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Young Writers Society



The Rehab Centre - Part 1.

by TheGirlInTheDress


"Emily! Can you come down the stairs for a while?"

A woman's voice called upstairs from the bottom of the set of stairs. The woman's voice belonged to Emily's Mother.

"Okay, Mom!"

Emily shouted from her bedroom, she ran into the bathroom and washed her wrist under the tap. She bit her bottom lip and scrunched up her nose as the blood and water came together. She hoped that it wouldn't stain the sink, it would be a dreadful thing for her Mother to find out, wouldn't it?

Emily made her way out of the bathroom, a fresh bandage on her wrist, covering the marks up. She grabbed a long sleeve top from her wardrobe and then swapped her pajama top for the long sleeve top. The bandage wasn't too noticable, she would just have to hope that her Mother wouldn't ask her to do the dishes or anything that required that she would roll her sleeves up.
Emily had been going through a rough time, not as rough as many people but she was finding it hard to cope with and so she fell in the line of self harming. Most people were stressed with their school work, society, love. Emily was struck with abandonment issues, her Father left soon after he found out her Mother's pregnancy with Emily. She didn't have a Father figure in her life and so she became awkward around the opposite sex.
Emily looked up from her lap, she was in a circle of people like her, self harmers, people with problems they couldn't handle and so they had ended up in here. Rehab. They all had different stories, there was three people in with drug problems, five in with alchol related problems, a few people in with anxiety, some with anoxeria and the rest of them with self harming. There was a few people that had tried to commit suicide then there was Emily.
Emily was most likely the oldest self harmer in the group, the reason being that most self harmers are in their teen years, dealing with their hormones, society and being accepted into that society, stress of exams and school. Whereas Emily is 25, most of the teenagers had brought themselves here to cope. Emily's husband had brought her here, they had went through a bit of grief and that got ontop of her.
The couple had been trying to get pregnant for a while and when they finally conceived a child, they thought that it would be the end of their wait for a baby. Although Emily was very careful, she was a bit too careful with her pregnancy and one day, she fell. She thought she was completely fine, she seemed like she was fine until she went to the bathroom to find that blood was everywhere.
A woman in the stall next to her had heard her wails and then had the restaurant call her an ambulance. It wasn't a happy day for Emily. She had a miscarriage and eventually she reverted back to her old ways. Self harming. Emily had given up self harm for a while as she thought it would creep her husband out a bit. It did and that's how she ended up in here.
Emily stormed out of the room, back to her room so she could have time to think. A nurse followed after her, almost running after this girl that would run home everyday so that she could hurt herself some more after a day of school, a day of trying to fit in with everyone. The nurses followed everyone around in the rehab center, they all scared that someone would hurt themselves really badly one day if they weren't around. Although it was for their safety, it did piss the people in the centre off quite a bit to have someone following them around everywhere. Checking up on them if they were spending too much time in the bathroom, not letting the male self harmers keep razors for shaving their facial hair, making sure the anoxeric people don't run to the bathroom after food as most of the time it would be so they could purge. No one could get a moment to themselves.
The last time her husband had dropped by, they had a fight and it all started with him bringing up the part about why she started self harming again, questioning her about it, she lost it with him and exited the visiting room. He hadn't visited her since and there was a part of her that was missing him then there was a part of her telling her not to miss him because he couldn't understand why she did it.
Emily sat on her bed, looking up at the white clock on the wall, it was visiting time. Part of her was telling her to go and look to see if her husband was there to see her but part of her was telling her that he wouldn't. She was reconsidering their relationship, it wouldn't be fair on him with her in here, how could anyone put up with their loved one in a Rehab centre? She didn't know why she could be reconsidering their relationship, they would always talk about forever and now, she's always looking out for his familiar face in the crowds of people even though it's unlikely he would be there. She didn't know how to cope in the Rehab centre, there was no one she could talk to that wouldn't be sitting on a chair with a clipboard while she's lying on a sofa.

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Fri Feb 18, 2022 12:32 pm
ForeverYoung299 wrote a review...



Hey! Forever here with a review!

This was an extremely sad piece which made me wonder about the flow of life and why it's so unfair at times. Let's get into the review anyway.

You presented quite a great view of the mind of a person who doesn't want to live anymore. No one really tried to see her condition from her point of view. They only judges her from whatever perspectives they had in themselves(their judgemental mindset in short). She was really in a poor condition. I don't know what to say about self-harm as a way of escaping from all these but hm... it's unhealthy. Well, I don't know but I do think that her mother could actually help her out, had she understood her. I am not very sure about her mother because a lot is not talked about her. I would suggest to leave one or two lines at least about the condition of her mother after her father abandoned them. She must have felt sad about it. We need some information about it and how she interacted with her mother. I don't think it would really consume a lot of words to provide a bit of interaction.

Next, we have the Rehab. Well, the condition of the Rehab didn't appear to good at all. Despite it being a Rehab, I think the condition was kind of like captivity. It was like police officers(nurse in reality) running behind the criminals all the time thinking that they may do something which can cause problems to them. I think that it didn't serve the purpose of a rehab at all. Moreover, it just complicated matters for Emily. She was deprived of everything she required in her life by bringing her to this Rehab. The Rehab was definitely a claustrophobic place for people.

I wonder a bit about Emily's husband. Now it would be bad for me to judge him without adequate information but I really think that he didn't love Emily. He should have understood that sending Emily to a Rehab or fighting with her wouldn't help. Hm... I wonder about his mental condition. Maybe he was not very well, mentally. We never know what can root from what. I wonder about this relationship. Honestly speaking, neither emily nor her husband is in a good situation. We need to see from both the POVs.

I would highly recommend putting warnings before the story. Self-harm actually counts s violence and you never went someone to read something which can trigger them in some way. Warnings are very important. It should at least be rated 16+, rating it 18+ wouldn't harm too.

Another thing, not very important but I would like to mention it. It's better to remove that italicization of the text in the beginning. I mean it can be achieved in some other way, the time gap. Just put three asterisks in middle. It would make up with the time gap. I have no idea about others but whenever I see italicization of text(a long paragraph) my mind begins to wonder what it is for.

Finally, the show don't tell technique. There were several instances where I think this technique could be used.You told a lot of things in a straight forward manner where they could be depicted in a well-organized and in a more visual manner. It could help the readers imagine the situation in a better manner. Anyway, overall, this story was an excellent one.

Keep Writing!!

~Forever




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Sun Jul 08, 2012 6:05 pm
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Part 2 of this story is here: work.php?id=96325





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