The Mental Ward

I was abused by my parents, mentally and physically. I have never considered myself pretty, and the only shred of pride I retained in myself, my intelligence, was surpassed by more and more as I got older. I lost myself, the colors, that I had used to define myself for so long. After a while [and this is the first time I am admitting this] a voice appeared in my head. A single voice that whispered in a velvet voice “You are not trapped. You know there is a way” until my eyes tore again and again to the knives in the drawers, the sleeping pills hidden in the cabinet, the razors in the shed. As odd as it is to say, it was this voice that kept me on the edge of sanity, knowing I could escape, should I choose, as much as my parents enjoy pretending it was their actions.

I was moved to the mental ward for depression. The police came and picked me up from my home. The way my Mom always looked at me, just silent and staring, her voice hanging in the air “What’s wrong with you? Why do you keep doing this?” There was the longest time where I didn’t know the answer. I joined this website, planned my suicide, and yet for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. I wanted to ignore it, and I kept thinking I could just ignore it out of existence. Suicide was a game for me, because imagining an exit was so much easier than moving forward.

The police took me into the ward around midnight. Luckily, the nurse was kind, she spared me some of my dignity through the search, allowed me to sit away from the crowd I wanted to distance myself from. In my own mind I was so different from them, I didn’t have a problem, and my game was so much different from their problem. I watched my family come and go, a haze of purple dots settling over my vision as I watched the same infomercials play over and over on the static-y waiting room TV. A nurse came in a few times and offered me a bed in the ward, but I refused long after the chilled hospital air had made the warmth leak from my body, clothed in a thin hospital gown. I would not be associated with those people.

When I woke up I was surrounded by strangers, talking and laughing, all clothes in identical scrubs. They bickered, laughed, traded breakfasts, and for a few moments I didn’t know where I was. The realization settled with a cloud of gloom, while a couple beside me flirted with one another, the boy glancing around before tucking the girl’s number into the band of his scrubs.

It was nearly a day before I could choke out the ability to talk, another before they moved me upstairs, to the resident’s ward. Again I was shocked by the laughter and sense of commaradery prevalent even in a place we were all trapped. Several of the residents were younger than I was, and accused of drug use, running away, or authority problems. Several others were diagnosed with depression, like me. We all clung together, friendships forming between people who would have never talked outside this microcosm over time, quiet acts of rebellion done against our guards just to know that we still held some power. It was these small moments, the friendships and fights, that held me together.

My room-mate like me was an artist, and we bonded almost instantly. Our favourite past times included complaining and sneaking, things we both enjoyed but rarely got caught in. I was under 24 hour watch, forced to be observed even when showering, and every night until I fell asleep. With no modesty left to either of us, we laughed over things that would have embarrassed me in real life in front of even the most understanding friend. She grinned at me every time I tricked a night-crew member into leaving me alone for a quick shower or bathroom break: during group therapy we would whisper and joke, imitating the pompous mantras each of us was forced to recite a minimum of four times a day ‘hello, my name is ____, I am ___ years old, I am here for _____, and what I want to learn today is ____”. Friends would sneak into our dorm with pictures and magazine pictures, which we would tape to the walls, until the white was almost covered. We would stare out our small reinforced window at the tree below and speak in lowered voices of the things we would do when we once again had our freedom

The most impactive sense of hope I gained was not intentional, but rather an accident that angered the therapist leading us through our group therapy. A dark raven landed on the roof of the dome above our heads, a worm clutched in it’s mouth, and started to eat. At this point I had not been allowed outside for 4 days; for some, it had been several weeks. As I looked around me, the therapist calling for our attention, everyone’s faces were transfixed on the bird. It was the first, and last time I saw many of them show a genuine emotion of happiness.

Other moments were hellish. Every morning I awoke to the sound of children screaming in the other ward as they got their blood drawn for testing. Downstairs, occasionally I heard an adult-voice scream or laugh, only to slow and lessen to a whisper. I’ve met people whom I know will never function in society, who will forever be confined into white wards, reciting the same mantras over and over again. A child raped who pretended not to be depressed, and a privileged teen pretending to be depressed to get what she wanted from her parents. At night, as a silhouette stared at me from the hall, I watched the back of my door, the names and symbols engraved into it, wondering where each set of hands now dwelled; how many were home safe, recovered with their families, and how many now lay underground with flowers slowly wilting on their graves.

It was a long time before I could look my parents in the eyes again, but eventually I went home[the phone numbers of two of my friends tucked away inside my pillow case]. It’s still not easy, and the feelings of emptiness have not entirely gone away. However, now I know how it feels to not feel the sunshine on my skin, to see people around me with no glimmer of hope, hollow shells of humans. I have stood in a mental ward and laughed in defiance, and I can say now, for the first time in a long time, I can fight back.