This is both a painful and fond memory to share, so thanks in advance for letting me tell this tale.
It was 1995, and I was committed to a state hospital in the US South. I was 13 and she (I’ll just call her “S”) was 15. I wasn’t schizophrenic yet, but was experiencing a prodromal depression. I was committed because of attempted homicide. She was there for terroristic threats. We’d both been there a couple months before we crossed paths at the hospital’s school.
We took an immediate liking to each other when we were placed in the same class and sat next to each other. The class was 20 minutes of instruction, then 40 minutes of textbook work and when we finished it we could talk freely amongst ourselves, as long as we were orderly and acted properly. S and I had heart-to-heart discussions about our families, our relationships with them, and how we’d both felt abandoned by our families and society as we rotted in the dilapidated state hospital.
Supervision was rather minimal during school hours (8-3 if I remember correctly). S and I arranged (conspired - heehee) to make some alone time together. The boys and girls bathroom were down a different hallway, out of sight, but the bathrooms required a key that the teacher would give out as needed. She’d go, then about 5 minutes later, I’d ask to go, and instead of actually going to the bathroom, I’d tap the girls door and she’d let me in. We were intimate in there, and it was wonderful. We wouldn’t be gone too long, and didn’t do it but once or twice a week so as to not arouse suspicion, but oh how I looked forward to our rendezvous.
The hospital put on a dance one day (kudos to the thread @PinCushion made about state hospital dances that inspired me to talk about this). The dance was held in the cafeteria and they scooted all the tables out of the way and made an impromptu dance floor. There was Kool-aid and chips and such. I honestly don’t remember any of the other patients actually dancing, but just milling about aimlessly. Most were drugged into oblivion. S and I got to slow dancing, holding each other close. I remember the smell of her hair, her snugly fitting Nirvana T-shirt and skinny, ripped jeans. Ya know, 90s garb. The staff on about 4 or 5 occasions told us to “put some space” between our bodies. She got mildly annoyed and said “Why are you so worried about it? It’s not like we can have sex through our clothes.” I don’t know if it was pity or the truth of the statement, but the staff left us alone the rest of the dance.
I’ll treasure that dance forever. One of my top 10 memories. Yes, even over being intimate with her. Something was so loving and pure about it. It lasted about 90 minutes, but it seemed like an eternity and a split-second at the same time. I don’t want to speak too much for her, but for me she taught me how to love and trust again. My family had collapsed all around me after my mother’s death from cancer when I was 11, with my father utterly turning on me and exiling me to live with a relative I didn’t even like.
I felt like the luckiest person in the world. I had the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, and with all the misery and oppression being in a place like that brought, I felt like she lifted me above it all, and as long as we had each other, the hospital was just a place to exist in.
I still dream of her from time to time. The morning after I have a smile for the first few hours of the day. I can still see every detail of her face, her brown eyes and long, straight brown hair that ended at the bottom of her shoulder blades, her love of lollipops, just about everything. I can’t even picture my own mother, and I knew her for much longer. S made such an impression on me that it was at times the only thing that got me through that horrible place.
The day she was discharged, I went absolutely ballistic. I escaped coming back from recreation while disembarking from the bus, got caught, punched a 300 pound staff member in the eye, got put in restraints, chewed through the restraint on my right hand and was subdued again when they saw I had escaped both wrist restraints. They cocktailed the hell out of me, all the while asking me what had gotten into me, as that behavior was not like me up to that point. I didn’t say anything, but it took me a long time to come to grips with the fact she was gone.
She was my first love, one of the very, very few of my life. We related so well, and nothing was off limits. We were totally open with each other, and it provided the light in a night that was dark and full of terrors. I still miss her. I’m just glad I had the time with her I did, and wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Thanks for listening.
so opinionated which was adorable.