(part one here)It was definitely tortured; my weeks-long existence in my tempurpedic bed on piles of down pillows smeared with mascara. I had been crying for so long, days, weeks...that my head was always full of snot making my face hurt...I couldn't breathe well, I couldn't see. I took antihistamines to help me cry and
not be in facial pain. It helped but not enough to make me ok with it, and the pain in my heart and fears and fears and fears took over. Many abandonments at once left me a broken girl. I could see no future other than pain and my head MY HEAD! In the temple, from the endless crying, is where I would have shot myself if I could have.
I wanted to be dead. Really badly.
"Suicidal Ideation"I texted Guy at work. I told him. He did not respond but called my psychologist immediately. It was morning. My psychologist called me immediately following. He told me that I needed to check in to the psych ward at Marin General. He told me that if I did not check myself in, then he would call the police. His one question: Do you want to harm yourself right now? The answer: yes. He pushed more, "I'm going to call the police to come get you if you don't go to the hospital right now." The thought of the police, a source of much fear and distrust...no way. no way no way no way no way no way no way...the words became a mantra in tune with my tears, in tune with my heartbeat. "LOU! I want you to know, that I need you to go to the hospital. Do you understand? I am asking you to go to the hospital."
This is my therapist talking. The shrink I've seen for 3 years. He is a very kind man. The funny thing is, no one could have gotten me to take away the imaginary gun I was holding to my head, get in the car and drive to the freaking hospital, where I'd been checked in to the ER for back pain 3 times in the past month. NO ONE. Not even my mom. NO ONE could have done it but him. It's a strange thing to trust a person that much who I've only known for a short while who is not a friend, who is not a family member, who is not a partner...
EntreSo I went. I walked into the ER, since that's the only place I know of, the only door into the hospital that I'm aware of. I asked, where is Psych Services? They said since I had entered that door then I MUST be admitted to the ER, screw Psych Services, too bad, you walked in this door and this is protocol. You must stay, they tell me. GREAT. GREAT!!!!! I want to scream at the sky, throw my arms up and scream some more. This time I would scream GREAT!!! GREAT!!!! THANK YOU!!! AWESOME!!! THANKS! GREAT. JUST WHAT I FUCKing NEED!!! But I comply. Coming so close to death in my mind, I was very pliable and felt like a rag doll; moveable into any position with puffy embroidered eyes.
Unit A - Acute Psychiatric Ward - Marin GeneralAfter 9 hours in ER, they finally transferred me to Psych Services where I was asked more questions about how I feel, what I eat and if I have addictions. The man interviewing me is cool. I like him immediately. He has no pretensions and in fact resembles Under Dog ever so slightly. If Under Dog was an aging hippie with an earring in his left ear. When all is said and done, I am left alone in my most fortunate private room. This is pure accident. Most patients share a room with two others and here I am...my own room in the Nut Hut. I was scared, but at least I could be scared alone. Better. My wracking sobs aren't for public consumption.
Right away, I unpack what Guy has brought for me. Funny. I look at what he grabbed in his feverish state of mind...Jeans from when I was 20 pounds heavier and tank tops. It was November 22. I was grateful for clothes. My only other option would have been to wear the "issue" pajamas that everyone wears in that lovely institutional green. Or blue. Who can tell. The staff tried to pressure me to wear the pajamas. Don't you want to be comfortable? Yes, I would tell them, Which is why I'm wearing these huge jeans even though it's hard to keep them up. "Comfortable" is not walking around in the same PJs as everyone else. Everyone else who twitches and talks under their breath and psychotically attacks me. NO.
SHAWN...Became my pal. He was a 26-yr-old Native American from Weed, CA with a good heart that had been destroyed by stupid people raising him, poverty and methamphetamine use. He cut himself when someone got mad at him. He never hurt anyone else physically. He would bang his head into the cement institution walls until he had a hematoma in the middle of his high forehead. This was very disturbing to witness because it is an act I know well. Next time I'd see him after such an episode, he'd come out into the community room all doped up with a bandage in the middle of his forehead. He would sit by me. He would talk to me. He said he was afraid he'd never find someone to talk to in this psych ward, but he could talk to me. This fit in perfectly with my pathological need to nurture. We became buddies. I tried to teach him coping stuff I've learned in the 13 years since I was his age. But who am I? I had been slamming my head into the tile shower wall the night before. WHO AM I to think I know anything?? But I tried. I couldn't help it. To nurture: the only element of my original personality that still existed in that mausoleum.
KING KEN OF SAUSALITO...Began each speech in group by bellowing out his name. His message was clear. He was IMPORTANT and had a RICH HISTORY in SAUSALITO. "SAU-SA-LI-TO.
GOT IT?!" This is how he spoke: with every other word punctuated in CAPITALS. He was tall and pear-shaped with prematurely gray hair. He wore a T. Rex t-shirt every day with his pajama bottoms and a ratty robe. I knew pretty quickly that he was probably the smartest person there. He had unrelenting frustration and irritation with the authorities, my first clue. King Ken loved Jesus but even more so it was his rant that he loved about but how "this (world) is someone else's game. THIS is not OUR (mental people) game. When this game is over, then we get to play our game and do whatever we WANT. IF we don't like what is happening NOW, that's OK because SOON WE WILL BE PLAYING OUR GAME and at that time IT WILL ALL MAKE SENSE."
He never looked at me. This made me curious.
