Reflections of time in a psychiatric unit - "I have immense respect for the staff that work tirelessly with little thanks and many challenges from those lost just trying to find their own reflections in fractured mirrors....
This is a piece of writing from my unpublished memoir.
A sepia snapshot forces its way into my medicated mind...I am wandering down the haunted corridor of the psychiatric unit. In vain I force my mind to shut down, the eyes of my soul to be blinded but these ghostly memories will not subside. I hear the echo of anguished cries. Demented pleadings from the 'child within' are begging for release from this agony and on-going torture. I push her away, ignore her. I want her dead!
Although troubled hearts come and go, the residue of contaminated lives remain embedded in the structural walls of this safe haven that break me down every time I am readmitted to keep me alive - for my own safety and for the sanity of those who love me.
I believe that I do NOT belong in a place like this, with the pungent smell of faeces and body odour and the lingering foul taste of hospital food. This is NOT happening to me! This is NOT the dream I held in the palm of my hand, and yet, here I am....too sick to see the truth, too self-absorbed to allow logic to prevail, too 'gone' to think clearly, so once again, I am stuck in a place where I don't want to be - internally and externally. This causes further rage, powerlessness and paralysis. I become resigned and defeated. Silently I blend into the shadows of the inexpressible pain surrounding me.
Everyday, piece by piece, my identity is chipped away exposing an already raw heart and broken spirit. I feel nothing and yet I feel it all - overwhelming flooding of complexity and confusion. I hate what I have become. I feel alone. Unheard. Unseen.
At times my heart goes out to others struggling, but mostly I resent them for reflecting in my eyes. Then there's all the time lost. The Dissociative Disorder robbing me of minutes, hours, days....my sanity....my existence....time away from my children, time away from Life.
Sometimes I have the clearest clarity of memories experienced and at other times there is no recall of my actions, thus further fuelling an empty fragile existence within my already non-existent sense-of-self. I feel abandoned and rejected in a world where I am certain I do not belong: a place where I believe I am an impostor, a fraud, a freak! Damaged beyond repair.
I think too much. Observe too much. Feel too much: sometimes from outside of my body, sometimes from too deep inside.
Will this nightmare ever end?
Do I have the strength or the willpower to continue?
Is there an ounce of life left within the damp rotting walls of my trodden spirit?
Could I ever find even a tiny breath of hope amidst the shrapnel of abuse recklessly scattered inside the gutters of my fractured essence to piece together any semblance of a life?
I am really not sure I'd feel comfortable 'living' rather than existing on auto-pilot and fight-or-flight response since checking out from the age of four.
Do I pretend that I have forgiven the people who hurt me? Do I keep hating them: the ones who stole my innocence without my permission? or do I stay clocked out fantasising that maybe I am a Phoenix awaiting its cue to rise up from the murky depths, and then lie to myself that miracles do actually happen?
What if I become just another statistic of somebody who once was? Somebody sadly misunderstood who lost the fight? Somebody who never had a Voice?
These images are interrupted by deafening silence. Blinding images. Colliding snapshots immobilised in time smudged with loss and confusion. My breath slows down as ghosts of the past waltz to interrupted music of the mind, the notes echoing in the blacker blackness of the 'nothingness'. Then nothing!
No heartbeat.
No breath.
Alive.
Dead.
Do I rise or do I fall?
Dancing with the Devil
Emotions lying dormant
Weighing heavily in every artery of my body
I can feel them like demons
Lurking
And I know that these demons are waiting to wage war
I fear that there will be no victory
When all is unleashed
Each individual emotion holds a life of its
own
There is no way to read them accurately
There is no way of preparing
Everyday I wade through the emotional tides hoping for the best......
Anger is pulsating through my veins
Snuffing out the little light left in my imbalanced heart
My guard instantly takes its stance
Protecting something that is no longer there
I'm thrown into the Abyss
Blinded by the intensity of cutting betrayal and hurt
I know that if I don't release this pain it will destroy me
It IS destroying me
I don't know how to forgive and let go
From the severe jaded blackness within the depths
My tears flow against intense resistance
I am brought down to my knees
Not sure if I have the energy anymore to even crawl
I KNOW that I don't want to continue to
Dance with the Devil
His callous smirk casting haunting, hollow notes in the shadows
Echoes of deeper shades of black mimicking destruction
This Journey has already been too draining!
At times debilitating
My body feels weak
My mind fragile
No trace of my Heart
How do I live after I've died?????
