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I didn't want to go. I didn't want to be like my mother. But I checked myself in.
They took away my baseball. They took my dental floss, my shoelaces, and the glass out of my picture frame - which held photos of my sisters, my nephew, the beach, and my best friend.
My friend Joann, who'd gently coaxed me to seek help a month earlier, took me to the hospital and stayed while I got checked in. Along with a psych aide, she took me to my room, which I was to share with two other patients. One of them decided I needed to be mothered and started in with the "it's all right honeys" and. then. she. sat. down. NEXT. TO. ME. AND. PUT. HER. HAND. ON. ME. and then the psych aide had to get her away from me very very quickly.
I remember asking "can I wear my own clothes?" Later I wrote my name on my plastic hangers with a Sharpie.
For the first two weeks I barely talked to anyone but my therapist, who came by two or three times every day, for an hour or more each time, and that first psych aide, Carol. I hated going to meals because they were communal. I didn't know I was supposed to go to group therapy sessions, etc. They probably told me all the things to do, but it didn't register until I'd been there a while.
I wore my Angels cap low on my forehead everywhere I went, never looking up, never making eye contact with anyone.* After several years, my therapist told me that if I walked into her office wearing a baseball cap, she knew to be on her guard.
Some things about those two months stand out starkly, dead trees against a gray sky. Other memories are like mush in a pot, a vat of blended experiences, and it's hard to separate any one from a hundred others. The memories are there, and I remember them. I just can't name them.
I remember China, a lesbian, and Martha, her lover. Both patients. They met there. Something seemed wrong about that.
I remember Cindy, who had a private room and who had been there five months. She was so happy.
I remember that horrible woman who tried to comfort me. She snored like a chain saw. They gave me Halcion so I could sleep. (In retrospect, I don't know if her snoring kept me awake, or my troubles.)
I remember a guy who was always on the make, always trying to get laid. He held me and we laid together on the couch in the lounge, most residents gathered in the same room, to watch "Tootsie." (It was my favorite movie before then and still is.)
I remember the musty, fungus-y odor in the showers, and being furious if the single private shower -- a small closet with a door that locked, rather than the room with three showers and curtains to separate bathers -- was occupied when I wanted it.
I remember Carol Burnett. My therapist got me special permission to sit in a visiting room late at night to watch reruns of "The Carol Burnett Show." It helped. A lot. I also had her memoir with me, One More Time, which I clung to like a talisman. I kept it under my pillow.
I remember an episode in psychodrama so vividly that I can remember what I was wearing and the doctor's voice, I can feel the towel I was holding and the tears and snot on my face, and I can see the faces of the others in the room well enough to describe them to an artist for portraits.
I remember a Halloween party. I walked into the room and the lights were dim and people were laughing, and many urged me to join them, but I was too shy. It seemed they really liked me.
Mostly I remember Carol's kindness. I can't describe how good she was to me. A year after I left the hospital, my therapist moved away and he suggested that Carol take me on. Carol was still a student working on her Master's; I was her first client/patient. We worked together for nearly fifteen years. She brought me back to life. Along with my sisters, she's the reason I'm still here - and thriving.
I'm always aware of time. Always have been. It's been twenty years.
* Incidentally, I was in the hospital when the Angels snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the 1986 American League Championship Series. What better place for me to be?
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