Narrative Essay On Homeless

“His name is Otis. Hold him with one hand on his back or it could break.”

It’s a warm August afternoon in the ag wing and there’s a rabbit on the table in front of me. He has white fur that flies off of him like shaking off a carpet, and his eyes are as wide as mine. The only difference is that his are wide out of curiosity, and mine are wide out of fear- not of the rabbit, but of having to hold him and keep his back from breaking. It is my junior year of high school, and while I’ve been doing just fine thus far, this could be what breaks me.

Last year was the absolute worst, after all. After trying to hold myself up for 15 years, I landed myself in a hospital bed with a diagnosis of a General Anxiety Disorder and anorexia. I had to spend three months away from my family and friends while I progressively learned to stand on my own two feet and walk without the negative thinking that had for so long been arm-and-arm with me. Learning to become independent from these thoughts was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and those were the hardest three months of my life. So why was I so scared to hold wide-eyed Otis?
“You’re not gonna hurt him. He’s stronger than you think.”

My head snaps up.

Everyone else has held the rabbit with the white fur and the wide eyes and now it’s my turn. “What do you mean?” I say, feeling the tension in my head, my neck, my fists clenched. I know the answer because I asked my therapist this same question while I was at a St. Louis residential treatment center. She told me that everything I was going through wasn’t a sign of weakness; I was still there, and I wasn’t a lost cause, she said. Just because I was in pain didn’t mean I was broken. This is what I hear when one of my classmates says, “Yeah, his back could break, but it’s not likely. If you hold him correctly and make him feel safe, he’ll be just fine.” Unclenching my fists, reminding myself that I am here, now, not deep within myself, I reach for the rabbit with the wide

eyes.

Otis now lives at my house. After that warm August day in the ag wing, we quickly formed a bond and I fell in love with rabbits. Otis once lived outside, then in a classroom, but now he’s best friends with my other rabbit, Linus, and he eats vegetables out of my hand every day. He’s helped me to heal, and neither of us is broken.

It’s now been nearly two years since I came home from St. Louis. I’m not sure what I’m going to be, but I know that I don’t have to look back on what happened to me with sadness. Sometimes, looking back leads to the way forward. I’ve been opening up about my experiences. November of my junior year, I spoke in front of two hundred people at a conference on adolescent medicine and suicide prevention. I dived headfirst into psychology, and I have a strong interest in becoming a therapist. Being able to see dogs in hospitals inspired me, and soon I will be taking Otis to hospitals and nursing homes. I want to integrate animal-assisted therapy into my career.

Just as Otis helped me to start healing, I want to help others heal as well. I don’t think he would mind helping me out a bit.