//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: A Bed of Roses // by Half the Battle //------------------------------// Roseluck opened her eyes as the sun rose. Whether it was the rest or the antidepressants, she felt strangely energized. Glancing toward the doorway, she noticed her new pad of paper on the small table between the bed and the door. The pages were blank, clean, ready to be written on. She thought through Dr. Hardy's words the previous night. He said there was something I could fix here, she recalled. Her regret over the conversation turned to resolve. This time doesn't have to be a waste. I can find the issue in my thinking, get my head right, and be ready to face life when I get out tomorrow! She washed, retrieved yesterday's discarded pages from behind the clock, read them, and stood over the fresh notepad. Just as she was picking up the pencil, Nurse Snowheart called her to breakfast and then to an agonizingly irrelevant group session on self-restraint. She returned with two hours to think and write before lunch. An hour and a half later, Rose had a short list of possible issues and related thoughts: Roseluck, patient at Ponyville Hospital. Possible keys to happiness: 1. The meaning of life—and death? My life or everypony's? Does it change? Can it? Should it? 2. Work—am I doing the right thing? Am I my work? Should I be? Need a plan! 3. Too trusting/dependent on others for happiness, safety in relationships: you can only count on yourself. She studied her final list, growing more confident by the minute that one of these was the issue she could correct to allow her to deal with life once she was released. The third point seemed to offer the most promise, since it related to all her recent troubles. A knock startled her, and it was the nurse again. "I hope I'm not disturbing you, Roseluck, but you have some company for lunch today, if it's alright. Your parents would like to join you in the cafeteria. Are you okay with seeing them?" "Absolutely," Rose said, yet her stomach tightened at the thought of facing her parents in such a humiliating state. They'll be so sad. They'll be so worried, she thought. Then it hit her: They'll care. She inhaled sharply. Maybe this was it. Perhaps her relationship with her parents was the common thread in all her problems. Was that the key issue? She turned her notepad face down on the bed and trotted downstairs to the hospital cafeteria. As she entered the large dining area, she grabbed a simple tray of alfalfa and quickly surveyed the room. With his rusty brown coat and white mane, her father was hard to pick out in a crowd, but her mother was easier to spot: she had the same colors as Rose, only in darker hues. There they were; they had just found a table, and her father was placing a reassuring foreleg around her mother. They looked frantic. She joined them, and they exchanged greetings and light affections, but no smiles. Rose's mother's voice caught as she spoke. "Oh, Rose, we are so sor-sorry!" "Are you alright?" Rose's father asked. "I'm not hurt," Rose answered. "I've been fine since about this time yesterday. I guess you've heard, they say I was going through clinical depression. Not just then, but for a long time." "You still are," her father corrected. "Honey, this isn't something you simply snap out of. Getting through this will take time. I'm sure they've told you that. We don't expect you to be back to normal over a weekend. You'll need to stay on the medicine they're giving you, go through counseling, re-evaluate..." Rose's mother broke in. "Topline, dear, don't overwhelm her. Rose, we're just relieved that you're going to be okay." Rose and her parents made small talk as they ate. After the meal, Topline looked at his wife. "Gallica, what we talked about..." "Oh, yes," she said. "Rose, there are a couple things we wanted to share with you. First, we want to apologize for anything we did in raising you that's made life difficult for you. I know we weren't as close as a lot of other families." Topline looked directly into Rose's eyes and she saw tears forming in his. "Forgive me, Rose, especially. I thought I was a pretty good father, but I was a bad husband. I didn't love your mother the way I should. You don't know how I treated her sometimes." His wife put her hoof on his, giving him the strength to continue. Looking at him, she said, "We've reconciled and he's loved me ever since." Topline bowed his head. "I hate who I was back then. You didn't know because you were so young, but I know that must have had an impact on you." As her parents waited for a response, Rose recalled a distant impression of her mother crying and imagined that memory evaporating. She'd longed to hear these words from her father for years, but this didn't really explain anything. "Dad, I forgive you. I knew more than you probably think I did, and we can talk about that some time. I don't want to be haunted by those memories anymore. But honestly, I don't think that's why I'm here now." Over the next half hour, she proceeded to tell them the truth about the past year of her life. To her surprise, there was no anger, no shaming, only listening. When she had finished, Gallica was first to speak. "Rose, you're not alone. Everypony goes through times of grief, times of failure, times when they're deeply hurt. We knew the same would be true for our daughter. Maybe we didn't prepare you for it. Or did we not ask enough questions? Did you think we wouldn't love you if we knew these things? We could have helped you if we'd known what you needed." "This isn't your fault," Rose insisted. "You taught me fine. But I've still got some things to figure out. Believe me, I've got plenty of time to think. Anyway, I know it's a long trip whenever you come to Ponyville, but when will I see you again?" "We're