play- writing session 2.11.21 12:35am

Did anybody care? The silence was so loud. 

Choco came up

did he have to be incentivized?

I came out of the hospital

He came up (to the place in 16th street) , we talked I have no idea bout what

I was out, but I was restricted to my house. I wasn't allowed to go to school. and I was still drugged like crazy. the drugs made me gain 30 pounds. me, a girl that never knew anything about 122 pounds. I was fat, I was gray. Not red, not orange. Just gray. Yes, I didn't feel bad anymore. But to the honest, I just didn't feel anymore. its like the drugs locked up my feelings somewhere. and all that was left of me was extra weight and a new schedule. two guys that worked in the school would come to my house and give me homework. I wasn't allowed to go to the classes so I had no idea what the assignments were and what they needed. without the lessons that the rest of the kids got, I had no idea. the assignments had no context. I realized how much teachers are needed. they explained the assignments and answered questions. the two men, they were responsible to drop it off but they weren't the teachers so they couldn't answer any questions. they just gave me paperwork. 

I was out, but in some ways I was still in. The real me was locked deep inside of me. my brain and the thoughts were caught up in a fog. It was hard for me to express myself or even to think. the drugs were running through my veins and I was hungry all the time. I read that the drug side effect was it takes the away the ability to feel full. no wonder I couldn't stop.

Everyone saw me as fragile. before I went to the hospital, me and my friends cut school. I got an anxiety attack in front of them. which I don't quite remember, but I imagine I physically they myself on the floor. I remember my best friend Jenn calling me a bitch. I was so hurt. why would she call me that?

Why did people keep hurting me? when I got out she said she thought I was 'acting like a bitch' but then when I went to the hospital she realized, oh wow, Auris really was going through something. 

You are my friends? you know me, the girl who's at the parties and we competed for the best grades every single class

But I'm sick and lonely and was it so hard to come up and talk to me? show me you care? show some compassion.

My grandmother said what happened and I said I'll explain. but I didn't have the words. me writing since 13, notebooks of thoughts but I didn't have the words.

I was traumatized and I was afraid if I confessed that I was having trouble they were going to lock me up again. The way I was when I was 17.  After that it was therapy at college, my freshman year. I reached out for some help. I had to keep my appointments with the psychiatrist which job is to get you the right mix of drugs that will calm you down and let you sleep. but the things about the drugs. the one that you get prescribed for sleep, if you take it two nights in a row, you are addicted (yeah, the warning says it right on the box). when you take it, you sleep but you wake up and are not rested. if like the mechanics of sleep has happened to your body, you were unconscious but you wake up as tired as if you didn't sleep at all. so then in time i just kept accepting that my body didn't want to sleep at night sometimes. then i broke my ankle and had crutches. and had a full class schedule and had to go to classes in a middle of a snow storm. scared to fall because then the injury will get worse. crutches on a  girl made me exhausted. the walk that would take me 5 to 10 minutes now would take 30 minutes. so everything slowed down, of getting places. it was read the bible, get to the classes, don't fall. take the pills which is 3 to 5 times a day. follow the warning, keep the appointments. I used to go to my room and just look at the calendar to see what I had to do next. It would give me anxiety to miss anything. But I see now that there were all these balls that I was juggling. And similar to today, no one helped. Family just had criticisms and complaints. In spring break, I was accused of not taking pills. Their assumptions were always held as truth, my voice was never valid. I was upset that I was accused of such a thing because I have always been responsible. hello, look at my whole track record.

I always felt like they didn't know me. and I know now that I am right. No one cared about me, what I had going on. I wasn't the golden child. I was the servant. clean this, stay in the car while we go food shopping for 3 hours. stay in the car and its summer and hot and you are 14 and don't complain. I always had to take the brunt of the stuff. my brother escaped through work. My sister got to not be home. i tired following all the rules. just like the pills, they let me down. 

i ran out of insurance I think at 18. I got on my knees prayed to God, please heal me from this. i wont be able to afford these pills they say I need. and i stopped using and God healed me. I realize now sometimes I still do the things I did back then. But what I have for myself now that no one had for me then, is compassion.

