Fragment: The 200 Square Foot Unit
Jul. 2nd, 2010 06:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amorphousTitle: The 200 Square Foot Unit
Author's Notes: This writing is very personal to me. It is not fanfic so please do not treat it as such. It's about a personal experience that not everyone can relate to, but that's okay. Please do not flame or comment in a disrespectful way.
The myriad of people - different races, different religions, different reasons, different problems - filled the 2000 square feet building, but the people one sees the most are mostly confided to a 200 square foot space. The moment a person wants into that unit the world seems to become a much smaller place. All different people fill the void between the white walls that one is now stuck in. With almost nothing to do to occupy one's mind but to focus on your personal reasons for being there, one can observe their surrounds but the building is mundane and normal. It's the myriad of people that are interesting to examine and study, to watch and speak to kill the time between the next activity that they have planned for one to do.
There was a man there. The aura off him was gentle and kind, but somehow there was a saddest and loneliness about him that one couldn't ignore. The man was the type a kind person might want to reach out and hug, to assure one saw them and knew they were alive and existed. It was like he thought the whole world, despite being in a place full of people every day, that he thought the world had forgotten who he was, that he was even there. On the rare occurrences someone might him laugh or even smile, the man's hand immediately goes up to cover his expression. One's heart breaks when one realizes that he doesn't want anyone to see that he can be happy, even for one small moment. Why doesn't he want people to see him happy? Doesn't he realize he has a beautiful smile that's contagious and makes one to smile back? Looking at him, one wonders what goes on in his head as he paces back and forth down the same hallway, only to break from the path to sometimes join the rest of the group. Just for a few moments, as he looks at them with thoughtful, morose eyes. He's not judging the people; he's judging himself.
A woman stands there, looking out over the ground with anger in her expression. No matter what anyone says, no matter what goes on the television, no matter if someone is offering her a genuine smile and wondering how she is, she's angry. There's an anger in here that one doubts can be fixed. Something happened to her, and one just feels it even if they don't know what exactly made her so angry to begin with.
Another woman sits in the chair, staring off in space. The look at her face is so faraway that you wonder if she's really there in the room with you at all. When she speaks, her voice is soft and kind, but still a little remote. She's not connected to anyone in the room; she's not connected to the world at all anymore. She lost her connection to who she once was, who she could be, and no pill they give her helps her regain it.
A woman makes one want to laugh when she speaks sometimes. The outrageous nonsense, that contradictions what she told you at breakfast already and it's only lunch, makes you want to laugh, but one doesn't. One doesn't give into the reaction to laugh at someone else's pain. Even if the woman doesn't know she's in pain, she is. Sometime about the way she carries herself, one knows she knows. She blurts out that the medicines they give her are trying to kill her, blurts out about a stepbrother everyone knows she doesn't have. She fills in the life she hadn't remember, the life she lived but has forgotten in her illness, with anything. She just wants to fill the pain with something - anything now. It's long and lasting, powerful this need to know who she really is when she can't seem to. But even when she speaks the stories she made to comfort herself in her ignorance of her own life, one wants to feel in that gap for her, to tell her it's okay, that her kind words and gentle tone is worth more than what she can't remember now. All that matters is she's a good person and one can just see that by looking at her especially when she smiles.
There's the man that is so congenial and caring. He's the type of person who is quiet and would stay by the wall in a room full of people, trying to blend into the wallpaper. But all he has to do is smile and let people know how intelligent, thoughtful, and kind he really is and everyone knows. Everyone knows that he's better than what he thinks of himself. The saddest part of what he has to say is when he says that he likes it better there. He likes it better there, even with his whole day planned out for him in a 2000 square foot building where he can't leave within 500 square feet, because outside of there, he's alone. He lives alone, he doesn't work, and one knows that no one can see what's truly in his soul, what greatest and brilliance he has to offer anyone who would be willing to listen. Why won't anyone truly listen to him and give him a chance? He's the type of man who could be your best friend and one would know he'd be loyal and true to you, make you laugh when you want to cry, and offer you a hug when you need one. Instead, he likes it better confided to a 500 foot space.
