Its not like there weren’t some fun times. Aggravation was fun. Headache was fun. Daytime tv was lots of fun. At least back then it was. Looking back, 5C was the best place I was ever put in. There were some good times there. Even though it was illegal to put a fourteen year old on an adult locked unit. You had to be sixteen in an emergency. And they had to have made a suicide attempt at least. I wasn’t and I hadn’t. It was still the best treatment I got.
  Headache was a game we sometimes played. At first we played it a lot. You got to push the pop-o-matic bubble to see where your man would go. You tried to get your cone shaped man to land on top of, and thereby capture, another players man. It was fun. (The pop-o-matic bubble was the best.) Especially when there really was nothing else to do.
  As the days went on I was introduced to another game. One I had never played before. Aggravation. I ended up liking it better. No pop-o-matic bubble. But marbles with this one. And dice. It was also simpler to play. And quieter. We could play it later into the night. If we could be quiet ourselves, that is. And so it became more popular. Towards the end of my stay we didn’t play Headache at all anymore.
  Of course the card games were the most popular. You only needed two people to play, one really. You could always play solitaire.  Hearts, spades, gin, rummy, speed. We played them all. And cards were the quietest of all. You only had to shuffle, a whisper really compared to the dice and marbles of Aggravation that could be heard into the hall. And the pop-o-matic? That could be heard all the way to the nurses station if it was quiet.
  Then there was daytime tv. And by that I mean talk shows. And they were nothing like what they are today. Sally Jessie, Jenny Jones, Maury, Donahue, Joan Rivers. If you didn’t live through talk shows in their original form you really missed something. Geraldo had a talk show. Remember that? I do. I didn’t watch it in the psych ward though. We watched Sally Jessie and Jenny Jones,  Joan Rivers and sometimes Donahue. What daytime tv was meant to be. Sometimes I’d watch cartoons with Jeff. Back when they still had cartoons after school. They had them in the mornings before school too. Imagine.
  And school? The tutor only came over from the drug rehab for an hour and a half twice a week. That was it. She mostly taught me nothing. Everything she brought I had already been through. I think she was just there for show. Because, as a hospital, they had to show they were providing for my education. But no one expected much, I’m sure.
  Cards and games and daytime tv were a nice distraction from why we were there and how we all got there. They allowed us to talk and gossip and get to know each other. Learn each others stories. What else was there to do. Sometimes I would draw and color them in. The designs, all line drawings I still do today. They filled the long days and empty nights when some of us had no visitors.  We would drink hot chocolate (or coffee or sanka for the others, I stuck to hot chocolate) and eat individual ice cream cups from the freezer while playing and talking and smoking cigarette and after cigarette. I must have been smoking a pack a day while I was in there. Not that much compared to others but still a considerable amount compared to what I had been smoking.

