Oh Madness, You've Found Me!

© Sean N. Zelda

Oh Madness, You’ve Found Me!

            You shoot up like a catapult in your bed. Best nap ever. You emerge from a sea of sheets. You feel great, incredible, on top of your game, never better. You rub the sleep from your eyes to find that you’re in an unfamiliar place. There is a memory prying at your brain of innumerable sleepless nights and bloodshot eyes. It all makes sense. The baby is coming, which means so too the flood, you think, “…and that’s what landed me in this place.” You put on your glasses and take a walk.

            The psychiatric ward (9C) at the University of Michigan hospital is located in the heart of Ann Arbor and it’s a luxury, and almost impossible to get admitted there because everyone wants a bed. Located cozily on the 9th floor, you stroll into the open lobby. A long desk separates you from two receptionists who greet you with a smile. On your immediate left is the library/lounge, equipped with comfy couches, a boatload of books, a piano and a wide window, which from the 9th floor offers a view of the Ann Arbor countryside you’ve never seen before. To the right: “the porch,” with a coffee table and additional seating in an L-shape, where patients pontificate, draw, color, read or eat snacks. On this side, you see the lunch room with its myriad tables and chairs. Two computers sit along the front wall for all your internet needs. Walk past the reception desk on either side to find extended hallways to the patient rooms.

            Your immaculate room is furnished with two brilliant beds shrouded in sparkling white sheets. A curtain slides to separate them. There is a little table to keep pamphlets about your disorder and documents from your doctor, among your own notes. A chair sits in the corner for nurses and visitors. Look out the broad window and feast your eyes on the most majestic view, especially in October, when the trees’ leaves are changing colors. You’ve never seen so many red, orange, yellow, and green trees pervading the landscape. There is a recently renovated bathroom with its own shower and sinks that sense your hands. The water comes out in several little streams, creating a light airy sensation as you rinse.

            The personnel are professional, prompt and available day or night. When you first arrive, you talk to a nursing assistant into the wee hours of the night. It’s her job to make sure you don’t feel alone in a new place. When you talk to your doctor for the first time, he comes in dressed in a white lab coat followed by his colleagues who are dressed likewise. He smiles, shakes your hand and informs you of what’s going on. “Hi there,” he says, “I’m Dr. Best and this is my team.” He gives you an uplifting impression as he informs you that he and his team are making it their mission to make many mentally ill people healthy again. Dr. Best – the best doctor.

            The patients of 9C fill a diverse space with their unique personalities. Students of the arts, students of medicine, yoga teachers, retail workers, those from far away, those from nearby, mothers, fathers, the young, the old, the depressed, the psychotic – they all have a place in 9C. In the lounge, a number of people are playing a game. They are smiling, laughing, having a good time and making the best of what many people consider a tough situation. You head over to the piano to play rock star, sporting your Ray Bans and performing for your peers.

            “I’ve figured out bipolar!” you shout at your mom and her boyfriend who are visiting today. You are presenting your theories on the white “communication” board in your room. “How many tides are there per day? Two. How many poles are there? Two. Bi-polar.” You are scribbling furiously on the whiteboard, demonstrating that you always get manic at the turn of the seasons with the full moon, and how it all makes sense to you now. You are charting graphs and figures of your own personal experience with bipolar disorder and connecting it to the grand scheme of nature and life itself. “Wow, I think you’re on to something here,” they say.

            “It’s discharge day,” says Dr. Best. For now, goodbye to the picturesque view, the pristine rooms, the pitch-perfect piano, and all of the wonderful people you’ve met. This place has been a good home to you for 19 days, but now it’s time to let the U help someone new.

            Two years later, you start telling people you’re Jesus Christ and you truly believe the words spilling from your mouth. You are going to save the world, you are on top of the world, the world is your oyster. You bathe yourself in the lake behind your house at the crack of dawn, playing John the Baptist. You press your face against a soft pillow, but you can’t sleep no matter how many pills you pop. Looks like you’re going to have to make a visit to the emergency room.

