Being in a Mental Hospital while Your Aunt has Stage 4 Cancer

[Sensitive: Contains Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Suicide]

Daphne was in a cool suburban area while she enjoyed the breeze from the open window, with a safe screen to keep the dust outside, the sunshine rays coming in every morning as she woke up smothered in blankets, to stretch Daphne's arms and waist completely before getting out of bed.

She started off every day listening to music, it cheered Daphne up to get out of bed and get the day rolling. She made two sunny-side eggs with a piece of whole grain toast every day. With two vitamins on the side and a warm glass of milk and coffee.

Anytime Daphne's parents strolled away, and she was in the house alone, she would begin to devise a plan to obtain the right parts to make her day feel even more complete, for the rest of it at least.

Music only sounded good in the morning.

With Daphne's many diagnoses, she struggled in society, to get a job, obtain friends, and pay for herself independently.

So she would secretly go and pile random things up to make her closet feel full. Daphne sometimes would put in potted plants such as aloe vera so she could put it on her skin, and make her feel rejuvenated. Other times she would shovel a random small pile of filtered dirt by itself because it comforted her that she could be more of a part of outside. If she felt cranky, she would go outside, and go on a date with a new man to get a pile of new dresses after completely cleaning every corner of her closet from head to toe.

After many weeks of these types of habits, Daphne never wanted to fill her closet with one type of item. She wanted it to feel full and vibrant so that there would at least be some fractions leftover of herself when she opened the dark closet that always felt empty. She cared a lot about light placement and it always had to feel bright, so that it could cheer her up during days that didn't quite feel right.

So, Daphne finally decided to put in a Rubik's cube- to make her feel attached to the sciences. One she got from her brother. She also added an assortment of perfumes from different countries. Her favorite colored roses, which were a mix of purple and white because it reminded her that sadness still exists but it's not something that heavily mattered. A guitar was too big, and she enjoyed string instruments so a Ukulele was the best option to represent her love for music. With these small items of significance, it brought joy to her day. To maintain these items and make sure that she wouldn't change too much- according to her tendencies. Her goal was to become consistent and stagnant enough to finally be able to leave the house and enjoy becoming a part of society.

She played with these objects every day, and her absolute goal was to be as quiet as possible, although it never worked out. Neighbors would complain left and right, her parents would knock on her locked door loudly telling her that she needed to at least tune her Ukulele. But it at least felt right, the notes fit more comfortably in her ears during the notion of this contemporary world. That's always evolving- obviously.

Her day was always filled with happiness, but she never felt satisfied, because she felt like a leech to her parents who couldn't bring them anything valid. And only steal from them to buy these useless significant objects to entertain herself and distract other people because she was so obviously full of herself.

There was no escape to this feeling of uselessness and she couldn't figure out if it made sense because she had trouble paying attention to one hobby, if she'd just never had time to explore her hobbies, or it was simply imposter syndrome. Of course her- ironically, intentions were to be delightful, like the first letter in her name. But life didn't always play out that way. The fact that she was ever a disturbance unintentionally hurt her so badly, and that's when she would look at the dead flowers in her closet. Daphne felt that it made more sense to curl up harder in a ball and keep her negative feelings away from everyone as much as possible, because that would be the only way to serve society.

With these mixed feelings, as they piled up over time, her only solution felt that it made sense to escape through drugs. Daphne didn't know what society wanted from her. When she came out of her safe haven, it felt that everyone was superficial enough to be fully content and happy with themselves for her necessity to contribute even more. The world was already perfect. And she was always thankful.

She prayed to God every night to hope that she wasn't being a lazy person due to her Bohemian lifestyle that was so different than others. She tried to make sure that she'd at least serve her purpose as a good daughter even though she already reached adulthood. So as others laughed asking if she was pretending to be a princess, she would pathetically clean random parts of the house to try to make sure that the parts she released about herself or showed to other people would be purely casually additive to prove that she was more than just an addict.

But one day, when her Father Alexander, wasn't paying attention, she decided to burn her money that she earned from her past job as a medical clerk receptionist to purchase cocaine. After a couple lines, she could feel the battery acid dripping down her throat and it felt amazing. She knew that in a couple hours she would be ready for her next couple to scarcely grapple with whatever emptiness she felt outside of making herself feel happy.

It was another reason to shield herself from the harsh reality that you had to be sad. And it was normal to feel other emotions. It drove Daphne insane, literally!

She ended up being sent to a mental hospital. Alexander could not handle Daphne being any louder than she already was, and it seemed like it was over-stimulating her. As if it was out of question for no longer being a possibility for consideration as a route for a healthy escape, abided by her weekly therapy sessions.

