hypnobird

accidentally

sashalynn — 2009-07-21T15:43:10+00:00

It is completely accidental. I don’t mean to find the letter. I’m not snooping, only looking for a clothing website. Why he keeps a copy in his favorites folder I guess I’ll never know. But there it is.
Rendered in black and white on the computer screen is the thing that has been nagging me. The thing I know but can not name. I can not breathe as I read and reread the letter not meant for me. It is sweet in its own shy way and when I can breathe again I cry. Great big sobs that leave me breathless on the floor and then quietly weeping when that’s all I have left until I am dry.
I email a copy to him so when he gets home and checks his email he will know I have seen and know. I cannot think of a better way to confront this without falling apart.
“What do you want” he asks. He’s sitting against the door, knees to his chest. I’m on the bed, curled up, covered up, looking at him almost eye level.
“What do I want?” I repeat. I want so much. I want to have never found the letter. I want none of this to have happened. I want him to have not done this horrible thing. I want to stop breathing. I want him to stop breathing. I want her to stop breathing. I want to know how involved it really is not just what he says. I want to know why I am so stupid and why I gave up so much for some asshole. I want to know if there were others. I think there were. I want to know if she’s prettier than me, thinner with longer hair. Does she know how you hit me in the face and I forgave you? Is she forgiving like me? I want to know what I did wrong. And how I can fix it. And I want the world to just. Stop. Spinning. Just for a minute. And let me catch my breath.
“I don’t know what I want” I’m trying not to cry but the tears are coming again anyway “what do you want?”
In the end I can’t bring myself to ask him to leave. I don’t want him to go. He chooses to stay.
He calls her, every night now that it’s out in the open, with the calling card I bought him when I was still stupid and trusting enough to believe they were ‘just friends’. He talks to her in the hallway for an hour while I cry on the couch. We still sleep together. I still hold out hope. And it is killing me.
I can no longer eat more than a few pieces of toast a day or sleep more than an hour a night. After a week I take up drinking. After two he notices the fifteen pounds I’ve lost and does the thing I’ve needed him to do all along. He leaves.
“Only for a week” he says, “to give you a break.” And I am relieved and horrified at the same time.
A week turns into three. And then she is visiting and he brings her over to see the cats. Right in front of me and I want to die. And then he’s getting the rest of his stuff. She goes back to South Dakota or North Dakota or where ever the hell she came from and he resumes visiting and sex a few times a week. I can’t say no. He might still come back. And he says he might.
Two months later he helps me move. I am alone in the city now. I have no car, no friends, no relatives and now live in an unfamiliar neighborhood. He promises to come help me out, visit the cats. We talk on the phone once. But I never see him again.
Four and a half years later I think I see him on the train. He won’t look at me. I can’t tell. He’s only on for one stop. On and off so fast. It only might have been.

The coffee cup

sashalynn — 2009-07-19T22:05:10+00:00

Mom was on the couch again. Just sitting there, rubbing her head with one hand, cigarette in the other. I wondered if she would notice it was noon and I was supposed to be in school. She ashed her cigarette in the too full ashtray and cringed. Rubbing her forehead some more she reached for an almost empty bottle of aspirin.
She dry swallowed three. I never knew how she could stand to do that. She ran her fingers through her hair, roughly combing it. It didn’t help much. But when the light caught it just right, as it was now, it was this beautiful shade of gold, mess and all, and I wondered how she used to look.
Then she turned one bloodshot eye towards me. “Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
I walked across the room, stepping over a pile of newspapers, and sat down in the armchair. “Sent home” I said “inappropriate t-shirt.” I was only occasionally very good at lying so I didn’t mention that I was supposed to change clothes and go back.
She ashed again, this time choosing a days old coffee mug with some stale coffee still in the bottom from among the clutter on the coffee table. Cups. An overfull ashtray. A lone spoon gleamed from the far side. Magazines held down by a pair of dirty salad plates, ashes and another too full ashtray. Mugs. An out of place shoe. A few beer cans.
“Why do you do these things?” she asked as she stood up. And I had no answer for her. I wanted to ask why she did the things she did. But I didn’t.
She looked at me again. “You used to be such a good girl.” she said, as she left the room. She sounded so tired