The next I was awake well before the nurses came to get me for breakfast. I put on my slippers and out I went. First stop, nurses station. Had to get my pack of cigarettes for the day, of course. The onto the dining room to see if there was an empty table to sit at. There was not. But there was also no breakfast yet, so back into the hall I went, to find another place to smoke and wait for breakfast to be brought up. I was starving. .
  He walked right up to me. “You can sit with me to eat. So you don’t have to eat alone. I’m Jamie” Not too tall, kinda stocky, late twenties. He was nice. He smiled at me.
  “I’m Sasha” and I followed him back into the dinning room. He sat down next to a woman named Norma and I sat too. We talked a bit waiting for breakfast . The psych ward is always the last unit to get served breakfast, so we had plenty of time. The last to get served in general.
  Breakfast came and went and many cigarettes followed. So did the cards and a game called headache. Over many rounds of cards and games of headache I learned about everyone. Some of it first hand, some of it just observation, some of it gossip.
  In 1988 the psych ward was filled with women that had killed their husbands. Two of the three women that I was now playing cards with on a regular basis had killed their husbands. Norma had killed her husband. She was the first person I met that killed another human being. “Battered Woman’s Syndrome” was still a new thing and so here they were, playing cards with me between attorney visits and Dr. visits.
  The other woman I played cards with on a fairly regular basis, Berneice, had not killed her husband. He had hung himself. So had one of her son and an only daughter had also committed suicide. She had had a breakdown. It was easy to see why.
  My roommate, Rose, had not killed her husband, I don’t believe. Unless she scrubbed him to death in a cleaning frenzy. Not out of the question. But Rose was a cleaner, not a card player, so I never heard from her directly. But she just didn’t seem the husband killing type. But that was just it. None of them did. There is no “type”. Most of them didn’t talk about it. I learned form an off hand comment about a lawyer visit.
  Except Norma. She was very upfront and chatty about it all. Very open with me. I was never scared by anything she said about. In fact, she reminded me of my grandma. Except for the killing part. She even looked a bit like my grandma. I liked her very much.
  She said he beat her. But when he threatened the kids it was too much. She said the was the final straw. “I only meant to hit him with that baseball bat once, but it felt so good I just couldn’t stop”
  There was one woman they brought in that had killed her husband that very different from the rest of them. They brought her in strapped to a gurney. She was given the private room. The one with the cameras. And the straps on the bed. They used them. I only met her once in the shower room.  She didn’t speak and she looked traumatized. Other than that she never came out of her room. I don’t think she was allowed. She must have been really bad off. Her lawyer or someone ’official’ came to visit a lot. Maybe to check on her mental state.
  Then there was Mike. Not all the killers on 5C were women. Mike got there because he slashed his wrist. He did this because they were going to transfer him to some far away prison for killing his cell mate and he didn’t want to be that far from home. I think he might just have been afraid. He was short with curly blond hair and he taught me to play spades. He had learned while in prison playing for cigarettes.  He was also the only person that would play Blackjack with me. And he would play with me longer than anyone else. Turns out I’m very lucky at cards and win a lot. Most people would stop playing pretty quick. Mike played a lot longer. He told me he should take me to Vegas. But of course if it was for money, or even cigarettes, I’m sure I would lose.
  Everyone else was just a suicide attempt. Everyone except me.
