The Holding Place

Chapter 12

         Bipolar Disorder with psychotic features.





From the walls to the furniture, everything in this office is a different shade of beige and motivational posters about how wonderful the world is adorn the walls on all four sides. The only interesting to fixate my stare on is the bluebirds that dance outside on the branch of the tall elm tree. I’m not supposed to be avoiding eye contact with the small prim woman sitting at the desk across from me but something about her eyes burns right through me and sends needles down my spine.


She has been waiting for ten minutes for me to say something but I have nothing to say to her. It has been the same the past three times I have sat in the office with her. She doesn’t turn her attention to something else even though I’m sure she has work that she could be doing. She just sits with her hands placed primly in her lap and she looks towards me. I won’t raise my eyes to meet her to see if she is actually looking at me. She could be looking at the same bluebirds I am there.


“Michael, I cannot help you if you don’t let me in,” she says in a soft voice.


I have no idea what she means by not letting her in. I take the pills they serve me morning and night without complaint and I attend every group and individual counseling session as required. I respond to questions when I’m asked and do as I am told. I go through the motions just like everyone else here with the goal of simply being able to go home again.


She thinks that I haven’t seen what she has written down in my chart as my diagnosis. I had an aunt on my mother’s side that was psychotic and she spent her entire life in an institution. That won’t be my life, the days of committing the mentally ill to institutions long gone. I beg to differ with her professional opinion about my mental state. This woman has not experienced the same loss that I have. Who the hell is she to try to figure out the workings of my mind? It is the things that Claire has told them to lead them to that conclusion. I have told these people nothing of my true torment.


I want to tell the woman sitting across from me who went to school to study the mind everything that there is to tell. There is no way for me to tell her that I saw Abby standing in the crowd at her own funeral or that I saw her standing there moments before I pulled the trigger. I know that I am oriented to time, person and place and that the things that I have seen and dreamed are not symptoms of a severe mental illness. I cannot explain it to myself in a way that is rationale and makes sense. This woman will surely find it a reason to keep me here longer and away from my home if I tell her things that yet don’t make sense to me.


“Am I not already letting you in?” I ask her as I raise my eyes to consider her closely.


Those intense brown eyes of hers bore right into my soul. She is trying to reach for my innermost secrets and instantly I hate her for it. It has been so long since I have told anyone with any true depth or sincerity about my feelings. The past four years my actions have been louder than my words. This woman is different than all of the others. She doesn’t want to observe me. She wants to listen to my observe myself.


“No, you haven’t.”


My head falls downwards and I sigh exasperatedly. I will not give her what she wants. I will not subject myself to a rawness that I am not ready for. I do not know if I will ever be ready, surely not in an environment where my every moved is planned and watched. I cannot figure out how anybody heals in a place like this.


“Dr. Leahy, I think that I have to disagree with you,” I say. “I take all of the medicines you give me and attend everything on the event board without complaint.”


She gives me a small smile and writes a quick note in my chart before closing it. This is how every session ends. “Well Michael I think this is all of the progress we are going to make today. I will see you next week.”


That means another week of being in this awful place. I rise up and walk with the now familiar sensation of shoes without laces.  Claire finally came by to see me last week and upgrade my wardrobe with something other than hospital slippers and gowns that only tie at the back. She is the only person who has visited in the entire three weeks that I have been here.


I am not sure if I can call them dreams or visions but bits and pieces of them are starting to come back to me. The more of them I remember the more I wish that I had never waken up. My coma brought me to a place where I was able to feel a peace that has been elusive to me for over four years.


Drawing was once my passion and outlet. I cannot remember the last time I picked up a sketch pad and preserved something I thought beautiful on paper. It must have been before the accident. Somewhere in the boxes packed away in my attic are the sketches that lovingly capture my best years with my wife, my late wife. I must stop thinking about her as if she is still here. I know that she is physically not here anymore even though everyone around me believes otherwise.


