The women's temporary nonviolent psychiatric ward is secured by locked double doors. There is a common area with battered and stained furniture, a television with a pile of VHS tapes – I’d always wondered where they went after DVDs took over, I suppose this is it – scattered fashion magazines, coloring books, and crayons. The carpet is that multicolored, slightly nauseating variety popular in waiting rooms of all types.
There is a station for the nurses and techs, who are able to take a shortcut and cross over to the men’s side as well. They have a counter one can lean on when you irritably ask whether one’s medication is ready yet, or plead with them to be able to go out to the garden for fifteen minutes that afternoon, with escort.
Down the hall, which feels very long if one’s side effects cause drowsiness and very short if one is looking for places to pace, there are two meeting rooms, only one of which has clear windows to the outside and is of course usually locked, and everyone’s bedrooms that we each share with a roommate. The soundproofed, solid white isolation room with cameras is off to the side. It frightens me, too Arkham Asylum.
One of the fluorescent lights in the hall has a panel laid over it with a painting of blue sky and clouds. I’m embarrassed how much it helps.
The “sharps” closet contains personal items we can only use with supervision, like my iPod and Stacey’s crocheting (wooden hook, of course, metal would be banned outright for the duration), for a three-hour window each day. A tech has to open the closet and sign things out.
Sometimes I feel like I’m in kindergarten. Sometimes I feel like I’m in prison. Sometimes I feel like I’m at a sleepover that just goes on and on and on, where I’m not allowed to leave until Mom comes to get me, and she’s late.
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Wow. Well, one of the most interesting things for me about this is that most of the words are devoted to describing a place, but from it all we also get a picture of a mood and a state of mind. And also the snippets we get of the character- the idle thought about the VHS's (I love that phrase, by the way, it makes them sound like the mini kind of elves or something), that she has a feeling about this kind of carpet, the irritated and the pleading, the medicine and the pacing, the allusion about the isolation room, the special light and the embarrassment for her feelings.
ReplyDeleteAnd the summation at the end, which again gives us her state of mind and also sums up what we've seen- we've seen how it's like kindergarten, and like prison. And I like the final analogy- I can imagine the feeling, from it.
Though I must say that over all this rather creeps me out (that's not the right word actually, but I'm not sure how to describe the actual feeling)- reminds me of those debates about over-medicting people and emotion and relations and our culture with that and all. I know that later on there will be parts on how this is helping, but for now... there's a mood/state of mind that's like 'full of life', and this is the utter absence.
Anyway, very well written, thanks!