#i finally got to watch inside last Friday after waiting 181 days

[sparrowstarsandsorrow]

Current mental state: listening to silly songs whilst my mental health is slowly deteriorating

[lockedstuck]

they have covered my sky with crystal

2021, 04/08 - Sollux Captor

Dr. Vandayar is not the clinician who sees you today. Instead, it’s Dr. Cao, who keeps squinting at the light as if he’s got either a hangover or a migraine.

“So, Krishna tells me that you’ve made up your mind about ECT,” he says.

“I have.”

“And?”

“I want to do it,” you say. “On one condition.”

“And that is?” Dr. Cao asks smoothly, as if he’s accustomed to bartering with patients over undesirable treatments.

“If there isn’t any improvement by the seventh treatment, you let me go home. I’d be giving up almost three weeks of my life for this, but I have a lot to do. No doubt that Dr. V has told you about my living situation and responsibilities to my family.”

“As a matter of fact, he has.” Dr. Cao pours himself another coffee, from the pot on his desk. “But I have conditions for you as well, Mr. Captor.”

“Yeah? What are they?”

“If you do improve within seven treatments, I’d like you to stay for at least twelve, so we can get the most out of this modality. I’d also prefer if you went for maintenance ECT twice a week, once you can be managed in an outpatient setting.”

“Fine,” you reply.

“Alright, then.” Dr. Cao flips through your chart for a moment until he finds what he’s looking for. “Dolores said you wrote a 72 hour letter earlier this morning? Are you retracting it, or…?”

“Yes, I am. I actually retracted it about an hour after I wrote it. I worry about my family a lot. And my mother had gone missing again. My dad found her a couple blocks away, but she had no clue why she’d walked out, or what she had gone out to get. She’s got really bad schizophrenia, and her meds barely work. My sibling, they keep an eye on her, but they’re also mentally ill and not always there either.”

“Who takes care of them when you aren’t in the picture?”

“My dad, sir. But he works a lot, and he can’t always be around when some shit goes down.”

“Have you considered getting a home health aide for your mother in order to ease the burden of caring for her?”

“I mean, yeah, but it’s already hard for her to trust anyone in the family,” you explain. “I don’t know how she’d react to a stranger.”

“If that’s an issue, perhaps one of your extended family members could step in? There are programs where they can collect an income to care for her. I’ll be honest with you, Sollux. I feel like a decent amount of your depression stems from having so many responsibilities.”

“You can say that again.”

“I’m serious, Sollux. The ECT will help you to establish a baseline that isn’t crushing depression, but only you can make modifications to your life situation that will ease the burden of responsibility.”

Is he really suggesting that you let some rando or some dipshit cousin who’ll only be there for the paycheck watch your mother? Does he really think that’ll stress you out less?

“I can see the skepticism in your eyes,” he adds. “Go to your 10 AM group and I’ll be around to get things settled so you can start ECT by either Friday or next Monday.”

Instead of going straight to group, you take about fifteen minutes to shower the grime and dirt off your body. This is only the fourth shower you’ve taken in thirteen days. You hate looking at all the self-injury scars, so you lather up and wash as carefully as you can in ten of those minutes.

Your 10 AM group is DBT with Marisol Perez, the extern. She’s got a vision impairment but that doesn’t stop her from leading the group, or doing her job in general. And she doesn’t miss a beat despite your being twenty minutes late. She nods at you and hands you a worksheet. 

“Today, we’re discussing interpersonal effectiveness, through the application of the ‘DEAR MAN’ skill, Sollux.”

Yeah, you remember that skill. You take a seat with June, Porrim, Eridan and Latula. June looks uncharacteristically solemn today. 

You want to wish her a happy birthday, but you don’t want to upset her further. 

Latula waves at you, Porrim smiles, and Eridan gives you a jaunty little half-salute. You try to take notes on the last few minutes of group, but your discussion with Dr. Cao has left you nervous and jittery. What if your mother runs away from home and doesn’t come back while you’re here doing ECT? Are you really willing to take that chance?

You get up from your spot in the group and jog over to the nurses’ station. Dolores sits inside the charting room typing something up. You wave her over.

“Yes, Sollux?” she asks. “What can I do for you?”

“Can I get something for anxiety?”

“Of course you can,” she says. She checks the nearby computer. “Okay, let’s see what you can have.” A pause. “Do you want the lorazepam or the hydroxyzine?”

“Both.”

“You sure that you want both? Both will probably make you sleepy.”

“I know.”

By the time she gets both out of the machine, June has taken the spot immediately behind you, and Roxy behind her. You suppose you’re not the only one who is anxious today. However, behind you, June insists on switching places with Roxy. Sweat gleams off Roxy’s forehead as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

Once Dolores gives you your meds, she walks out of the nurses’ station and gives Roxy a once-over.

“Here, let me get a set of vitals on you,” she says, while the blonde girl shivers. You know you’re not supposed to stick around, that Roxy’s medical data is between her and Dolores, but Roxy looks genuinely sick. You’re not close to her like Porrim, June, and Eridan are, but you’re still worried, and you are her friend.

So is Dolores, once she gets a look at Roxy’s blood pressure.

“181/97,” Dolores murmurs. “That’s way too high. You’re in withdrawal.”

“No shit,” Roxy mutters through gritted teeth, and then apologizes for cursing at Dolores, who quickly checks the computer. 

“Okay, you’re due for Ativan in an hour and a half, but right this second, you’re due for clonidine and your methadone. Do you want those, and then I can call Dr. Cao and see about giving you the Ativan a little early?”

Roxy nods hastily and takes a seat on a chair not far from the nurse’s station.