  Jeff tried to OD when his wife left him. We would watch Sesame Street in the morning and Sally Jessie, Jenny Jones, Donahue, all the talk shows in the afternoon. We didn’t get cable in the psych ward. And the reception was really bad some days. Some days we could only get a really weak signal and not see anything at all. But most days it was pretty good.
  Jamie. Jamie was the first person I met there. He was the first person to talk to and be nice to me. He recognized my fear and invited me to eat with him. I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t. Probably I would have skipped eating I was terrified. Jamie stayed with me my first few days so I wasn’t alone. Eating, playing games, watching tv, smoking. He introduced me to Norma and Berniece, some of the other ladies and some staff as they came on duty. I would have been lost without him. He taught me how to play headache, the preferred game of the psych unit group I was now a part of. Jamie had tried to jump off the suspension bridge after his lover had left him.
  Julia used to be a school teacher. She had slit her wrists but was happy now. Always giggling about something. She seemed to be mentally all of five years old. With many secrets that made her smile and laugh all the time. As if someone was whispering funny jokes into her ear. She was having a great time. We would color together. Me doing my designs in regular and colored pencils. And her coloring in a coloring book with crayons. It was then that I started drawing.
  I take it back. Not everyone was a suicide. The man down the hall from me was not there for any mental problems at all. He was there because he was dying of AIDS and in 1988 there were no hospices and that’s what they did with end-stage AIDS patients. Dumped them in psych wards. At least in northern Kentucky they did. There was no place else to put them. Not yet.
  He never left his bed. In fact, he never even changed positions. I snuck in and taped my designs up on the wall where I thought he was staring, so he would have something to look at. And of course the nurses saw this. We had to have a talk. This is how I learned about HIV and AIDS. What they were and what they weren’t and how you could and couldn’t catch it. It wasn’t a curse from god. You couldn’t get by touch or a public toilet. It wasn’t a gay disease. You got it through sex or blood. The man in that room, they told me, had had a blood transfusion in 1976, before the blood supply was screened for HIV. HIV turns into AIDS. And AIDS is what you die from. He was going to die and die soon. His wife would visit but his kids were my age, and you had to be 18 to be allowed to visit on the ward. They would not get to say goodby.
  They told me I could tape my drawings up but not to get caught doing it by the Drs. You are not supposed to be in another patients room. Or what? They’d throw us out? More likely they’d fire a nurse for allowing it to happen.
  I didn’t want any of the nurses to get in trouble, a few of them were really nice. They would, on their breaks, come out and smoke with us, play a round of headache or a round of hearts. This wasn’t often, but on a rare occasion.
  I did see the Dr. that second day. He didn’t tell me what he thought was wrong, just asked me how I slept. Like crap. Asked me a few more questions. Then increased my medication a little bit. We only talked a little bit. He didn’t really have time for me. And I didn’t like him much anyway. He asked where my mom was, San Francisco, and my dad, at home. Said he would talk to them.
  Then I had ‘school’. The tutor came. She would be coming for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday. You’re kidding me right? That’s all the schooling I have to do?
  Also on that second day, late in the evening, my dad brought me cigarettes. This is how I know he cared and loved me and worried and wanted to help. It was this small act of kindness that sticks out the most. Not the visit. That he brought me cigarettes. He didn’t bring me clothes, but that was okay, he didn’t know what to bring. He didn’t know where my mom was. No one could find her in San Francisco. That was where her week long training she was supposed to be at was held. Her work couldn’t find her. They were trying to track her down. But no luck yet.

