From Behind Bars, Part XV, on that One Time I Farted in Honesty Group

I am a woman of many bodily functions. Combine that with massive amounts of weight gain, gallons of boost, no place to do it in privacy, and you’ve got yourself a classic story of That One Girl Who Farted in Honesty Group.

For those of you who are not familiar with Honesty Group, and I hope there are a lot of you,(!) let me give you a brief history on what it’s all about:
Every Tuesday night, from 7 pm till whenever the confessional was deemed to end, the girls on RTC (residential treatment center – that means you had been in IP at least 7 weeks and were practically recovered and moved to a less intensive part of the unit) were made to sit in a group and confess their sins of the past week or like, life or whatever. The masterminds of this group (probably a group of therapists taking their patient’s opiates) thought that the group would be beneficial for the following reasons:
1. Laugh about it in treatment team the next day when they found out a girl did secret, special things in her room when everybody was asleep.
2. Time filler, plain and simple. Unthinkable that the “untouchables” should get even 10 minutes of spare time
3. Punishment
4. Depriving us of our media outlet. You see, Tuesday night was the coveted TV night. You only got one a week, and you were able to watch it beginning when the last group of the night ended until lights out, which was around 10ish. (Oh, and TV night in and of itself should be a post all on its own. We were not allowed to watch shows with disturbing themes or language, women who were too beautiful or too thin, people who were too overweight, any show with food in it, people who engaged in anything that looked like it was even close to any addiction like alcohol, drugs, shopping, sex, and cowbells. This left us with the Discovery Channel on Humpback Whales (Aaah! I’m so triggered! Once I got called a whale!! Or Inside the Actor’s Studio, and even though there was a chance you could see a hot, young, skinny celebrity on there, the show was too damn boring to watch much anyway.)

Now, telling you about TV night is important because you have to realize that Honesty Group was the only thing left in our way before we could learn more about Humpbacks.

Humpbacks were our only link left to the outside world.

So basically, everybody hated the group and wanted it to get over with. Every Tuesday before the group began, we’d have to read a Very Important Document stating what Honesty Group was, why it was important (it’s the only way you’ll recover lalala) and once that was read, the time was turned over to us to begin the purging of our souls. Except, except (EXCEPT). There was a catch: if you were honest about a rule you had broken while confined during imprisonment, YOU STILL HAD TO DEAL WITH THE CONSEQUENCES. So basically, you’re willfully walking the plank on this one. I mean, WHY? If you were ballsy enough to break a rule, AND cool enough to have gotten away with it, why on earth would you tarnish your excellent track record, be honest, and get the consequences for it? Like, I’d have been all over Honesty Group if by being honest you’d have gotten a Get out of Jail Free card. I think it only fair. You’re brave enough to come clean, and you get rewarded for being ridiculously responsible and still get to have privileges. But NOOOOOOOO. You still got phase dropped or caution status’ed up or lynched or something. So why would we talk? None of us could figure it out either!!!!

So basically, most of the time it was silent. Aside from the tapping of feet, the looking at watches, seeing if we were missing the lame TV shows that we were allowed to watch, that is. Now, I never really talked in Honesty Group, because I was definitely never a rule breaker. But there were some goooood Dishonesty Bombs that were dropped in my day. For instance:
One girl had stolen a tech’s set of keys for MONTHS so she could let herself into a bathroom and do things NOT conducive to a recovering bulimic. I think she was sentenced to death on that one.
Some other poor girl had been squirreling her salt packets away in her sleeves for no conceivable reason I could ever think of. I think it was mostly just to take a walk on the wild side.
One girl stole a pair of scissors from the art room, and that was basically the worst because they put the unit on lock down and frisked us in our sad, weight gaining skivvies to find out who had done it.
Oh and one girl ACTUALLY DID, IN FACT, confess to doing secret, special things alone in her room at night. And in the shower. And at the breakfast table, which takes miracle muscles, if you ask me.

So really, Honesty Group could be quite entertaining. Only, most of the time it wasn’t. Most of the time it was minor offenses with little or no penalty time.

So, on that fated night, I was sitting on the large sofa next to Whit. We were all staring glumly at the ground, waiting for somebody to say something so that the group could get over with and we could fill our heads with watered down media images.

Okay, look, I’d had gas ALL DAY, alright? Do you know how freeeeeeaaaaaaking hard it is to hold it in for 8 hours and counting? I’m never alone! I can’t do that sort of thing whenever I need to! And it was making me bloated and gurgly, and I was bored, and I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I lifted up my left cheek so it wouldn’t vibrate the entire sofa, and let it rip. And rip (so, so unfortunately) it did. It wasn’t one of those cute ones babies do, or even one of those accidental squeakers. It was LOUD and LONG. And if you know me, that’s absolutely in character. And, because I’d lifted a cheek, it all ended up right in Whit’s lap.

Of course, of course, immediately, everybody burst into laughter. I did too. Hell, it was funny! It was the best thing that had happened to Honesty Group in a long time, and I also, felt much, much better. Totally bonus, right?

WRONG.

Of course it took awhile for everyone to stop complaining about the smell and stop laughing enough to resume the painstaking silence. But once it did, nobody could stop tittering, and once when some girl dared to start talking about that one time she stole a pink pen from Rite Aid when she was five, some girl, usually Whit, would burst out laughing again and COMPLETELY ruin the whole thing.

Ah, man. It was beautiful. The Immortal Fart. It will forever be remembered in the annals of CFC history.

FINALLY it ends, I take some Gas X, and it’s all good, right? NOPE. Wrongsky again.

The next day when my therapist finally got me to concede to actually going into individual, apparently it had gotten CHARTED that I had farted in honestly group and ruined the whole thing. WHO CHARTS THAT? Who writes “Patient got a little out of control last night and farted?”

And what kind of therapist PUNISHES YOU FOR IT? I got chewed out, guys. Lectured for farting?? Where was I? A cushy $1000/day treatment facility or a Nazi concentration camp? You tell me. Although, if you think about it, I got exactly what I deserved, in that lame lame lamazdoid group: I needed to fart. I was entirely HONEST about it. And I got the consequences. Chewage out by therapist and an order to hang my head in shame.

Anyway, after that, cuz I was so bugged, I never came clean about the iPod I managed to keep hidden for the entirety of my months spent there. It was an amazing feat, and I’d tell you the methods to my genius, but I think care techs read my blog, plus I don’t want to give any of ya’ll ideas.

But personally? I’d take a Fart Confession to an iPod Confession any day. What about you?