The group room was cramped, with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead like a swarm of mosquitoes. Chairs were arranged in a tight circle, too close for comfort, too far for real connection. Everyone sat rigid, eyes darting like they wanted to be anywhere but here.
I planted myself in the corner, arms crossed, heart thudding like I was about to get called out. That's the thing about group therapy, it's like public confession without the forgiveness. You lay your mess bare, but the silence afterward feels like judgment.
Today's topic was "Triggers." What sets you off, what makes the world spin faster and darker. I stayed quiet. What's the point? My trigger was the constant, suffocating feeling that I wasn't enough. That every failure, every missed detail, every 'not good enough' was a mark burned into my soul.
The counselor asked, "Anyone want to share?"
I clenched my jaw.
Theo spoke up instead. "I'll bite." His voice was rough, like gravel scraped over glass. "Mine's carrying other people's pain. I've been a therapist for twenty-five years. Heard more trauma than a war zone. It doesn't just live in their stories… it burrows in, and it stays."
I glanced at him sideways. I could see it in his eyes, the kind of tiredness that wasn't just about missing sleep. It was the tiredness that kills.
When it was my turn, because eventually, it always is. I bit the bullet.
"My trigger is failure. Not just failing others, but failing myself. And the hardest part? Feeling like it's my fault no one wanted to help when I asked for it."
The room went quiet. No sympathy, no nods. Just silence. Which I hated.
Later, Theo and I found ourselves in the rec room again. The one place where silence didn't feel so loud.
"You think you failed," he said quietly.
I scoffed. "I know I did."
"No. You were set up to fail. You just didn't know it."
I didn't say anything.
"You weren't lazy or stupid," he continued. "You were unsupported. That's on them, not you."
It was the first time anyone had said that to me without making me feel like I was less.
I looked away. "Doesn't change the fact I lost everything."
"No, it doesn't. But you're still here. You're still fighting."
And for the first time in a long time, I believed him.
Days passed in the blur of group sessions, medication rounds, and those endless hours where my brain just wouldn't shut off.
Flashbacks hit like tidal waves.
The look in the vet school dean's eyes when they told me I was dismissed.
The sting of that final exam I bombed because I couldn't process the questions fast enough.
The moments in the ER when I wanted to scream but swallowed it down because I was supposed to be strong.
Theo became my anchor. Not in a sappy way, but in the way someone holds a flashlight in a pitch-black tunnel. He didn't fix me, he just held space while I tried to find my footing.
I stayed longer than I meant to. A few more days turned into two weeks. Then three. No one pushed me out. Insurance didn't kick and scream. I guess there's some grace for people who don't make a second attempt.
One afternoon, the nurse came in with discharge papers.
"You're cleared to leave tomorrow," she said gently.
I felt numb. Part of me wanted to run, and part of me wanted to stay where the chaos was predictable.
Theo found me later in the hallway.
"Leaving so soon?" he asked, arching a brow.
"Feels like both an ending and a beginning," I admitted.
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Just don't disappear, Mara. The world's better with you in it."
I nodded, clutching the small journal I'd started writing in.
"You gonna keep pretending you're okay out there?" he asked.
"No. I think I might actually try being okay."
He stood. Reached into his pocket. Handed me a folded crossword. "It's a hard one."
"I like a challenge."
"You better. Life doesn't give you the easy ones."
I turned to leave, then hesitated. "You ever get out of here… look me up."
He gave me a nod. "You'll know how to find me."
I stepped out of Pinehurst Behavioral with a discharge folder, a crossword puzzle, and a number scratched on the back of a napkin. Not hope exactly.
The cold hit my face like a slap, the world hadn't paused for me. The streets buzzed with noise, strangers, cars.
I wasn't fixed. Far from it.
But I was still here.