There are some days that if things are bothering my soul I stay up and I write. I get it all out. Writing is my outlet, I find out what is bothering me. when i look at depression now, I see it as what happens when I hold everything in. God made me to express myself and I wasn't allowed to be myself. My existence was that of  salve, expected to faithfully fulfill the roles and rules given to her. I did my best, God knows I really did. But it literally broke me. no sex, no drugs, don't go outside. come home and clean the house and do the dishes and do my homework and my mom said I couldn't call my friends because she didn't have call waiting. she said I couldn't do sleepovers because she pays rent so that I can sleep in that house. every time I asked her something, the answer was No. there was never a yes. then she would get made at me because she saw me being sad. Apparently, I was not allowed to have feelings either.

The day she asked me to clean the walls always stand out to me. its like let's give the slave an extraneous task so that she forgets that she's a teenager and her needs to have friends and talk (which mom refused to talk to me) gets dwindled down by the exhaustion of cleaning something that doesn't even need to be cleaned.

After the hospital, no one asked me what happened. not my friends, not my family. I was the problem child. because I needed help. a lifetime to holding things in and only having my notebook to turn to. I was deemed wrong in my society. locked away, taken from school. everyone I knew knew nothing so they made up rumors, so my best friend Rosa said. I came out and I had to write a 13 page paper in order to graduate. it was hard to think with all those pills. My friend gave me her paper and that's how I graduated. 

I told the people at the hospital. I'm getting so far behind in school! give me homework please! The next week, they got me a coloring book and crayons. I cried at the cruelty. I was used to being busy and doing my work. Here I was at this mental hospital with all these crazy people and i often wondered what the hell was I doing there. I was being drugged, taken away from family and friends, restricted to a room with no roommate, which I hated. I didn't have the sex, I didn't do the drugs. all that happened was that i stopped sleeping. was that such a crime that I needed to be taken away from everything?

when we went to the doctor and my mom told my doctor the symptoms she said I was pregnant. my mom and I and my sister we said we're virgins (me and my sister). the lady, an Asian lady working in Jersey City audibly laughed out loud. The time she went to Bayonne Hospital, same thing. I was accused of being pregnant. Is that all 17 year old girls are allowed to do? be pregnant? 

I was hospitalized in Hoboken. Drugged and missing all those school days. My life became the Eminem video, exactly how he visually explained. I get in line, take the pills. If you act up, you get sent to the white room and put a crazy jacket, the white one which makes it impossible for you to move your arms. your own protection they say. but really, you just lose your arms for a while. its weird. 

Everyday I passed by this girl. it hurt me and made me cry to see her. she was so skinny she couldn't walk. I cried because I wondered what kind of state of hating yourself do you have to be to starve yourself to that point. it was hard to watch, and she was 2 rooms away from me. So I saw her everyday. she didn't join us in all the things we had scheduled. She couldn't walk, she didn't talk. it looked like she was strenuous to even use her eyes. It made me so sad. why are you like this? I wanted to yell. why! what happened! who did this to you! Did you do this to yourself!

But in the hospital you never want to show excitement. they drug you more. and the drugs take away your feelings anyway. some drugs give you feelings.

I wasn't allowed to ask. even know. when I get too excited I shut down. I go inside a place inside of myself. I don't allow myself to get angry around people. When I'm sad I don't show up I stay to myself. people wont know unless they call and these days I don't get much of those so its easier to stay alone.

Alone, now, no one judges me. God is allowing me to face these memories. and i am crying the tears I wasn't allowed to cry before. 

Being around kids that had real problems like jumping out of windows or dealing with a cocaine addiction. what the hell am I doing here? all I could do, like a prisoner, is let the time go by. Unlike prison, you don't get a call. every day I had no idea what was going on with my previous life, what was going on with school, my friends, my mom, my brother my sister? crazy is the one thing in society that makes everything you say irrelevant and all your rights are taken from you, because, you guessed it, you are crazy. 

The girl that followed all the rules. no sex, no alcohol, no drugs. came home, did all the homework, aced the test. cleaned the house. I was taken away. I was deemed unsafe. 

Who does this? and why? and then blamed by my family that I must ' not be taken my medicine.'

It was complaint and no compassion and no one asked how it was in there or what I went through.

My mom when she picked me up from the hospital she asked. but I was so out of it. I was forced to take drugs everyday. I trusted them. they were doctors. later on in college I found out the drugs they gave me they could have been given to a person that has hallucinations. 

why were they allowed to experiment with me? why mess up with my psyche? quick to diagnose me bi polar, I carried that secret for a while. confessed to a business partner and he told me to tell it to nobody else. once again, I was left alone with my secrets. 

play- writing session 2.11.21 12:35am

added more writing 2.11.2021 9:48pm

added more 9:58pm