Dr. Leahy walks beside me down the hallway leading to the common area where I will spend the rest of my afternoon until the next group meeting right before dinner. We stop at the board right the nurses’ station and she changes my status from “with provider” to “in the community.” This board is their way of keeping track of all of the patients as the facility is severely understaffed. There is only Dr. Leahy and two other psychiatrists for over two hundred patient’s total.


The board has a system of colors: red, green and blue. Red is for the patients that are most at risk for self-harm and harm to others. Those patients are housed in a different section of the facility but that doesn’t stop the sounds of their ear-splitting screams and banging from being heard through the walls at all times of the day. Blue is for the lowest-risk patients who are closest to being discharged. The “blue” patients have the most privileges such as being able to go smoke outside or go with family on outings outside of the facility. Green, the category where I fall, is for people who are somewhere in the middle. I’m more probably in the green because of my unwillingness to tell these people what they want to hear and less that I am an actual threat to myself.


The urge to end my life ended the moment that I woke up in the hospital room. I cannot explain the difference in me but I know that it is there. There are yearnings in me that I almost forgot could exist anymore. I itch to return home and go through the boxes of sketches that I have created and collected over my lifetime. I could ask Claire to bring them to me but I don’t want to put the burden of driving for all of those hours on top of everything that I have put her through.


I am only beginning to acknowledge to myself that I had put Claire through anything at all. I always just assumed that the past few years were spent in a place that she always wanted to be. I never stopped to consider what my grief and selfishness might have been taking away from her sister. I even woke up assuming that once again she had come to my rescue once again and took care of Norah.


The failure of the father I have been I had no right to be angry with Claire’s decision to leave my daughter in the care of a woman who Abby spent most of her adult life running away from. I threw away every birthday and Christmas card that woman every sent, never telling her once that her mother sent even one. That woman must have done something horrible to her daughter to make Abby so desperate to want nothing to do with her. I am beginning to wonder if Norah will regard me the same way when she becomes old enough to understand the type of father that I am. I freely admit to myself the disappointment Abby would have towards me if she were still alive.


“Take good care of her, Michael. She will never stop needing you,” I can almost hear her saying to me.


Wait. I can’t remember exactly where I have heard those words before but I am certain that Abby said those exact ones to me once upon a time.


“Michael,” a nurse says softly to me as she puts a hand on my shoulder, “You can join the others in the common room now if you would like.”


The common room is the only place where the male and female patients can mingle together under the close supervision of the staff. Up until this point I have chosen to sit off in a corner chair and go over the numbers of my business in my head. My first intention as soon as I get out of this place is to go back to work. I briefly spoke with my boss a couple weeks back and was assured that this little excursion would have no effect on my standing within the firm. Kevin, my boss, insisted that I take off all of the time that I needed, and for the first time in my history of knowing the workaholic he was sincere about my taking time off in the middle of a critical deal that was about to go through.


There is a young woman; Reggie I think is her name, which I have begun to notice over the past few days. Her name is also written in green on the board by the nurse’s station. I have not paid attention to anyone of the dozens of people here in the way that I do her. She has been in the same group session as me for the past couple of days. Like myself, there is something that puts her apart from all of the others here.


I know almost nothing about her. She says nothing in group. I can tell that she is listening when the other go on and on with their numbing ranting’s that are fueled by their mental illness. It has crossed my mind that perhaps something about her reminds me of Abby and that is why I am paying attention to her the way that I am but the more I dwell on her the more I realize that there is nothing about her that even remotely resembles Abby, at least not in a physical sense.


Where Abby’s hair was dark, almost black, Reggie’s hair is a soft shade of color somewhere in the middle between golden wheat and walnut. Abby eyes, the same ones she passed on to Norah, were a deep penetrable green. Reggie has hazel eyes that are almost amber in color and her slightly sun-kissed skin is speckled all over with freckles compared to Abby’s flawless porcelain skin.


