To my readers:
You sit down in the oversized blue chair and try to count the doors you just came through. There were the sliding doors at the emergency entrance. Behind those, a girl behind a desk collected your belongings, and most noticeably, your phone. After this you walked through the familiar silver grey frame of a metal detector; nothing fascinating was found on your person. Next you were escorted, with your father by your side, into an elevator that seemed oversized, perhaps better suited for cargo than people. After this it seemed like it was door after door; a layer cake of security to keep the crazies away. Signs on several massive doors read, “ELOPEMENT RISK.”
In the middle of all of this, you talked to an intake psychiatrist. She seemed about as interested in you as the latest results from the horse-racing pages. There was a moment when you were sure, while claiming to be a serious risk to yourself, that you would be turned away.
You were not turned away.
You sink into the blue chair, your posture doing this familiar trick where you try to ball up inside yourself, hoping that you just might be able to disappear. You are thirsty and ask the floor attendance for a glass of water.
The events of the past twenty four hours play in your mind like a blur, but there’s very little to piece together. You have a vague sense of being set off again. You are rather certain that your actions were disproportionate to the situation. Your mind pieces together screams and insults, tossed objects and shattered mementos, a tapestry of what will not be put back together again. Some bits of the ordeal come back more clearly; an insistence you check yourself in to the hospital; the concerned conversations of police officers on your deck, and the muted voice of the suicide hotline operator. The memory of it all is elusive and thus even more painful.
Suddenly there is a face next to yours, looking down. A woman is there, with grayish brown hair, set in waves. She identifies herself as a peer staff, meaning that she was once a guest in this very fine psychiatric hotel. You immediately feel something in her person. A warmth. A love. An understanding that you won’t get from any other clinician in this building your entire stay. She invites you into a room to talk privately, and you go in. You tell her your pain and trauma. You lean forward, sweating, your body rocking with anticipation, your mind racing for the right details. After awhile it seems as if you cannot hear yourself talk, but you are speaking all the same. She is nodding and the look on her face is warm and beautiful, and you are grateful that you can recognize compassion in the face of another. You tell her that she has made a great impact on you, and you can see a glow in her eyes that says she is very glad to be human, even amongst all of the pain of this place.
You return to the big blue seat, as in too big to throw in the event that you fancy the chair as a weapon, and wait. You have a carton of sugar free lemonade and immediately get the impression that you are going to be drinking lots of lemonade out of lots of cartons. The clock inches closer to dinner, and suddenly there is a doctor and a nurse. You make a remark about needing your antidepressant at this hour, and are told that it is good medicine for you to skip the dose today and start again in the morning. You explain that your pill has icky side effects if you fail to ingest it at the same time each day. The reply is the same. You threaten to leave on account of it, and you realize that the male nurse would be more than happy to show you the door. He is not amused.
But then again, neither are you.
You relent and agree that missing your pill is good medicine. Now you are in an elevator again, heading up to a floor that you are told is the most appropriate for adults like you: Translation? You, Nathan, must stay with those who are or approximate your particular brand of crazy.
Check! One big happy family!
You exit the elevator and look at your father. He has come this far, but he can’t stay at the moment and must go back through the maze of doors. You wonder if he will make it out of there.
You wonder if anyone makes it out of here.
More doors. More locks. More walks through more lifeless hallways. At some point you are told that you must temporarily wear a hospital gown while your clothes are examined for their lethality. You think about asking the attendant about The Great Gym Short Massacre of 1983, but decide that such a joke is unsuitable. Deep down inside, you also know they have good reasons for taking your clothes.
You’re in a psych unit now.
You walk through the final set of double doors that lead to your unit. You are on the eleventh floor. Unit 11 is your new home and until you get to work on your “against medical advice” paperwork. You will learn more about this later.
The walls are bland and unremarkable, a splattering of lifeless hospital colors. As you walk down the hallway, you feel the spaces of the hospital close around you. At the moment you are very mindful that a dear relative of yours, many years ago, was once a patient here at your age. You get the distinct since that you are repeating a story of some kind, at least in part. You are so sad and empty that you do not feel as if you can write a happy ending.
You turn to your left and see that the walls aren’t so bland after all; spaced out every 10 feet or so are paintings of Pittsburgh locations. You stare at one of them. It depicts the concrete sidewalk that runs along the North Shore. The scene is at night, and the reflections of the city seem to pulse on the still rendering. You have been to this place many times, and you resolve that taking a walk there, at night, is one of the first things you will do when you get out of this place.
