The Effects of an Eggshell-Colored Wall
"Watercolor" by Maggie Pearce
“The Effects of an Eggshell-Colored Wall” by Anonymous
Eggshell-colored walls. Nothing makes a room look any more unappealing than eggshell-colored walls. The slight hint of yellow undertone sensed under what could be a nice shade of white is guaranteed to make any person - no matter their mood before entrance to a small room with nailed down bed made of plastic wood and blue quilted safety sheets - miserable. At least the view was decent, standing on my tippy toes seeing through the barricaded window onto a parking lot surrounded by the looming fire-red brick walls that were supposed to be my “home” for the next 7-10 days. The only semi-comforting thing about this room I noticed whilst sitting on my plastic pillow were painted-over carved-in names and some quotes covering the walls.
“Stay Strong,” was the carving I looked over at every night.
“I will stay strong,” I thought to myself, “for my family, my friends and whoever wrote that empowering message to me”.
A tall, lanky woman wearing magenta-colored scrubs, whose name I was too out of it to catch, entered my room. She walked over to me and mumbled a little something about being understaffed.
“...depression...anxiety...OCD…”, all words that came out of her masked-over mouth describing me.
The rest of what she said seemed like a complete blur to me. Suddenly all around me the walls began to cave in, the eggshell turned grayer and duller by the second, all while I felt the weight of those caving walls on my chest - pressing down on me. The extra weight of the walls around me caving in crashed down on me like a ton of bricks. Choked up on the one aspect of life that’s supposed to be safe - air - I started to forget how one even goes about breathing normally.
“A*** put your head between your knees and take ten deep breaths; you’re having a panic attack,” she calmly spoke to me.
“The one thing I don't know how to do right now is take ten deep breaths and somehow that’s the only solution to this sensation,” I thought to myself.
I went through the motions the nurse had previously described to me and began to feel a wave of calm shivers run down my spine.
“Thanks, that helped. What did you say your name was?”
“Ms. Abbey,” she smiled at me while giving me her hands.
Ms. Abbey became such a comforting character in my life. Her slicked-back dirty-blonde hair and her smile made me feel welcomed into my eggshell-colored room. As much as I tried to hold them back, tears began streaming down my face. As I watched my glistening tears hit my blue, paper-thin mattress, I began to think of all the scared and lonely kids who sat here doing the exact same thing I was and how many more there would be in the future. So although it may seem like I was overreacting about the whole eggshell-colored wall situation, it just felt like whoever painted them didn’t really care for, or understand, the patients who had to stay in the room and look at them. Unfortunately, I can’t count the number of times people have taken the fact that I have a mental illness as a joke. Unfortunately, I can’t count the number of times people told me I just wanted attention. And I can’t count the number of times I've been told to stop overreacting. Fortunately for me, Ms. Abbey became my warrior because without any sort of judgment, she asked me what I was feeling. I broke down all of my walls with her and it felt so validating to finally have someone believe in me and boost me up. And fortunately for me, I’ve found a couple more Ms. Abbey’s along the way to help me never have to go back to another eggshell-colored room.
