The psychiatric hospital where I was to receive the specialized treatment was a clinic consisting of three sections, where people with personality disorders are treated, who cannot be helped anywhere else. The people who come there did not feel that they were loved unconditionally. In September 2003, I had an intake interview there! I was told that I could be admitted quickly, because I was given priority, due to the severity of my symptoms. I remember the first day well. Where have I ended up, I thought. All these crazy people with whom I had absolutely no connection. And then the therapists, superpowerful people who I was immediately afraid of. The trial phase I entered now, I spent in a reasonably tough group and was very shocked by a young man who wanted to end his life. That was drama, and not a good start. I was often walking around very gloomy, and trying to control my fears by doing a lot of computer work, which has been a way for me to do this all my life. One night I really couldn’t cope and went to see a socio-therapist, where I burst into tears. I felt so alone and had so many bad symptoms. She said that the beginning was always difficult and that I had to take small steps, not the big steps that I was used to. She put her arm around me for a while, and then I could take it again. I really had a hard time. Fortunately I could already make some contact with the other people. For example, I heard someone play the violin, Janine, and because I had been so active with music myself, I started listening and so we regularly hung out together. I also got along well with Salma, a young Moroccan woman who came a week later than I did. Her Dutch was already very good and she jokingly tried to teach me Arabic script. But I only had one lesson, because I was much too busy with playing games on the Playstation….
I shared a room, at the very back of a long corridor, with three other men. At night, while dreaming, I often lay kicking the air, a roommate of mine once told me. And every morning Marvin, another roommate, would wake up the whole room with Gimme all your lovin’ by ZZ Top, or House of Pain (appropriate for the clinic, haha) by Deep Purple, on his stereo. When I was alone in my room, I would often sing along to music by Toto, which I had on. And then I hoped that someone heard it. And yes, a woman who had a room across from mine had heard it once, and thought it was really nice that I had been singing. And it felt really good that someone responded positively to me, because I really felt like an alien.
The trial phase also included some tests, which of course I finished within very little time. When the pilot phase was almost over, there was a meeting with my therapists scheduled one afternoon. On the morning preceding that afternoon I was gaming on the Playstation and then suddenly my therapist from the trial phase walked in very intimidating. She was angry. I was playing games again while it was actually the scheduled time for having this conversation, and she was wondering if I actually wanted to make an effort! I went with her to the discussion room, where another practitioner was, Anke. I found her incredibly powerful. I knew I was actually having that conversation in the afternoon, but I was losing my own thoughts and feelings in this one, because they came across as so intimidating, and they fooled me immensely. I lost confidence in them, and then I lost my self-confidence as well (they called it dangerous), a mechanism I have carried with me all my life, and that was exactly what they described to me when I was sitting in their room so desperately and in tears. This came in incredibly strong and I felt like they saw me right. They also told me that I had an awful lot of trouble with anger, that I was afraid of losing control of such feelings, and that the treatment was aimed at exploring these feelings in interactions with others. I was a little anxiously attached, they said. I was also very focused on others, and how they treated me. My aggression I directed at myself, in the form of severe self-criticism. Three main goals were formulated. To gain more confidence in others, to gain more self-confidence, and to learn to think realistically, which was also very important for me because I had bizarre thoughts. A choice was made as to which section they would place me in. In one of the sections I would probably become too anxious, so it was changed to another. I was placed in the friendliest group there was, group 2. And I was very happy with that. Anke van Brunssum became my main therapist.
The first period was intense. My goals were “to fit in with the group,” “to be active in the unstructured time with fellow group members,” and “to express thoughts and feelings in the therapies”. If something happened in the contact with my therapy mates, and I withdrew to dampen escalating feelings, I had to start writing. But of course I was the best boy in the class again, and I was now going to force myself obsessively to be among people. So you could always find me in the living room from then on. And there I looked for those people, who felt safe to me. I always put new people at ease; I usually got on better with them than with people who had been there longer (with some exceptions). In my first evaluation I also tell that I have been much too strict with myself again.
In one of the first group sessions Anke immediately made a harsh remark, which I still do not understand, even though she repeated it again later. In one of the other first sessions, she told me that I was going “in stealth mode” very quickly, and was therefore not transparent. And when I voiced my opinion in a Patient Staff Meeting (PSM), she made a comment about my behavior, that was too adaptive. I always felt publicly embarrassed, and was terribly afraid of losing face. After the PSM I had a very intense fight with Salma (I had a kind of love-hate relationship with her: one moment I loved her very much, and the next I could shoot her). When Anke heard about this incident, she told me that I was actually angry with her, and that I transferred it to Salma, who defended herself as vehemently as I did. Usually I tried to make up for it afterwards, but it also happened that, when we made up, we got into another fight, something that still makes us laugh heartily. Every remark of a therapist hit me hard, and I interpreted it as if I did something wrong, after which I tried very hard to do exactly the opposite, in order to meet the demands of the therapists.