I followed the nurse reluctantly through double glass doors that imitated my reluctance as the swiped pass ordered them to obey. I sat on the edge of an ugly plastic hospital chair, ready to sprint if need be. I scanned every inch of the room absorbing all escape routes. I noticed the nurses mouth moving but couldn’t hear the words. I forced my mind to snap back to the present, leaving my reminiscing thoughts hanging in the atmosphere. I answered the nurses questions with one-word syllables, my voice not belonging to me. He reassured me that I was safe. I knew I wasn't. He tidied the forms, banging them lightly on the edge of the table as he stood up. I remained seated, my legs like lead.
I don’t remember much after that - only being handed over to a nice lady in a different room. She showed me around. In my mind I can still recall the details of a large dining area: plastic tables and chairs, no sharp edges, a serving hatch so sparse and ‘safe’ that our breath hovering there was a stark reminder that these walls would not allow any freedom to self-destruct. Maybe? Maybe not?
I lay in the dark facing the wall, my back turned to the patient in the bed alongside mine. Even in the dark I could see the clinical whiteness of the wall, smell the detergents used to wash away people’s pain. I knew that the strongest disinfectant could not disintegrate the madness or cover up the sadness. I controlled my breathing as I listened intently to every sound vibrating in the corridor. I felt so lonely and alone and misunderstood.
The screaming woke me up! My eyes darted across the room, my heart pounding out of my chest, my breathing shallow. My natural instinct was to run but my legs were heavy. I was held captive by intense fear. As I bolted upright, my mind reeling, a nurse walked into the room. She seemed oblivious that we were surrounded by danger, immune to the abnormal dysfunction and pain oozing from every brick used to construct this safe haven. I thought to myself, “I am not crazy! She is!"
We all stood in a line like herded sheep, one by one being handed a breakfast tray. I took my tray and found an empty table praying that nobody would decide to join me…nobody did. I ate nothing, just watched…observed. I noticed that outside the sun was shining. How could that be possible? How could everything in this world continue as normal when everything was so wrong? Nothing made sense. This thought was shattered by a child’s voice. She sounded so small and insecure. I thought it was in my head but then realised that the voice belonged to another patient. She must’ve been about twenty two years old, long dark hair, very beautiful.
She looked so lost, so disoriented. Her mind had gone to that other place, the one I knew so well…sadness filled my core and I wondered for how long the Dissociative Disorder would rob her this time around…how many hours or days or weeks would she lose? How many broken pieces would make her bleed from the inside out? What would remain of her? Her pain triggered me and my mind switched into overdrive, the 'disturbed artist' repeating over and over, louder and louder "cut! cut!". Like hell would these walls take away this power! It’s all I had after losing so much! A black male nurse interrupted my thoughts coaxing me to eat. I stared at him blankly, no words forming. I was getting restless inside, today's craving, to punish myself again...why?...I no longer needed a reason.
Standing outside on the balcony overlooking an insipid outside area, more sand and gravel than grass, I scoured the towering walls encasing so much confusing pain confining angels with broken wings. The heat of the mid morning sun was scorching and I flinched just for a moment as its rays injected my skin. Anger rose within me for exhibiting this weakness. I NEVER flinched when the consoling blade engraved its mark.
The irrevocable 'command' to cut was so desperately intense that I felt delirious with frenzy. With demented purpose I ran down the four steps two at a time! With silent hysteria I chose a little stone with a sharp edge and stuffed it deep down into my denim pocket. My mind flat-lined back into consciousness. Much needed air filled my lungs! I regained my composure and followed the path back into the dining room area. I looked at nobody, only continued walking until the safe ‘click’ of the bathroom door separated me from a ‘safety’ that did not exist. I sat on the toilet seat, my denims around my ankles, stone in hand. With urgency I vigorously scraped the stone back and forth, over and over on the skin of my upper thigh until the blood started appearing...harder and harder until the blood ran down my leg. Seeing the blood was my sense of achievement - that instant which granted me some distorted sense in my senseless world. My thoughts marched into rhythm with the action, then my mind started shutting down, my eyes died...I went into the ‘nothingness’...the place where I was numb....where I did not feel but where, in a complex and complicated way, I was still alive. When I was satisfied there was enough blood I moved onto the next area of skin - over 60 cuts today. After cleaning up the mess, leaving no trace of the self-destruction that had just occurred, I pulled up my denims with elation the hidden cuts stinging. Once again this act had slotted me into a false sense of control and victory…a sense of survival by destruction.
Being so restricted in the psych ward I became very inventive with objects I could use to cut. I’d look at everything with only this aim in sight. My toothpaste tube was a good one, although it was time-consuming washing the blood from the ridges of the corners of the tube.