Transfer

sashalynn — 2009-01-21T23:19:13+00:00

I was allowed to visit with my brother once. For ten minutes. In the hallway. With a guard. To make sure I didn’t run. I might run off to the drug rehab unit across the hall. You had to be eighteen to visit on the adult psych units. Jared wasn’t old enough. He wasn’t allowed on the unit. Technically, neither was I. Joe was allowed to visit. He was eighteen. Sonja had just turned seventeen. She wasn’t allowed. We talked on the phone sometimes. None of my other friends were allowed. They were all to young to visit me on a unit I was to young to visit, let alone be held on, myself.
Towards the end of my stay we had Thanksgiving. Dry mashed potatoes, drier turkey and something calling itself gravy. The jellied cranberry sauce was okay. Jellied things were always okay. Although the flavor combinations were sometimes questionable. Jell-O was the one thing that kitchen was able to get right. And thanksgiving was no exception. At least it was edible.
I was often in trouble for not eating. They had caught on to my hiding the food between the plate and the silver plate holder thingy. So I had to have the orderly in charge of dinner sign off on my having eaten at least half of dinner or more. If I wouldn’t eat it the doctor would be notified and I would lose my visitation for the next day. One day the meat was green. Actually green. I shit you not, green. So I called over the orderly. It was usually the same guy every night. I called him over. I showed him. I told him I would eat it. If. IF he would take a bite of it first. I never got in trouble for not eating after that. He never told on me anyway. So the Thanksgiving food was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t green. I ate some of it anyway. At least half. Maybe a little more.
November into December and still no discharge date. My mom and I watched “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” on tv in the dining room with Jeff. Me and him in our hospital robes and slippers. Her all dressed up on her way home from work and fidgety. The tv had a lot of static, it always did, but it was watchable. In my family it was tradition to watch “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” every year on tv. Right up until they moved it to cable and then took it off tv altogether. And we didn’t let the psych ward stop us. Although my brother wasn’t there.
After thirty one days, longer than I’d been in drug rehab, they had to do something. By law they had to. Now they want to follow the law? And so something was done. I was leaving. But I wasn’t going home. The found another place for me. Another place to take me. I was being transferred.
There was some discussion about how to transfer me there. The hospital wanted me to go by ambulance. As if I was going to run away. In the end, that didn’t work out. Probably my mom’s insurance said no. So my mom was the one who would take me. She was to take me right there, no stops. No going home. No nothing.
I was allowed to have my pants and shoes for the trip that day. And I finally got to wear my trench coat. I got all my t-shirts. I left with more clothes than I came in with. And all of them clothes I didn’t own before my hospital visit. That was a neat little trick. And one I would repeat.
It was sunny out and much colder than I remembered the last time I had been allowed to wander freely in the world. I wasn’t prepared for it. I had only a t-shirt and a trench coat. Apparently I wasn’t going that far. I didn’t really know where I was going. They gave my mom an admission packet to give to the hospital staff, driving directions and sent us off with instructions to take me straight there and not stop for anything. Where’s the trust? Seriously. And off we went. From Covington to Ft. Mitchell.
I paid extra close attention, trying to memorize everything, all the landmarks that I could. So I could find my way back. I didn’t know where I was going but I would be damned if I was going to stay there. I had lived in Kentucky for two months, the last month of it was in the hospital. I had no idea where I was or where I was going, but I thought it seemed pretty simple so far. The side streets around the hospital had confused me, but there were signs. And so far we had only taken one major street with no turns.
And look here. There’s a Pizza Hut. It was lunch time so we stopped of course. It only occurs to me now, just this very minute as I write this, that Pizza Huts and hospital stays went hand in hand for me back then. Or maybe we just ate Pizza Hut a lot.
Over lunch my mom had a little look-see in the manila envelope will all the admission forms for the new hospital. I didn’t get to see. We didn’t talk much and I didn’t ask where I was going. I didn’t care. I wouldn’t be staying very long if I could help it. Besides, I was busy going over where we had come from in my head. Memorizing the street we had come down in detail, so I wouldn’t forget. And I never did.
After lunch we continued. I didn’t want to. I felt sick. I wanted to throw up. I didn’t. Up the hill. Left at the four way stop. Left again at the first stop sign. A little ways down the road. There it is. Off to the left is the entrance to the parking lot. To the right of the parking lot is the ugly brick building. What I can see of it is in a U shape. To the left of the parking is a baseball field. In front of the parking is walkway with benches. In front of the building is a large lawn area with several picnic tables. Far out, beyond the lawn and the baseball field, extending all around the fields, just before they go to woods is a very tall fence. And I can’t tell, but it might have a barbed wire at the top. I’m not sure.
I read the name on the sign as we drive past, into the parking lot. Children’s Psychiatric Hospital of Northern Kentucky.

