it's not personal. nobody is thinking of you like that. during that conversation, by the way, i actually wouldn't have wanted you to roll up and start talking. it was private. i would've told you to go away." so, i repeat, it wasn't personal, so i shouldn't worry so much and should in fact decenter or just straight-up get over myself, but it was personal. i should've known. i cope with humor, as you all know well by now, and one time i made a joke in group. "you did it yourself?" i asked, when someone said they got a DUI. my friend R laughed. but T, no, she responded with, "that's inappropriate. don't say that." and another time, in another group, someone asked for an example of trauma, and so i said, "oh, it's like when you have a stroke at 12 years old and every day alive is a reminder that you are a failed version of yourself." she responded with, "i think you would feel better if you didn't have such a victim mindset."

₊✩‧₊˚౨ A ৎ˚₊✩‧₊