Flashback Lee Eun Bi

Listen to// Sunflower By Younha (Doctors OST)

word count// 7866

“Patient, Lee Eun Bi, admitted for a suicide attempt. From here on out, you’re going to have to try your hardest to recover, but most of all heal.”

“Heal?”

“It is possible for anyone unless they have the will to.”

“But that’s the thing, I don’t have the will to.”

The media that target the age group of teenagers offer a false representation or glamorization of authentic issues teenagers face today. Books and movies always depict a depressed girl with low self- esteem instantly getting better once a boy pays attention to her. When self- harm is involved the girl is usually pressured into lying that she will stop for the sake of losing her boyfriend or friends. Then just like that the female heroine is happy and resumes her happy life. Leave it up to disdainful media outlets to disrespectfully glamorize teen depression.

None of that is true.

None.

The truth is depressed teens end up committing suicide. Or they end up in the hospital, like me.

“Can you hear me? Patient Lee Eun Bi? Please move your finger if you can hear me.” An immensely intense light blinded my pupils when someone forced my eyes open. The light grew distant until I recognized it to be a small flashlight. I blinked rapidly, inching my fingers up. Aches ran through every muscle and limb in my body. Even the plush pillow positioned behind my neck was becoming uncomfortable. I parted my chapped lips in an attempt to talk when I couldn’t force anything out.

“Don’t try to talk. Just rest.” A woman with bangs in a doctor’s coat told me, patting my hand gently.

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. That was the only response the doctors could get out of me. I remained curled up on the left side of the hospital bed, staring out the window that gave me the full view of the main nurses’ counter. I could see and hear everything, but shared nothing.

“Lee Eun Bi. Age eighteen. She was brought up here after paramedics brought her into the E.R. after she drowned. The witnesses attested that it was deliberate.”

“So a suicide attempt?” The voice belonged to the familiar face of that female doctor I first encountered when I woke up. “Well from the way she’s been lying inert like that for a whole week means that she is possibly depressed. Order a psych evaluation and report the results to me as soon as they come out.”

“Yes Ma’am.” The intern with the glasses nodded and walked away with a chart in hand.

“What about her guardian? Did you contact her family?”

“I asked if the initial doctor contacted her family, but then he told me that she’s a foster kid.” I heard a sigh from the doctor.

“Aigoo. Poor girl. We’ll need consent for treatment plans, so hit the books and tell me everything you can find about foster children policies.”

“Got it.” Other than the times I was sleeping, I would just look out the window to see what everyone was doing like a silent observer. I lost the will to carry on throughout the day. I was now eighteen. I was expelled from school for something I didn’t do and would have to leave the foster home once I turn nineteen. There was nothing left for me anymore. Besides its not like anyone is waiting for me.

The warm water flowed profusely out of the showerhead, washing away the dried blood on my wounds. Sadly, it could only get rid of the superficial layer. It couldn’t get rid of the inner layer, the one that I truly despised. I was drowning in a pool of atrocious emotions to the extent I became numb to everything. I grabbed at my own skin, hugging my knees to my chest as I stood still in a crouched position. I tilted my head up, allowing for the scalding water to wash away the tears on my face.  

I lost count of how many times the sun came up or when the moon did because one day I woke up to see the female doctor waving at me.

“Hi, Lee Eun Bi. I’m Dr. Ji Hae Soo. I’m the one who is going to help you, but only if you let me. So will you?” Help. Support. Assistance. She promised things that I have never received in my life. I could only look up at her and nod awkwardly. “Great. Now let’s start with cleaning up your wounds.” Dr. Ji smiled sweetly at me.

The alcohol stung the open wound, but was later relieved with the air that Dr. Ji was softly blowing. I appreciated the gesture. The wounds marring my body were a reminder of the heinous bullies who tormented me everyday at school. The more I kept thinking about it the more despondent I would become.

One day I was in bed, reading a book when Dr. Ji came in with an assignment for me. She handed me a sheet of paper and a pen, asking me to write a letter to my future self. Typically I would have completed the assignment, for I was always a diligent student, but this time I purposely left the paper blank.

Because I didn’t see a future for myself.

“Did you finish your letter?” She came in later that night to check up on me and all I had to show her was the blank sheet of paper. “Care to explain this?” She asked, peering at me intently.

“There’s nothing there, because I don’t see myself living past eighteen.” My voice came out in a monotone voice due to the indifference I felt.

The following day I was put on suicide watch with a nurse watching my every move and even following me into the bathroom. During the nights I couldn’t go bed under the uncomfortable watch of the nurse. Well, it wasn’t like I got much sleep anyway with my insomnia preventing me.

