Memoir Shorts: Trans Conversion Therapy

Three (Failed) Escape Attempts From A Mental Health Facility: Attempt #1

The harder you try, the harder you fall (from the window)

It happened like this.

Three boys named Brent, Steven, and Patrick (sometimes known simply as Fury for how fast he’d hit you) talked about it for weeks. They had to be careful.

They were figuring out how to escape.

Unlike the adults, the teenagers were kept under high security. The only way out was by the nurse’s station at the end of the hall, where to the left and right were two sets of double doors, each one leading to a potential exit. That exit was locked unless someone flipped a switch on a panel behind the nurse’s station. The station was a large room fronted by a desk and entered by a side door, always locked.

You could jump over the desk, but how fast could you make anything happen before you landed?

They waited until two in the morning

The night shift was always poorly staffed. The staff assumed the patients were asleep, waiting for an early call to breakfast at six-thirty.

Tonight, not only was the number of assistants down to two, the third was a sleepy nurse. The first assistant had gone to the restroom, the second assistant had fallen asleep, and the nurse had gone into the dayroom to watch television.

Steven met Brent and Patrick in the bathroom. They hid in the shadowed corners. The lights were already off. They left them that way.

“I’m not sure about this,” Patrick said. “If they catch us, I’ll live here for the fucking rest of my life.”

“What are you?” Steven cocked his head. “A fuckin’ pussy?”

‘Man, lick my fucking — ”

Brent put up his hands. “Hey. Don’t go calling anyone around here names. We’re in this together, right?” His southern twang caused him to pronounce right like rat.

“Fuckin’ A,” Steven said. “If we make it out, all we have to do is survive for two weeks. Two fuckin’ weeks! Then they’ll discharge us.”

He’d been making the same promise all month. If they could just survive for two weeks, they would be free. He knew it because a bunch of people had tried to escape before. Steven had paid attention to them all.

Yes, Patrick was right. If they got caught, it was all over.

But if they broke free?

Escape Attempt #1

The windows wouldn’t open.

A lock on the windows kept you from breathing more than an inch of air, but most prisons are just rules meant to trap one kind of person. For other kinds of people, those bars may as well be made of water.

If only fish were meant to fly.

A young boy waited until early in the morning to make his attempt. He’d broken enough locks to get himself put in here. He could break this last one to get out.

All it took was deciding to do it.

With the window finally open, he leapt to what he hoped would be a small run outside the perimeter gates and to freedom. Unfortunately, the boy’s wing was on the second floor. The landing broke his leg.

That didn’t stop him from crawling as far as possible until the sun came up. The assistant that found him didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

If only they’d known just how far the next person would go to find their escape.