There's the young man who's been there for five years. No, he doesn't have real problems anymore. He got the help he needed years ago. He would be an amazing addition to the world on the outside. He can be nice and caring, fun and lively. But he's stuck there more than anymore else. He's there now simply because he was taken off the streets and now having no home to go. He has no place to if he were to leave there. No family, no friends outside the confides he's kept in, no chance was given to him to see what he could make of himself. One wishes he could just step outside the walls around after fives years and realize personally just how much he has to offer. Knowing he'd be there, maybe until he dies, makes one want to offer what you have no right to. It makes one to offer him a place to stay until he can get a job - because you know he can - and find a place of his own. Even looking at him, one sees in his eyes he doesn't want to be there, but he knows it's better than being on the streets like they found him. He wants his freedom, but no one has given him the opportunity to find it.
Then there's those who talk to no one. Aloud they carry on conversations when no one is there. They laugh at jokes, yell when something angers them at the voices that no one else can hear. When one watches them pace back and forth, some chanting the same thing to themselves over and over, barely making sense to anyone who wants to listen, to know what they hear, what they think, what they feel, one wonders if there's any help for them at all. One wonders if there's a way you can reach out and change them, tell them that you are there, that you are real, that you corporal and everyone can hear you. Including them. Even when they have conversations with someone that you can't see, point out people who aren't really there, one wants to just help them, not condemn them. No one, not even those who hears and sees things that only they can see, deserves the condemnation that they seem to get from so many people. Maybe that's why they were there? Maybe those voices that no one could see are the only true friends they ever had? Maybe you can be their friend, if they'd give you a chance to really listen to what they had to say that they'd normally only tell the disembodied.
Then there's those like you. Those that come in out of fear of life. Borderline, anxiety, or depression… They are the ones that look one looks at and wonders why. Why are they there? Don't they see they are good looking, don't they hear how they talk and how much they seem to have going for them? Then you realize they are just like you. You have so much going for you, but just like them, you had to come there to see it. You hope their attempts are fail until they finally stop attempting to take away their beautiful presence from the world.
Those with disorders like you are the ones that bring joy and happiness to the place. The white walls that everyone is so familiar with, the people ordering them out, and the schedule of when to eat, when the sleep, it feels like when to breathe, they bring what's necessary to keep things going. They bring the laughter and the dancing. They put on music and create dances, make even those who seem so disconnected laugh and smile, even those who try to hide it. They are the ones who sits down by anyone no matter who they are or why they are there originally, and just smile and talk. If the person talks nonsense to them, who cares? They just smile and nod, ask questions they know the person is just making up answers to as they go along. They don't care there. Their pit stops there for the short time help everyone there even for a moment. One knows when you color a page from a coloring book, write a little personal message, and give it the man who covers his face when he smiles and he cries, that even that small deed probably made his day. He cried, not because he hated it, but because no one has ever looked at him and actually given him something even small. That's when one realizes, as one of those people with the other disorders, you are going to find a way to send holiday cards and rather things to the place again. That's when one realizes you don't ever want them to think that you forgot what they taught you. They may never know, but you'll never forget.
Those disorders of anxiety, depression, and borderline that when one looks at the rest people there and their disorders seem to small makes you think. Why are your problems seem so big when there's people that deal with the unreal, are condemned for the only people that might have ever accepted them, or are so lost in their world that they aren't even remotely connected to the one everyone lives in. The one you live in, the one they live in. They can fill you with as many drugs and pills as they want, as they think or know will help them, but in the end, when those are your problems, it's within your control to help yourself. All you need to do is realize the good things. All you need to do is look around and see what beautiful things are around you, to see what the world has to offer you but only if you accept it. Accept what life has to offer even if sometimes it feels too hard. Nothing life throws at you can be bad enough that you should want to end it. All one has to do is look at the people that surrounds them there, one can see how strong you really are. How strong every single person is there. Maybe they don't know it. Maybe they don't realize how strong they are, how much potential they have, but you do when you look at them. You can see that they won't be there forever. No one has to be there forever and any judgment that may have been passed on to them, on those stuck in there, and no one has a right to condemn them for what they can't control. The only right they have is to try to help you see how beautiful this world is - the real world.
One day, I hope each one of them - the ones I mentioned and the ones I didn't - find the peace in their lives and within themselves to join us on the outside in the real world. In the end, they truly deserve it just as much as those who has never been on the inside.
