It was late in the afternoon but my brother wanted a new desk so badly that we decided to visit the furniture boulevard, this is a central place where several shops are confirmed that sell home related items. That was an unnecessarily long part of the story…sorry about that. On the way we saw that the gas meter was orange so we decided to fill up with my brother at a gas station near us. Here’s another goofy bit… I was showing my brother that you can actually hang the lit on the door after unscrewing the tank cap! Give it a try! Well, after we made some funny faces together and he took a picture of my genius idea, I finished refueling afterwards and walked back to my front seat next to my brother (he was the driver). We were still talking about silly things and were acting crazy when suddenly someone quietly opened the door of the rear seat… I was shocked and somewhat surprised, turned around carefully and saw that a lady was standing at the doorway. .. she asked if she could ride with us for a bit..(???). I replied “Where to?” and replied “Just ride with you a little way away from here”. After I saw that it was a young lady, I looked at my little brother who also looked at me astonished, I nodded approvingly to the lady and to be honest she also seemed quite surprised about her own actions and doing. I pushed my chair forward a bit, just in case you know… Soon there will be a wire around my neck or she will stab me with something, so I had her at a distance and at the same time a better view of her by turning towards her. I decided to talk to her and asked her name, she neatly answered all my questions, even the reason for her current situation and way she was acting like this, which was as follows: she was admitted to the institution (where I was also admitted for several months ago) for her mental complaints, however she was allowed to walk around the block with her supervisor, but this lady had other plans, while walking she suddenly started to run away from her supervisor, she crossed street and walked into the bushes near the gas station and she just waited. Waiting for someone, something, safety, shelter, friendly faces? While being in the car together, she told me she did not feel safe there and was disturbed by random things about and around the building itself, the other clients there and the employees. She just wanted to get away from it all. We took her along with us to the residential boulevard and then our house because she simply did not know where to go at that point. So we just took her, to my mother and the next door lady (neighbour) who were sitting together on the benches in front of our own house, they looked at each other in surprise when we had taken a lady with us. After sitting and talking to her and asking for some answers to some questions I asked what she would like to do now. She felt good, very, very good and safe, she even mentioned if she knew me before, if we had met before? I told her no, and she was just completely blown away by the fact we took care of her like this (we gave her some food and thee and made sure she could relax and let go of her tensions and worries, to just breathe deeply). I wanted to let her know at all times that she was safe here with us and she could decide what she wanted to do next. We let her think about all the options she could think of and we gave her time to decide whatever she desired. After debating whether she wanted to stay with us or go home (half an hour from here), she decided to go back to the institution. I asked her how she would like to go there… she wanted to walk there with me 🙂 Don’t worry it’s not that far… 15 minutes walking distance.

While we walked side by side we already did realize that she was not herself after getting to know her in the first five minutes. But while we were walking together, she told me that she felt out of this world, that she experienced that there was a bubble around her, that she didn’t dare to look in the mirror, that she felt tingles all around her body, that this current reality was not her reality. Was she mirroring me, was she having a psychotic attack, was she real? At some point I was feeling anxious and began to wonder if I myself was hallucinating or dreaming. At some point I even felt like I was talking to myself but we finally made it, we arrived at the ports of the institution and I began to hyperventilate, told her to give me a second to catch a breath, several minutes later we marched forward, we rang the bell and at the door a man appeared who was her actual supervisor, I began to yell at this man for not taking caring of this woman, my blood was pumping and I began to rage, screaming if someone else took her into the car and made sure she was lost forever, he told her that these kind of things could happen (patients running away) and they could do not much about it. All but all, I made sure I dropped her off at the institution, gave her my number and a hug and watched her walk in with her supervisor who was literally grabbing her by her arm, but I could not do anything anymore, she was in and gone, safe and sound. As soon as I got home I emailed my own supervisor/therapist from the same institution (where I am still in care), about everything that had happened. It was weird and I couldn’t sleep from it several nights because I simply wondered what I should learn from this and why this had happened to me, what I could take with me into the future from this moment, besides that I was very concerned about her well-being. Afterwards my own supervisor/therapist informed me that there was indeed something wrong with this lady and further indicated that her mental state was already going in a better direction than on that day. What do you pack in your backpack after reading this? Taking risks in the world, that’s how you experience the most beautiful things, but take care of yourself, without you, the circle cannot be completed!