This is the beginning of a series of stories about my experience with mental illness. I aim to educate and entertain with stories from my past. This is going to be a brutally honest look into mental illness. So, here we go.

I'd like to start by introducing you to a few people I've met along the way in the several hospital stays that I have had. All names have been changed to protect the privacy of the people mentioned.

Pete. Pete is an older guy that reminds me suspiciously of Joe Mantegna. He works as a Mental Health Specialist at the hospital where I had most of my inpatient stays. His role was to check in with me once during his shift. There were routine questions he had to ask about my safety on the unit, then the MHS's decided how friendly they were after those were done. Pete was one of the good ones. He cared. He saw who I was, past each and every diagnosis. The most important thing Pete ever ask me was, pointing to the scars up and down my arms and legs, "If that were a speech what it they say?". I had been probed on every detail of my life since I arrived at the hospital, but this question I had to think about. Pete is the only person who read my dark thoughts I put on paper while I was in the short term unit, and afterwards, he encouraged me to keep going. He made me think when everyone else had been thinking for me. Thank you, Pete.

I'm sorry to say that most people I met at the hospital were fairly normal, BUT, the night before I was admitted to the STU for the first time, I stayed one night in the emergency psychological health wing at a large hospital in a small city in Mass. Now those were some interesting people. There was Leo, a 45-year-old who thought to ask a 20-year-old for her phone number in a psych ward. There was Calvin, I didn't see his face beneath the sheets, but I did see an awful lot of his ball sack sticking out from the other end.

Then there was Lucia, an old woman who didn't speak a lick of English. During the night, while I was sleeping in the hallway on my make-shift chair-bed in the brightly lit hallway, I turned around and saw Lucia standing there with her hand hovering over my head. She was mumbling something that turned out to be her attempt to rid me of the demons that I had inside. Nice sentiment, but she could have asked first, maybe I liked my demons. The MHS who looked exactly like John Travolta rescued me from Lucia. I never knew his real name but regardless, thanks, John.

Barb. Poor Barb. She perfectly expressed what it's like to have intrusive thoughts in the most heartbreaking way. There she sat, tears in her eyes, struggling to speak asking, "How can I make them stop? They just keep coming." That statement sparked an understanding in all of us sitting at that table that day. We know, we would say, they never go away.

Meeting people in a similar situation as you is as comforting as it is saddening. You realize you're not alone, which is a good thing, but also a bad thing. There are other people suffering what you are suffering.

I cared about a lot of people I met at the hospital, and I hope they are doing well.