Now Introducing— “The Orange Scarf: Notes on Benzos, Testing Reality, and How 90 Days in Residential Treatment Saved My Life”
To any and all interested in my writing endeavors — I have begun to make some serious headway into my next project: The Orange Scarf: Notes on Benzos, Testing Reality, & How 90 days in Residential Treatment Saved My Life.
November is National Novel Writing Month, and, motivated by this, I have committed to pouring at least an hour of my time every day during the month of November to continue drafting this piece. I am actually hopeful I will finish the draft by the end of November.
I’m going to keep this project on the DL for a while as I continue to develop the storyline and how I’m going to integrate vignettes from pre-residential, residential, flashbacks, and post-residential into one cohesive story. I don’t plan to give as many updates on this project as with Save Your Heartbeats, until, of course, it gets closer to publication.
What I would like to share about this project is that my writing mentor has given much praise as I have worked through the beginning of drafting and this piece will be distinctly different from my last one in that I am already sending query letters to publishers. Also in that I have developed and matured as a writer, so expect a MUCH greater quality piece!
Like I said previously, this piece is going to be a little more quiet in the beginning until further development, yet I am sharing the chapter that the title is founded upon today as I embark on the journey of the National Novel Writing Month, alternatively known as NaNoWriMo.
As a disclaimer, I am going to quote Maria Bamford’s Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult. This chapter is in no way intended as a public plea for help. On the contrary, this chapter is intended to encourage others of not only my personal progress in my journey but also progress in the journeys of others. 💃🕺
So now, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to my new project, “The Orange Scarf: Notes on Benzos, Testing Reality, and How 90 Days in Residential Treatment Saved My Life”
It was a Monday morning, and I was missing one of my least-favorite groups for my weekly meeting with my psychiatrist, Dr. McCallister. Score.
I had been informed just a couple hours prior that a close family member was having serious health issues, and I was grappling with severe anxiety. Wracking my brain for a light-hearted, silly, insignificant thing to say to distract myself from my distress, I came up short. To distract myself from the fact that I was terrified, because amidst residential psychiatric treatment, the world keeps spinning and bad things still happen to good people. Bad things still happen to people you care deeply about.
Finally, I stumbled across a diversion. “I heard you knitted your daughter a scarf!” I cried loudly, my voice coated with faux enthusiasm. My closest pal in residential treatment, Wendy, had informed me that Dr. McCallister had told her that he knitted his daughter a scarf. Wendy had a crush on Dr. McCallister. It was hard not to, admittedly.
Dr. McCallister smiled softly and nodded empathetically. I knew he was going to play along, if only for a minute.
“It’s a knit/ purl pattern, hold on, I think I have a picture,” he said, unlocking his iPhone and beginning to scroll through his camera roll. He moved his chair a couple feet closer to me and I stood as he showed me a picture of a long scarf. It was curled up along the edges. “The problem is that I did not realize you had to do one of the stitches at the end of each row or it would curl up like this. It’s also a little too long. It wraps all around her body a couple of times.”
“Well, that’s great. She’ll never grow out of it.”
I admired the picture for a moment before sitting back down. I made a mental note that the scarf was orange. That detail made it more real, more concrete. For some reason this was not a light-hearted, silly, insignificant conversation any longer. This conversation was challenging my previous firmly-held belief that all men were dangerous. Evidently some were kind and gentle and happy to knit their young daughter a scarf. Challenging that belief was not light-hearted. Nor was it silly. Nor was it insignificant. I tried to hastily shove this emerging existential crisis into a box and compartmentalize it into another part of my brain I had affectionately deemed the shelf for existential crises I will get to another day. The “another day” was never a day that came until it had to.
–
A few days later I was undergoing a C-SSRS (Columbia- Suicide Severity Rating Scale) with Ms. Amy, my primary counselor’s supervisor. I had reported feeling suicidal due to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, two red flags for suicidal ideations.
“What are some reasons for you to live?” She asked me as my knee bobbed up and down and I scratched my arms harshly, blood beginning to sprout from the thin limbs. I flailed, desperately, inside of the confines of my brain for something, anything, to hold onto this life for.
I pictured Dr. McCallister going home to his family the day he found out I had completed suicide. I knew that it more than likely would not be a huge deal to my treatment team. I mean, it is a part of their job. They work with suicidal headcases like me all day, every day. But we are all only human, so he would have some sort of feelings about it. Right? I mean, he liked me pretty okay as far as I was concerned.
I pictured him leaving his office at 4:30, feeling kinda bummed and taking a thirty minute power nap upon arrival at his residence before cooking his wife and daughter dinner. I thought about how his thirty minute nap may delay dinner by thirty minutes, or how those thirty minutes could have been spent playing with his daughter or having quality time with his wife or whatnot.
His life would be short-changed those thirty minutes, thirty minutes that were brimming with potential, because of me. Thirty minutes of no dinner, quality time, or whatnot.
He had to tell Wendy and me about the goddamn scarf, and I had to notice concrete details about the scarf that made it so much more real, so much more concrete: it was a knit-purl pattern. It was long.
And it was orange.
I remembered the scarf I had knitted several years prior. It took great intentionality and care to sit through hours of labor to knit a scarf.
I eventually responded to the LPC’s question when I remembered the present moment: “One of my reasons to live is that Dr. McCallister knitted his daughter a scarf, it’s knit-purl pattern, it’s long and wraps around her body so she will never grow out of it.”
She looked at me, confused. I knew it seemed stupid, yet that’s a judgment. Also, I did not actually give a fuck. My eyes began to water.
“Ms. Amy.” I croaked. I hated my voice when I was emotional, but at that moment I did not have any capacity for hate. Only hope.
“It’s orange.” I said through the steady stream of silent tears.
Ms. Amy typed something on my suicide risk assessment, and I looked out the window. The skies were grey.
Here’s the too-long-didn’t-read of arguably the most significant chapter of this book: As long as the scarf is orange, well.
You have a reason to live this life.
I hope you enjoyed this intro and that you will stay tuned for further updates!!
Much (therapeutic) love + many hugs (fist bumps),
Lauren
