The doctors pay no mind to the people crying in the halls. I try not to let my eyes lock with theirs. The doctors don't look at them when they don't have to.  I know if one of them looked to me. And my eyes met those of another human being trapped, I’d have to help. But that's not my assignment. I'm supposed to observe. They tell me it’s easier if you forget that they’re people. “Think of them as mentally ill patients instead.” They say we for more appropriate relationships with them when we pretend they aren’t the same as us. When we pretend that we’ve never let rage get the best of us. Or when we pretend we’ve never thought about ending it.  We have to separate our lives from theirs, make ours more valuable. That makes it easier to lock them up at night and go home to our warm beds and loved ones.
But i saw her, and I couldn’t pretend she was only a patient. She was quiet, and her eyes seemed to speak to me. She didn't spend time in the bathroom applying makeup like the other girls did. She’d shower and retrieve to her room to scribble in her notebook. When it was time to see her with the doctors, it made me nervous.  She had too much life in her eyes to be just a patient. Her sarcastic smirk creeped onto her face when the doctor asked if she felt safe. She was smart, but hiding things. I saw it in her short clever responses, her expressive eyebrows, and the way half her mouth curled into a smile as she rolled her eyes. She wasn’t a “difficult patient”, she didn't cause problems. She seemed to have a mask on that frustrated the doctors as she dismissed their questions, secretly satisfying me. When she looked at me, I think she knew. She stared at my looks of sympathy, while everyone else stared at their clipboards marked: PATIENT 0312186, jotting down  notes I couldn't imagine, this girl was rock solid, not letting anyone into her skull. She seemed to know that she was still a human in my eyes, not patient 0312186. I questioned the disappointment she looked at me with. Does she expect me to save her? Will she talk to me? Is she embarrassed?
No. Don't think like a psych major, think like a person, an intelligent human being, the same species as her. Maybe she knows I’ll never make it here, too soft. No, her face would show hope or satisfaction.
When the doctor asked what was bothering her, I wondered if i was thinking outloud.
She said, “You ruin people here.”
Then giggled with watery eyes, looking to me.
I realized she wasn’t talking about herself or seeking help, when i thought about my future career here. When I thought about how many “Her”s I’d talk to. When i thought about how I’d be different, better to patients.
She was talking about my sympathetic eyes, my regard for her humanity, my attention to detail.
She knew my fate if i stayed. She knew my eyes would grow cold, people would become test subjects to me, I’d see them all the same way. I was the one that’d be ruined here.