The second day in group, after the Counselor, Social Worker, Doctor or Nurse facilitator posed a question about how we feel...then looked at me and expressed how "raw" I seemed, I found myself suddenly talking about the abandonment by my bio-dad and my step-dad, the abandonment by my step-grandmother who told me I would surely fail at my business thereby forever cementing herself in a place other than my life. I found myself suddenly talking about being ignored and/or attacked by my sisters - the most hurtful and unexpected lack of family - while also feeling left behind by Guy and his family as they merrily celebrated Thanksgiving along with our (his?) friends who visited while he was there. Without me. This final detail felt like a mean reminder that not only have I lost 4 families, I'm gonna lose his friend-family too. Because that's what happens.
King Ken, with his deep voice and silver hair, was feeling better on his meds that day and instead of preaching about this game and that game he looked directly at me after my teary soliloquy and told me I had a beautiful heart and a beautiful mind and that he now could consider me His Friend. King Ken's ego ruled Unit A. To be seen by King Ken past his ego gave me a teeny tiny bit of hope that I might still have value. Later that afternoon when I commented on something he said, he frowned at me in judgement and left my comment unanswered.
I thought of
Cuckoo's Nest all the time while there. I identified the different characters, the best being the main two: The Indian and The Irishman. I told Shawn...Hey, Shawn, have you read the book or seen the movie
One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? No? Well, check it out if you can. It's about a mental ward like this and there's a Native American in it and he's the HERO. This information made Shawn's eyes squint up and his broken smile launch sideways. I picked my hair and wondered which one was Billy Babbit.
Later, when King Ken busted out of the ward -
"WOULD SOMEBODY PLEASE ALLOW ME THE COURTESY OF KNOWING WHAT MY IMMEDIATE FUTURE HOLDS?!" - by pulling wires from a security door mere hours before I was released, I was pleased in a sick way to find that not only was
The Indian here but so was
McMurphy (and
Nurse Ratched). King Ken IS McMurphy!! AND he's busted out!! Fantastic.
Except this is real life and these things are not fantastic at all.
It started with a psychotic woman who would, everyday, approach me acting nice, shake hands with me, or compliment me and smile, only to react to my friendly salutation by inflicting pain on me. Like grabbing my hand in a shake and squeezing until my fingers left indentations on themselves, while looking me in the eye, calling me a BITCH and threatening me if I ever speak to her again. She did this each day. I never reacted. I used my Stone Cold Face in defense. City experience taught me about the STONE COLD FACE. Living in the Tenderloin taught me to NEVER react to anyone who came within my personal space in a threatening way. I'd learned the rapist crackheads on the street get bored with this and move on to those without these instincts. I could only guess psycho lady would behave the same way. Stone Cold.
Unit A hurt. There was so much pain in every patient's heart that it was a...very very depressing place to be. Especially for current me with my raw heart and hurty skin. Everything made me cry. I did not last long. It was not the Insane Asylum of my dreams, which I actually had as a teenager. At 15 I thought, I'd love to spend my whole life in a nut hut with nothing to do but draw. I really thought it would be cool in 1985. But it is not cool. Now I know. Now I know that Insane Asylums are built for the Insane. This means multitudes of architectural elements taken away to elude possible suicide attempts. This means being surrounded by many sick people on many weird meds doing strange things. This means fluorescent lighting and possible psychotic-attack.
After three days inside those cement walls, something happened that compelled me to straighten up and fly right outta that nut hut.
DONEMy 3rd and last day began when I awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of water running and my door wide open. I cursed, jumped out of my plastic covered baby-bed and slammed the door. When I got up in the morning and went to pee, I noticed something disturbing.
It was just pee, but it was pee in the toilet with no toilet paper. This means a guy was there. A guy came in my room while I was sleeping and peed in my toilet. When I slammed the door was he still in my bathroom? Was his pee the water running I thought I heard? It began to dawn on me that I could be seriously hurt in Unit A and didn't really need to be there anymore. The thought of someone in my room while I slept was just too much for crying out loud.
The 2nd catalyst for my departure: a BITCH of a nurse - Nurse Ratched - who spoke to me like I'd had a lobotomy. She spoke in a GENERIC way. GROSS. STUPID. I hated her with all my body and mind and after she spoke to me lobotomatically* TWICE, I got PISSED. I said nothing to her, I walked straight to the phone, I called Guy, I told him that I was FURIOUS, that a BITCH NURSE had spoken to me in a Lobotomy Voice and I needed to leave right away. I was DONE. He said, "Alright! I'll come get ya." I marched straight to my room, packed my clothes, took my linen shirt off the godawful brain-burning fluorescent lighting, took down my Grandmama's note and baby picture I'd placed in direct-eye view of the bed...and requested a release from the front desk.
The nurses were surprised. My sadness was completely absent. With the arrival of the RAGE, all sadness and devastating depression that kept me crying all day and half the night was instantly gone. Of course, I did not tell the Exit Shrink that I was filled with a huge raging hatred. I told her I just felt so much better!!! SO much better. She had to check on my chart to know I was a "Voluntary." There were not any other voluntaries out of a full house while I was there. I was the only one who didn't go through with slashing my wrists or eating a bottle of pills - I had survived with the help of my therapist. I was the only one who screamed for help at that very crucial moment. Horrible.
When Dr. Nut Hut realized I was a "VOLUNTARY!" I was told I could leave whenever I wanted. Guy arrived an hour later and that was that. Goodbye fucked up poor sad sick HURT people. Goodbye.
HomeWhen we got home, I felt really different. I felt like I had perspective. I felt like I had taken many things for Granted. Guy and I got in bed and he fell asleep right away, as I lay looking at the large, beautiful wood beams that cross our ceiling. I kept my hand on my cat, feeling her purrrrrrr...I felt the bed, a real bed, underneath me. I felt my down comforter. I smoked some pot and felt at peace and I stared for a very long time. I thought, "Wow, everyone in the nut hut is super envious of this situation right now."
FREE. So so so FREE.
_____________________
*made up word, but good one, yeah?!
