admit one - day one ·
14 December 05

What a fast day! I went to see a couple of shrinks and on the very same day I’m admitted into a mental hospital. I know I’ve never cried so much in one entire day, and that at least will be a memory that sticks with me for some time. I think I had Niagra Falls beat at one point when it came to turning on the water works.

I was fucked, frankly speaking. Unable to talk, brain raped, and pulling up bad memories like a box of card tricks, tearing open forgotten wounds from past mental struggles. Today, the flood gates opened and I took a front view seat on the strip to a sulphur filled river of guilt, self-hatred and rage. At the end of the ride I even got my own uniform, in a repugnant orange.

The medication seems to be kicking in. This being only a sedative, however It’s funny how one tiny little tablet can knock out a grown adult for six. The real medication will supposedly block out any voices inside of my head. They asked about illegal drugs and I gave them a list as long as their arm as to what I’ve taken over the years. Then they deliver hope in the their drugs, for the currency of misery which they take in denominations of self-loathing and sometimes self-pity. The stuff they offer is legal, within the law, but equally paramount in it’s effect as a drug, changing and modifying an individuals perception and state of mind.

I ask if the hospital visit has to be this afternoon. Can I just pick up the meds later? They remove the large sperm whale they have hidden behind the chair and starts to beat me till I’m black and blue with brusies. They tell my admittance would be today, that it would be my first chance at help, and that I would be in for up to 10 days for treatment. There’s the possibility of a longer stay if I don’t improve. Or less if I do improve.

The first night they placed me on suicide watch rather haphazardly

All I hear is an American war planes bombing the very ebb of my life away. Panic strikes, as my eyes dart around the room, to each doctor, the floor, the ceiling, anything to distract me from the decision I’m being forced to make at this very moment.

“Fuck”, I think, “Fuck, fuck, fuck”. This isn’t really happening, I tell myself, that all of this is some really bad tv show and soon the director will shout “Cut” and we’ll all have a cup of tea before we continue. Can they hear my thoughts? Can they read what I’m thinking right now?

“We’ll take you” They don’t say “We don’t trust you to come back”, they say “We’re not sure you’ll come back”, as though there’s only one option with no alternative and I shouldn’t fuck up this once in a lifetime offer from Reader’s Digest. Even though you know they’ve done this routine for some other poor sap.

I promised to return, and I make that a verbal agreement complete with nod and handshake. I feel like I’ve just bought a used car from a dodgy car salesman, and the wife at home is going to wonder why I remorgagted the house three times for a hunking piece of metal on three wheels instead of four. I don’t think she’ll be making the tea this time, and I have to question why she’s packing her things, and stuffing the kid into an open pocket on the suitcase. The kid doesn’t fit, but she keeps it in and zips tight.

When I get home, I tell my mother to shut her yapping gob up, and find me a bag to stuff my shit into, or she can wish me the fuck dead. “God forbid”, is her holier than thou response. Concerned mother, the devil’s bitch. Fuck your God, and fuck his power. He couldn’t help me before, he never saved me from your tyranny, didn’t save your marriage, my family, my life sp when the fuck will you wake up to the fact?

Packed, the bag is heavier than I anticipated. I’m skinnier than thou, and weaker than an anemic grasshopper, so I took a cab. The only thing I remember in the cab office were the flies circling an early 1980s television that displayed in spectacular black & white. When I get there I don’t have to wait long before the second cab arrives to take us. The second cab is memorable only because we had some inbred “Ahmed” of sorts trying to first figure out how to open the door, and second our destination with his fourth rate English only suitable in caves and mudpools. If he said “mental hospital” one more fucking time I would have to cave his numbskull head in, and smash it like the empty coconut it pretended to be.

Around this time I was becoming sedated, my nose was running since the room was so damned cold, and they’d given me a sedative to help me sleep. It left a nasty, vile, metallic taste in my mouth which I couldn’t get rid of. My writing was all over the shop and barely legible at this point.

Half-dozed I keep cursing the sedative for it’s ability to knock me out slowly and for its after taste. I am an informal patient. By that it means that I can leave any time I choose to. If I beat them to it, I can win.

I wasn’t assessed for eight hours, and when I was, I told the shrink I was agreeing with the voice to cut open her domineering stomach

The first thing that hit me when I entered the hospital was the smell. Sanitised, disinfectant permeating through the corridors, the floors shining brighter than bald man’s scalp, even the hand rails excreted a smell that felt sanitised. Everything, in fact, has a smell, and that smell is called hospital.