Frustrated and cleaning madly didn’t help you much. There was always more for you to clean or so you believed. Dirty filthy people populated your world and you felt the need to clean up after every one of them.

They rolled me up in a wheelchair. First down the hall and then into the elevator. It was the largest elevator I had ever seen. It was HUGE. Big enough for a gurney. And several doctors around it. Up we went to the top floor. On the fifth floor we went to the left. To the right was drug rehab. The sign said so. To the left was my unit. The adult locked psych unit. The first thing I noticed were the lack of doorknobs. The second thing was how very thick those door were, once they were open. Two inches at least. And then the sound they made when they closed up behind me as they continued to wheel me through. That final hollow thunk. And of course there were no knobs on the insides of those doors either. But there was an orderly sitting there. Always someone sitting there by the door. Just in case someone tried to run out when the doors were opened for someone else. Sitting there at all times, ‘just in case’. Usually a big guy too.
  We rolled past him to the nurses station.  Stopping there, but only so that the nurse pushing me up could hand me off to another nurse who would push me the rest of the way to my room. At the station we turned left. And down the hall to the very last room on the left. That was going to be my room for now. It was not private, but the other patient had been asked to leave so I could do the ‘intake’. I didn’t like the sound of that. First we had to do a history. Physical and mental. I wasn’t very helpful. I didn’t know anything and I was only fourteen. Then we had to do the strip search. Everything off. Everything. Look for tattoos and scars, birthmarks, bruises I came in with. Any spots. Anywhere at all. The nurse was very nice about it all. But still, very shameful.  The strip search itself only took a few minutes, but it feels like forever when you‘re naked in front of a strange nurse who‘s looking you over like that. When we were done she told me I could get cigarettes and a lighter at the nurses station. They usually had extra. And if they didn’t she would give me a pack of hers. Then she left me to get dressed in my hospital gowns and slippers and robe.
  Appropriately dressed for the venue I was now desperately in need of one of those cigarettes the nurse had promised. So back to the nurses’ station. It turned out that they didn’t have any left over from other patients, long since transferred or been discharged. The nurse was true to her word and gave me a pack of hers. Another nurse gave me a lighter. And so I got a cigarette and a tip that there was some food down the hall in the refrigerator in the community dinning room.  Not much. Ice cream. I took it. I had missed dinner. Thanks to the ER doctor that didn’t want to admit me and start my hold today. That was why it took them so long. That was why they made me wait. With no food.  I found some packets of hot chocolate as well. And as it turns out, spoonfuls of ice cream dipped in hot chocolate are a pretty good dinner.
  There were people sitting at the tv in the community dinning room and people sitting at the tv in the area just off the nurses station. I had no where to go to be left alone. There were already people everywhere. Strange people. Scary people. They were all psycho. I didn’t want to be near them. But I couldn’t get away from them. I didn’t want to be one of them. I went back to my room.
  In my room was Rose. She was going to be my new roommate. At least for a little while. She was eighty, at least. And felt a need to complain to me about everything and everyone, including me. She complained mostly about how dirty everyone was and how she had to clean up after them. I just listened. Then I went and got another cigarette. I didn’t know what else to do with myself.  I discovered the room across from the dinning room. It had no tv or refrigerator. Just couches and tables and chairs. And windows that looked out on the Cincinnati skyline. And best of all, no one was in it. Probably because it had no tv or refrigerator. I could stand on the couch and stare at that skyline for a long time, all by myself and no one bothered me in there. The door leading in was right next to the orderly by the door and he looked in every now and then, but that was the only other person to even notice I was in there.  It was a large room, but I had it all to myself. There was that, and pacing. I did a lot of pacing. I did a lot of pacing that long hallway and both the hallway that crossed it at the top, making a capital T.
  Finally it was time to go to bed. Eleven thirty. Later than the drug rehab. Different rules here. And now I had to take a medicine? I didn’t even know what it was. Zanax? What was it for? What was wrong with me that I needed medication? I was told I would see the doctor the next day. But now I had to go to bed, they said. I was plenty tired. I had only had a short nap in the ER while waiting on the second doctor, the psychiatrist. And I had only had three hours sleep the night before in the runaway center. I had never been so happy to have a day end.

  Finally my mother got the courage to admit me. So we walked in. She had set up an appointment but we were late for that. That was okay. They did it anyway. They did an extensive drug history. Did you do this. Did you do that. Where. When. How. With whom. There were times I couldn’t remember. Was I blacked out? I didn’t think so, but they marked me down as blacked out away. I just .. couldn’t remember. I didn’t think I drank that much. Yes, on occasion I went through a bottle of Maddog 20/20 by myself in one sitting or a bottle of Jack Daniels that one time with my friend in one day. But everyone I knew drank as much as I did. Yes, I drank during the week, it was summer. Yes, I drank in the mornings. I didn’t sleep so mornings had little meaning to me the way they did to other people.
 
  And of course I was admitted. My mom had to sign all the papers. Most important was the paperwork allowing me to smoke. I was given a short tour. It was after lights out so the unit was empty. I met the night staff and saw one other patient, a tall guy with blond curly hair. He was out of his room asking for something.  My blood was drawn and my pulse and temperature taken, two things that they told me they would be doing morning and night every day. I had no clothes with me since this was a surprise to me so they gave me a pair of hospital pajamas to wear and sent to me. Almost. First the semi-strip search. I had to take off my shirt and pants and pull out my bra and pull my panties to the side. To make sure nothing fell out. I was finally sent to bed in a room with three other girls already in bed asleep. How bizarre for them to wake up and find me there.
 