staying in town," Topline said. "We'll come back to pick you up on Tuesday." Rose wilted. "Tuesday? But it's only Saturday. I thought I'd be out tomorrow morning." Her father answered. "They said you need at least another twenty-four hours of observation for side effects, and your doctor is off tomorrow and Monday, so the first chance for safe release is Tuesday." "But there are other doctors." "Yes, but he's the only psychiatrist. A town like Ponyville's lucky to have even one. We just had one locate to Hollow Shades last year, and he's our first. You usually only find them in major cities. Anyway, if all goes well, he should be able to release you around noon, and we'll be there." "That was the other thing we wanted to say," Rose's mother added. "You're welcome to come back to Hollow Shades and stay with us for however long it takes. In six months or a year, when you're feeling up to it, you can come back to Ponyville for a fresh start." Rose's eyes went wide. "How...h-how...how could I leave Ponyville? I mean, thank you, you're being very kind, and the offer is generous, and please don't think I want to stay away from you. I promise to visit more and everything. But I have friends here. They'd be devastated. And they'd worry. I'm sorry, but this is my home now." Rose saw that both parents were taken off guard by her refusal, but they recovered gracefully. "I understand," Gallica said. "You're always welcome if you change your mind later. But can you promise to at least write?" Rose nodded. "I'll send a letter every week." "That's good," her father said. "We'll see you Tuesday and take you back to Daisy and Lily's place." They said their farewells, and just as they parted, she said, "Mom, dad...this wasn't your fault." Back in her room, Rose reflected on the double relief she felt. In one conversation she had just unburdened herself of ten years of worry over her parents' love for each other, and of the guilt of her silence about her more recent troubles. She had indeed been able to make progress in her life, even in this place. But did what happened to me as a filly damage me beyond repair? she asked herself. She went back to her notepad and spent half an hour trying to reinterpret each incident and issue in terms of her family's trauma. There were hints of some influence here and there, but too much was left unexplained. Rose came away as sure as ever that the cause of her depression lay somewhere else. So what was the cause? The doctor would know, but he wasn't going to simply give her the answer. But surely he would let her know when she found it. Either tonight or...Tuesday, three long days away. "I wasted the first day," Rose said aloud, "so they're giving me extra time to find the problem. And when I find it, I'll be released, and my counselor and I can nail down an action plan to deal with it. We'll follow the plan, and then this will all be behind me!" Rose stopped as she noticed she was pacing and talking to herself, just like so many of the other patients. Probably just an excess of energy, she considered. That thought encouraged her; how many weeks had it been since she'd had any energy to speak of? She spent the rest of the afternoon getting her thoughts in order, preparing what to say to make her next meeting with Dr Hardy productive. She took an early dinner and returned with enough time to list as many positive memories as she could recall regarding her time with her parents in the ten years since they'd gotten back together. The list was far longer than she had expected. "Thank you," she said, resolving to thank them in person the next time she saw them. *** "Thank you, Roseluck," Dr. Hardy said, "for opening up tonight." They were twenty minutes into their meeting, and she had just finished the same recounting she had given her parents at lunch. "I see you've been using your time well. Were you able to think of any internal issues you need to address?" She handed him her second notepad and they talked briefly through each of the three topics she had listed: the meaning of life, the importance of her work, and the issue of trust. "I am a bit concerned about your third point," said the doctor, "though given the circumstances of your breakup this week, I certainly understand it. Are there ponies in your life who have been faithful to you, who have earned your trust, and who despite their failings have been supportive in the end?" Feeling chastised, Rose answered, "You're right, of course. I should just scratch that one out. I don't know what I was thinking." "Not at all. Look at how you worded this. You're very observant to see a need for safety in relationships, and to note the danger of depending too much on others for your happiness. Now if most of your friends and family have been dependable, that's wonderful. Many of our patients don't have that blessing. But there is a balance between reasonable trust and self-sufficiency. I leave it to you to find that balance." Rose wrote "balance" next to her third point and circled it. She set the pencil down, took a deep breath, and gave the doctor a hopeful look. "Is that my issue, then, doctor? Or am I overworked or missing the meaning of life, or do I need to look for another answer?" "Roseluck," Dr. Hardy began, "I always encourage patients to find their own answers. But just to start you on the right path, let me say that every decision you make has myriad factors. Your inborn personality, how you were raised, the behaviors you saw when you were younger, your peers, how you're used to dealing with problems, tragic events in your life, your daily habits, your health, even the weather – all of these things influence how you think and what you do. None of these can be singled out. And none of these things excuses your decision, but if it was only a decision