Energy or Something Like That

"Being around someone who is mentally ill is sometimes scary," the Engl 201B professor tells us. "We use language to distance ourselves from them."

I've never been physically harmed by another patient while I've stayed at either Stanford University hospital or even at the residential program I attended earlier this year.

What's scary and what most people want to avoid is how the mentally ill reflect back on our humanity--what it says about us as humans.

While at the resident care facility up north, I saw everyday a man wandering the halls, always close to at least one of the water fountains, wearing the same dirty pair of jeans, the same thick, black coat, and his head was down. He never spoke. He never made eye contact, he just shuffled along, frequently taking drinks from the spigot to the point that I thought he might drown himself.

During mealtimes at this residential center, you had to just keep your head focused on your food, and not look around at the other patients--because if you did that, you would lose your appetite. It was not unusual to see people picking up food items off the floor and then directly putting it into their mouths. Other patients would steal food off of people's plates. What was the worst were the particles of bread or cheese situated on their cheeks like kitchen face painting. One woman, every meal, tried to force-feed her doll, which she placed directly in front of her on the table.

During the day, in between group meetings, I would walk the hallways or if the weather was nice, I would walk circles out in the courtyard, listening to my books on tape. In that facility, there were 68 patients, enough of them that you were never alone, unless showering or using the bathroom. It was difficult to listen to novels while you are passing by patients who are talking to themselves, even loudly, arguing with the voices in their heads--despite medical attention and psychiatric treatment. Their psychosis never left them.

My roommate slept all day, only waking up for meals, and to watch The Simpsons. She left her small TV playing night and day, all the while she snoozed on the little bed of hers, wrapped up in a sleeping bag.

Most of the fights were about the lines--there were lines for everything, including food (meals or snacks) or medications or getting spending cash from your account, and so on and so forth. Sometimes you even had to wait in line for the shower (even though there were three of them, only one had consistent hot water). Patients would cut in line, and then trouble would begin. One patient was especially known for this, and if the help from the residential center came to mitigate the situation, she would start crying and yelling like a two-year-old banging a shiny spoon on the table in demand for more sugar. She also begged the staff to let her have a pair of scissors so she could cut off all her hair--which she did.

One of the staff members, you could tell, just didn't want to be there. He was a little taller than me with black hair, glasses and was very thin. He led some of the games groups, which included playing basketball in the parking lot. Although you would see he hated his job, he was always polite and nice to me.

Coffee was used like a pet reward for good behavior. You were only allowed one cup in the morning at breakfast, and I was told that it was half-decaf and half-caffeinated. Otherwise, you had to earn your coffee by attending certain meetings or by climbing in privileges and being able to go out in a small group to a gas station and getting their old, acidic coffee. Even though I was on thirty-minute watch because I was chronically suicidal, I still managed to sneak down to the local 7-Eleven to buy the biggest coffee I could make--and then, I poured a bunch of sugar and creamer in it to kill the taste. But it was heaven, after going all week with rationed caffeine.

In the evenings, after all my walking, I would sit down in the only room with plush chairs, and read a real book from the residential care facility's library (which was limited, of course)--since I didn't have the permission to walk down to the city library. Frank would always join me, and talk incessantly about agriculture and professors at the University and how we needed more farmers, and I would ignore him as best I could while reading about a prostitute named Sugar, who is steadily rising in socioeconomic status thanks to her rich client.