The room was quiet and I realized my joke had not landed well at all. Instead of laughing, people looked at me with pity. Damn, I hated that look in their eyes. Didn’t they understand I was joking? I grumbled a bit under my breath, but then sat quietly as Melanie continued the session.
“Let’s continue,” Melanie said without addressing my comment.
My sense of humor was just how I coped with things. I didn’t mean anything by it. I used my jokes to lighten the mood. Admittedly, it didn’t always work. But being uncomfortable didn’t work for me at all. I hated the idea of talking to the group about who I was or how I loved myself. I didn’t know. I didn’t even know if I could feel love anymore, but if I could, it probably wouldn’t be toward myself.
I didn’t think about things like that on a normal basis. Are we supposed to love ourselves? Really, was that what happy people do? I wondered. I had always thought people were just naturally happy or they weren’t. There was nothing I could think of that would constitute loving myself – except the playing I did under the sheets at night. I truly had no idea what she wanted us to say.
I sat quietly as the group talked and interacted. Partly because I was afraid of saying something stupid and partly because I didn’t have anything to add. There wasn’t anything good about me. Sure, I could pretend really well, but as I sat in the group of people who I didn’t know, I couldn’t even muster up the energy to pretend that I knew how to love myself.
“Erik, would you like to share with the group?” Melanie asked.
“No, thank you.”
I expected some sort of backlash for refusing to participate in the group session. Surely, it was supposed to be part of the treatment and I was being a giant asshole for not offering another word to the group session. Or maybe they would threaten to take away more points, or prevent me from getting a room with a door. I didn’t know what to expect as my punishment, but I was just going to have to take it because I didn’t have an answer.
“Okay,” Melanie responded before moving on to the next person in the circle.
As well as being our recreation therapist, Melanie was a licensed mental health therapist. The two things that wouldn’t seem to work well together, but to me, they were perfect. As our group wrapped up, she put the chairs in an obstacle course and said the first person to finish could decide what we did for recreation therapy later in the day.
I had been dying to swim, and I set my eyes on winning our little therapy session, but I was too sore to make a go at it. Instead, I snuck out the back of the room as they all started to vibrantly race for the control that we all yearned for since we had been in treatment. I wasn’t ready to get into a pool yet. There were too many fears that I had built up and I wasn’t going to expose those fears to all the strangers I was in treatment with.
I had done enough for the day. I showed up to group. I was sick as hell and I showed up to group. It didn’t seem that useful for me to have gone, but at least I didn’t lose any damn points that day.
Chapter Seven
Cassidy
“It’s been a week since he attended a group. I’m surprised he hasn’t just up and left. He’s not doing anything but sleeping in his room,” Kaitlin said as I put Erik’s breakfast tray back on the cart.
“What happened? I mean, I thought he was making an effort.”
“Not sure, but the last few days I haven’t seen him at all. I tried telling him he was never going to get a room with a door on it if he didn’t go to groups, but he didn’t seem to care.”
“Is he doing anything?” I asked as concern for Erik pushed through in my voice.
“He’s been meeting with Jarrod. That’s something, I guess.”
“Well, I’m here today. So, I’ll get him to go to group,” I said confidently.
Surely, everyone else must just really suck at motivating people. Erik and I had talked a few times and certainly he wasn’t the easiest of patients, but he wasn’t the worst, either. He had come for a hike and even went to group with Melanie the last time I had worked. I was positive I would be able to motivate him and get him back into his treatment.
“I’ll take that bet,” Kaitlin joked.
“It wasn’t exactly a bet. I’m just saying I have a way with people and I can get him to go to group.”
“So, what you’re saying is that everyone else who has worked this week isn’t nearly as good as you. And now that you’re here, you will be able to magically motivate the man into getting up out of bed and stopping his self-pity party to attend group sessions?”
She seemed pretty annoyed at my insinuation that I could motivate patients better than others. I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was putting Kaitlin or anyone else down, but I did feel like I had a way with patients. Maybe it was because I had also gone through treatment, or perhaps it was because I was honest with them. But for whatever reason, patients listened to me more often than not.
“I’ll go wake him up again. I didn’t know he had been sleeping in all morning or I would have been tougher on him.”
“So, what’s the bet?” Kaitlin said with a grin.
“What do you want it to be?”
“If he refuses to go to group, you’ll come out to the jazz club with me this weekend. If you can get him up, I’ll go out with you to the jazz club.” She laughed.
“That seems like a lose-lose situation for me.”