Naomi Stenberg
White Coats
June, 1992
I am in a psych hospital, sitting down while a psychiatrist and his two male interns stand, all in white coats. It is raining outside. It was always raining outside when I saw them. The weight of the shrink's many degrees are framed on the wall. His eyes, behind his glasses, are boring into me. "I am concerned, Ms. Stenberg, that you will always be an institutionalized personality," he says, as if he is delivering an edict I should be thankful for. I am thirty-two years old and "always" is a long way away. I had been diagnosed with Bipolar 1 three weeks before. After a week outside, I had felt overwhelmed by the stressors of a new diagnosis and came back in. But "institutionalized personality?” I feel like a beetle pinned to a card by the shrink's scrutiny, by his irretrievable words.
Later I go to my room which I share with eight other patients, all women. I lean my forehead against the glass. Outside it is still raining. I say out loud the bitter truth I'm carrying, "No one likes me." Behind me, a small, certain voice says, "But I like you."
I turn.
It is Greta, a 17-year-old, whose mind has been damaged by an acid trip.
We lock eyes.
In that tender, ductile bridge, I feel myself slowly return.
Note: This piece was first published in the author’s chapbook, The Measure of Breath (Spring 2026).
Naomi Stenberg (she/they) is queer, neurodivergent and thriving in Seattle. A poem of hers was recently nominated for the 2026 Monarch Queer Literary Awards. Naomi’s work has appeared in Does It Have Pockets, Soul Poetry, Sky Island Journal, Knee Brace Press, the anthology, Teacakes and Tarot, and elsewhere. In her spare time, Naomi collects, on vinyl, female rockers of the eighties, does improv, and plays apartment fetch with her dog.
