She glanced at my leg. "Oh, what happened to your leg? It looks odd. Did they break it in there?" I heard the place is full of crazy doctors and patients and the treatment methods are like hell itself. Is that true?"
Her words triggered a flood of traumatic memories—electroshock therapy, solitary confinement, verbal abuse and beatings that only stopped when I begged for mercy. The stark images of my time in the psychiatric hospital flashed before my eyes: the cold, sterile rooms where I was strapped to a bed, the relentless buzz of the electroshock machine, the suffocating darkness of solitary confinement and the cruel faces of the staff who took pleasure in my suffering.
Each word Sharon uttered seemed to drag me back into that hellish place. The humiliation of being told I was insane, the isolation from the world outside and the overwhelming fear that I would never escape—it all came rushing back with such intensity that I could barely breathe. My body started to tremble and I felt a wave of nausea rising in my throat.
"No—" I felt my mind exploding and I crouched down, screaming, "No! I won’t do it again! I’m sorry—"