“Be my friend. Hold me. Wrap me up. Unfold me. I am small. And needy. Warm me up. And breathe me.” Sia, “Breathe me”

It’s that familiar feeling of not belonging in the world. Of being a leper. Of being abandoned outside an orphanage while all kinds of feral creatures lurk around the corners, closing in on me. This world is cruel. This world is cold. I hate this world. I want to go home to my true spiritual home where there is only love. I want to die.

I leave my room and head to the entrance to the hospital. It is bedtime, the nurse has just done her rounds and nobody sees me. I go to press the green button to release the sliding glass doors and leave but something stops me.

I am a child in an adult’s body. I feel like this could all be a dream, and in a dream you can do what you want. I climb up onto the tall reception desk and sit there for a while. It is dark and the desk is unstaffed. I wish somebody would find me, but I also don’t want them to see me.

Eventually a male nurse finds me. He pulls a chair over and asks me to come down. I cannot answer him. I cannot speak. I have a zillion different people in my head telling me things. “Attention seeker!” curses one of them. “You’re just choosing not to speak!” My eyes are shut, I am in a faraway place deep within my mind right now. I manage to climb down but then I curl up on the chair with my back to the nurse.

A female nurse joins us. They ask me to come back to my room and have my meds. Eventually I manage to stand up but then I lose my balance. “These poor nurses are being kind to you and this is how you repay them,” accuses a voice in my head. “Stop being difficult. Stop faking symptoms you don’t have!”

I need the softest touch. All I want is for the nurse to take my hand and tuck me into bed like a mother would. Like Betty would. We make it back to my room. She fixes up my doona which is not in the cover properly and I crawl into bed. She comes back with my vitamins and regular 2.5mg of Olanzapine. I can’t believe she is not giving me anything stronger. I don’t even know what to do with these tablets, sprays, tinctures and capsules. I can’t take them. I am so little I need help. I can’t even swallow down a cup of water. I can’t take them. The nurse gets increasingly frustrated with me. “I have other patients waiting for their meds” the nurse informs me. I am just as frustrated that I can’t do anything. Eventually I manage to clumsily take them, except for the zinc capsule which we usually open and sprinkle in yoghurt as it’s too big to swallow. I don’t know how to tell her this, so I just sit it on the table and shake my head.

I hate myself. I’m a burden on the nurses. I waste their time. I don’t deserve to be here. I need some way to communicate. I cannot speak, but I find I can write. Or another part of me can. I grab a bunch of menus, turn them over and start scribbling notes to the nurse. She replies and I write my answer again. I manage to tell her that my c-ptsd has been triggered and I am dissociating. I am able to ask for some sleeping pills. I sit on the floor while she prepares my pills. I regain the ability to take the pills myself. I go to bed. I sleep for a few hours, then have a nightmare where my dad is strangling me. I sit up and play some songs on my phone. A nurse comes to the door and asks if I’m ok. My voice is coming back, and I tell her “no”. She leaves. I may as well be voiceless.