Since it was my first day here, I had been left much to myself to get acquainted with my new environment. I learned later that this is done intentionally. While a strict regimen of structured time is in effect during one’s stay at McLean, the first day you check in you’re left to discover things on your own. They give you some time and space to take it all in. Not just the new environment that you’re in, but also the idea of where you are.         I spent the evening hours of my first day mostly walking around the hospital grounds and sitting by myself in the cafeteria building. After spending a good amount of time in the cafeteria doing....continue reading

        My cell phone alarm woke me up at five-thirty a.m. Being in an unfamiliar environment, I wanted to give myself some extra time to make it to the day’s first group session, which starts promptly at 8am. The staff had repeatedly warned me that they shut the door to group exactly at eight a.m. and they make absolutely no exceptions to let anyone in even if they arrive a second after the door closes. I didn’t want to make a bad first impression by missing my first session in which I’m to officially meet all the other patients. Suddenly I felt a familiar nervousness in my body that I couldn’t quite place.         I knew it wasn’t the same....continue reading

        As I walked into the room where the Morning Meeting takes place, I found that most of the chairs were already taken by the other patients. The chairs were arranged against the walls and everyone was facing each other. I didn’t know where to sit so I stood in the middle of the room awkwardly for a moment. I quickly try to assess who looks the least odd and “dirty” to me. I identify a nice-looking girl who appears to be in her early thirties and attired in Gap-like clothes. The seat next her is empty but so is the seat next to that one, so there’s a risk that a weirdo will come sit next to me after I take the seat next to her. As I can’t linger much longer....continue reading

        Apparently I was to meet Behavioral Therapist Jared in my room. I bet he wanted to observe how I had settled in, which could be described as “not well.” I hadn’t unpacked my large duffle bag or placed any clothes into the 1970’s looking, scratched, wooden three-drawer dresser. I tended not to allow my clothes and personal items to be housed in foreign containers. I may have ventured to unpack clothes into the bureaus in the Four Seasons hotel if I felt brave enough and after careful visual inspection, but placing my clean clothes into that dresser that was a dilapidated relic – no. At least my bed had been made and everything looked tidy.      ....continue reading

        It was late on Sunday night. Despite an overwhelming sense of lethargy, I knew I wouldn’t be heading to bed anytime soon. Actually, I was in bed, I had just awoken from a lengthy nap, but I meant I wouldn’t be sleeping for the night anytime soon. As in on a normal day-to-night schedule, like what normal people do…not stay in bed all day and stay up all night. While I was lying in bed, still extremely tired, I wasn’t planning on sleeping anymore. I had to be at work early the next morning, yes, but I also had designated this weekend, which meant this Sunday night since I’m an extreme procrastinator, to do my “garbage heap cleaning.”        ....continue reading

        About four weeks had passed since when I first arrived at McLean and I was actually starting to feel good about being there. It was easy to pretend that I was “on holiday” if I felt so inclined. The setting was certainly conducive to imaginative allusion. The New England fall is famously inspiring. After all, the area has bred some of literature and poetry’s more notable and rousing luminaries. Emily Dickenson, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne to just name a few, pondered prose among the rich foliage of the Red Maples and in view of majestic White Cedars. And many of New England’s native trees were represented on....continue reading