Amber's Light

# The Beginning
"Just go away, mom!" She yelled.  "Please!"  "I just want to be sure you
are ok, honey." Replied her mom.  "You aren't helping, if you don't go away
right now, I'll....I'll....I don't know what I'll do but you won't like
it."  Tears began forming in his mother's eyes, but honestly, Amber didn't
care.  She had seen his mother cry for no reason, and even though this time
she had a reason, she was not in the mood to feel bad about her crying.
"Ok, I'll leave, but if you need anything, I am right outside."  "Thank you!"
Amber said exprasedly.  As she left He said "I told you you would make her
cry" "Just shut up" said Amber.  "You know I can't do that." "Fine, let's
talk about something else." "I actually love it when you make your mom
cry, it tells me I am doing a wonderful job"  "I said let's talk about
something else" "And I don't care." "Fine. So what do you want to talk
about?" "I want to talk about how stupid you are." "I am not stupid" she
said out loud.  A bit too loud.  "What did you say, honey?" said
her mom. "Nothing, mom!" Amber shouted.   "Just go away" she said under
her breath.

# Life as Amber
Amber hated life.  Life hated Amber.  It was mutual.  She just wanted to
get away from all the pain and hate.  When she first started hearing things,
they were her friends.  She had had none previously.  They said encouraging
words, and stopped her from making mistakes.  Then, as she grew older, they
became more hateful.  They encouraged her to do things she knew was wrong.
She almost got involved in a local gang.  But then she started to fight back.
If these voices could control her, she could control the voices.  It was
a struggle.  The more and more she tried to get them to "hush up", the louder
they got.  It came to a point.  She started cutting.  "Bleeding is better,
bleeding is way better."  Her mom took her to a psych hospital for treatment.
She met others like her.  But the hospital didn't make things better.
Sure, they stopped her from cutting.  But she still had the voices,  
the urges.  What else was she supposed to do?  She had no other choice.
She had made up her mind.  Ending her life was the only thing that she
could do.

# The Plan
She had planned for weeks.  Each day, she ate less and less.  She was trying
to starve herself before the "big day".  She got her affiars in order, even
to the point of making a will.  She was 16, so technically she didn't "own"
anything, but she hoped her parents would follow it.  She wasn't exactly
sure how she was going to do it, but she kept her options open.  She  
wanted something to be uniquely her.  Gun: too obvious.  Overdose: Same.  
Her other requirement was that it had to not mutilate the body.  It had
to keep her looking pretty, as if she was happy.  Chemicals: Maybe.   
Infection: Maybe. For days and days, for months, she thought and thought
 about ways to die. She kept coming up with idea after idea.  She soon
 forgot why she wanted to die, she just wanted to.  Then finally, one
 day, she decided to put her plans to action.

# Into Action
She had decided on the best way.  It was to overdose on so much morphine
that her heart would stop.  She had to find a way to get some first.
Unfortunently, it was a controlled substance, only trained people were
allowed to dispense it.  There was no way that someone was going to give
her some, let alone the dosages she wanted.  So she decided to keep on
living with the eventual goal of becoming an anestheseologist.  That way
she could access the tools she needed, and no one could stop her before
it was too late.  College sucked.  It really did.  She just wanted them
to hurry up already.  Her brain knew all the answers from all the research
she had done, she just needed to get her hands on some morphine.  Dear God,
it was so hard.  She would pass the locked cabinets every day, but until
she got her degree, she couldn't do a thing.

# First Run
Finally, she began her residency. She was in the top of her class,which,of course,meant that she got to finally get access. A smile was across
her face as she opened the cabinets. She found the morphine vials,and began
putting it into her side. She wasn't aiming,she just wanted it to be quick. As the first shot went into her,she instantly became calm. As three,four,and five went in,she began to feel real sleepy. Shaking,she sat down. Seven,eight,nine. She was halfway through with
ten when she passed out. She saw the light. Oh, joy! Elation
filled her. Then, as whatever the light was got closer,she realized it
was an overhead lamp. NO OH GOD. PLEASE. She tried to move, but everything was slow. As she stood up, she puked all over the floor.  She had failed.  She had to get away.  She tried the door.  Locked.
She beat on the door, she slumped down.  She looked for a window.
At this point, she didn't care about how pretty she looked, she just wanted
out.  But there was no window.  Ok. She thought. What else?
She could hang herself with a sheet..ok..but damn, no sheet.
She bawled her eyes out till she passed out on the floor.

# Running
She kicked and kicked at the door.  Screaming.  Crying.
Just wanting to get away from it all.  Eventually, she heard
the lock slide back and she yanked open the door.  In front of her stood
a nurse.  As Amber had expected, she had a whistle in her hand, ready
to blast in case she tried to run away. But she decided to try.  Punching
the nurse in the face, she ran down the hall.  Being the smart girl she
was, she had toured the mental health facility, saying that she was "interested
in working there" as an excuse to learn the floor plan.  She knew that
soon all the doors would lock, and security would come after her.  She had
to find a window.  She burst into the staff lunch room, and lept to the one
window in the whole building.  Pushing it up quickly, she jumped...