Treatments

sashalynn — 2009-01-19T16:01:13+00:00

Dr. Schneider was there when I got there. So Dr. Schneider was who I got. He would come in every day during his rounds and ask me how I slept, like crap, and increase my med. I’m sure he asked me other questions too. But that was the constant. And sometimes the only. I complained about my stomach hurting to him. Enough that I got myself an upper GI exam complete with that nasty barium radium stuff you have to drink. Note to self: shut the hell up. And I did. They said there was nothing wrong with my stomach.
Dr. Schneider talked to my dad. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what was said. But then he wanted to talk to my mom right away. And where the hell was she anyway? No one seed to know. No one had been able to find her. She was not in San Francisco. Her work confirmed there was no conference or training there for her to be at. Finally, after three days a friend was found that knew the truth about where she really was. Mom had been found. In jail. For her second DUI she had received six months jail time, suspended all but ten days. She had been doing those ten days. She was required to complete an outpatient program too. They wouldn’t let her out of jail to come see me but now, at least, we knew where she was. And that she couldn’t rather than wouldn’t come visit me.
The day came when her ten days were up and she came to see me. Dr Schneider was there too. He wanted to talk with her as well. I was there for that meeting. I don’t know why he didn’t meet with her privately. But he didn’t. We all went into a private sitting room off the left hallway.
It didn’t take long before she asked ‘The Question’. The one I wanted to know as well. He hadn’t brought it up, had left that to her. And maybe that was a calculated move on his part, planning how he wanted this to go the whole time. Or maybe he was just a bitter, mean little man who saw an opportunity and took it. Either way, it was the perfect set up.
“So what’s wrong with my daughter?”
And we all waited for an answer to that. But what we got was not what we were looking for. My being there was a mistake. Just a huge misunderstanding. And now my mom was here and she could take me home. And he could tell her that. OR he could say what he thought was wrong with me and how I had to take medicine and she could tell him he was wrong and it was a huge mistake the problem was clearly the school and how she was going to put me in a different school, one that wouldn’t hurt me and problem solved and she would take me home now. Because school was the problem, not me. I didn’t belong here, I wasn’t sick. There wasn’t anything wrong with me. It was the school. I was going to be hurt if I went there. And she could tell him that. She had seen how badly I couldn’t go there. I wasn’t sick. There was nothing wrong with me. I just couldn’t go to that school.
“So what’s wrong with my daughter” she said.
And without missing a beat , with the straightest face, in all seriousness, “You are. YOU are what’s wrong with your daughter.”

…….WOW. That was unexpected. I hated Dr. Schneider. But at that moment I loved him too. I had a lot of pent up anger toward my mom, and here he was blaming her. I was fourteen and he was telling me it really was all my mom’s fault. I ate it up. The only problem was It wasn’t true. How could it be when there wasn’t anything wrong with me to be her fault. And how dare he talk about my mom like that. This wasn’t her fault it was his. This was HIS misunderstanding what I was trying to say about the school. And I would have tried to tell him that again but every time I tried I just seemed to make things worse. Besides I was safe here. The danger wasn’t so imminent, it didn’t feel so urgent.

Over games of cards we would also talk about our doctors. Who had whom and who liked theirs and who hated theirs. Our meds and who was on what and our treatments and what was working and what wasn’t. Mostly they would talk and I would listen. I did make my feelings known through a drawing I did of Dr. Schneider with fangs and horns and I believe I even gave him a tail as well.
I only took one med but had my blood drawn every few days. Others quite a few more and never had blood draws. A few had electro shock therapy. Jamie was one of them. He would go down for therapy two times a week and I wouldn’t see him all that day and half the next. His memory became an issue when they bumped him up to three treatments in a week, towards the end of my stay. It got worse and worse. One day he came up to me and told me it wouldn’t be long before he wouldn’t remember me at all and not to be upset, it wasn’t my fault.
“I can’t even remember my mom sometimes” I cried when it finally happened.
Jamie was caught trying to jump off the Suspension Bridge. His lover had left him. He wanted to die. Jeff had taken an overdose. His wife had left him. He wanted to die. Same scenario. Same doctor. Jamie got ECT treatments. Jeff got meds. Jamie deteriorated. Jeff did okay. Jamie was gay. Jeff was straight. Jamie came to me and protected me on my first day. Jeff spent thanksgiving with me after my mom left and every one else still had visitation for an hour. No one explained to me the extreme difference in treatments between the two with very similar problems and the same doctor. So, at fourteen, I came up with my own explanations. That doctor doesn’t come off so well in my idea for why this was as it was.
The man in the room off the left hall got IV treatments several times a day. At meal times he was rolled into the nurses station in a wheelchair and fed through an IV tube. But he was in for AIDS not psych. His treatment was worse than the rest of ours, if only because he was no longer capable of complaining about it with the rest of us. I put up pictures in his room so he wouldn’t have to stare at blank walls, but I don’t know what good it did in the end.
Which is worse, to be left in the psych ward to die. Or to be left in the psych ward watching someone else left in the psych ward to die.

