“How many groups do we have around here?” I grumbled as I climbed out of bed.
“A lot,” Brad answered while he walked out of the room.
“Hey, now. What else are you guys going to do with your days? Sit around and have a pity party?”
“Thanks for the breakfast. I’m sorry I didn’t feel like eating much.”
“You scared the shit out of me, you know. I couldn’t wake you up. I had to get Jarrod,” she said as her eyes watched me walk toward her.
The realization that Cassidy had seen me so vulnerable didn’t make me feel great at all. I was eroding away my cool exterior faster and faster. She wasn’t going to fall for a guy like me. She had probably been hit on by dozens of guys like me over the years. I felt a little foolish for the way I had behaved when I first arrived. Of course, I wasn’t about to apologize, but I did feel bad about it.
“You saw all that?” I asked.
“I’m just glad you’re all right.”
“Thanks, doll,” I said and strolled past her.
Thanks, doll?! Oh my God, what had I just said? Cassidy was being genuinely nice and instead of just being normal, I turned into some sort of seventies player. Close, personal interactions certainly weren’t my thing.
To be honest, any emotional connection with someone wasn’t something I could do. I had no experience in it and that sort of relationship scared the hell out of me. A woman who thought she could have a real relationship with me quickly realized it would only cause her a broken heart. I didn’t have relationships. I had sex, and that was all it was. One-night stands that were fun in the bed and didn’t bother me afterwards – those were what I wanted.
“Look who decided to show up,” a woman’s voice said and was followed by clapping as I walked into the group session.
It was Kimber, and her clapping echoed throughout the room. It was sarcastic in nature, but some of the other patients followed suit and clapped, as well. Before I knew it, they were all clapping in appreciation for my attendance to group. There was an odd enjoyment in the moment. Even though it had started from sarcasm, the others had joined in to support my attending.
I playfully took a little bow and sat down in one of the chairs. Even though I felt awful, I was going to put on a good face and give the group thing a chance. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t go again; it seemed simple enough to me.
“Now that everyone’s here, I think we should use today’s session to talk about why we love ourselves,” Melanie said.
“Oh, I love myself every night under the covers,” I joked.
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 a
ll. 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