White House, White Coats

I think I’ve been here a week.

A sprawling set of sanitised squares.

They say I wasn’t acting right, which is funny, because I don’t remember ever acting any other way.

They can keep me here for 28 days, but will assess me before the end, and I could be detained under ‘section 3’ for longer.

I’m not sure what ‘longer’ means, but it doesn’t sound good.

At around 7.00 a.m. each day, doors beep and click-clack open. We are pretty free to wander, but there are some non-negotiable ceremonies and activities: scoffing magic hair mouth pills, repetitive 1-2-1 ‘chats’, and various group sessions.

The dry man that conducts my 1-2-1 chats is a right piece of work.

Today, he ticked through what felt like a deliberately exhausting list of questions and prompts. All of them unwelcome. Some of the more triggering ones were: “How would you describe your relationship with your family?” - “Do you enjoy being around large groups of people?” - “Tell me about a time you were upset.”

At the end I asked him if he was happy that his life’s work was basically playing Connect 4 with chemical criteria checkers.

I also asked him if he thought his emotions were real.

He wasn’t happy.

It’s safe to say I won’t get out of here soon if he has anything to do with it.

I’ve heard if you try to fly, and they scoop you up, you get the straps and the syringe.

It used to be the watt wig or a scalping, but apparently those methods aren’t considered humane anymore, whereas poison bondage is.

Screw it.

I’ve decided it’s worth a shot.

Feathers won’t be a problem, there’s enough peacocks in this life.

I just need to keep the wax away from the sun.

Wish me luck.

God knows I need it.