Assignment for June 28

This is a chapter from my NaNo novel.  I have not reread it or edited it since I wrote it.  Be gentle.

2009.  September.

My first day in the psych ward scares the shit out of me.  After less than 2 hours of sleep, I feel a hand shaking me and what seems like shouting in my ear.  It actually is shouting.  “CATHERINE! The doctor wants to see you.”

It’s 7 am – what doctor arrives this early?  I mumble an acknowledgement and careen into the bathroom with my standard issue toothbrush and generic toothpaste.  I try to get the comb through my hair but it’s an exercise in futility.  The light in the room is terrible and the dark circles under my eyes look like bruises.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve looked this bad – even right after giving birth to my sons.  I give up on the comb, brush my teeth, and stagger out into the fluorescent hallway.  People are moving around.  Some of them have a weird, shuffling walk.  The first person I see is a chubby woman dressed in a pink sweatshirt and purple sweatpants.  The sweatshirt is stained and her hair is thinning and standing on end.  Her mouth hangs open and her eyes are dead.  No one is home, though I force the words “Good Morning” out of my mouth of sand.  She moves her eyes in my direction and sneers.  Immediately after she goes back to her dead look and shuffles down the hallway.

I don’t belong here.

Fay is the first nurse I meet. She’s the loudest person I’ve ever known, but she never stops smiling and laughing.  She gestures to a chair and hooks me up to a blood pressure cuff, takes my temperature, and asks how I slept.  She also has the most interesting way to saying her words.  I mumble an answer around the thermometer in my mouth, and she yells to me, “Make sure you get to breh’fast . . . need to eat, girlfriend!”  She pats me on the back and points to a door down the hallway where I am told to line up to meet with the doctor.  No one tells me what kind of doctor it is, so I sit quietly and try to blend into the wall.

I meet my next two guests of the ward then.  I am scared shitless.  The first is Bella, who is singing “Amazing Grace” at the top of her lungs.  The other woman is pacing around and has a huge frog tattoo on her neck.  The frog is intersected or really, more dissected, by a horizontal scar that runs from just below her ear to the other side of her neck.  (Later, I am told I do not want to know how the scar was received)  She is extremely agitated and keeps saying, “FUCK THIS NOISE!” in the direction of Bella.  I find out later her name is Mandie.  “GODDAMN, shut the FUCK UP!” she screams at Bella.  Bella sings more loudly, humming and nodding her head.  She’s also clutching a bible.

I don’t belong here.  Seriously.

I hear my name being called, and I almost run for the door.  Turns out “the doctor” is the medical doctor, there to be sure I don’t have a cold or difficulty breathing.  He does the usual doctor things, looking me up and down, feeling my glands with his ice cube hands.  He declares me “fit as a fiddle” (except for my descent into madness!) and sends me back down the hallway for medication time.  The line now stretches down the hallway, and I go to the back of the line.  More shuffling and more than a few people who haven’t showered in at least a week.

The common theme in line seems to be “hurry the fuck up so we can smoke”.  Willow Hill has the most outdated medication system.  Even in my depressed and sleepless haze, I’m analyzing their system and finding ways to make it better.  The smokers, which make up 90% of the ward’s population, grow increasingly impatient.  More “fucks” are muttered and one woman actually shoves the guy in front of her when he moves too close to her.

I make it to the window finally and am given double my dose of antidepressants.  I haven’t seen the psychiatrist yet, so I’m not sure who made that decision, but I swallow the pills anyway.  The pharmacist stares at me, then points to her mouth.  I realize what she means.  I stick out my tongue and bend my neck back so she can see I did swallow my meds.

Still don’t belong here. Why wouldn’t I take my pills?  If I really wanted to die, I’d have stayed home, contemplating mixtures of household medications and figuring out what magical combination would put me out of my intense misery.  I’m weak, but strong enough to get help when I need it.

Breakfast means we are unlocked and, like kindergartners, walked down a long hallway to the cafeteria.  We eat in shifts – the juvenile ward first, then us, then the army’s PTSD group.  Rubber pancakes, thick syrup, gelatinous eggs, and an incredible realization:  there is no caffeine it the cafeteria.  Tea, decaf.  Coffee, decaf.  Water, apple juice, orange juice.  My head is already splitting from withdrawal, but there will be no relief today.

