CODES

Fifteen and being stuck in a prison isn’t easy. Not just any prison but the prison of the mind, where all the kids with bad grades and attention problems get sent, where the kids whose parents never said “I love you” end up. We are a product of our environment yet kids are the ones that get sent away for not being perfect. Why don’t we send the perfectly imperfect adults who aren’t doing their jobs instead? I was fifteen when I was diagnosed with severe depression; it wasn’t easy but I managed. Therapy didn’t help, afraid my words would be used against me.

“Anything new happening?” my therapist would ask

A no was my only answer, How could I possibly tell her the thoughts in my head; I felt as if I was drowning with every breath I took.

“Anything you say and do can be used against you” repeated itself in my head. My words all of a sudden felt so heavy and I found myself worrying about saying the wrong things.

This continued for a few months, I wasn’t getting better. By this point, I felt so alone and felt that a life like this wasn’t worth living. I closed my eyes ready to go to sleep and all of a sudden I was a mouse getting chased by a cat, I felt nothing but fear as I ran down the street not knowing whether or not I was going to get caught. I felt my time running out as I saw a dead end approaching. This is

my ending I thought as I felt the cat getting closer; my life flashing in front of my eyes. I got caught but right before I got eaten I had awoken.

A new setting had presented itself in front of my eyes. The white walls blinded me as I struggled to open my eyes.

“Where am I?” I thought to myself, then I realized what I had done.

For the next two days, I was seen and questioned by a series of doctors and therapists all asking the same questions and receiving the same response from me.

“I acted on impulse and would never do something like this” I repeated.

By this time I knew how much power my words had and chose silence. I would rather say less and hope to go home to the life that I call normal. But in a life where things don’t always go as planned my decision to stay silent raised a few eyebrows; if they couldn’t get anything out of me to “help” me, they would send me to a place where I was forced to speak on it.

A drive up a hill and I had arrived. In my very own prison, the windows had bars on them, the halls were guarded, and the only thing that set this apart from an actual prison was that instead of having metal bars as doors we had regular wooden doors with no handles or locks. I didn’t know how long I’d be in there, but something in me knew I had to get out as fast as I could. I talked to the other patients trying to get more information; the druggies, the abused, the sane. From all the information I had gathered, I had to assess the situation.

The druggies; I couldn’t get much information from them, but one fact was clear to me. There were two types; the uncooperative angries and the ones whose rich parents gave them in because they couldn’t deal with the problem. The angries gave me an important piece of information. If you spoke to a higher-up in a way they didn’t

like you were done for. Your choice of words and how you say things really matter in this place because one wrong word in the wrong tone will make your sentence longer. With this piece of information, I had to make sure to always be on their good side and say all the nice things. The rich kids were careless and that’s what kept them in there longer. Most of them saw no point in acting right as they felt as if everyone had given up on them. I knew I didn’t belong with any of them, as I wasn’t rich or angry. I knew I had someone that cared as my mom would make phone calls every morning and night to ask how I was doing. I wasn’t turned in by her, my actions got me here.

The abused; hearing their stories broke me the most. So many kids who just wanted to be loved and appreciated. My prison was their paradise, they felt safer here than anywhere else they’ve ever been and would tear up when speaking about getting out. From hearing all this, I got my most valuable strategy. I must seem excited about getting out and when speaking to the doctor must not show any negative behavior. I had now collected two valuable strategies that would help me get out of here but one thing was missing.

The sane; were the only people I could see being friends with outside of this place. Although I had already developed my two strong strategies there seemed to be something that differentiated those who leave faster and who have been in there for a long time. Those who were in there for months were rarely seen with other people and didn’t seem to have many friends while those who left faster were always around people. The sane seemed to understand this so they usually would try to speak with everyone and this was the last thing I needed before my day was to come. I would spend my days talking about nonsense with these teens, to the higher-ups it looked as if

we were bonding but to us, this was a way to seem okay enough to be let out. With these things in mind, I was ready.

Decision day had come. The day I had prepared for, the day I had planned out in my head those cold restless days. I found myself sitting in front of the doctor, a Dominican doctor. And here my last strategy came into play. Codeswitching, in order to build some type of connection with the doctor not only would I do the things that I had practiced but I would speak to her as if I was speaking to my mother. I cleared my throat and thats when I let the words flow out my mouth, I found myself using words commonly used by Mother like “pero” and “tu sabe” and this seemed to really hit the mark. The doctor found herself saying how she saw herself in me and even went as far as telling me her whole story. This made me feel guilty but I had to do everything I could to get out of her even if it meant putting on a facade. This went on for around 30 more minutes and just like that she stopped talking. I felt myself start shaking from the nerves and forced myself to stop. The doctor looks at me with her warm eyes and smiles at me.

“I can see that you made a lot of progress and I’m so proud of you, you’ll be released in two days so please start preparing for that,” she says.

Hearing these words lifted all the weight off my shoulders. I had accomplished my goal, the 37 days I spent analyzing everyone and pretending to be someone I wasn’t had paid off. Even though I had to lie my way out of there, being in there gave me a new appreciation for the life that I had. It taught me that I no longer had to grieve my past and that it’s something that I have to accept. My words were no longer heavy and instead became words of encouragement used to help others in need. Seeing how things were run in there made me realize that even I could do a better job at helping

others, so from that moment out I made it my goal to help those in need so that they do end up living those 37 days that I had to endure.