The first time I was hospitalized for mental illness I had two roommates. The first, child-like but middle aged, I would see years later in the same ward. It is the second roommate I had that comes to my mind right now. Unfortunately I do not remember her name as it was over a decade ago (almost 13 years in fact) but she is now making a vivid appearance in my mind.

At the time she was roughly the age I am now, hovering around 40. She had long wavy dark brown hair and glasses. What I used to remember about her was the fact that her sleep movements were monitored. She walked with a cane for reasons unknown to me and because of it every night the nurses would wrap some band-like contraption around her waist. It was for her own safety, physical safety that is. Mental safety would come later. If she fell out of bed, honestly if she moved at all, this alarm would go off.

I remember it waking me up several evenings. The lights would expeditiously fly on with nurses racing through the door. Sure it annoyed me at first, but I was so drugged up I usually fell asleep again rather quickly among the commotion.

But I absorbed a lot more of her than I realized at the time. An abundant amount that lay dormant until now. I am now becoming her.

Like myself, she was one point of a triangle family along with her husband and child as the others. In her case a 15-year-old son, in my case an almost 13-year-old daughter. A triangle, the strongest shape you learn in geometry (and structures if studying architecture). But, what if one of those points fails? What happens to the others?

This roommate’s husband and son visited her almost daily. She had told me that she has been in and out of psychiatric wards for years, since her son was a preschooler. I remember feeling compassion for her… and pity. I couldn’t believe that she constantly put her husband and son through that over and over again.

Oh karma! What goes around comes around. I understand this perfectly.

While I didn’t know it at the time, she was my future. We, her and I, are the same. Although I have only been hospitalized twice for mental illness, I have been battling and fighting this war for years with my husband and daughter in the middle of the combat zone strategically avoiding the rapid open fire.

Like my roommate’s husband and son, I know my husband and daughter love me. They continuously comfort me in their own weird ways. But I wonder… When will they break? When will they say they can’t handle me anymore? When will I become too much of a burden?

For now I think about this woman, taking in what she had and hoping she still has it as she is my equivalent. She is me, I am her. We are the same, yet different. Both struggling internally on an infinite loop while being extremely grateful for those we have and hope to keep.