Joe and the psych ward

sashalynn — 2009-01-17T21:40:13+00:00

Joe came everyday in the afternoon to visit me. He rarely missed a day. Thanksgiving and there was a day I was refused visitation because I overslept. The doctor saw my regular visits and used them as ‘motivation’. If I wasn’t up and showered and dressed by ten a.m. I had lost visitation for the day. That only happened once and Joe was refused at the door that afternoon. But once he found out where I was he came often. Nearly every afternoon. More than my family came.
He brought me all the gossip of our mutual friends and lots I didn’t know. All the news of Short Vine, the neighborhood area we hung out. He was very upset with all the people there. And he complained to me about them. Told me all the things they were doing and what he felt they should be doing. One of our friends had been beaten up by her boyfriend Walter, beat up bad, put in the hospital even, and he didn’t think they were upset enough. Angry (violent?) enough. He wanted to return the favor and wanted everyone else to, as well. That was the main complaint on most days. He hung out with the S.H.A.R.P. skinheads (skin heads against racial prejudice) and he was just starting to resent them. Thinking they were letting Walter off because he was black. Joe started to pull away from them, and so he would visit me everyday, telling me all the things they should be doing to Walter for what he did. Joe was angry. And hurt. What Walter did hurt more than just his girlfriend. And as long as I knew him Joe never got completely over it. Though he did get better in time.
When he wasn’t complaining to me about what S.H.A.R.P. was or wasn’t doing he was giving me all the details about who was or wasn’t doing whom. Very juicy stuff. And who was doing it behind who’s back. Even better. Who got caught and who was clueless, pretty much like a soap opera, except most of the people I barely knew. But I loved hearing about it anyway. And one day knowing all these people better was my hope, getting out of the psych ward and hanging out with them.
One day Joe came in while I was napping. He didn’t wake me up though. Instead I woke up to quiet laughing. Well, not quiet enough, I woke up anyway. Apparently Zanex makes me drool in my sleep. A lot. The whole pillow was wet. Hahahahaha. Very funny. And Joe just stood there and laughed. Quietly. At least he was trying to let me sleep?
Another day he brought me a big bag of t-shirt. T-shirt and a trench coat. Olive with orange and green striped inner lining. I didn’t have any where to wear the trench coat but I did wear it a few times on the unit anyway. The t-shirts I wore everyday. I still had to wear my hospital pants and rope and slippers, but the t-shirts made my look complete. They were band t-shirts. Punk bands. C.O.C. Exploited. Circle Jerks. Black Flag. There were probably eight or nine in there.
Joe liked G.G. Allen. If you don’t know who that is a good google session is in order. I thought GG Allen was disgusting. I think Joe probably thought so too. Maybe he was more fascinated with him than actually liking him. Or maybe it was just the shock factor and the shock factor of telling people that you liked GG Allen. (hint* look up gg Allen on jerry springer) I don’t believe Joe ever went to one of his concerts, although he threatened to go quite often. Any discussion of Allen, and it always turned to GG Allen, always, ended with the same “what would you do if you woke up in bed next to him one morning?” The only acceptable answer was, of course, suicide. The real question was ‘how did I get there?’ After all, I would not be going to one of his shows, whereas Joe would and could be drugged. This was a conversation we had almost every day when he would visit. It was the appropriate setting for such a conversation. Maybe that’s why we were compelled to have it so many times. It was almost always interrupted by staff or other patients or something else. One time it was a page over the intercom for a “Dr. Slaughter”. That broke us up. We didn’t stop laughing for the rest of the visit. But I don’t ever remember coming to a conclusion about how I ended up in bed beside GG Allen. It had to be a believable scenario. What I would do about it didn’t even matter if I wouldn’t believe how I got there in the first place. And so the debate raged on. And still there is not a satisfactory answer. I just don’t know. Fortunately the man is dead and I don’t have to contemplate that particular question anymore.

Daytime tv, headache and aggravation

sashalynn — 2009-01-16T23:44:13+00:00

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.

5C - people

sashalynn — 2009-01-14T14:10:13+00:00

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.

Rose

sashalynn — 2009-01-09T19:36:13+00:00

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.

Admission

sashalynn — 2009-01-09T13:20:13+00:00

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.

In rehab

sashalynn — 2009-01-07T17:59:13+00:00

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.