There’s a certain honesty to be found in lies (an oxymoronic prose and an admission). Lies reveal the extent of moral compromise one is willing to make and the degree of guilt one’s conscience will allow. In this sense, they can be regarded as a challenge to self. How much lying can one endure before it feels entirely wrong? What is the threshold before self-loathing? How long until lines are blurred and one starts to find it difficult to discern what was a lie from what actually occurred? For me lying became the default norm. I had to do it to cover up my OCD and justify my increasingly odd behavior. I lied to others and to myself. I lied to people I knew....continue reading

        Morning session had just ended and we now had our thirty-minute break. I decided to take mine outside. It was very crisp fall day and I wanted to feel the coldness in solitude. Today’s morning session was taxing and made me weary. I walked out of the unit and off toward a small courtyard near an adjacent building. The leafy trees kept most of the courtyard in shade throughout the day. This made the brick-lain ground and the air in the courtyard even cooler than elsewhere in the surround.         I should have pulled the hood of my hoodie on, but I let the chilly air envelope my head. I felt it burn the tip of my ears and flush my cheeks....continue reading

        The penny made a slow, careful descent. It almost seemed like it was navigating the gooey orange liquid to avoid the other debris already immersed in my container of Dial Body Wash. The oily piece of torn, crumpled newspaper I had fished out of the trash can on one of my excursions to the city, was suspended midway toward the bottom. The penny grazed the newspaper piece’s edge before continuing a measured fall toward the bottom where the other “Artifacts of Fear” rested. I wasn’t sure if these pieces of trash were getting cleaner by being dropped in a container of antibacterial body wash, or if the body wash was being contaminated further with each new dirty....continue reading

        I was just informed that I could leave here within the week. This was meant as good news. It meant I had proven I was sufficiently rehabilitated and could re-enter society. I had conflicting emotions about leaving. I did feel a swelling sense of achievement, real achievement, not the kind I had always pursued. And I was excited about the prospect of homemade food, being able to sleep in a bed with crisp sheets, and taking warm showers in a bathroom that didn’t mimic a dilapidated housing shelter facility. Yet, I also felt trepidation about checking out. I had grown attached to this place, the mental institution. It’s funny; the place I so....continue reading

        Coming back to Los Angeles after being released from McLean felt like a dream. Not as in it was a dream come true, but meaning I felt like I wasn’t completely back. I was in a dream state of sorts and felt like I was observing myself. I had been to a distant, unimaginable place and did very unusual things among very unique people. After that experience, returning to my old, “normal” life routine felt anything but normal. I guess the best way to describe it is that I now understood what people meant by the inability to readjust back into a normal routine after an extraordinary experience. I understood why soldiers returning from war couldn’t ever just resume....continue reading

        It’s a little known fact personal fitness trainers, who may be actively personally training their clients, don’t necessarily have any certification, or training themselves to do so. I learned this when I accidentally became a personal trainer myself.         I had recently moved to Boston from L.A., and after finding an apartment, decided to sign up at a nearby gym. I visited the nearby, gym, a branch of The Boston Sports Club chain, and was put off to learn that this dilapidated facility with outdated equipment charged more than the average competitive rate in Boston. While I wasn’t excited about the exercise establishment near me, I knew....continue reading