Author's Notes: This writing is very personal to me. It is not fanfic so please do not treat it as such. It's about a personal experience that not everyone can relate to, but that's okay. Please do not flame or comment in a disrespectful way.
The myriad of people - different races, different religions, different reasons, different problems - filled the 2000 square feet building, but the people one sees the most are mostly confided to a 200 square foot space. The moment a person wants into that unit the world seems to become a much smaller place. All different people fill the void between the white walls that one is now stuck in. With almost nothing to do to occupy one's mind but to focus on your personal reasons for being there, one can observe their surrounds but the building is mundane and normal. It's the myriad of people that are interesting to examine and study, to watch and speak to kill the time between the next activity that they have planned for one to do.
There was a man there. The aura off him was gentle and kind, but somehow there was a saddest and loneliness about him that one couldn't ignore. The man was the type a kind person might want to reach out and hug, to assure one saw them and knew they were alive and existed. It was like he thought the whole world, despite being in a place full of people every day, that he thought the world had forgotten who he was, that he was even there. On the rare occurrences someone might him laugh or even smile, the man's hand immediately goes up to cover his expression. One's heart breaks when one realizes that he doesn't want anyone to see that he can be happy, even for one small moment. Why doesn't he want people to see him happy? Doesn't he realize he has a beautiful smile that's contagious and makes one to smile back? Looking at him, one wonders what goes on in his head as he paces back and forth down the same hallway, only to break from the path to sometimes join the rest of the group. Just for a few moments, as he looks at them with thoughtful, morose eyes. He's not judging the people; he's judging himself.
A woman stands there, looking out over the ground with anger in her expression. No matter what anyone says, no matter what goes on the television, no matter if someone is offering her a genuine smile and wondering how she is, she's angry. There's an anger in here that one doubts can be fixed. Something happened to her, and one just feels it even if they don't know what exactly made her so angry to begin with.
Another woman sits in the chair, staring off in space. The look at her face is so faraway that you wonder if she's really there in the room with you at all. When she speaks, her voice is soft and kind, but still a little remote. She's not connected to anyone in the room; she's not connected to the world at all anymore. She lost her connection to who she once was, who she could be, and no pill they give her helps her regain it.
A woman makes one want to laugh when she speaks sometimes. The outrageous nonsense, that contradictions what she told you at breakfast already and it's only lunch, makes you want to laugh, but one doesn't. One doesn't give into the reaction to laugh at someone else's pain. Even if the woman doesn't know she's in pain, she is. Sometime about the way she carries herself, one knows she knows. She blurts out that the medicines they give her are trying to kill her, blurts out about a stepbrother everyone knows she doesn't have. She fills in the life she hadn't remember, the life she lived but has forgotten in her illness, with anything. She just wants to fill the pain with something - anything now. It's long and lasting, powerful this need to know who she really is when she can't seem to. But even when she speaks the stories she made to comfort herself in her ignorance of her own life, one wants to feel in that gap for her, to tell her it's okay, that her kind words and gentle tone is worth more than what she can't remember now. All that matters is she's a good person and one can just see that by looking at her especially when she smiles.
There's the man that is so congenial and caring. He's the type of person who is quiet and would stay by the wall in a room full of people, trying to blend into the wallpaper. But all he has to do is smile and let people know how intelligent, thoughtful, and kind he really is and everyone knows. Everyone knows that he's better than what he thinks of himself. The saddest part of what he has to say is when he says that he likes it better there. He likes it better there, even with his whole day planned out for him in a 2000 square foot building where he can't leave within 500 square feet, because outside of there, he's alone. He lives alone, he doesn't work, and one knows that no one can see what's truly in his soul, what greatest and brilliance he has to offer anyone who would be willing to listen. Why won't anyone truly listen to him and give him a chance? He's the type of man who could be your best friend and one would know he'd be loyal and true to you, make you laugh when you want to cry, and offer you a hug when you need one. Instead, he likes it better confided to a 500 foot space.