Absently, my hand reaches over to the stack of blank copy paper in front of me and for the first time in almost four years I begin to sketch the slight young woman with those compelling amber eyes who is sitting in the corner adjacent from me totally unaware. Without even knowing it she is the perfect muse. She is sitting at an angle where the sun gleams off of her clean hair. A face devoid of make-up is perfection as it comes to life underneath the tip of my pencil and onto the paper.


At least an hour passes and furiously, almost mindlessly, my hand races to capture this young woman in this moment. All I can think of is the enjoyment I am getting from drawing her and the race against time I am to complete this portrait of me. Such joy this stranger is giving me. No words of pity or sympathetic looks, just silence and the silhouette of her soul being captured on paper. I haven’t witnessed such perfection since…Abby.


I look at the completed sketch in my hands and study it critically. Nausea sweeps over me as I contemplate the difference between the sketch I have just done of this woman and all of the others that I ever drew of Abby. There is no difference. I captured this woman on paper the same way I might have captured Abby. It is ridiculous but betrayal takes the place of the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.


Out of nowhere a rage make my hands tremble and I let out a frustrated grunt as I shred the portrait into several angry shreds in front of me. I don’t stop clawing at the shreds until they are too small to grasped and torn further by my shaking hands. My chest raises and falls with deep and heavy breaths, the sudden surge of rage so intense.


All around me are the wild stares of the patients who are in the common room with me. Some are clapping and cheering me on against my fight with the paper as if it is a true and tactile enemy. I have caused some of the more sensitive patients to start crying at my outburst of anger. A few nurses are coming towards me to take me away so that I will stop stirring upset in the atmosphere.


“Michael, perhaps it is better if you stay in your room until group in forty-five minutes,” a short and plump nurse tells me, beginning to guide me out of the room. There is no use is disagreeing with her, telling her that I had the whiteness that pervades my room, as this will be seen as resistance and a tranquilizer shot will be promptly administered.


On my way out I catch the amber of Reggie’s eyes as she looks directly at me. There is clarity in her eyes that is rare amongst the population in this place. Her expression is not wild. She is not cheering for me like the others are. There is no sympathy there. I want to stand there a little longer and simply meet her gaze but the nurse is gently but firmly guiding me down the hall to my room even those I trump her height by several inches.


I will hate the next forty five minutes that I will have to spend alone in my room. I am thankful that my health insurance is generous enough to ensure that I do not have to share my personal space with another person. I would not have been able to stay as calm as long as I have in this place if that had been the case.


Everything in my room is sterile and white save for the different shades of beiges, browns and blues that make up my small wardrobe. As drab as my clothing is they are the only things that lend character to the room. From my window I can see the same elm tree that stands right outside Dr. Leahy’s office but the bluebirds are usually done dancing and playing by this time of the day. I won’t see them again until my next visit with her.


As it has been for the past four years my worst enemy is time alone with myself. That is when the sadness pervades and the helplessness takes up residence in my mind. When I am at home in my study I at least have the company of my daughter playing in her room down the hallway with her toys and imaginary friends.


The unfamiliar pang hits my stomach for the second time today at the thought of my daughter. Claire has not brought her to visit me, stating that at atmosphere like this is not conducive for a young child who is already confused about her relationship with her father. I could not agree more but the memories that have been coming back to me in broken pieces have me almost desperate to see Norah.


My mind has gone to a place in the past few days that I have rarely let it visit in the past few years. The memory of my first attempted feeding of Norah was actually able to bring a small smile to my face. At a couple weeks old she much preferred the comfort of her mother’s arms to mine and cried for over 20 minutes before she would accept the bottle and drink from it. A couple weeks in and Abby’s milk had dried up, giving us no choice but to switch to formula. The sprite laugh she had as she recorded me trying to negotiate with our stubborn newborn.


“Take good care of her, Michael. She will never stop needing you.”


Abby is absolutely right. A daughter never stops needing her father. It is one of the biggest failures of my lifetime. We had a daughter who we vowed we would love forever. I have done nothing to show my daughter that I love her.  I let real tears flow as I begin to understand a little bit more the desperation Abby had to run away from her mother.