In the first evaluation I also describe having great doubts about the therapy because it makes me so anxious and confused, but that despite this I already feel better than before. I also describe that I see ‘Jesse’ in the mirror again, instead of an alien, and I hear ‘Jesse’ talking again, when I listen to myself. In the second period I would work mainly on expressing my thoughts and feelings, because there was still no connection between my thinking mind and feeling. In this period I also had to discover when I acted from the “free child” and when from the “adaptive child” (concepts from transactional analysis). And I also had to seek contact with fellow therapists when I was not doing so well. Again, I had to work very hard on this.
In the meantime I also experienced many nice things. I can remember one woman where everyone was constantly getting on her nerves. I had this too regularly and I always had to laugh when I noticed this in her, because she would make very strange faces. Once something happened that almost made her burst out laughing. She quickly left the living room and went into an adjoining room. I ran after her and in the other room we both burst out laughing. Then she went on about what she thought was terrible about some people. Another funny thing was that I started giving Salma bike lessons. Moroccan women usually haven’t done much of that and so has Salma. She often fell and made the same mistakes as children do when they learn to ride a bike: not looking ahead, and becoming overconfident. At one point she could do it reasonably well and started practicing some more on her own. I was sitting inside the living room, watching with Michael. She even waved, but that was a bit too much, because she started to wiggle the steering wheel with one hand, and then she made a hard smash. Michael and I were in stitches, because it was slapstick. Fortunately, she didn’t have anything, and it didn’t stop her from riding her bike many more times!
My second evaluation is a special one. I tell how I already feel a lot safer in the contact and how there is always someone I can tell my story to. But I also focus a lot on what the other person expects of me, so that I cannot hold on to the feeling of an ‘individual self’ for long. What the other person expects from me also changes constantly in my head, so that I do not have a stable identity. I also tell them that I constantly want to be the nicest and the best, and if I don’t get attention for this I can feel an awful lot of anger towards someone. And that I constantly feel like I’m not doing it right, especially when I’m getting directions. I also express my angry feelings towards Anke, who with her authoritarian attitude and her directness makes me very angry. In discussing this evaluation, I describe to her for the first time that I have all kinds of aggressive thoughts towards her, which include knives. And this gave me tremendous peace, because she responded very well to this, which surprised me at first. Again many tears flowed with me. Anke insists (for the second time) on a systemic conversation with my family, and I arrange this immediately, whereupon I get an affirmative nod from her for the first time. She also says that I will going to have a very difficult time in the time to come, because she is going to put a lot of pressure on me, to confront my fears, so I will need a lot of support from my group mates.
In the systemic conversation, my father and mother, and my brother were present. My sister could not be there at that time, which I thought was a pity. Anke describes that I’m able to enjoy things again, which was gone for a long time. In the systemic discussion I always start crying when the subject comes to my sister. This is striking. I also start the conversation with my mother, who freezes and shuts up at times, just like what happens to me in the therapies. My father says he is also a perfectionist, to which Anke says that it probably doesn’t bother him. My father says that we can look back, but that it is better to look ahead, to the future, and Anke agrees. We also talk about my outbursts of anger at home and how my parents and brother and sister should deal with that. Anke tells us that it is better to do a time-out then. And that aggression has a big link with identity problems, which I suffer from so much. She also says that she doesn’t think my parents have made any more mistakes than other parents. I am extremely happy about this. I thought it was a good conversation and it brought the world of home together with the world of therapy. That was nice.
I can’t look inside Anke’s head, but she fished several times for what exactly I was afraid of. Whether it was fear of destroying someone else with my aggression, or fear of being destroyed by someone else’s aggression. What was striking is that in the period following the evaluation she did not fight me at all, as she had previously announced. I thought for a long time about what the reason could be. But I think it had to do with the systemic conversation, in which it was striking that I kept crying whenever we talked about Lauren, my sister. Because I think this showed her that I had the fear that my sister would be destroyed by my aggression. And then it makes sense that you can’t get on top of someone, because that fear gets in the way. And the same fear of destroying another person I had toward my mother, who did not defend her boundaries well and was easily hurt. This also became clear in the conversation. If I had not had this fear and was only afraid of being destroyed, it would have been good if Anke had challenged me to overcome this fear by putting pressue on me. This makes sense to me. So in the third period I continued with my goals from the second period.
I regularly went for a walk along the river that ran along the hospital grounds, with a few therapy friends, to relax. We also sometimes received visitors in the contact center or just went for a drink with a few people. In the contact center you could see people from all over the hospital terrain, including the other departments and buildings, and there were many people walking around who were far gone. One time we saw a woman there losing her diaper; that was really disgusting. And we also made contact with Jan, a schizophrenic man who was always talking about higher mathematics, and regularly asked how his eyes looked. He was also always patting his stomach and showing off his agility by throwing his leg in the air. Of course, we often asked him if he wanted to show this again, and then we had fun again.
We also regularly went to the neighboring villages to do some shopping. One time I had gone on a bike ride together with Vanja, a group member, who went on skates. She was so tired when we got there that I put on her skates, and she put on my shoes, so we could still get back to the clinic. With Salma I also went for errands sometimes, and one time was the highlight. She wanted to go into an underwear store. And she asked me to hold a bra while she was trying on another one. I asked if I could judge the result, but unfortunately she wouldn’t let me. Tough luck!
One time I would go skating with Robin, a groupmate of Salma. I borrowed Vanja’s skates, put them on and went outside while she put on her skates. It took a long time, and just when I went back inside to see where she was, I heard a deafening noise. I quickly went to look and that’s when I saw her lying there floundering. She had pulled an entire closet of contents with her. It was hilarious. Fortunately she could laugh about it herself.
In those days I also hung out with Erik, my new roommate, a man of great humor, and we were always joking and laughing. The sociotherapists called us Frick & Frack, and wondered whether it was wise for us to hang out together, in the context of therapy. Erik and I then started making fun of those sociotherapists. Later he also hung out with Salma a lot, and I was always terribly jealous when Salma gave him attention too. Then I felt the same jealousy as I felt with Anne, my friend from high school.
In the third period I would learn to express and articulate my thoughts and feelings better and better. I really got into this everywhere, even when I was taking a bath at home. And this made me a lot less attention-seeking. In this respect it is an advantage that I’m such a fast learner. A sociotherapist who had not seen me for a while complimented me after a few weeks on the great progress I had made in this area. At first my stories were impossible to follow because they were so confusing; at that point I was clearly telling what I had experienced over a weekend, and how this affected my feelings. I had already become a lot more aware. I learned to ask for attention in a direct way, so I didn’t need all the indirect ways, and I became a lot calmer.
I also continue to investigate when I behave in an adaptive way, and when I behave more freely. What I started to notice here was that I behaved very adaptively when therapists were around, and just felt very free with fellow patients. I also looked down on some of the patients, and I remember one older woman standing by the socio’s office tying her shoes with her rather fat ass in the air. I walked by, and an aggressive thought crossed my mind to kick her ass. From then on I caught myself having these feelings/thoughts more often, but it felt wonderfully strong, especially when I discussed it in therapy, and felt it was allowed to exist. Vanja, my groupmate, describes in my third evaluation that the free child is loose!!! And that’s how I felt. I felt the power gradually move higher and higher in my body and I also felt it in my head. Because I had no escape routes at all, and my fears were exposed, and at the same time I received good guidance, healthy ways of dealing with these fears emerged. By discussing everything, I became a lot calmer. I had never talked about my illness-related and sexual fears in the clinic, and they never asked me about them, although I assume they knew about them. And I was actually glad about this, because the more I started to feel ‘myself’ and my strength, the less I suffered from these fears. Sexually I also became stronger. I often fantasized about some of the women who were in the clinic. I felt less and less guilty when I did this, and I was very happy about that.
It had been clear for some time that the clinic was going to relocate to a new home in a neighboring town. And the relocation was rapidly approaching. Before the move, Anke informed my group that we would be getting a new primary care provider, named Desmond Prinsloo, who we had already experienced as a psychiatrist. That was a bit of a shock, because I was very used to Anke, but fortunately I got used to Desmond quickly, and besides, Anke was often there during the group sessions. We called Desmond the pill gnome. He was a small man with a South African accent and he seemed very reliable. I remember very well a session at the old location, just before the move. Desmond wondered why I didn’t express my anger easily. Of course, he already knew that it was partly due to the fear I had towards my sister, but this fear can only exist (I found this out later) if, in the contact with my parents, I have gotten the idea that my anger is not seen, or is rejected. So Desmond talked about me in a defiant tone to my group members. “Why would Jesse be so afraid to express his anger? I think he’s afraid he’s going to get thumped!” I found it irritating, but was not really impressed at first, and decided to sit through the rest of the group session with an angry face. It did stick in my head, though, when the session was over, and I was sitting downstairs in the living room. I decided to go see Desmond, so I could talk about it and tell him I was angry. I went upstairs, and knocked on his door, but he wasn’t there. I repeated this three more times, but he was not there each time. I didn’t dare ask anyone where he was, because I didn’t feel comfortable at all. I wanted to talk about it only with him, because I was, I think, extremely ashamed of this, and certainly didn’t want to talk about it in front of my group mates. Since he wasn’t around, I decided to move on to other things and got so distracted by other things that were happening and that I could bring up in the therapy sessions, that I forgot about it and didn’t come back to it….
And then it was time for the move. A lot of stuff we didn’t have to pack of course, just our bag. And I drove with a group member to the other city, where we had already visited the brand new building complex a few weeks earlier. Then in the pouring rain, but now with beautiful weather. The complex consisted of three residential buildings, the two outermost for people with personality disorders from the three old sections, and the middle one for the anxiety and depression group and crisis care, if I remember correctly. In addition, there was a large therapy building. It was quite a struggle for me to get used to that. There were so many new people. I got a room all to myself, and I was super happy with that.
And then the clinic was opened by the queen. I had asked in advance where she was going to walk past, and had prepared myself well, so I could take pictures with my camera. I had a good view from a room upstairs in the residence. But even when she walked through one of the residential houses, I could be found inside. I think she thought: what a fanatic, with his camera. I immediately had the photos printed at a 1-hour service, in duplicate. A stack for me, and one for Salma. And I still look back at the photos with pleasure.
During the first weeks in the new accommodation I sometimes felt quite lost, according to my group mates in the third evaluation, but I did try to work on the contacts, so that I did feel safe. Moreover, I had great support from my group and I knew a lot of people in our house and in the other houses from the old section. I would start to feel more and more comfortable as I got to know all the new people, and I would dare to speak out more and more, even unprepared.
One evening we all had to gather in our own residence. Gerard Stoffels, a man with a high position in the clinic (I don’t remember exactly what), came into the house, and came with a terrible announcement. Michael, my former groupmate, had committed suicide. Everyone was in shock… With Michael I had often been able to laugh, especially the last months he was in my group, and we sometimes fooled others. He had been found in his car, with a hose attached to the exhaust that he had led inside. I was stunned again, and I was immediately reminded of Chris, my friend from high school. I sought support from several people. Many people who knew him cried. I at that time was not. I thought about how it could come this far. A few days later I went to say goodbye to him together with Vanja, while his body was laid out in the auditorium of the cemetery. And then came the grief, a lot of grief. The next day would be the funeral, but I did not want to go there, nor did I feel obliged. I had had my moment of reflection, and I thought that was enough. And now it was important for me to continue my therapy.
In my therapy I discussed that I also had anger towards Chris, and now towards Michael. I had been very much at the bottom before I started therapy, but I couldn’t really understand why a person would end his life. Why didn’t they just fight themselves out of it, just like I had done! I’ll come back to this.
One night I couldn’t sleep… I was thinking about my sister all the time. It felt very oppressive and very important, like I was at the source of everything. I went downstairs and started writing. About how I felt myself stuck to her. I wanted to develop separately from her, but this made me terribly anxious. An important part of developing separately from someone is that your negative feelings (aggression for example) towards that person are also allowed to exist. I felt so much love for her, but also so much hate and fear towards her. And an enormous conflict, because I was terribly afraid of destroying her if I went my own way. The next day I took what I had written to the group therapy session. Desmond and Anke started to ask me questions like: “What would you like to do with her?”, to which I said: “I would like to shove her …. eh… under the bed” (that came out very awkwardly, and it didn’t make sense), to which Desmond and Anke said: “I think you would like to do more with her!” and they clearly stimulated my aggression towards her. After this, the stage was set for the big change. I started to actively live out my aggression towards my sister in fantasy. Whenever I felt her in my head (which was very often), I would blow myself up and go on a rampage in fantasy. Later, in therapy, I told Desmond that I also felt my parents in my head. Desmond said that I could also allow my aggression towards them. My parents were facing me inside (they were not behind me), and my sister was next to me. My brother did not bother me much. Before I made this change, my therapists did wonder if I could distinguish between fantasy and reality, and I could! Otherwise you can’t incite someone to this kind of behavior, very understandable! A long period of mourning followed. For I was now separate from my sister, and this felt incredibly lonely. Also, I had now freed myself from my own ‘critical parent’, also a concept from transactional analysis.
The personality change was not the only result of the therapy. In the past months I had also undergone an enormous behavioral change. As I mentioned earlier, I obsessively dealt with all the criticism I received, and made sure that I met the therapists’ expectations exactly. So on the one hand I had embraced my maladjusted feelings, and lived them out in fantasy. And on the other hand I had learned to adapt to the therapeutic environment with its therapists and clients, so that I could just be in contact (while living out the aggression internally), make contributions, tolerate feedback/criticism, think realistically, but also give very good feedback/criticism myself, without judging anyone. So I had learned to handle my aggression, as it were! And above all, I could enjoy life to the fullest again, I no longer attributed my fears to the people around me, but to a trauma in my youth, and I had a clear sexual identity, in short: a very solid foundation!
But every time I indulged my aggression in my head, a wave of fear came over me. An unfocused fear. I discussed this in a group session. Then Anke asked what exactly I was afraid of. Whether it was fear of not being seen, or was it fear that other people disapproved of my anger! What happened then was very important. I felt a great fear at the word “disapproval”, and instead of describing this fear, I ignored it, I fought it, and said, “No! It is fear of not being seen.” I denied it, and in the “not being seen” I recognized myself very much after all as well! Moreover, I was ashamed and unconsciously thought that Anke and the group members would be disappointed in me if I told about this rejection fear. I pretended to be stronger than I was. But what matters now is that these words, in addition to Anke’s and Desmond’s earlier thoughts about me and my family, determined whether I should do follow-up therapy part-time. Anke also told me that: if I had a fear of disapproval, then I had to stop doing therapy, for then I needed my agression as a way to cope with this trauma. And if it was purely fear of not being seen, then they were happy to send me on to part-time follow-up therapy. But this was all so unconscious to me that I didn’t think about it at all. I also didn’t think back to the times I knocked on Desmond’s door, which actually revolved around the same big question. Besides, I wanted to get rid of that fear, so in that sense I wasn’t finished yet, and so I was looking forward to the follow-up therapy, not knowing that it would be my downfall. But it would not be until years later that I would remember this important session again….
I experienced some nice things throughout my therapy, especially the last few months. For example, at one psychomotor therapy session, Jos, the therapist, challenged my group. He described how sick we were, and called us patients. I said something to counter him, to which he said, “But it’s true!!!” It touched on my vulnerable part of my hypochondric anxiety, and I was hurt and when the session was almost over, we were free to do whatever we wanted (pillow fight!!!), whereupon I grabbed a pillow and focused my efforts entirely at Jos. I have never put that much agression in hitting someone, in that way before. Afterwards he gave me a big thumbs up! And I was satisfied.
And another nice thing in the last months was the following: After a week of hard work, on Friday afternoon it was time to go home. Bas, a groupmate, always dropped me off at a subway station in the city. The summer was in full swing; often the weather was nice, and we drove having the windows open. On the way, we would listen to the album Eye in the Sky by Alan Parsons Project. At a certain point we knew the lyrics by heart and sang along. It was an absolute pleasure! And that was a good thing, after a tough week. That summer I also cycled a few times to an old fortified city with Bas, from the city where the clinic was. There we ate some ice cream and walked around a bit, and then we cycled back to the clinic at top speed. How I felt was a world of difference from before the therapy. They were two extremes. At such moments I had no fear at all, and I could enjoy myself intensely. I felt powerful, I had stamina, I didn’t tire easily, and I had a lot of fun. It was a very nice time and I felt better than ever!
The fourth evaluation was also beautiful, but it was also the last evaluation, so that was also sad. After all, I was supposed to finish the therapy. During the last period I had focused mainly on connecting with everyone around me, and I had oriented myself to a follow-up treatment, which would be in line with my therapy process. I would follow this at the part-time-treatment center in a town closer to home, the same town where I had been in school, and where I had previously been diagnosed by Dr. Willemen and Dr. Dalemans. I had my intake scheduled for a month later, with Eelco de Smet, who had previously referred me to the clinic.
A big compliment in my evaluation came from the drama and creative therapist Dinah, who had been with us for about three months (from the move till now). She described that in drama therapy I had made history in a short time. “Loud, playful, a clown, imitating, attention-grabbing and overacting, but also quiet, inward, touched, inquisitive, and the courage to be truly vulnerable. It’s all Jesse and all these qualities are allowed to exist.”
And then the final week of my therapy at the clinic dawned. Anke complimented me in a Patient Staff Meeting (which included the entire residence), how much I had changed: at the beginning of the therapy I was so preoccupied with myself, and now it was the exact opposite: I was so preoccupied with others, and she thought that was a good quality. It was very nice, that last week, but I was also a bit down, because I was leaving the clinic. I remember Anke saying, “Enjoy it.”
In the last music therapy session, we listened to the CD my group had made for me. They had each chosen a song. And it was very beautiful. After listening to it all, there really was one of those telling hushed moments. Very beautiful. But also scary. Gerna, the therapist, asked if I wanted to sit like this for a few minutes and enjoy the moment? But I said “no!” I ran to the drum kit and went for a final blast, and the group members stood up and danced to the rhythm! And then I said goodbye to Gerna with three kisses, because I had become quite attached to her as well.
Anke gave me a stone in the last group session, which she had found on the beach during her vacation. She called it “the philosopher’s stone”. The stone had two different sides and she had a description of them. The one side of the stone was very flawless, and untouched and symbolized, she said, the fact that I didn’t let myself be affected in contact with others. That was before I started therapy there. The other side of the stone was rough and tarnished and symbolized the fact that now, after the therapy, I did allow myself to be affected in contact with others. I have carried this stone with me for a long time in my wallet. I had to let myself be affected, especially in the follow-up therapy that was on the program, because that was good for further development. And I have often thought back on this. I thought it was an incredibly sweet memento. My group mates took another photo of me together with Desmond and Anke. I felt that Anke was looking at me proudly, but I did not dare to look back, from so close. After the therapy I went to my room to write farewell cards for everyone and for some therapists. Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and there stood Anke and Desmond. Anke told me that she wouldn’t be here tomorrow, the day of my farewell, so she wanted to say goodbye now. I asked if she could wait a little longer, so I could write a card. I quickly wrote a text in which I told her how much I had feared her at the beginning of my therapy, and how free I felt now, and that it was really a world of difference, and that I was very grateful to her. I went to her room, and gave her the card. She was happy with it, we talked some more, and she got three kisses from me. It was a beautiful farewell.
That night my group and I had our own party! We ate separately from the rest, and so we were able to say goodbye at length. I got a present from the group: four colored t-shirts. Because I always wore such boring white t-shirts because of my identity problem, and different clothes making me feel like different persons. They hoped that I would now be a little less self-conscious, so that I could wear something different. And I did. The next day, the day I said goodbye, I was wearing a bright green t-shirt, and I showed it to Desmond once again when I went to see him to say goodbye. He gave me the referral letter for Eelco de Smet, I saw my full diagnosis for the first time and I was startled for a moment, but I recognized myself very much in it. We talked a little more, I gave him my farewell card and then I gave him a firm hand!
The rest of the day was very special. My group mates, who were all dressed in black pants and white t-shirts, gave me a booklet in the form of the same black pants and a white t-shirt. In this booklet were farewell texts from each group member and photos, and a text with photo of my therapists Desmond and Anke, that they were proud of me, and that I should carry my ‘philosopher’s stone’ with me. I also received a booklet with farewell texts from some of my clinic colleagues, also from the other house. I still cherish these, it is a wonderful ending to a wonderful time. I was picked up that day by my father, mother, and grandmother, and that felt very familiar. I gave everyone who stood outside to say goodbye a hug. And then my group walked with me, down the driveway, to our car. One last group hug and lots of kissing, hugging and shaking hands. And then I drove away with my family to my hometown.
While waiting for my follow-up therapy, I was now at home for about four weeks. And I was doing only a few things: staying up late, listening to loud music, and singing along loudly with rock music. I was often angry, and thought everything my family said was nonsense! I was no fun for them to live with, but it was also very close, living at home with my relatives, for whom I felt so much hatred, although deep down I loved them very much. Anke had said in one of the last weeks, when I told her that I was often so angry with my family, “Don’t do it! They are trying so incredibly hard for you!” But it was such a structureless void, when I was suddenly back home, that I blew up very much and could show little love for them. In the clinic I was often angry during the last weeks, but I felt I could not do that at home, and that intensified the fear and anger…
