Chapter 3: Help!

How many tests would they perform? What on earth were they learning? No one was telling me a thing. I had a CAT scan, an MRI, and multiple verbal and written “exams”. Personality? I’m not sure. But the more they questioned me, the less I wanted to talk… and the more I wished I could just cease to exist. My whole life had been so wonderful, and now I felt like I was living the exact opposite of my previous existence. Like Alice on the other side of the looking glass, it all seemed unreal… yet it was not. It was very real, and I did not have the slightest idea what was to be gained from all of this.

The days wore on, and it became apparent that I would not be going back into the courtroom any time soon, if at all. Perhaps my lawyer was representing me, but I somehow didn’t think so. I felt entombed within the confines of the hospital, a place where true rest was impossible. The few moments of peace were always broken by mad shrieks from patients whose minds had long since departed, leaving them to shuffle along on Thorazine… unable to bear the world around them if it were to wear off.

I was awakened at regular intervals to give blood, have my temperature and blood pressure checked, and occasionally to give a urine sample. Where this was all leading, I did not have a clue. And if I did, I probably would have chosen to forget it… because it seemed too far-fetched for my young mind to wrap around. Besides, they were drugging me by now. I awaited my “fix” like the other patients, calm as a sheep being led to slaughter. I swallowed the medication dutifully, never questioning the validity of its use, nor the diagnosis that had caused it to be prescribed. How could I? No one gave me the remotest indication of what was going on.

Eventually I became aware that I was being watched: there was a two-way mirror from my room to the next one, as well as a video camera perched in the upper corner of the room. At first I was inclined to be angry, but the drugs dulled my indignant urges and I quickly forgot that I had even wanted to question the choice to observe me in such a manner. I almost began to wonder if they were seeing anything interesting, but that was also far too cerebral an activity for my blunted sensibilities to muster. Although I was not a drooling zombie like those who were on Thorazine, neither was I sober enough to contemplate much beyond the latest show on television.

I longed for release… for freedom. I hoped against hope that one day I could return to my family and friends, classes and extracurricular activities. Day after weary day I spent languishing in that hellhole, and there did not seem to be any point to it at all. Was I insane? Would I comprehend it if someone were to tell me that I was? Is it possible that I really DID commit the atrocities I had been accused of? I didn’t think so… but then again, I really did not know. All I knew was that my survival did not seem important… nor did anything I might want or need. I had no idea what might be significant about that fact… but it didn’t matter. Time just dragged on.

Then one day they discontinued my medication. I was transferred to a different room, in another part of the hospital, and assigned a new doctor. This doctor was young… and female. She told me that due to my upcoming 18^th birthday, my treatment would be explained to me more thoroughly now: as an adult. It took a while for that to sink in… to grasp the truth of the matter, which was that I had been there for nine full months.

It dawned on me, as the drugs wore off and lucidity returned, that I must have been convicted… or rather, committed. My lawyer must have pleaded insanity. That was the only logical explanation for my prolonged confinement instead of having been returned to incarceration. And also, as the medication became a distant memory… my wild daydreams began to return. At first I welcomed them, like long-lost friends. But over time, I began to dread them. It was different now. I was being watched… studied. Every excursion was dissected and evaluated. They were all being put together like pieces of a huge, abstract jigsaw puzzle. Eventually, I came to resent them… and everything that was connected to them.

“Your tests revealed no physical irregularities. In fact, the only injury your records show you ever having had was the blow to your head when you fell from your horse as a child.”

Wow. That was the first thing anyone had said to me about my treatment or condition since I had arrived in this God-forsaken place. I was so shocked to finally be informed of something, that I was struck dumb, and could not, for the life of me, formulate a response. It did not seem to matter, however… no one seemed to expect one. In fact, as the drugs wore off, I began to wonder about things that had apparently slipped my mind for months.

I thought about my family, and the world outside the barred windows of my room. The television, with its noisy display of trivia, was seldom tuned to anything other than cartoons or comedies. No news, no drama, nothing distressing. It had not struck me as particularly odd while I was “under the influence”, but now I began to realize how insulated my existence had become.

Again and again I was taken to group therapy sessions, as well as private counseling… and I was still being watched. Only now they were discussing their findings with me. I wished they wouldn’t. I wished I could crawl under a rock and disappear like a bug. I began, once more, to review my history… trying to decipher what had led to this state of affairs. And I contemplated whether or not I would be spending the rest of my life this way: rehashing the past for people with pens and notebooks, wondering who was watching me. It got to the point where I reviewed every move I made before acting, and every word I said before speaking.

How in the world had I gotten myself into this jam? Would anyone come to my rescue? Did I even deserve to be rescued? I didn’t know. I wasn’t even quite sure if I cared! But the truth is: I did. I cared. I wanted out. Out of the hospital, perhaps out of life as well.

The cold, hard walls of the asylum were beginning to close in on me now. I counted the ceramic tiles, hoping to stave off the inevitable… but the numbers only served to reinforce my oppression. The floors: meticulously cleaned… I watched the mop go back and forth several times a day. I wondered how the janitorial staff could keep it up, day in and day out, without going mad themselves.

And white. Everywhere there was more of it! White coats. White shoes. White stockings. Even the walls, ceiling, and floors were white! No wonder they spent so much time cleaning. God forbid there should be a blemish upon that vast, shiny expanse of white, white, white!

Cold. Clinical. Hard. These became the buzzwords of my days. I began to study each of these concepts as if any one of them might lead me to where I wanted to find myself: in a warm, cozy home… the arms of a good woman, perhaps near a raging fire, with something tasty on the menu for dinner. But try as I might, I could not dissect these terms to mean anything other than their true definitions.

Chapter 4: She-Devil