# Breakout
...into a tree.  She scrambled down, meanwhile, all sorts of alarms and
shouts were echoing through the facility.  Working quickly,  she tied  
her hospital gown tight around her waist, and tried to run into the main
facility.  Just as she was approaching the enterence, two police cars
blocked her way.  Her time was running out. She started sprinting in between the cars.  She noticed one of the officers pull out their tazer
(or was it a gun?) It didn't matter.  As the first electrode (yes,
it was a tazer) hit her, she just kept running.  But when the second one
hit, she fell.  Her whole body was out of control.  She almost passed
out from the pain alone.  Everything was spinning, shaking, burning.
She could smell her skin being burnt off from the amount of electricity
it was pumping through her.  She tried to grab the wires and rip them
off, but it was futile.  By the time she could think straight, she  
was in handcuffs being lead back into the holding area.  She just sat
down in her room and didn't move for hours.

# Food
When they finally brought dinner, she realized how hungry she was.
She contemplated not eating it, but then the nurse said "If you don't
eat your dinner, we are going to have to force feed you.  You don't want
that do you, honey?"  Honey. She hated that word.  It was a word you used
with small children.  She was not small and definitely not a child.  "Just
go away." The nurse smiled and said "That isn't going to happen", now eat
your dinner."  She reluctantly grabbed the plate and began eating.   
The food was disgusting.  Was this even meat? She couldn't tell.
She promptly threw up.  It had been a very, very long day.  The nurse
frowned at the vomit.  Then she broke into a fake smile.  
"Don't worry, I'll go get someone to clean it up."  She left and locked
the door again.  Amber cried and cried and cried.  And then the phone rang.
"Hmm....who could that be?" He said.  "I bet it's mom. She is going to
be so upset with you.  You don't even know!"

# The Call
"Amber?" Her mom.  Great.   She had to deal with Mom.  Her dad never
cared.  But mom, mom was the emotional one. "Yes, mom?" "You disappoint me."
She said flatly.  "Mom....I'm sorry.  I didn't know another way out."
"I am always here. You know that right?"  "I know, but I don't care."

"But...Amber..." "Mom, I'm fed up with this life and honestly I don't
want you to worry about me anymore.  I will be fine.  Alive or dead." The
phone clicked.  Sitting on the bed, she began to think.  Not of death.
But actually the fear of death.  Now she was afraid.  What is she doing?
It would just make everyone sad.  There was no point in dying.  But
there was no point in living either.  So what to do?  Live.  She decided
to live.  She wanted to live, but didn't know how to live.  What else
are you supposed to do in a mental hospital besides sit around and mope?
They took her outside one day a week, but still, that was not enough
to make her happy.  
 
# Getting out, the right way

After spending several weeks in the hospital, they finally decided there
was nothing that they could do, and let her go.  She got into her car,
went to her apartment, and slept.  The bed in the hospital was horrible.
She hadn't slept properly in days.  She had a follow-up the next day.
They asked stupid questions about how she was feeling.  She just said
the answers that made them happy, made them go away.  They let her go
home again, and she continued to rest.  She thought about returning to
her job, but when she called her boss, she learned she was fired.  So
what to do?  Now she had screwed up all her options.  She had no money
for rent, and would be kicked out in a week.  She got a janitorial job
at the university. It was really awkward when she saw her fellow classmates, they were
doing very well, while she was in the deepest hell.  Her
voices were constantly reminding her of her mistakes, her failures.
She contemplated cutting off
her ears, but she realized that wouldn't fix anything.  They would
still be in her head.