There's the young man who's been there for five years. No, he doesn't have real problems anymore. He got the help he needed years ago. He would be an amazing addition to the world on the outside. He can be nice and caring, fun and lively. But he's stuck there more than anymore else. He's there now simply because he was taken off the streets and now having no home to go. He has no place to if he were to leave there. No family, no friends outside the confides he's kept in, no chance was given to him to see what he could make of himself. One wishes he could just step outside the walls around after fives years and realize personally just how much he has to offer. Knowing he'd be there, maybe until he dies, makes one want to offer what you have no right to. It makes one to offer him a place to stay until he can get a job - because you know he can - and find a place of his own. Even looking at him, one sees in his eyes he doesn't want to be there, but he knows it's better than being on the streets like they found him. He wants his freedom, but no one has given him the opportunity to find it.
Then there's those who talk to no one. Aloud they carry on conversations when no one is there. They laugh at jokes, yell when something angers them at the voices that no one else can hear. When one watches them pace back and forth, some chanting the same thing to themselves over and over, barely making sense to anyone who wants to listen, to know what they hear, what they think, what they feel, one wonders if there's any help for them at all. One wonders if there's a way you can reach out and change them, tell them that you are there, that you are real, that you corporal and everyone can hear you. Including them. Even when they have conversations with someone that you can't see, point out people who aren't really there, one wants to just help them, not condemn them. No one, not even those who hears and sees things that only they can see, deserves the condemnation that they seem to get from so many people. Maybe that's why they were there? Maybe those voices that no one could see are the only true friends they ever had? Maybe you can be their friend, if they'd give you a chance to really listen to what they had to say that they'd normally only tell the disembodied.
Then there's those like you. Those that come in out of fear of life. Borderline, anxiety, or depression… They are the ones that look one looks at and wonders why. Why are they there? Don't they see they are good looking, don't they hear how they talk and how much they seem to have going for them? Then you realize they are just like you. You have so much going for you, but just like them, you had to come there to see it. You hope their attempts are fail until they finally stop attempting to take away their beautiful presence from the world.
Those with disorders like you are the ones that bring joy and happiness to the place. The white walls that everyone is so familiar with, the people ordering them out, and the schedule of when to eat, when the sleep, it feels like when to breathe, they bring what's necessary to keep things going. They bring the laughter and the dancing. They put on music and create dances, make even those who seem so disconnected laugh and smile, even those who try to hide it. They are the ones who sits down by anyone no matter who they are or why they are there originally, and just smile and talk. If the person talks nonsense to them, who cares? They just smile and nod, ask questions they know the person is just making up answers to as they go along. They don't care there. Their pit stops there for the short time help everyone there even for a moment. One knows when you color a page from a coloring book, write a little personal message, and give it the man who covers his face when he smiles and he cries, that even that small deed probably made his day. He cried, not because he hated it, but because no one has ever looked at him and actually given him something even small. That's when one realizes, as one of those people with the other disorders, you are going to find a way to send holiday cards and rather things to the place again. That's when one realizes you don't ever want them to think that you forgot what they taught you. They may never know, but you'll never forget.
Those disorders of anxiety, depression, and borderline that when one looks at the rest people there and their disorders seem to small makes you think. Why are your problems seem so big when there's people that deal with the unreal, are condemned for the only people that might have ever accepted them, or are so lost in their world that they aren't even remotely connected to the one everyone lives in. The one you live in, the one they live in. They can fill you with as many drugs and pills as they want, as they think or know will help them, but in the end, when those are your problems, it's within your control to help yourself. All you need to do is realize the good things. All you need to do is look around and see what beautiful things are around you, to see what the world has to offer you but only if you accept it. Accept what life has to offer even if sometimes it feels too hard. Nothing life throws at you can be bad enough that you should want to end it. All one has to do is look at the people that surrounds them there, one can see how strong you really are. How strong every single person is there. Maybe they don't know it. Maybe they don't realize how strong they are, how much potential they have, but you do when you look at them. You can see that they won't be there forever. No one has to be there forever and any judgment that may have been passed on to them, on those stuck in there, and no one has a right to condemn them for what they can't control. The only right they have is to try to help you see how beautiful this world is - the real world.
One day, I hope each one of them - the ones I mentioned and the ones I didn't - find the peace in their lives and within themselves to join us on the outside in the real world. In the end, they truly deserve it just as much as those who has never been on the inside.