  In the morning I got dressed. Up at six. Pulse, temperature, cigarette. Breakfast at seven. I didn’t eat. I said I wasn’t hungry. But the truth was I didn’t have any money. I couldn’t pay for it. So I sat and waited while everyone else ate. I answered all the questions they hadn’t asked yet while we were smoking.  They were not quite bored with me yet.
  After breakfast was school. Four hours of it. Not a bad deal. I spent half the time that first day in with my new case manager, Tim. In the school part what work you get depends on your grade, since I had failed and was in still in eighth I got stuff I already knew, so it was a breeze for me. Boring really.
  Lunch. And again, me without money. My mom had yet to drop off anything, clothes or money. So I went without. But this time I sat at the end of the tables where I could see they didn’t seem to be paying. Although I wasn’t sure. I just didn’t know for sure. I was uptight anyway and not really that hungry. I could wait it out. Another cigarette.
  After lunch was group time. Addictions group or relaxation group. Or some sort of group therapy. I skipped that first day. I had the standard psychiatric evaluation. Fun. It took the whole afternoon.
  Another cigarette. Later afternoon was recreation. Basketball. Soccer. Volleyball. That first day I played soccer and I liked it though I could barely keep up. Then free time for the rest of the time before dinner. You could work on the assignments that staff gave you or your homework from school or write letters or make calls, watch tv or smoke. Do whatever. Evenings were AA meetings. Or visits. Also weekends were visits in the afternoons. And you could have a day pass.
  At dinner one of the counselors pulled me aside and asked why I wasn’t eating. I was embarrassed but finally admitted it was because my mom hadn’t brought me any money to pay for it yet. She told me it was covered by my insurance. I didn’t have to pay. So finally I got to eat. I felt stupid for not having realized that.
  Surprisingly, it didn’t take long to get used to smoking in front of my mom. She was the ‘cool’ mom. When she came to visit she gave cigarettes to the kids that didn’t have any. She cussed right along with them. Laughed at their drug stories. didn’t shun their drug use and felt for their being in drug rehab. HELLO. Commiserating with them over being locked up. Again… the irony. They all liked her. She was the most popular mom and they all told me so. But I had to live with her and I told THEM so.
  The next day I met with a psychologist. A woman this time, Sara. I liked her. She was not as stiff as the Dr. had been. She worked with him and gave me more tests.  Her tests seemed more fun, probably because I liked her more. But I didn’t think I would see her again.
  Bed at ten thirty. Up at six. Temp. Pulse. Cigarette. Breakfast at seven. School at eight. Starts all over again. Except I saw the Dr. again that day. And again on the fourth day. I saw the psychologist again on the sixth day. I liked her better. She wasn’t as authorative. As stiff and commanding. The testing was finally finished.
  On the seventh day Tim called me into his office. He had to tell me three things. The night before my great grandmother had died. My mother had been arrested for her second DUI. And I needed psychiatric help not drug rehab. “you’re not an alcoholic but you’re mother is” I loved and hated that statement at the same time. I think the staff were irritated with her giving out cigarettes to the kids without permission to smoke and encouraging the cussing and the drugs. At fourteen being told my mom was the one with the problem I just loved it, at the same time how dare he talk about her like that. That was MY MOTHER. He just didn’t know. 
 
  And what was this about psychiatric help?
  “You need more care than we can give you.” It was the first time I would hear those words. “I’m trying to get you into a place that can give you that kind of help. I’ve got you on several waiting lists to be transferred to a psychiatric facility” But I wasn’t sick. He just said it was my mom. He went on to explain I wouldn’t be going home. Id be seeing the psychologist three times a week and the Dr. once a week. My blood test had come back and my THC levels had come back extremely high. Well no shit. I said I had been smoking it. But he just said that wasn’t my problem. Why couldn’t I go home to wait. No. He was going to keep me. I couldn’t win.
  Recreation was volleyball. Good. I wanted to hit something. After dinner was AA. I didn’t understand why I was required to go if I wasn’t an alcoholic. But I was required to go. Just for show I think. Same as I was required to do the drug assignments as everyone else. Things like journal entries and essay questions about your feelings about drugs and drug questionnaires and working the steps. I supposed the staff knew that the Dr. thought I had other problems and it was determined that drugs were not my problem so they went easy on me. I also noticed no one else was seeing the psychologist or the Dr. That was okay. It was just a big misunderstanding. They would figure that out. I would make them see that. In time. If they really believed I was sick they would have taken me to the hospital. None of this waiting list shit.