Her soul withered in there. Stuck for weeks, and unable to change the radio stations that were her one delight, she also secretly dealt with withdrawal symptoms and other patients wandering around her wondering if she had anything important to say. But inside, she was struggling deeply. She no longer had any of her objects that made her feel at peace, all but a marker and paper to draw and imagine being saved from these depressive dragons.

The nurses were fairly nice, but being monitored all the time by them made her feel unattached and constantly in a state of wonder why she couldn't simply- enjoy life. Like a normal person.

During that time, she was extremely convinced that none of the doctors believed her, and she was trapped there by mistake.

Then, she got a call, from Alexander and his wife, that his sister was dealing with stage four cancer and their entire family was there to comfort her last counting days. They sounded so celebrative through the phone that Daphne felt extremely confused in the midst of her third week trapped in a plastic covered bed with bed sheets as blankets. From her perspective, Daphne thought that first, she had to enter a door in the conversation of begging to come out of the hospital and finally become released in order to even consider mustering up the feelings to comfort Alexander's sister.

In reality, she daydreamed about death very often. It wasn't that she was suicidal at all, but it was because she purely believed in the idea of resting in peace, even if that included floating in the air, and appreciating the happiness of people.

For example, she thought that if someone invented the latest computer upgrade, that its ghost would be an energy of contributional happiness and delight to make whatever she's built in life to help bring people to feelings of rest! As it was quoted, rest in peace.

This didn't mean that she disrespected the death of her Aunt or was envious of her. She just couldn't comprehend the idea of feeling sad about it. It wasn't an emotion of working towards a progression that would initiate her death or any sort. She just truly believed in the circle of life, and that whatever this person planned to leave behind in their will outside of any inheritance would remain in her life no matter what. Whether the person was resting peacefully with the living or with those who had passed on.

It's how she dealt with feelings of suicide. The rejection of fear was impossible to look past in any form of passing on and it filled her bones, because of a processing issue in her brain. How could someone ever die in vain? How does it make sense for someone to leave before it was their time? What would this make fate about? Nothing connected because of the fact that there had to be a plan in everyone's life. Uncertainty made her drip in sweat. To the point that she already had been constantly wondering about death and what a peaceful afterlife would look like.

From Daphne's position, there was only wishing the best because of her past studies. The fact that there were rumors of a solution but it was unattainable didn't sit right with her. And it felt like it was a view that was undeserved to those who were dealing with a sickness. How could I, as a student who once majored in nursing, now with other nurses, ever look at someone like they could not help further with their growing disease. What if the rest of the family members thought I was a hog and they would never be able to say their goodbyes properly so their profile wouldn't be complete in my Aunt's head. What if my Aunt stared at me with disgrace unable to help find a cure because of my stupid extremely stupid drug issues that led me to be in the mental hospital in the first place. It was all of these theoretical anxious thoughts that made her feel that it would rather be a talk of criticism about Daphne that would comfort Alexander's sister instead of actually being there as a standing failure or being misunderstood as an absolute pig that was sucking up for all of the attention to butter her up while the rest of the family would question Daphne about why she would have ever been in a mental hospital and confuse Daphne's aunt. Making Alexander's sister hysterical about what atrocious was going on to cause such a commotion about someone else other than her own death. Making the Aunt wonder why even her death wasn't about her own.

So Daphne decided to become a black sheep and live as someone that didn't talk about her problems, someone to just be a talk in the family and hopefully be amusing or entertaining enough to help the atmosphere be of something that was less depressing. So that Daphne could at least contribute through providing casual positivity that may or may not go unnoticed. But during that moment, it felt like the best option regarding the situation. To hide her problems away, and keep the stress an act of humor rather than an additive to the Aunt's pain. Which would come very natural with the stage four diagnosis, and thought setting one person as a failure, which was herself- to brighten up the rest of the room and stray away from mental or physical pain.

Some people whisper that Daphne was a psychopath and had no remorse for those dealing with sickness, but she had already been praying for those who were sick far before she heard of the diagnosis. She didn't know what more she could do since they were all she worried about all the time, during her transfers between her decided every day activities.

So there's a story about someone who seemed like they were staring blankly at someone catching their last glimpses of air uncertain of when their last day would be, but was secretly already mourning heavily inside about the idea of death, and instead had a will that outweighed any form of other materialistic value that the Aunt had. It was about hoping for a peaceful death, and trying to stop those who couldn't- from moving on.

The streams that flowed from Daphne's eyes time to time thinking about this passing were so soul clenching, that it felt like Alexander's sister had been watching all along. And was in understanding that all Daphne yearned to do was see them in the best positive light possible- in order to respect who they were as a person before and after their death.

Who knows if Daphne will be driven as a witch to be hanged in the future- but she was a human with yin and yang. Wanting to fight all forms of demons that she could for the best of Daphne's Aunt- Sage.

#BeatCancer#BeACancerSurvivor#FuckCancer#GoCancerFree#BeaniesAreCuteAsFu***