            Chelsea Community Hospital is similar to U of M’s 9C in that Chelsea’s psychiatric ward is part of a bigger hospital network. Unlike Ann Arbor, Chelsea, Michigan is a quiet town with a population of about 5,000 people. Chelsea sits as a sort of anthill in the grass. Embedded in trees, you can see that when the hospital was built, they were careful not to disturb the nature surrounding the area.

            You are transported to Chelsea via ambulance. As they roll your stretcher through the hallways, you lay back and watch the passing fluorescent lights above you. They wheel you into your room, where you find two beds but no roommate. You jump back and forth between the beds before they have to hold you down and give you a shot for sleep.

            The next morning, you wake up with that peculiar feeling, unsure if you’re hungry or if you have a stomachache. A nurse walks into your room and informs you that it’s time for breakfast. You look at the clock on the wall: 8am. You follow the nurse down a long hallway, past the nurse’s station on your left and into a main room with several tables and chairs. A few other patients are quietly eating. You see posters and art on the walls. There is a fridge, a sink, a white board and a window looking out to a patio. No one mutters a word. You are humming this tune, the one that goes one, two, one two three four –

            As soon as breakfast is over, it’s time for group therapy in the same room. Today’s topic is taking medication. Your social worker looks like she came to Chelsea straight from Woodstock ‘69. Her John Lennon glasses contrast with her long, brown, wavy hair in true hippie fashion. This middle-aged free spirit leads most of the groups at Chelsea. She speaks softly, with a certain tranquility in her voice. She moves slowly like she’s teaching a yoga class. She explains the importance of taking medication when you are mentally ill.

“You see, the problem occurs when you start feeling better and you think you can stop taking your meds. Folks, what we have to remember is that the meds make you feel better, so you must continue taking them to stay feeling better. If you stop taking them, you are much more likely to end up back here, in the hospital, okay?” Everyone nods in acknowledgement.

Later that night, you refuse to take your meds, proclaiming that it’s your right to protest taking them. After much kicking and screaming, you sit at a table, glaring at that little white med cup like a child who won’t eat his Brussels sprouts, but can’t leave the table until he does. A nurse informs you that if you don’t take them, “We’ll have to find an alternative way to give you your meds.” You don’t’ want to know what this entails so you concede and swallow your Depakote and Risperdal cocktail.

            After a few days of actual med compliance, the hippie social worker takes a risk by asking you, “Would you like to go for a walk?” “Yes!” you exclaim, thinking it might be nice to get some fresh air. It’s October and pants and hoodie weather is your favorite. You walk down the narrow hallway, past the computers and out the door. You notice that the leaves are in the midst of falling and you try to catch them. The two social workers lead you and a group of, say five others through the parking lot, down a main road and back around Chelsea again.

            Back inside, you sign into reception. You walk into the main room to find people working on crafts. People are painting picture frames and piggy banks, coloring, writing letters, or just reading silently – all splendid ways to pass the time. The fad at Chelsea lately has been making hemp bracelets. Someone shows you how to make one and you are off to the races. “I need to make them for everyone!” you shout.

            After days of groups, you have learned quite a lot about mental illness and how to manage it. First, you have to establish a daily routine. Second, you have to take your medication as directed by your doctor. Third, hobbies and exercise are good for your recovery. Finally, meditation and spirituality are very useful for people with mental illness. These are things you’ll throw in your backpack and take you through life on the other side. Feeling much better, you yell, “Bring on the winter!”

            You have been thriving. You have been working a decent job and you feel like a normal person. It has been six seasons since your last episode and it looks like you might be in the clear. You’re taking your meds, sleeping well and taking care of yourself. Alas, here we go again. You’ve never been manic or psychotic during the summer before – The devil must be involved! Your outpatient doctor recommends that you go to the emergency room. It is 1 in the morning.

            An ambulance takes you to Kingswood, a Henry Ford psychiatric treatment center located in Ferndale, MI. If you’re in metro Detroit and any professional (doctor, psychiatrist, therapist) considers you to be a danger to yourself or others, your most likely destination is Kingswood. They have 100 beds.

            The EMTs help you out of the ambulance. You walk deranged through the brightly-lit hallway, where the walls are made up of large off-white painted cinderblock bricks. In the middle of the night almost every door is shut. A few people are wandering the hallways. One of them catches your eye: “Hey who are you where’d you come from where are you going—” The EMTs guide you past him.