When I walked through the many double doors, being told what would happen, I was ushered into a lounge room of sorts. I was left to wait for the doctor, and spent most of my time making notes of the ugliness an depressing nature of the decor.

There was a pot with wires sticking out of it, the ends attached with balls. There was a man-size lamp, looking more like a paper-mache projet by a student. You might find them in IKEA. I actually had two thoughts about it: a large paper condom, or a giant spliff. Sometimes I expected a butterfly to crawl out, other times green imps wearing triangle glass, bermuda shorts and smoking cubans.

On the walls of my room I found scribbles and scratches from previous patients. There were drawings, pictures, drawn in intricate detail. The blood stains didn’t bother me, what did was the lack of hygiene. The sheets were regulation issuem feeling like sand paper on the skin. They carry that same damn hospital smell. The outer cover on the bed has stains on it, black and red in colour, that’s pretty damn disgusting so I remove the cover. There’s a chest of drawers too at the far end of the room, and each one offers someone else’s dirty laundry in it.

The second drawer in particular was quite disgusting as it also contained a pair of shoes and clothes that seemed smeared with brown stuff that I could only imagine what it was. Soaked in mature, potent sweat no doubt as a preservative.

Lunch was an interesting affair, like a school ritual with people lining up in a queue waiting to be served. The food was slop. Someone from the back bumps up to the front and an argument breaks out. I wanted to kill all of them.

When it’s my turn I ask for potatoes and some sparkling, shiny vegetables. She slops the good food on the plate which a decisive clank. I shake my heard at the offer of what passes for meat there. It looks like servings of testicles floating in diahrrea. This is what everyone else eats.

I wasn’t assessed for eight hours, and when I was, I told the shrink I was agreeing with the voice to cut open her domineering stomach that stretched like a child in a road waiting to be smacked down by an off-road vehicle with bull bars. She said that was OK, and told me what would happen next. I woudl get medication, I would get some sort of therapy, that I will eventually become normal again and fit back into the outer world. If I refused, and having already told them what I would do to them, they could force me to stay. A nice catch 22 for me then.

What did they give me? Everytime I breathe, I feel a bitterness which makes me more tense. It was smaller than a tic-tac halved. Mini tic-tacs for the future? I remember having a trip of some sort, the whole thing was related to the sedative, and of course my own imagination since I was in a sort mental state that could be described as disturbed.

After the hallucinations I fell asleep rather soundly, I can’t remember what dreams I had, if any. The first night they placed me on suicide watch rather haphazardly by taking the mp3 charger lead away from me, my electric toothbrush and all my prescribed medication so I don’t over dose, my razor and blades, and anything else they thought I could use to cut or strangle myself with. They were so worried they took away a polythene bag I put things in, just in case I felt inclined.

The only thing they did miss was my shoe laces and my leather belt, as well as the strap on my shoulder bag. How unprofessional of them to do that, don’t you think?

They remove the large sperm whale they have hidden behind the chair and starts to beat me till I’m black and blue with brusies

I wasn’t given a room until midnight, as they took my stuff away to sell on to their prospective internal auction. Osmond is one of the nuses there, walking me to my room, he turned on the light and explain in explicit terms, “This is your room” The shock was too much, this I pertched myself on to a chair and jumped out into the portal hovering in the ceiling. I could see frogs with claws reaching out and telling me I Was slipping as my hands were too slimey, and my skin too soft which is why the claws were tearing through. I promised to take them to France for a meal.

It was expressed that I keep my door wide open so they could watch over me as I jerked off using man-size pliers. On my bed lay a folded towel, and pyjamas of the orange variety. I wondered what the folks in Gunatanemo Bay thought when they saw their outfits. A two piece number that wouldn’t too out of place in an American jail wear the citrus colour is preferred for violent criminals, proudly parading their gear.

Before I fall asleep I read the scribbles on the wall one last time.

“Trust not the ward manager”, “Where are you fucker?”, “Death to Sunil, Jeseen and Richard RIP”, “Sunrise is dead”, “Why me, y?” Messages of paranoia, delusions or perhaps sheer fun. You go into other patient’s rooms and you’ll find the same thing, so why break a tradition. I make my mark, and scribble my own note.

“You can’t teach God new tricks”