You proceed directly into the unit; a rectangular room filled with three tables, a staff desk, and more of those Goliath chairs. You get the impression that normal people chairs were quickly recognized as a liability around here at some point. In the wall of the unit closest to the exit, a phone sits. The cord is noticeably short. It is the first “phone booth” style device you have seen in years.
You stop and survey the unit, trying not to look obvious, trying not to look like the new person on floor 11. In front of you, a man in a grey shirt sits at a desk, slowly eating a meal. This person has a face that seems worse than sad to you. It seems vacant and hopeless. You get the impression that this is the face of someone who talks rarely or never. You suddenly hope that this man, somewhere, has somewhere to talk to. You would like to talk to him, but you cannot talk to anyone now.
A woman walks past you, wearing a pair of matted black headphones. Her eyes are mostly closed, and her arms are folded inside a sweatshirt. You know that she has been walking around the unit for some time now, and you, feeling restless, decide that you and her will eventually get along. You will be right about this, but the truth is that you will get along with everyone. It is hard not to want good things for a room that has so much shared suffering.
The enormity of the situation settles, fully and finally, like a flavor that doesn’t hit right away, but slowly creeps up on you in the aftertaste. A floor attendant, a young woman of college age, points you to your room. You read the name on the door, scrawled in a sharpie: “Nathan.”
You enter it and look around. The walls are white. The windows have white pieces of plastic bolted over them. You will later learn that this is because some patients put on a show for the children in the opposing unit, but you do not know this yet. The bed is a grey box with a sheet, a blanket, and a pillow on it. You pick up the pillow and decide that you will ask for about 4 more of them.
There is a shelf to put things, if you get your things back. You have some books on the way, but those are also being examined for safety.
Everything, it seems, is a weapon anymore. ‘
You return to the unit. There is a woman watching TV. She looks at you and then back at Steve Harvey, who still needs an answer about what the survey respondents said. You sit down in a blue chair and face away from everyone. You find yourself sobbing and rocking back and forth, pushing yourself towards what usually starts as raging depression and ends in dissociation. Such a thing can make an entire afternoon go away if you want it to. You know this very well by now.
The staff from earlier is suddenly in the chair in front of you. She utters some very nice pleasantries to you. You can tell that she is sincere, but also somewhat new to this job field. You are happy that anyone at all is talking to you, and you consider her a saint in her efforts. You rock and cry and can utter nothing but how you want your family. This is what you say, over and over, and after awhile you really can’t hear the polite things from the staff anymore. You’re just happy that she is there and polite.
After awhile, you try out a new blue chair near the TV by the woman from earlier. You look at her and then look away. Moments later you hear a “Hi. I’m Vanessa. Nice to meet you. What is your name?” You chat for a minute and then go silent again. Then moments later you say, “Thank you for saying ‘hi,’” and you mean it. It is an incredible thing that someone has said hi to you, and you promise to never forget this moment.
You request a pair of headphones like the ones you saw earlier. Your wish is granted. As you place them on your head, noticing once again that you do, quite literally, have a big head, you struggle to find reception. Then one channel comes through. The classical station. Of course. They broadcast from this area.
The five dollars a month you have been sending the classical station for a decade has paid off. Soon your clothes are returned to you, including a new pair of crocs. You can leave the cold, hard flooring beneath you and walk, more or less, on a cloud. You make long, swooping figure eights around the room, focusing on each note, not wanting anything to pull you back into your situation.
Which seems very much like a prison.
At 8:30 you are given a snack. Two cartons of white milk, though you could have asked for more, a pack of Oreos, and some chips. You skipped dinner earlier in your emotional meltdown, so you gobble up these snacks as if they are delicacies. You grab a few extra and do not feel bad about it. This is because your headphones were, as per rules, taken away at this time too.
You return to your room at 10:30. The main floor of the unit is now closed until the morning. You normally go to be at 1:00 AM or later, so you have no idea what do. Near the shelving is a brown bag with your name on it. It contains some of your remembrances. Some of these remembrances are not things you will make known to the world, but you clutch them greedily. You are glad you have them, because right now you feel like you don’t have anything.
You turn the lights out, sobbing.
You don’t have anything, and you miss your family.
Yours Mentally,
Nathan
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