And here I am, in a room with a stranger

All I could sense was: Danger, danger!

One strange sentence…

One strange word…

And I’ll be in the “crazy” herd.

 

Oh, who am I, but a human

With feelings, thoughts, and hope…

And yet, they say

That I cannot cope.

 

And so it began, the Doc pulls

The ink blots, one by one,

Upon my eyes, I saw the strangeness…

Oh, this won’t be fun.

 

The ink became a soldier,

shooting its black stain upon my hands.

I stare at the man, he eyes my eyes.

I glance at my black fingertips.

 

What do you see?

Said the Ph.D.

I see: a rainbow flushed world,

Entering the bland room in craziness

 

Am I crazy? The Black soldier says:

Don’t fight this war.

The doctor eyes my head,

Envisioning my thoughts; what for?

 

This ink blot sets chains.

They don’t unlock, not just yet.

The man says: What do you see now?

Holding the empty card, but how?

 

The card reflects my un-relaxed brow,

My fixed pupils, my frown.

Silence in this room, no answer.

The card is put down, He thinks: there must be something “wrong” with her.

 

Shaking of the hands signals the final departure,

For I am not a captive, not in that room,

But still held chained in the inpatient grave

May I ever live again? Written on the forehead: “please save”

 

A true experience upon entering an inpatient unit where I was tested with the Rorschach ink blot test. It is not a weakness to have a mental illness, rather, it is something that builds strength to endure the most difficult of challenges in life. I am too polarized, maybe for my own good, but I will forever be charged to do greatness.

 

Peace & Love,

Dana Barakat

I don’t have many favorites, no favorite movie, song, or book. I tend to fall in love with everything I’m passionate about which makes it difficult to call only one thing my “favorite”. But I had a favorite crayon to color with when I was younger. That was the first and only favorite thing I ever had. Tickle Me Pink. That was the crayon I absolutely called my favorite. Everyone else loved “Sky Blue” and “Turquoise”, but Tickle Me Pink was too funny to love. That seems to be the theme of my life, that I tend to love things that no one finds special, and that I am different than the rest. Then, surely enough, everyone wanted to use “Tickle Me Pink” in my first grade class. We even tickled and got tickled, we had some great laughs and our innocence filled the classroom and in entered joy and bliss. So it happened to be that another theme from my life emerged: I was a leader, or someone people looked up to, someone people were willing to learn from. Although I didn’t intend for others to like “Tickle Me Pink” as a favorite crayon to use, they saw it as fun and instead of overlooking it they wanted to try using it. Thing is, I’ve been through times where I never thought I would be a leader, or at least someone people admired. I went through personal disasters, as we all do, but I was open about it all. I always told my story not for pity, not for recognition, not for anything but just talk it through and show others my life that I am human and that I have a story. And then, people started calling me “strong” and that I have persevered in such a way that seemed it wouldn’t be possible to do so. That’s when I realized that the Tickle Me Pink crayon isn’t my only favorite thing, it’s my resiliency. I love that about me and I can finally see it. I used to think “I’m getting through this because that’s what you are supposed to do”, but now I know, and will never forget, that I was able to get through it all because I put my mindset to be a survivor and to survive. And sometimes I wonder, how I get from Tickle Me Pink, the silly Dana that just had to stand out, to Resilient Dana, the one that always stands back up… the answer? Maybe it’s because I finally know who I am and I’ve come to a sense of self-actualization. Or, maybe, it’s because I now understand that if you’re going to have one favorite thing in this entire world, you better damn well make it YOUrself. I am my favorite thing in this universe without being self-absorbed, and I will always remember the 64-crayola crayons set and the one that stood out to me, Tickle Me Pink, which in turn helped me stand out in the world.