One day as I stood in the coffee-making area stirring my coffee with a paddle-pop stick trying pointlessly to block out the incoherent mutterings of a nearby patient, I saw the destruction this little wooden stick could cause. I grabbed a handful abandoning my coffee and ran to my bedroom. I carefully hid them in my cupboard.
All day my mind was consumed with thoughts of blood and destruction, the controversial art of scars, the only thing keeping me existing as best I could.
And so began a daily ritual of smuggling paddle-pop sticks, escaping to the furthest bathroom out of sight from the nurses station, methodically breaking the paddle-pop sticks with a new found mastery, and then beginning the artwork - the splintered wood creating a masterpiece of mess which had now moved to my wrist. Again, as before, I made sure not to leave any trace of the blood-stained artwork that had been produced in there.
I thought there was no way I could fall any deeper than what I already had. I was so wrong!
Within the month ahead, I disappeared completely, lost to a place where nothing and nobody could reach me, or touch any part of me, not even me. So as I write these words, they are not all from memory but relayed to me from Aurora who witnessed my disappearance and cried in devastation as all she could do was watch.
The heat of the day was relentless! There was no escaping it but as Aurora entered the Mental Health Unit she shivered as hypothermia hung in the air. She navigated along the corridor, knowing where to go, having walked this route many times before. Her mind was in anguish with an abode of forewarning. She had no idea what was about to unfold but she could feel it. Her stomach dropped and she braced herself.
Her and my husband Titan entered the visitation area. I was not there. As they searched for a nurse to assist them, their attention was drawn to some commotion near the entrance of the room. They stared as a toilet door had been flung open aggressively and I’d emerged unsteadily on my feet fighting a losing battle trying to get my denims untangled from around my knees. A male nurse ran towards me pushing me back into the cubicle, where he pulled up my denims doing up the button and pulling up the zip. Today I was too far gone to even notice that my space had been invaded. What does that matter when you’re already dead?
Aurora’s heart raced with pain as a fading ghost stumbled towards them, my gait imitating that of a toddler erratically imbalanced. Titan handed me a packet of Biltong (South African dried meat), which I clumsily took. The same nurse that had previously helped me, offered for us to complete our visit in a different private room. Aurora walked alongside me, our arms linked in unity. Not once...not ever did Aurora reveal her worry and heartache at the reality of what I had become. With perfection she always protected my dignity and what remained of my sense of self.
As we stood in the art room I heard their voices but couldn’t hear what they were saying. I was desperately trying to rip open the packet of Biltong failing hopelessly. As Aurora gently helped me, I never noticed Titan run out of the room to find a nurse. I didn’t see the expression in their eyes already mourning my loss. If, at the moment, I could’ve reflected in their eyes, I would’ve seen somebody underweight, her translucent skin struggling to hide the veins and arteries fighting to pump blood to vital organs, turning her lips blue, slurring her words, locking her jaw.
My shock played out in slow-motion as a team of nurses ran into the room urgently whisking me away. What was happening? I could see a team dealing with a crisis, but I did not know the crisis was me. Why would somebody perfectly fine need help? The Nurses ran me to my bedroom, laid me on the bed on my stomach and administered an injection into my buttocks. Did they not know that no amount of liquid medication would bring me back? Did they not know that Death could not be reversed?
I remained like that, lying on my stomach for two days. As I started emerging from this deep darkness, I was plagued by hallucinations and regression. I saw everything so vividly. An ocean of spiders covering every inch of the floor around my bed. A growing ominous wave erupting! Spiders crawling up the curtains! Invading my ‘space’, my bed, crawling over my skin, over my hair, over my face! Slowly blotting me out as if I never existed. I remember thinking I need to run! I could not see a clear path to the door and I was paralysed with fear.
A hauntingly disturbing sepia snapshot reveals what the mind won’t remember consciously…..
…..Four years old…...gibberish pouring from her mouth as she cautiously crawls on all-fours towards the nurses station. Her stomach turns and she vomits. She is crying. She is alone. She is scared. As she enters another patient’s bedroom she struggles to get to her feet. Without warning there’s an inner shift. Now she is nine years old, excited and hyperactive! She bounces back and forth searching, inspecting all areas of the bedroom. Eventually she settles low onto her haunches peering under the bed, intently focusing in the dark. She hears the echo of her voice melodically chanting “come out...come out...wherever you are...”. There is no movement. She leans her face close to the sleeping patient to ask whether she’s seen Aurora. The patient is startled awake and a nurse is summoned who leads her back to bed.
