The Severity of My Truth

I almost Fought Wanda. Yeah like the physical kind. I was so upset, or maybe it was eager. I couldn't even see who was holding me back held up like a tiny animal. I only saw her face and the cops around her. I have to admit it felt kind of good. What she didn't know, which I explained to her in the heat of it all while I was standing on my bed getting ready to take her on was that, I admired her. I had been watching her since I'd arrived at Woodhull Hospital to the Inpatient psychiatric care unit 5. Wanda was just a little bitty thang about 40 yrs old, but she was one tough bitch. She didn't take mess from no one. She loved the song "Lotus Flower Bomb" by Wale. That was her thing especially the part where he says " it keeps her spirits up thats how she lays it down". She was so proud of her flower bomb. Out on the patio during units 5's notorious dance parties she would pat herself on the belly and look down at her vagina as if she was excited all while dancing and singing.



Wanda was complicated. She was a recovering addict as so many of the psych ward patients were. When I heard her breaking down in the middle of the night for the umpteenth time I got up out of my non-rest. Someone needed to reassure her of the woman she was. In that moment of so many even if she was begging for pampers as her body and mind were surely caving in on her she urgently needed to remember who she was, at least to me. She wore brightly colored bra's and fancy cheap night wear, and I loved her for all of it even when she was being a total bitch to me to my face.



Then there was Dolores. She wore her Apple Bottom jeans like it was Versace. She loved her sister but I heard through the tightly woven and intricate grapevine that her sister only wanted to get rid of her, and was relieved to have her in the ward time and time again. I admit from knowing her even for a short while I could see why one would want her to stay away. Dolores had no teeth. She was fairly tall with skinny limbs and what looked like a pregnant belly. Not to mention she's loud and intrusive and never ever shuts up for nobody. She was around 50 years old. One of her first memories was of her father trying to prostitute her at the age of 2, and her mother and aunt bashing his head in when he came to the house to steal her. Dolores was radical. The first reason I began to respect her was because I learned she was a part of the civil rights movement. I thought it was real unfair her living life in unit 5. She said she'd been in there an entire year with as little as two days on the outside before being re- committed. Most likely by her beloved sister. Dolores even spent holidays in there.I think about that and think about the type of ridiculousness they serve for meals. Then thinking what it would be like to choke that down through a big lump in my throat on Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or Memorial Day. I myself cried over a meal while I was there. I feel like a punk now, but at least I wasn't makin a scene or anything. They were my quiet tears with my head down and barely a frown, accompanied by a fast hand to wipe them away. In one of my many forced conversations with her that I actually didn't really mind she mentioned how nice it was that a person from my generation would talk with someone like her because most people my age would say things like "bitch get some teeth" when she would try to interact in her own community. She had a favorite song she would always sing. It goes  in a raspy unsettling but loud voice "Jesus on the main line tell em what you want, Jesus on the main line tell em what you need!" The unit even got the pleasure of the remixed version sometimes. It was comical but endearing and of course during one of our notorious and frequent dance parties, where Dolores was always the main one!



Cynthia my roommate, whether I liked it or not. I had requested my own room, because I don't like sleeping with strangers, but the hospital was unable to accomidate me. Turned out I really liked it. She was getting better from a serious drug addiction. I learned from her later on that the combination of medicine they were giving her were still getting her high at one point, and she had to fight to have her medicine adjusted,but her caring husband was there to help. Do to the fore mentioned fact there were some initial misunderstandings between us. I didn't know the hospital was so neglectful that they were actually doping her up, and that at times I was not dealing with the real Cynthia whom I got to meet later on. She ended up being transferred to the room I had been transferred to after requesting a room away from her. One night when she was high she seemed to be coming on to me. I'm not sure if it was just me thinking so, but i felt uncomfortable, and complained to the front desk. Then again Woodhull was so neglectful that no one addressed my initial complaint and luckily I got a second chance to meet this wonderful woman. Cynthia was around 40. She had hair on her face. She has a daughter whom she loves and always took care to explain how good and smart her daughter had become of her own will. When it was time and I really needed someone to talk to in a coherent manner, like so many of the patients were unable to do Cynthia was there for me. We would talk about anything until we were blue in the face. She was the best therapy I got at Woodhull.