I take my tray and try not to calculate how many fat grams and calories are in front of me.  I sit down alone at a table and start eating.  A few minutes later, Faye yells to me, “Hey, we don’t sit there.  Sit THERE.”  Apparently we are only allowed to sit in one section of the cafeteria, so I stupidly grab my tray and walk to a corner, trying to avoid everyone and everything.  The majority of the ward sits together at a very long table.  They are chattering and eating and sometimes swearing.  It occurs to me that not everyone is crazy.  The “crazies” sit and drool listlessly.  One boy – he’s not a man, he looks like he’s 18 – has trouble holding his silverware without shaking, but he’s still able to converse about a book he finished on the first atom bomb.  For the first time I realize there is a fine line between medicated and over-medicated, and I definitely want to stay on the medicated side of that dangerous fence.

My first breakfast is a silent one.  My head is now going crazy again.

Fat, fat, where is the gym?  I can’t eat this, but I’m so hungry.  Can’t puke either, the nurses are watching.  I’m going to gain 30 pounds here.  I am so alone.  None of these people like me. They stare at me, and they stare at the new guy with his crazy hair.  Why are only his big toes painted?  Why are his toenails painted anyway?  He’s huge, he’s hairy, I’m scared.  Are my jeans tighter?  They have light yogurt. I can just eat that.  I think I’m going to be sick.

After breakfast, we line up and head back to the ward.  The majority of the patients make a beeline for a door that faces what can loosely be defined as a “courtyard”.  It’s more like a prison’s outdoor area.  It’s the smoke break area, and the only time we are allowed outside.  I follow them and watch the cloud of smoke take over the courtyard.  I go to the furthest corner but it’s raining.  I get wet while breathing air, still tinged with smoke and frustration and sadness.  Some of the women are hugging each other.  One of them is crying at the end of the table, and a few patients circle around her, patting her and stroking her hair.

I wander back inside, where Bella the bible lady is watching the single TV.  It’s a religious show with a lot of singing and bad hair.  I am contemplating returning to my bed when my name is called and I’m ushered into meet with Dr. Patel, my assigned psychiatrist.

Dr. Patel is a tired looking woman, but she’s sharp.  For the next 30 minutes she digs and paws through my mind, asking questions, listening, writing a lot of notes.  She asks me again to contract for safety, and I agree.

“How are your moods?  Do you find yourself acting impulsively?” Dr. Patel scribbles something, then makes eye contact.

“Well, I’ve been told I’m impulsive.  I just prefer to consider myself decisive,” I respond, then laugh.  She doesn’t crack a smile, so I reign in my need to giggle.

She asks about my depression.  I tell her it’s crushing me.  I tell her I’m separated from my husband, and I can’t think straight.  I tell her that at night, I stay awake while my brain roars like a freight train around the room, demanding my attention.  I tell her about my eating disorder.  I don’t tell her how sometimes, in the middle of my depressions, I will become ridiculously energized and happy, almost spastic, and will clean the house until my fingers ache and my nose burns from the smell of bleach.

There are more questions.  She pauses a lot, then makes eye contact.  “I upped your Zoloft to 100 mgs,” she says.  “I don’t understand, though, why you haven’t been under the care of a psychiatrist.”  Stern look, in my direction.  “From now on you must be under a doctor’s care.  No more getting pills from your OB or your general practitioner.  This is too important.  You must manage your condition better.”

It’s odd that I don’t ask her what my condition is.  I assume she is talking about my depression, something I’ve been carrying around in my body for 20+ years.  She dismisses me and says she’ll be back tomorrow.  She tells me to plan on at least 5 days here, depending on how I do.  She tells me to rest, but doesn’t prescribe me anything for sleep.  I also find this odd, considering not sleeping is a big part of why I’m here, at Willow Hill, with the smokers and the crazies and the freaks and the other people who look just like me.

I’m starting to think I belong here.