In the beginning the clouds were great.
In my head they muffled my despair and misery. Everything seemed far away. Nothing touched me and everything seemed meaningless. It was a strange kind of feeling. Somehow I was no longer involved with my life. Somehow I was sitting in a small corner of my head and watched what the rest of me was doing. I was a spectator of my own self.
That helped me to get through the next meales without any anxiety attacks and for a while I felt save. I was allowed to go out and take long walks through spring-touched parks. I was allowed to stay in my room alone for more than an hour without being checked on every other minute. And I didn't feel any pain whenever I bumped or pinched myself. I didn't even feal any fear as my roommate started a coversation with me and even though I felt like my answers might have been a little slow, it was okay.
But with every passing hour I also realized the stormy sides of the clouds, t stay in the cloud-metaphor. They were not only protecting. While at first it was relieving to bear no responsibilities they also made it impossible to make responsible decissions and I started to distrust myself. Was that joke from one of the nurses really funny or were that the clouds misleading me? Was it me deciding to completely stay away from home the first weekend when I first talked to my new therapist or were the clouds again misleading me? And although I really liked being alone, weren't the clouds isolating me even more?
And then slowly the fear came creeping in again. I was being drugged! What was I doing? Was I even able to control myself anymore? Was I still able to think straight? And why were the last hours so damn blurry? What was it again, I had talked about with my roommate and what was her name again? What if I was to stay in this drugged state because I couldn't accuratly express myself anymore?
That was when I decided, the clouds had to disapear.
I think it was my first Saturday, sometime between noon and early evening and most patients were allowed to stay at home for the weekend so the whole station was quiet and empty and due to the orange light falling through the windows there was a sense of peace all around. Though I had the feeling that that was only what my drugged brain wanted me to feel...
To get to the nurses' office I had to walk to the other end of the long corridor which was lined with the doors to the patients' and group rooms. As it was so quiet I could hear my steps echoing from the walls but there was also something else. At first, propably again caused by my dazed mind, I couldn't think of any logical source for the strange sound. The picture of a wounded, scared animal came to my mind and after a few seconds, or minutes (the drugs messed with my sense of time as much as with my memory), of just standing still and listening I identified the noises. It wasn't a scared animal. Even in this state of mine, I knew animals were forbidden in the hospital. It was the ragged, panicked breath of a human and it was coming from the smallest of the three group rooms.
Slowly, not quite sure what I was doing and what it was that drove me to do it, I approached the source of the noises. The paniced person matching the paniced breath. Looking through the window into the room I couldn't see a person so I pushed open the door and there, sitting beneath the window, making himself as small as possible, was Jepp. I'm not sure how I was able to identify him in that instant, when I wasn't even able to remember the last two hours clearly, but all that mattered to me that moment was the obvious condition he was in. His breath was ragged, his body shaking, his hands tearing on his hair. He didn't even seem to notice me.
As I still had that panicked animal in my head I tried to move as gingerly as possible, one step to his side, bending my knees, sitting down next to him. Then came the most difficult part. The talking. How do you talk to an obviously panicked person, when it takes an eternity to build a sentence in your head and you can't even be sure that sentence makes sense after all? I tell you, you don't think about it. You just start talking. At least that's what I did.

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So.. I'm late. And I am soooooooo sorry about that!! My notebook had to be reset and the time before christmas always is so full. I actually want to update again this week but I am not sure I will be able to make it because my birthday and after that christmas is coming up. Still I am a bit more happy with this chapter then with the last one and I hope you enjoyed it!!

If I don't make it in time with another upload: Have a great christmas!!!!