Loved Back to Life by Sheila Walsh

Author:Sheila Walsh [Walsh, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780718021870
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2015-01-26T22:00:00+00:00

Silence.

I hear my breath,

but nothing else.

The world is quiet.

I am alone.

Someone turned the lights out

and everyone went home.

Chapter 7

The Longest Night

It isn’t for the moment that you are stuck that you need courage, but for the long, uphill climb back to sanity and security.

—ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH

It was so quiet. I sat in my room, covered by the silence. I wondered if it was time to eat, but I didn’t want to eat alone. I turned on the television, forty-eight channels and nothing to watch.

It was late Friday afternoon. I had just completed my inpatient program and was due to start what was called PHP, the Partial Hospitalization Program. For the next two weeks I was to stay in a local hotel and return to the hospital from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, for further counseling and group therapy.

Instead of leaving the hospital after lunch as planned, I lingered for a short while. Strange though it may seem, this place that once was terrifying to me now felt safe and secure, like a second home.

I sat around in the patient lounge savoring a cup of coffee. I talked to one of the nurses for a while and discovered that she, too, had been a patient in this very unit a couple of years before. I felt as if she were giving me a gift by disclosing that she had walked where I was walking. I wandered back to my room to pack my suitcase. It was time. An older nurse came in and returned all my personal items. I looked at the hair dryer and smiled to myself at being once again trusted with this “lethal” weapon. The nurse asked if I had any suicidal thoughts. I replied that I did not. She smiled and told me she hoped I had a good weekend.

I walked into the lobby to reclaim my car keys. As I waited for the desk nurse to unlock her drawer, I looked around. I remembered that first night and the fear I had felt in being there; now I was afraid to leave. I crossed the parking lot and found my little white car. I got inside and sat for a while. I remember thinking, I hope I can still remember how to drive! I turned the ignition, put the car into reverse, and drove off, driving skills intact. The hospital had recommended a hotel close by, for which I was grateful.

After settling into my room on the tenth floor, I looked out the hotel window to the traffic below. It was dark even though it was still quite early, and the traffic was bumper to bumper. Washington, DC, was committed to getting home from work.

I decided I would feel better if I was a part of the sea of life outside my door, so I picked up my jacket and walked to the elevator. I wondered if I looked strange. Would people waiting with me at the elevator whisper, “I think that she

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