You meet with a big black man with a booming voice in a tiny room where a desk separates the two of you. You don’t remember saying or hearing anything, but you do remember signing some papers saying you’re on board with all of this. They shoot you up with drugs and throw you on a bed to sleep.

            You launch up from your bed, and you’re not alone. Your roommate is lisping but you’re not listening. You’re looking around, and you see that the room doesn’t look at all like a “hospital” room. It’s just the same off-white painted cinderblock bricks that make up the walls (no!), cubbies at the front and two ordinary beds (no!). The ceiling is high and there’s a colossal window that wakes you up at the crack of fuck when the sun comes beaming in and there are no curtains (NO!!!). Welcome to your jail cell.

            Someone yells at you to move your ass and meet in the visitor’s room, which is next to the nurse’s station at 8am. You do as you’re told. The chairs are no better than folding lawn chairs, flat with no cushion. They pass around sheets of paper that ask you about your symptoms and how you are feeling. They have little faces to help you decide. Let’s see… you are feeling hyper, psychotic, scared and lonely, you can’t slow down your racing thoughts, and you’re sick to your stomach, thank you very much. But the goal is to get out of this place, so you write down that you feel fine and circle the middle face.

In your wing of the “hospital,” there is one long main hallway. It is separated by the nurse’s station in the middle. One side is for the women, the other side is for the men. There is a TV room at the end of the men’s hallway, with a 36” boob tube, and vinyl chairs that have protruding armrests, designed specifically to keep you from falling asleep on them. This doesn’t stop people from trying.

            Time to eat. You line up to go to the cafeteria. A large black man hustles you up the stairs. “Let’s move!” he wails. You get a tray, wait in line and when it’s your turn to order you say, “I’ll have some of this slop, and some of that slop, please.” The only good thing about the food here is the soft serve ice cream machine (which is broken half the time).

When you meet your doctor, you can’t believe your eyes. You’re talking to Gustavo Fring from Breaking Bad. You are beside yourself with laughter. “Gus Fring! Breaking Bad! Hahaha!” He is unmoved, and appears to be unfamiliar with the TV show. He meets with you for five minutes or so, and his job is to decide whether you are still crazy or not. His silence and beady eyes mean you still are, so don’t plan on getting out today.    

             Just after dinner, the floodgates open and all the visitors come pouring in. There is no privacy, no nothing. The most private place to meet is the small office where you signed your life away. Your mom walks in. You burst into tears. You hug her so hard she can hardly breathe. “Get me out of here!” you scream. “We’re doing what we can,” she says.

            There’s nothing to do here. Some people pace the hallways like Chief from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, while others sprint through them. The only solace you have is when they announce that it’s time to go either outside to the courtyard or to the gym. The gym is just what you’d expect of an old, dirty gym. Basketball hoops on either side, with some smaller rooms with pool tables. The women are sitting at a table painting their nails, jamming a static Channel 95.5 on some crummy boom box from the 90s as you shoot hoops. You wish you could spend your whole day here, but you only get 30 minutes, twice a day, if you’re lucky.

            Nine days later, your petrified parents pull some strings to get you out of there before you are actually ready to go. You amble through the hallway with your box of belongings and bask in the glow of your glorious emergence – you feel Satan’s sweltering mid-July sun radiating over you as you run to your mom’s white Subaru Forester. You have never been so happy to see that car in your life. It’s family… it’s home.

You can’t help yourself, but you’re obsessing. You didn’t do the best job of making friends at Kingswood. You’re worried that some of the patients have hatched a plan with their friends on the outside to have you sniped at a lookout point on the way home. You are convinced you are going to die. Then you see a fresh pack of blue American Spirits waiting for you in the cup holder. You light one up and it’s the best cigarette you’ve ever tasted. In that moment, none of it matters. You could die happy like this.

            But the other patients’ voices still echo in your head as you picture them reaching for you as you make your final walk to the outside. “You’re getting out, but what about me? I’m still stuck in this place. They won’t give me a discharge date! I don’t have a family like yours! Will I ever get out of here? Take me with you—!”