As Dolores goes into the medication room, she calls for June. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, I just have to deal with this situation first.”

Dolores brings the medication to where Roxy sits. Roxy uses the liquid methadone in a styrofoam cup to swallow her clonidine. When she’s done, she gives both the medication cup and the larger cup back to Dolores.

“Okay, my dear. Sit tight and we’ll see about the Ativan when Dr. Cao calls back,” she says. She turns to June. “What was it that you wanted?”

“Anxiety meds.”

Dolores gives a little snort. “Is everyone coming to me because of anxiety? Are all of you okay? Bad group or something?”

“No, not at all. Marisol’s group was nice, but Roxy’s been anxious since before group started, Sollux was in a meeting with Dr. Cao, and I’ve been trying to manage my anxiety since right after breakfast.”

“You’re doing well, then, my dear,” Dolores replies. “And that was a kind thing you did, letting Roxy go before you.”

“It’s no problem. I’ve been waiting for something since before nine in the morning. Another couple minutes won’t hurt me.”

Dolores goes into the nurses’ station a final time and gets June’s medication together. A phone call from who only knows stalls her for a couple of minutes, and then she goes back into the med room. By the time she emerges, she has two medication cups.

“Okay, Roxy? I have your meds and June’s meds,” she calls. 

Roxy has been curled up into a ball on the bench for the last five minutes. You had given her a couple of napkins to wipe her face off, but she still looks sweaty.

“Right, June, you get two milligrams of lorazepam, and Roxy, you get… two miligrams of lorazepam,” she says. The pause makes Roxy giggle. She and June take their meds. Roxy asks Dolores if she can shower, and the latter goes into sharps to hand her her body wash, and her shampoo. 

“Make sure to give it back to me when you’re done, my dear” 

That’s when Dirk decides to walk by, and unlock the door to the outside enclosure.

“Fresh air break, everyone!” he calls. “C’mon y’all, come out and get that Vitamin D.”

“Hey Dirk!” Roxy calls, seeming slightly better. “Can you give me some of that that Vitamin D? Like, one on one?”

Dirk rolls his eyes and says something like, “They really need to up your mood stabilizers.��

You and June go outside to take in the cool air. It’s maybe sixty seven degrees outside, which isn’t bad at all. 

June takes off her hair tie and unbraids her hair. You watch several inches of almost ruler straight hair cascade down her back. Your mouth goes dry for a moment. You always had a knack for crushing on girls with long hair. June notices you looking at her and cocks her head to one side.

“Is there something on my face?”

“No, no, not at all,” you reply. “Your hair looks cute like that, though.”

Much to your surprise, June blushes. You had expected some joking nonchalance, but not that. You decide to change the subject.

“Thank you for talking to me late last night,” you tell her. “It helped more than you understand.”

You hadn’t meant to have June watch you cry at two in the morning, but she and Roxy were up in the dayroom, conducting a quiet conversation. Apparently, Roxy woke up with a bad stomach ache and muscle cramps, and that June woke up to keep her company until Ignacio could get in touch with a doctor and get Roxy a one-time late-night dose of something for pain and agitation.

While Roxy was at the nurses’ station waiting for Ignacio to finish paging the on-call doctor, you and June started shooting the shit. You told her about your father’s insistence on seeing you every single day during visiting hours, unless Aradia was visiting, since you could only have one visitor at a time. 

“I don’t understand it, June,” you told her, stray tears running down your face. “He’s sixty-three and he has diabetes and hypertension. He needs to take it easy, but he still shows up every day, after work. I wish he wouldn’t.”

“Your father loves you,” June said. “That much should be obvious.”

“Yeah, but why? I’m a waste of space. I dropped out of my master’s degree program, I barely help around the house, and I spent a week in bed, not moving. Just lazing around and hating myself. Then, I tried to cut my throat in our upstairs bathroom.”

June shook her head. 

“Unconditional love doesn’t only exist when you’re doing well. People who really love you will love you even when you’re not feeling up to do anything, even when you’re stuck in a vortex of depression. I barely left my room for a few months. And forget about going outside. I was so agoraphobic and depressed that even when my friends called me to hang out, I stayed in my room and didn’t leave.”

June rolled up her sleeves and showed you several straight-line scars covering her wrists and arms.

“My dad was shocked when he saw these. He couldn’t understand why anyone would do that. I guess that he and I both thought that once I started transitioning a couple years ago, I would never be depressed again. I told him I was suicidal, that my antidepressants had stopped working, and he brought me here. He’s not young either. He’ll be fifty-eight in a week. He has congestive heart failure. I’ve given up on telling him not to come see me every day. It’s a choice that he makes, because he loves me, and he worries about me.”

“What about your mom, though? You said a couple days ago that she was younger than your dad,” Sollux asked. “Why doesn’t she come to see you? My mom won’t come because she’s scared of psych wards.”

“My mother left when I was two. As it turns out, she wasn’t ready for the responsibility of parenting.”

Nervous, you scratched the back of your head. “Oh, wow. That’s awful. I’m sorry for bringing it up.”

“No worries. You didn’t know.”

You awkwardly ambled back to your room, where Gamzee lay in a sound sleep on the opposite bed. For some reason, sleep came easily back to you, and you awoke again at 6:40, feeling more rested than you had for a while.

Here and now, you peer into June’s bright blue eyes. She’s got a deck of cards in her hand that she arranges according to suit, to make sure none are missing. After she’s done, she sighs, annoyed.

“Someone took the three and the nine of spades, and never put them back.” She groans. “You can’t have a decent game of anything without these cards.”

“Maybe blackjack,” you suggest. “Or crazy eights.”

“We’d need more players for either one.”