Behind Three Doors

I went into the psych ward three times, under three different circumstances. The first time I have little recollection of, but the bits I do remember are supercharged. Being handcuffed to a gurney in an ambulance, running naked down my front stairs. A collage of images all mixed together in some slick roundabout in my memory was actually a prolonged psychotic episode that took place over a week, but in my mind it was one night. I don't know how I got from the ambulance to the psych ward that time, I don't know how many doors.

Maybe that's why I counted the doors the second time I went to the psych ward, just to gain some sense of place. That time going in was voluntarily. I wanted to go after waking up one rainy Saturday in a a fit of crying and shaking panic, I wanted to go back because I recognized some of the same anxiety and strange, twisted thoughts from the first time, and so my husband called a cab and I went to the ER. Even though I wanted to go, still the ER is a blur. First the long triage process, Joe doing most of the talking. "My wife...her boss...she's been..." He said anxiety, depression, psychotic episode last February. Questions. Answers. What did they give her, what does she take. Thoughts of suicide? Young doctor, old doctor. How do we feel. Check for signs of heart and other conditions. Psychiatrist on call. More questions. Let's take her upstairs. Have a bed, a shower, stay with us for a few days and see. I cried and shook the whole time. Broken.

They brought a wheelchair. The last door is through the outer room of the Occupational Therapy room where there are several offices flanking a scattering of scratched and scribbled tables and a kitchenette. Through a short hallway, then you're back behind the safety of one, two, three secure sets of double doors before you reach the lockdown ward. You need a staff member with a special code to let you out. And no people who had hurt you can get in. No one.

The psych ward is smaller than you might think. It's no more than ten or twelve rooms, two people to a room. There is a central area with tables and chairs that they refer to as "the milieu.," Such an elegant term for such a sad gathering of troubled misfits. Everything is muted and also too loud. The lighting is both dim and bright at the same time, somehow. The windows overlook roof and air supply intake equipment. You don't know where you are, it could be anywhere. There is no sense of place.

The winter Olympics were on TV every day. I stayed for seven days.

Next: Behind Three Doors (Part 2)