They keep telling me that I need to stay here, inside these green walls. They say that I need time to rest and time away from everything and everybody else. I don’t believe them, but I also know that it is pointless to argue with them. I am not crazy. I understand that you don’t get to swallow almost an entire bottle of trazadone and people think that you are normal. If I was not enclosed in these walls and this story was anyone else’s except mine, I would believe that there was safety inside the walls.

No one listens to me when I tell them that I had no choice. I keep trying to explain to the nurses that I could not breathe, all my air was gone. It felt like instead of breathing, I was just experiencing the torture of trying to catch my breath. Who can stand to be tortured for a lifetime? The doctor keeps asking about my children. I’m always at a loss for words when it comes to them. My son and my daughter. Yes I love them. I love them very much.

The problem here is that no one can see that I was of no use to them anyway. How can I help them if I am struggling to breathe? I would not have been able to do anything for them anyway. I mean really, have you ever tried to participate in the activities around you when struggling for your next breath? I would bet that you have not. If you have never struggled for your next breath then you have no idea what it feels like and therefore you have no right to judge me.

The doctor always tells me to calm down when I get to that part. I don’t mean to yell, I don’t mean to jump up from my seat, but it’s just that I feel that I have to do it so that they will understand the seriousness of what I’m saying and understand that I don’t need to be in this place. I never get to leave. I remain a prisoner in these green walls. I am injected with poison; they tell me that it’s a sedative to help me sleep. I never sleep. How can I sleep when the bed that I lay in is surrounded with bugs, huge green and yellow bugs that look like bubbles. The wall produces the bugs somehow, I watch them slide down the green walls and creep along the floor praying that nothing squashes them, because then I will have to see their insides spill onto the floor and I would never be able to get out of bed for help.

They know of this problem, but they do nothing about it because they want to punish me. They all want to punish me. The doctors, and the nurses, the people I thought were my friends; they all want to punish me. I only did what I had to do to escape the torment. Not only could I not breathe, but the pain in my chest was unbearable. I tried to explain that to a nurse, she looked at me like I was an idiot. I think that she is an idiot. Her breath stinks too. Perhaps that is why she never responds when I talk, she understands that the filth coming from her mouth is dangerous and she doesn’t want to make me sick, maybe she feels sympathy because I have to deal with the bug problem. Perhaps she is not too bad.

I want to talk to my children. I miss them terribly. Now that I can breathe I want nothing more than to go back and spend time with them, hug them and tell them that I love them. I live for them. I would have never willingly agreed to go, but I could not breathe and I was being tortured. How many times do I have to say that? It seems my family, friends, and doctors want to know what made me do it. Does that matter really? It was not my husband’s words or actions. Something came along and took away my breath, something came along and stood on my chest and took away my ability to live not my desire. I just wanted to escape from the torture. No one cares about that. The details of what I really feel don’t matter as much as the details they believe they see.

I just want to see my children. I need to protect them. I need to warn them about life and people. They need to know that people are never to be trusted. No one but me means them any good. They need to know this so that they won’t make the same mistakes I made and end up behind walls with this sickening green color. I allowed people into my personal space, allowed them to get too close to me. I can deal with people, truth be told I enjoy people, love talking to them, sharing with them, even being close to them. The problems only come when I let them in my heart. They poison everything. Their essence saturates my mind, my soul; they become so much a part of me that it becomes hard to remember that they were not always there, so when they depart it feels like a little piece of me goes with them.

I want my children to know that is the kind of pain they can avoid by keeping people at a distance. I cannot protect them as long as I am in these walls. So I have a plan. I will do exactly what the doctors and nurses want me to do. I won’t talk about the bugs. I won’t talk about my breath being taken away. I will not talk about how dangerous people are or how I plan to protect my children from them. I won’t discuss any of those things.

Bibles are given out pretty frequently here. Although I have my issues with God these days, it can’t hurt to read. I will go to the group sessions and try not to vomit at the smell coming from all the other people in the room who are truly crazy. I will smile and laugh at all the corny jokes that I hear. I will do that because that is what they all want. When I see my chain of command, they will hear that I had momentary lapse, and that I am totally aware of the seriousness of my actions. I will tell them that I am willing to go for treatment, that I want treatment.

It will be easy. People are easy. They never care about what is really happening it’s all about what they want to see. If I give the people what they want to see then I can deal with the turmoil that I feel on the inside on my own. Another thought has occurred to me; perhaps my children and I are the only human beings left. Perhaps this is the reason that everyone seems to be against me. I have this eerie feeling in my chest that I am right. I have been sent here to be turned into one of them. Who knows what is in that syringe that they stick me with.

My children need me. God only knows what is happening to them. If God does know he has not come down to have a chat with me about it. Typical. But I can have that discussion with him at another time. I have to make plans to leave the walls before the bugs return. I can see the doctor and nurse coming down the hall. The nurse has a syringe ready. I see them out the corner of my eye, but I keep my eyes on my bible. If I remain calm when they approach they won’t stick me with the syringe. When I know they are just a few feet away, I look up and smile. The doctor tells me that my chain of command is here. Great. This is my chance. I walk into the room with a smile and try not to notice the huge slimy green and yellow bug that slides under the door as I take my seat inside the doctor’s office. As my chain of command enters, I take notice that the walls in the doctor’s office are blue, the color of the sky, as the doctor begins to speak, I relax. Blue is an amazing color, the color of the sky and of freedom, God is telling me that I will be free from the green walls soon.