I Will Not Give Up
Part 7

It was dusk by the time I got out of my group therapy session. I wasn't sure what time it was. I wasn't keen to find out. No one really looked at the time here. The date, day, time...it was all meaningless.

It still felt as if I was admitted into the psychiatric ward yesterday. For all I know, I could've been here for years instead of days.

As I walked by the lounge, I heard someone shouting. It was a patient.

"This is insane! Nobody is in their right mind in this world. How many times do I have to tell you?
I. Am. Not. Insane!"

After that, I realized today must be Friday.

When people first get here, they all say they aren't crazy. Even if they deny it, at the end of the day we all accept the fact that we are. There's nothing we can do about it.  The new patients are the only ones who constantly insist they are sane.

The only exception was the man yelling in the lounge. He wasn't a new patient. He was expressionless. He would sit in corners mumbling to himself: "I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy."

He always said that he'd been the one to admit himself here.
Admitting yourself here was a stupid thing to do, in my opinion. I could agree with him and tell him he isn't crazy. But would it really change anything? We were stuck here either way. Trapped in a sense.

The man had a session in the outpatient ward every Friday. He always screamed louder on a Friday, as if he was more unhinged. He didn't make anything better for the rest of us here. Some people were pissed off when he started and some started to doubt themselves.

People would start to think: "Am I crazy too? How crazy am I to be here? Why did I end up like this?"

I walked away from the lounge and turned the corner. I bumped head on into someone. hard. I lost my footing and fell onto my arm. My shoulder pained.

I looked up and met eyes with the idiot who'd bumped into me.

"You broke the door," the idiot said.

I looked over at door leading to the off-limits ward. It closed with a clank as someone locked it again.

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