As morning brings forth another unwanted day, I walk slowly to line-up for medication, the stares and laughter of the other patients trigger embarrassment and shame within. They all start to chant “come out...come out...wherever you are”, and this confirms that last night’s nightmare had stepped out of my mind and into reality. I cringed casting further self-hatred and resentment towards the child within. I begged the nurse for the details but she refused to disclose anything, only saying that I had presented with bizarre behaviour. I walked away manifesting a plan to be locked in the Safe Room where I could freely punish the child within. As I walked with intent, my mind firing, the iridescent lighting overhead collided with the gold bracelet around my wrist casting a sharp clean-cut glare. My manifestation had just been delivered to me in a light-bulb moment. Taming my excitement I walked to the bathroom and locked the door. As I lowered myself onto the toilet seat I was already working on bending the soft gold to breaking point. I worked tirelessly with only my final goal in mind. Eventually the gold surrendered and snapped.
I knew the routine of bedroom checks well. I walked with conviction to position myself on the edge of my mattress and began cutting my upper leg. As predicted a nurse was irritatingly on time peering through the small glass window framed into the bedroom door.
As before, a speech of taking ownership for my life was rattled off. It fell on deaf ears. All I cared about was lock-down where I’d be left in peace to sprint on the spot to the point of exhaustion. The urgency to punish my child within, that had again betrayed me, was escalating at lightning speed and I did not hear the nurse’s question hanging in the air. I looked at her coldly and she repeated the question...do you feel safe? Was she kidding?! Does anybody feel safe cemented between bricks and mortar that have seen atrocities beyond imagination? I sniggered beneath my breath and told her I want OUT!
Again, as predicted, I was escorted to lock-down, the staff fulfilling their care of duty to keep me alive for another day. The Safe Room imploded with blue foam cushioning along every wall, as well as the floor. I smiled as the sound of the door being locked behind me resonated loudly. Not much of a Safe Room, was it? When it housed what was about to occur.
I positioned myself to one side of the room out of full view of the glass pane embedded within the door. I exhaled. I started running on the spot. All my sadness and heartache swam without direction in my mind causing a whirlpool. The waves rose and crashed in unison to the rhythmic beat of my running. The faster I ran, the darker my emotions became, turning the whirlpool within brown and murky. I lifted my knees higher as anger seared at my burning chest pushing me to continue. I knew that no amount of running would allow an escape route from everything I was feeling so deep inside and this ‘knowing’ fuelled my anger to indescribable heights as I pushed harder. When any thought of exhaustion seeped in I slashed it down, cut it free with one swift motion of the mind and continued running. SHE would not control me! I wanted my inner child to hurt like I was hurting! Actually, I wanted her dead!. I despised her fragile weakness, hated her existence! She had to go! I ran faster, my mind blindly crazy with vengeance. That week my weight plummeted significantly. I did not care!
At this point in my recovery, or lack of it, I did not see how SHE was ME.
My world further fell apart when Aurora and Titan again came to visit me. Once again we were allowed our visit privately in the art room. I was already nestled in an uncomfortable chair by the window lapping up the stream of sunlight pouring through the window. The puzzle of my mind was interrupted from sliding pieces back and forth searching for answers, as Aurora and Titan entered the room. I did not jump up excited to see them. I was having a bad day, feeling battered and bruised from emotional turmoil which possessed no compassion. As they joined me, my mind betrayed me, once again. Suddenly an overwhelming excitement engulfed me and I jumped up out of my chair! I never tired of seeing my beautiful babies! They were my everything! I raced around the room looking behind the couches and curtains expecting to see their little faces bright with anticipation for me to find them. I hunted and hunted unaware of Aurora and Titan’s growing nervousness. Finally I turned towards them demanding to know where my children were hiding. I didn’t wait for them to answer. I bolted towards the stationary cupboard that housed all the magnificent tools and colours of self-expression and freedom. I was met with only cobwebs illuminating deception, secrets and realities of the mind.
I lay on my bed on top of the white hospital bed linens and cried, thinking that psychiatric wards tricked victims into thinking that the whiteness of these sheets would somehow instil hope of peace and tranquillity and being safe. THEY were delusional! If they looked beyond the pure facade they’d see how tainted and soiled the sterilised white was, as patient after patient offloaded their sordid, painful journeys into the thread-count of the material…the stained patches of tears dried and forgotten, or the yellow tinges where undisciplined diabetics would float away into hyper's or sink into the underworld of hypo's dispelling urine, or the bold coloured blood overflowing toxicity or death that no amount of hot washes could erase.
In the weeks that followed all that could be seen was a fading ghost walking up and down the corridor out of reach with empty eyes, her breath hollow, her mind gone, her heart smashed into a million pieces...defeated and giving up...
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