“No, no, no! No!” I screamed, blocking my ears with both of my hands as my body writhed in bed, fighting the thoughts that tore down my mentality. My pillow was wet with fresh tears and I felt like I was suffocating. My hands dropped to my side and my fingers dug into my palms, leaving crescent shaped marks in the soft flesh. I never stopped fighting the thoughts until it finally won, leaving me awake with a haunted mind.   Until one day the rage and sadness collided, bringing out a side of me that I despised and did my best to suppress.

“AHHH!” I screeched, knocking over the pile of books and tearing the room apart. I was enraged with everything that I wanted to ruin something. But in the end it was this exact destructiveness that drove me to end my own life.

It was me.

Screams of despair echoed throughout the hall. It was me. I allowed them to ruin me. I allowed the sadness to permeate my mind. I did that. It was me all along.

“LEE EUN BI!” Dr. Ji Hae Soo shouted, earning my attention. Her and her fellow doctors stood in front of me with a cautious stance with her hands out in the air. I lifted my head at her, grasping the cloth of my hospital outfit with trembling fingers at what I just realized. From where I was standing I asked for the helping hand that I never knew I had.

“Please help me.”

“Admitting that you need help and asking for it is the first step toward recovery. What is your purpose in wanting to recover?”

“I want to get my life back. I won’t let Depression steal it from it.”

“Obtain the happiness that you deserve, Eun Bi.”

"It's difficult to get the support you need when it isn't your body that's been injured, but your mind." Dr. Ji started off saying during the counseling session. “Do you know why you’re here?” My eyes focused to my hands as the room became silent. I gave her a quick nod meekly. I felt timid after my self-esteem was stepped and beaten on.

“Today I’ll be giving you your diagnosis. Lee Eun Bi, you have what we call Clinical Depression. It is treatable and we’ll prepare a treatment option for you. But none of this would be effective unless you harbor the will to recover and get better.”

“I keep losing the will…” I whispered to Dr. Ji, staring down at my scraped hands.

I blocked out the thoughts with my ear-buds and read my book, wishing to escape my current situation. My love of books stemmed from the fact that books allowed me to enter an alternative universe and away from all my problems. I was reading when I saw a boy my age holding onto a rope as he stared at me as though he was enchanted. My eyebrows crinkled into a furrow as I wondered what he was doing on the seventh floor with a rope.

We locked eyes, taking both of us off guard and mesmerized at the same time. Until his body started moving erratically. His knuckles were white as he held onto the rope when he lost his footing on the wooden board. The expression he wore on his face when he lost his footing struck a cord within me. It was familiar. Desperation flashed across his features, prompting me to act.

I yanked my ear buds out, dropping my book on the ground to open the window for him. His grip on the rope was slipping down every second. Pushing open the window I my arm out for him.

"Grab my hand!" I shouted, reaching out my hand for him to grab. Shockingly his expression was rather surprised when he should have been scared to death to fall from the seventh floor. Hesitantly, he let go of the rope to grab my hand. His reluctance alarmed me at the thought of this being deliberate.

His hand was warm compared to mine. His hand inched up my arm, grabbing at it with such despair. Using all the strength within me I pulled him through the window. He held onto the window frame as I helped him get inside. Then he used his footing on the window to push himself inside.

“Are you okay?” I asked him as the blonde haired boy caught his breath while on the ground. He was silent. His eyes were staring at his hands, which were reddened from his tight grip on the rope. In that moment I realized the reason for his silence. The thoughts within him were too loud, deafening all the other external noises out. The thoughts that were responsible for his imprudent actions, which ultimately placed his life at stake. But the way he hesitated for a second to grab my hand reminded me of my own response to receiving help.

Suddenly, his eyes shifted up to meet mine, which were leveled with his due to my crouching position. I faltered backwards, landing on the palms of my hands while his gaze continued to stare through me. It was so silent that even the sound of our breathing seemed to be too loud.

"Patient Gong Tae Kwang!" Several nurses and doctors barged into my room wheeling another bed into my room. Dr. Ji crouched down in front Tae Kwang, trying to gain his attention. The boy continued to just sit there. A needle filled with a sedative was injected into his and then, he was lifted onto the bed by the two burly male nurses. After the doctors and nurses left, strolling his bed out I was left in my room alone again.

I sat down on my bed, pondering about what just occurred. To say that the blonde intrigued me was an accurate statement. However for the following weeks, I saw no sight of him.

Since I didn’t have any friends I would always occupy myself with books and music. The habit continued on even in the hospital. I would ask around to the nurses and doctors if they had any books that I could read. Then it became a routine of me receiving a new book every-time I finished one. The pile of books on the nightstand were growing taller every passing day. Sometimes the doctors or nurses even visited me in my room to deliver a book to me.