independent of everything else, you could just as easily decide not to." The doctor then gave her a warm smile. "I see those flattened ears. This is not a rebuke. You really have made a good start in thinking through a number of the factors I'm talking about. Believe me, if there were only one thing to work on, my job would be a lot easier. I could simply tell you what it was and give you the step-by-step instructions for how to deal with it. We know it's not that simple; there's always a context to reckon with, and it will help you immensely if you arrive at some of those answers yourself...with a little help, of course. That's why you need to talk things out with a counselor who gets to know you over the weeks and months." Rose obligingly returned Dr. Hardy's smile. "Doctor, I do have one more question, just a small one. Why is my room a different color than all the others, pink instead of blue or green?" The doctor chuckled. "Oh, did the nurse not tell you? Your room is painted in the same colors as the nursery. It promotes the idea that you're undergoing a rebirth, starting fresh. What you have, Roseluck, is the chance for a second life." Rose returned to her room devastated. Had he set her up for failure, or was she too dense to understand his instructions? How many hours had she spent thinking she was on the right track? With nothing else to do, she drew pictures of her with her aunt. For an hour or more, she scribbled without thinking. Then restless, she leafed through the pictures she'd drawn. What a mess. Pleasant scenes from her childhood were drawn right next to, and in some cases overlapping, sketches of a coffin. That coffin. In one picture, Sunburst stood laughing, holding a bag of money over a fallen Aunt Rosebud. "Maybe I'm just going crazy," Rose said aloud, and then settled into bed for a night of fitful sleep. Sunday was not a good day. Without release, without a strategy, without visitors, without even the doctor for advice, Rose had a full day ahead at the mercy of a slowly ticking clock. With only more of the same tomorrow, she considered. After breakfast, there was a long group session on how to handle stress. She found this at least mildly interesting and took notes. Back in her room, she looked at the clock. It read 9:15. Rose read over her notes from the meeting, then checked the clock again. It was now 9:20. She read through her notebooks, slowly and aloud. The clock now showed 9:50. With a frustrated snort, Rose got up and walked to the recreation area. She immersed herself in solitaire word games until her head hurt, then returned to her room. The time: 10:25. She returned to her bed and wrote five poems about calla lilies. She looked up—lunchtime, right? Not quite, 10:50. When the call for lunch came, Rose was dancing alone in her room. She trudged off to lunch, taking extra time, and even struck up an awkward conversation with another patient when she was through. She then walked two laps around the cafeteria before returning to her room. How is it only 12:15?! Afternoon and evening were no better, and nightfall came as a great relief. She rose early Monday and stared at the clock as it ticked its way to seven in the morning. She reflected on the fact that this would be her last full day in the hospital. Time is not my enemy, she determined. It's a tool. She would use these final hours to prove to the doctor and herself that she could find her own answers. What had Dr. Hardy said? That she could only sort through all the issues after weeks and months with a counselor? Who could endure such a long period of uncertainty? No, far better to get the diagnosis out of the way now and hit the ground running tomorrow. Rose's head ached at the thought of more analysis. She'd done more thinking and introspection in the past few days than she had in years before that. That was more in line with Daisy's abilities, or Miss Cheerilee's, or just about anypony besides her. No more numbered lists, she resolved. She needed to figure this out her way. After breakfast, Rose brought back a fresh notepad from the recreation room and began writing "Rose's Rules for Relationships": guidelines formatted as rhyming couplets. The first pair of lines dealt with learning to trust, the next addressed a matter of safety or independence, and back and forth. She even worked in a few flower references as she went. Her experience with Sunburst figured prominently in the safety portions, though she was careful not to name him. At sunset she admired her practical poem: eighty rules, as only she could write them. She had found her balance. *** "I must say, I'm very encouraged," said Dr. Hardy as their final meeting neared its end. "You've certainly made the most of your time here. But your recovery is really only beginning. First and foremost, you need to stay on your medication. It should make you feel like you're okay, but the root chemical problems are still there. Until you're back in balance and able to maintain that balance by the way you handle life's ups and downs, there will be a danger of relapse. And I can't stress enough your need for a qualified counselor to keep you on track in your recovery. Out there is the real world, and it won't give you a break just because of how much you've already been through. I also recommend keeping a friend or two close by, especially in the first few days." "That won't be a problem, doctor," Rose answered. "I've had quite enough time alone recently." "Very good. Finally, I know you're eager to get out, but we always ask our psychiatric patients: Are you sure you're ready? Will you feel safe leaving the hospital?" "Yes." The doctor authorized her release, and in a short time her parents arrived with Lily and Daisy to escort her home. "Well, that was the hard part," she said once again. "I've started."