Tales from Your Local Support Group

Trigger warnings: mental health, eating disorders, suicide, cutting, depression, anxiety, swearing, and psychiatric care.

Format: monologue

Setting: a local support group

Time: 4 minutes

Um, hello, everyone. My name is -- oh, sorry, I forgot we weren’t supposed to say names. Sorry. Um, yeah, hello. I’m here because… (laughs) well, I don’t really know why I’m here. That’s not true. I’m here because my mom made me. Embarrassing, I know. But she caught me with my hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, and I -- what? Oh. Well, she caught me with my hand in the medicine and alcohol cabinets, then, and long story short, it was either here or the crazy house. Sorry. That was probably offensive to some of you who actually are -- sorry. (nervous laugh) Whoopsie.

Pffffffft, so… talk, talk. Um, I guess an interesting fact about me is that I can do a handstand. Well, in the water. Maybe. Okay, that was a bad one. Oooh, wait, okay -- I’ve got a good one. (deep breath) Did y’all know that, in 1936, the Cambridge-Somerville study was one of the first studies to examine criminal behavior in adolescents? Yeah. Put all the bad kids in with the good kids and tried to measure whether the good kids had an influence on the bad ones. Literally, shoved them all into a summer camp and made them report back for the next twenty years. Crazy, right? Wouldn’t wanna be one of those kids, let me tell you. Being examined all the time for the rest of my life. (shudder) At least it makes our problems seem a little less debilitating, though, doesn’t it? “Perspective.” Well, that’s what everyone tells me, anyway. Okay, for real -- does that actually work for anyone? That “putting things into context,” “other people have it worse than you” mindset. Yeah, not for me, either. Bullshit, is what I think it is. A big, steaming pile of -- oh, sorry. No swearing. Right. I keep forgetting there are rules.

Huh? Yes, yes, sorry. I do have a bit of a tendency to… waffle. Anyway. Talk. (beat) Um, sorry, but… what -- what am I supposed to talk about?

(laughs) “My problems.” Okay. Well, I’m not exactly fond of myself, surprise, surprise. But honestly, is anyone? I think happiness is a commercialized commodity propagated by a capitalist industry of product-pushing corporate pigs. (scoffs) Happiness. What does that even mean? Happiness is a refreshing sip of Coca-Cola. Happiness that new vacation package you wanna buy. Happiness is that new show you can’t wait for and that new bag you’ve been eyeing and that load of casual sex you tell yourself you’re gonna have one of these days. Best years of your life, remember? That’s supposed to be now, for me. So much for that.

(beat) Are you kidding me? You people want more? Pffft. You run a tough ship, eh? What do you want me to say? You want me to tell my sob story of a neglectful childhood -- abusive father figure, the lot… but hey, at least it wasn’t my actual Dad, eh? -- and my depressive adolescence, characterized by eating disorders and Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar type 2? Is that what you wanna hear? You want me to talk about my five days in the psych ward back home, seeing horrors I couldn’t have previously imagined? You want me to talk about that? Oh, yeah, ‘cause talking is gonna make it better, isn’t it. Talk, talk, talk. That’s all you people wanna do. Look, no disrespect, lady, but what the actual fuck is talking gonna do, huh? Is it gonna heal the scars on my thighs -- wrists are for amateurs, honey -- or erase those five days... hell, these past five years from my memory? As I believe Isaac Newton once said: “I don’t fucking think so, mate.”

(beat) I’m sorry. That was rude. I suppose I’m a bit wound up seeing as this time yesterday I thought I’d be dead by now. So much for that.

(beat) Final thoughts?

Fuck paramedics. Just fuck ‘em.