Every night remained the same. Every night I would writhe in my bed under the sheets, covering my ears with scratched up hands, trying to refute the malicious voices shouting only for me to succumb. My eyes scrunched up as I felt the tears flowing down my chin and onto the pillows. My eyes stung and my temples began to throb, sending shocks of pain through my spine. Despite my shut eyes and desire to cease them, tears kept incessantly forming and flowing as though it was a physical instinct emerging to reflect my emotional vulnerability. My breathing became languid as I turned over on the bed, allowing me to feel the definite beating of my heart. “When will I be rid of this torture?” I breathily whispered from my dry, parted lips into the dark room.

“Electrotherapy would be the most efficient treatment option for you. You won’t feel any pain. You’ll be sedated and simply sleeping during the procedure. You have nothing to worry about.” I nodded to Dr. Ji as a nurse administered doses of a sedative into my line that was already connected to one of my veins. “Count backwards from ten.”

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three…” When the countdown came, a sudden thought came into mind. Scientists say that there are three states of matter. Solid, liquid, or gas. But for us humans, those three states of matter are happiness, suffering, or death. And right now I was stuck in the middle state of suffering. An odd middle state stuck between happiness and death. The happiness I felt was fleeting and death wasn’t absolute. I was trapped in the tortuous middle stage of suffering. My eyes drooped to a close and my first treatment session commenced.

It was nice to not think for a while. I liked it, having a completely blank and empty mind.

“Thanks to your kind act Tae Kwang has been safely moved back to his room. Eun Bi tell me, why do you treat people kindly?”

“Because it’s the morally correct thing to do.”

“Yes, that is correct. Because it is the right thing to do, shouldn’t you be kind to yourself as well?”

“I never thought it about that way.”

“Imagine the progress you would make if you treated yourself as kindly as you treated everyone else.”

The condescending voice in my head would berate me and beat my self- esteem. Every morning, my reflection in the mirror would turn more pallid while my dark circles darkened. When I finally decided to share it with Dr. Ji in a session, she taught me a method that proved to be effective.

“Your depression is not you. You have to think of it as your bully. Give it a name and whenever you hear that voice, fight back! And never give up fighting until it silences.”

Naming my depression altered my perspective on the entire disorder itself. It won’t be the one controlling me or jeering at me, but it was simply just another pathetic being. It reminded me of my actual bully, Kang So Young. I looked past her indestructible guise and felt pity for her due to her low actions. However, the more I thought about it my shoulders continued to droop. I couldn’t even overcome her bullying, then how would I triumph over my own disorder?

“When will these bullies stop?” I uttered as I drowned in my own tears every night with the malicious bullies taunting me, insulting me every single second of the day. “You don’t get to say that! You don’t get to ruin me!” Were the words that left my lips every night before the sleeping pills would kick in.

After spending time by myself and reflecting on my suicide attempt I stepped foot out into the garden for the first time. Other patients were walking around or talking with their visitors, who were distinguishable by their clothing. I located a bench and sat down with my ear-buds, appreciating the fresh air. The boy I recognized to be Tae Kwang simply sat beside me, listening to my playlist.

It happened ever so naturally. Same time every day he would appear in the garden and sit with me. I appreciated him for starting the conversation first due to the fact that my shy nature made it a bit difficult for me to do so. Gradually as time went on, I found myself sharing with him the events that brought me here.

“This place has a pretty interesting nickname. The patients here call it the Black Box. Want to know why?” Tae Kwang asked, inciting my curiosity. He always had some interesting story to share, but most of all he was willing to share his story with me.

“The color black symbolizes the unknown and fear. That represents how the majority views us. The patients within the box are shrouded in mystery and fear based on mere assumptions and stigmatizations. But if you just open the black box, then you’ll be able to see that we’re just like everyone else. We’re just hopeful patients with injured minds. That’s all it is.”

“Where did you learn such a thing?”

“I’ve been here for two months. I heard plenty of things.” He remarked, smiling at me. It surprised me how many times I smiled when I was with him. He had this undeniable charisma surrounding him. He was kind, funny, sardonic at times, but nonetheless affable.

“This is my favorite book at the moment. Do you want to read it?” I asked him, pulling out the book that a nurse gifted me.

“A book? Nah, I’m not really a fan of reading.” Thinking that I was capable of changing his mind, I flipped through the book and read to him a passage that I particularly empathized with. This novel has given me immense encouragement and I cherished the contents of it.

“Thomas Edison's last words were "It's very beautiful over there". I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope i