It's Kind of a Funny Story (125-294)

SUMMARY

Craig was eating dinner, or trying to, with his family but he ended up trowing it up as usual. Afterwards, he was really tired of his depression having control of his life so he decided he was going to kill himself. Before he went through with it, he wanted to make sure he told his younger sister, Sarah, and his parents that he loves them and he wanted to call Nia to tell her how he felt and to see if she had any of the same feelings. By 10 pm, he said his goodnights and decided to sleep in his mom's room because he felt that's the least he owed her since he wanted to kill himself. When he was all settled in bed, he called Nia and she basically told him the opposite of what he wanted to hear so he got almost no closure from her. He couldn't sleep so he stayed up all night and when he went to try and throw himself off of the Brooklyn Bridge, he didn't but instead called a suicide hotline that told him to go to the emergency room if he felt like he was going to hurt himself, so he went.

First he went to the emergency room and from there they put him in a holding room with his own security guard and everything. From the holding room, the hospital needed a parent to sign papers and to discuss with Craig whether he wanted to be admitted. He said yes so he went up to six north.

He entered the adult psychiatric on saturday and everybody kept telling him it was a good day because all the good doctors are on the floor on saturday. He met a lot of people his first day there. Smitty and Monica are care takers. Bobby, Johnny, Humble and Armelio are some friends Craig made, Muqtada is his rommate and Noelle is a girl he likes. While here, he was able to make some calls, to Nia and his shrink and even received a call, from Aaron. When he spoke to Aaron and Nia he was able to cut ties and when he told his parents about this, they were proud, they felt that his old friends had a part in his downfall. He was able to eat food here but was put to sleep with the aid of medication; he feels like a shift is happening but it's not "the" shift.

The second day he was in the ward he was looking foward to a date with Noelle rather than looking foward to the thought that if he wanted to he could kill himself. In the morning he met with Monica to talk about how his frist day went. She informed him that maybe it wasn't a good thing for him to begin making friends here but besides her concern, he became closer with Bobby and is trying to take it steps further with Noelle. He attened the daily activity, art, and he went back to drawing maps. That night he slept with no meds.

QUOTE

"I'm going to be here until I'm cured?" "Life is not cured, Mr. Gilner." Dr. Mahmound leans in. "Life is managed." (Vizzini, 239).

REACTION

Craig wants to be cured completely but there is really no person that is absolutely perfect and worry free because it is natural to worry about things in life. Going into the ward was probably the best thing that he did and really brave because normally a clinically depressed person would give up and end everything.