# I hear it

Creeping across her bedroom, Amber held a bat.  She had heard someone
break the window and was going to bash the brains out of the intruder.  
She heard the footsteps of the figure as he approached.   When he got
close, she jumped out of her hiding place, and right before hitting him,
 she let out a scream.  It was her.   She was about to faint when
 someone grabbed her and pulled her away.  What the hell was going on?
 She had just almost murdered herself and now someone else was dragging
 her back to her room.  She tried to twist her away around to face
 whoever it was, but then suddenly her world went black.  Someone had
 put a hood over her head.  Screaming more and more she tried to pull the
 hood off, but it was tight around her neck. The Voices in her head were
 screaming "Die! Die! Die!" Then suddenly the hood lifted. She whirled
 around, but there was no one there. Where had they gone? Oh God. It's
 all in my head.  Desperately, she called her psychatrist, but when he
 heard what had happened he said "I can't help.  You should really go
 back to the hospital." "I don't want to go there." she said.  "It's way
  too scary, plus it just makes me miserable." He replied saying that there
  is no other option and that really really really she should go there.
  She hung up the phone and proceeded to sit in her car for the next
  several hours contemplating  whether to go to the hospital or not.
  Finally she decided to go to the hospital. This caused her some great
  distress, however amber continued to look on the bright side by saying
   that she would be getting help.  When she arrived, the processing
   nurse took her into a padded cell.  From this cell she was in her
   mind interrogated. They asked for all
 the usual questions do you want to kill yourself do you want to
 harm yourself do you want harm another person after all the questions
 stopped she was left alone for what seemed like hours then finally her
 psychiatrist stepped into the room. He asked her some of the same
 questions but he seemed to do it anymore careful cautious tone. Amber
 feeling that she was better now that she was in a quote safe place in
 quote answered him or to sleep more truthfully she told him that she
 really did want to die that you really did want to hurt herself it was all
 hopeless in her mind he told her that she had two options she could go
 home and come back the next day for a point mint or she could be
  hospitalized and face untold length of stay. Amber said she needed to
  think. He left the room and she began to contemplate your choices.
  After what seemed like hours of contemplation she finally decided to
  stay. The reason she decided to stay is because she knew she would be
  safe here. At home, she could go crazy and do something really stupid.
  But here, she could feel safe and well and unable to hurt herself.
  She walked to the door and the psychatrist quickly opened it. What
  have you decided to do? he said. She replied "I wish to stay as long as
  I will not be a burden to others. I hate being a burden. Its too much
  trouble to come here when I don't need it. However right now I do feel
   that I need it. When I'm this messed up when to..shut the f*** up" she
   said.  Her psychiatrist looked at her quizzically. She got red in the
   face and apologized It was her voices acting up again. She just
   wanted to go into a bed and cry and get away from it all, but she knew
    she couldn't do that. She couldn't end the voices.  She couldn't end the
    pain. She couldn't end the feeling of great remorse and sadness and all
     the other stupid crap feelings that were rolling around inside her.

# First Night
She had planned ahead and brought several changes of clothes. This
allowed her to stay here for at least a couple days. Amber wanting to
try as best she could to get out as quickly as possible, only brought
clothes for one day. The hospital can wash the clothes, but she didn't
want that. She wanted to get out. Even though she just got in, amber
wanted to get out. This led her to feel like she had screwed up again.
That she let herself down. That she was too weak. Amber cried and cried and
cried. It got to the point to where the nurses check on her every couple
 minutes or so. They wanted to make sure that she was safe they said.
 But Amber just knew it they was bothering her. Voices. Voices. It was
 all hell. She just wanted it to end. Amber, amber this strong, amber
 the weak. Amber, amber the strong, amber the weak. For some reason this
 replayed in her mind over and over and over. She was both strong and
 weak at the same time. She had the will and the courage to go to
 doctor. However, she  was weak because she had problems. But everyone had
 problems. Only it was way worse. In the only solution that Amber
 can think of to all her problems was to kill herself. It was the
 losers way out but at least she could choose how she wanted to die.
 She had watched a documentary once about some guy with Alzheimer's who
 said decided to kill himself before the Alzheimer's killed him. In her
 mind this was courageous . Amber wanted to die. So she started planning again.

# Second run
This time amber had to find a way to kill herself without anyone noticing.
 This was obviously quite hard in a mental hospital due to the fact that
  she was on surveillance 24 /7. But she had a way. They let her go
  outside once a week. The next time she went outside shoot climb a tree
   in the yard. And then she would leap from the tree.  Nobody could stop
   her. They could try and pull it down but she would fall. That could
   be worse but she had to keep climbing, climbing, climbing. The tree
   was huge. It was taller than the two story building that she resided in.
   Only a skillful person could scale that tree. Only Amber could.

# Leaping into the sky

Amber went outside the next day.  She slowly made her way over to the tree,
trying to gain some distance between herself and the nurses.  She looked
up, stretching her neck to see the top.  She grabbed on and scampered up
to the first limb.  The nurse gave a shout, trying to coax her back down.
Not listening, Higher and higher she climbed.  The nurse, meanwhile,
had ran back inside and was now standing on the roof, continuously yelling
at her to climb back down.  Amber still wouldn't listen.  She didn't
ever want to listen.  She had what? 5 minutes left in her life? Listening
to this crazy screaming lady wouldn't be a good use of her time.  Finally,
she reached the top.  Below her, she saw police cars swarming the campus,
and someone was on a megaphone trying to coax her down.  It just wouldn't
work, why couldn't figure that out? She reached the top, and looked down.
That was a mistake.  She had always
been afraid of heights, but this was higher than she had ever gone. "DIE DIE DIE" they chanted.  She realized now, she was only scared.
It wasn't that she wanted to die, but that she was afraid of living.