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The one bright spot in the Hansons' Christmas vacation was that Myst was getting ready to start sixth grade with Cyke and Lockie. The seven-year-old had found to have an unbelievably high IQ in the genius range. Babsie had tried to homeschool her, but she was flying through her lessons and grades so quickly that they needed to send her to public school. They had a feeling, however, that she wouldn't be in the sixth grade for long. At the rate Myst was moving, she could very well graduate high school before she even hit puberty. Everyone was blown away by her intelligence..
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On his second day in the psych hospital Matt had his first group therapy. He was brought to a room with a small group of teenagers; it was a mixed group, both guys and girls. There was a counselor and an orderly, the counselor was sitting in the circle with all the teenagers, and the orderly guarding the door. When everyone was settled down, the counselor spoke up.
"Okay, I'm Dr. Grey, and you're all here for a reason. I'd like for you to all go around in a circle and say your name, how old you are, and why you're here."
"I'm Dayna and I'm fifteen," a very thin brunette started, "And I'm anorexic." The girl next to her sighed,
"Do I have to?"
"Yes, you have to."
"Fine. My name is Abbey , I'm fourteen, and I'm bulimic, and I've tried to kill myself," she sighed, "twice."
"I'm Luke, I'm sixteen, and about three weeks ago I purposely overdosed on drugs." Taking a deep breath, it was Matt's turn.
"Um, my name is Matt, I'm fourteen, and, um, well, two days ago I slit my wrists." Matt looked down at his lap and barely hear the next two people, Lester and Sarena, but he did hear the next girl. In fact, the second he heard her voice he was enraptured.
"Um, my name is Stephanie, I'm thirteen- almost fourteen- and I cut myself." Matt was so bust staring at Stephanie he didn't pay attention to the last girl who introduced herself, Hilary.
"Okay," Dr. Grey said, "Since Matt and Stephanie are new, they need to share, that's the group rule."
Matt took a deep breath and forced himself to speak.
"Okay, like I said, my name is Matt, and I'm a cross-country runner." The blue-haired boy looked bitterly at his knee. "Or at least I was, before I blew out my effing knee. I don't know exactly what happened the other day, I didn't really want to kill myself, just kind of lost it. My brothers and I -I'm a triplet- well, we've been growing apart. And then I have all this stuff going on with my knee, and my doctor tells me I'm off the track team for the rest of the school year, at least. And then, I guess the straw that broke the camel's back was my girlfriend Charlene. She broke up with me the day after Christmas. I completely understood where she was coming from, but it still hurt, you know? I totally didn't mean to hurt myself, it just kind of happened. The irony of the situation is that my dad found me because he was coming to bring me some more pain medication for my knee. I just had surgery a week ago." Matt looked at his leg propped up un the lifted pedal of the wheelchair with contempt. It killed him inside that he couldn't run, but he didn't know how to say it. So he sat back and let Stephanie talk.
"Okay, as I said, I'm Steph. I don't know exactly why I cut myself, I just do. The reasons are different at different times. Sometimes it's because I want the outside to hurt as much as the inside, and sometimes it's because I need to make sure I'm still here. Have you every wondered if you're even really alive? If you actually exist?" To her surprise, about half of the group nodded, including the counselor. "I hate my life."
"Why?" Dr. Grey asked.
"I don't know, I just do. How can I love myself? Nobody else does, so why should I. I'm not worth it."
"That's not true."
"Yes it is." Dr. Grey sighed.
"Okay, how many of you feel exactly the same as Stephanie; that nobody loves you, or that you're just a worthless piece of crap?" Not surprisingly, everybody raised their hand.
"Okay, so that's why we're all here. My goal is to get each one of you to look in the mirror and see the beautiful image of God, because that's what you all are. God made each of you in His image, and God doesn't make junk." Most of the teenagers rolled their eyes. They had all heard this before, and they didn't really want to hear it again. Finally, the clock showed that group was over. Everybody left the room and went either to their rooms or to the common room. There were video games and books and magazines, but never anything sharp. It was like a padded rec room, and it drove them all insane. But after all, it was a psych hospital, what better place is there to be insane?