  I settled into the routine easily enough. Even earned a few day passes. The first few days were bumpy but after that it was okay. I never really got into trouble though. I was well behaved. I was mostly afraid to get into trouble. What would they think if I did. That I was sick and needed the hospital maybe. And there was nothing wrong with me.

  I did plot to get kicked out with another patient, Doug. We thought if I could get caught in his room, in bed together, then we could both get kicked out. And we were desperate to get kicked out. I for sure didn’t want to get transferred to some other hospital. Not that that had been brought up again. It hadn’t. But I didn’t want to be there either. I wanted to leave. So this was the scheme we came up. In the end I didn’t try to get to his room. I didn’t think I could get past the night desk. So I never got in any real trouble. I maybe didn’t do an assignment once. But that’s all.
 
  There was one guy there, Jared, who did get kicked out. He had said he did a lot of drugs. I must have said so in the intake and I know he did with us. Told a lot of stories. Smoked a lot of pot. So he said. So of course he was admitted on his word. That’s how it worked. But his blood came back clean. Why he did it I don’t know. Maybe he told he friends he smoked a lot and they told he parents who over reacted and wouldn’t believe the truth so he went along with it? I don’t know. Maybe he was just depressed and his parents took that for signs of drug use. In the 80s everything was a sign of drug use it seemed like. He was the only person I ever saw kicked out of anywhere. And for being clean.
  About two weeks in my mom came in for a visit with some bad news for me. My good friend from home had gotten beat up by her boyfriend pretty badly. She had been in the hospital for it even. I wasn’t able to visit with her. Or talk to her. Just to be with her. I will always feel bad about that. 
 
  My brother came to visit a time or two. He didn’t really have much to say. What do kid brothers every have to say at that age. He was 12. Not much. About the same as he had to say at home. Not much. My dad came to pick me up for a day pass once. We went out eat. Again, not much to say. My dad’s not a talker. Never was. The fact that he showed up says a lot. We went to Steak ‘n’ Shake. I had cheese fries. We didn’t talk but he was there. That’s what matters.
 
  Basketball; I tried to play nice. I really did. But apparently, despite what I’ve seen on tv, its not a contact sport. Really. Even though it looks like there is plenty of contact. So I always had to sit out. ‘Anger issues’.
 
  Over all rehab was fairly uneventful. I wasn’t given a pass to attend Nana’s funeral. I was mad about that. And very very sad. Sad to this day. But I wasn’t in for any major holidays. No one ran away. No one attempted suicide. The staff were friendly and never gave demerits just because they could. All in all it was a good place to be. A safe place.
 
  Twenty eight days is a really short amount of time. Unless you are fourteen. Unless you are in rehab. Unless you are in some hospital like setting. Then it feels like forever. But really, its only a few short weeks.
 
  Soon enough there was only one person left that had been there when I was admitted and that scared me. It meant my time was almost up. When he left, only three short days before I was scheduled leave, I cried. A lot. Now I had been there longer than anyone else. And I wasn’t even an alcoholic.
 
  I was scared and worried about what would happen to me when I got out. That’s why I cried. I didn’t know what would happen to me. I couldn’t picture my life on the outside, so to speak. I was safe there. It was a feeling I hadn’t know before.
 
  Three days later it happened. My twenty eight days were up. The insurance ran out. I was magically ‘cured’ No psychiatric hospital had opened up their list and taken me. Because of course nothing was wrong with me. It was just a big mistake. This whole thing was. A huge misunderstanding. If there really was anything wrong with me I would have been admitted somewhere. So I was going home.
 
  I got a small party. We all sat in a circle and had cake. Then they sent me home. I didn’t want to go.