Then there was Ern or Ernest was his name. He was my first friend at Woodhull. He didn't judge me when I was loosing it. Me crawling on the floor and writing on the walls, and talking non-sense. He only ever honored my presence no matter what. I'm not sure I've ever experienced that with someone outside my family before. Especially in a situation where there was no possibility of sex involved. When I had conjured up the most recent scandal for my life Ern was the first person I tried it out on, before realizing after  trying it on many others including the staff and 911 that  it was just my imagination. Watching myself realize that was intense. I jumped and screamed and wrote more alleged facts down frantically. I have a strong even stubborn mind, so depending on the mood im in that fact can be dangerous leading to my demise. This time the story was that I had somehow until now failed to realize that I was being baited to be a whore and drugged all by someone I briefly loved. And Oh yeah my family was also part of some black mafia that they never told me about, and they were hiding guns underneath my childhood bed. Further more, getting really delirious now my family had helped to create my unfortunate circumstance because I was failing them and their reputation, again as some secret black mafia I never knew I was a part of, because that worked to their advantage. Pretty good huh? As I was trying in haste to make sense I thought is that the reason I hear gun shots in my head, and fear people at my window at night. I came to realize that none of those things were true but it was slow and painful because I could not accept or make sense of my current position in life.



Woodhull hospital was the second time I'd been hospitalized  for mental illness.The first time I was taken by two friends to Bellevue hospital I had stayed up all night paranoid that someone was trying to kill me.When morning came I was pounding on the walls, screaming and having long conversations that made little sense. Both times I was hospitalized I was taken by surprise by the harshness of friends needing to intrude my life. I wasn't doing it myself successfully, and that was hard to swallow. Woodhull was much worse than Bellevue. I had felt ambushed sitting in my therapists office that day on the outside. That day was different than others, because she had invited the psychiatrist in to observe. I took it lightly and continued to pace around the room playing with knick knacks and paying little attention to the conversation we were having. Shortly after a police officer entered the room and said it was time to go. I felt like a criminal, as they lead me out to the ambulance shamefully ushered past my friends who had brought me in and the rest of the clinic. I managed to hold my head with whatever dignity and grace I could muster up at that point. I had spent the night before rearranging my friends apartment, and keeping watch, for what I don't know. I had not slept and when it was morning I ran the streets of our Brooklyn neighborhood looking for an open church and found none, I think it was a Tuesday. Finally my friends caught up with me and brought me to my therapist. Now, siting in the back of the ambulance it was over I was being sent back to the hospital, I was not however in disbelief but in deep wonder. Preparing myself to sit once again for hours on end day and night with little food kept quarantined from the outside. Feeling like a problem with little to keep me company besides the occasional conversation and my notebook. Preparing to be analyzed and treated like less than normal, if one can prepare for such degradation.

Shortly after my arrival I went through both the Patient Guide as well as the Rights booklet. I came up with about twenty-five valid arguments based on consistency with Woodhull's own materials. After much commitment and conviction I was able to share with administrator Mike Chambers my discontent with the establishment. Turned out me and him agreed about a lot of things.The art therapy sucked, and there were mice as well as male patients who made me uncomfortable just to name a few complaints. Unfortunately based on my conversation nothing noticeable changed about my stay. However much to my surprise he mentioned wanting me on a team for helping to make the psychiatric care at Woodhull better. He even came down in person to reassure me that he was serious about his offer, this of course did not come to fruition but made me feel better at the time. At this point I felt trapped in stigma knowing that if I had a physical ailment I would receive much different care, and understanding from doctors, friends, and family. This second time I got less visits and they didn't bring me food from the outside. Had I been considered a loss cause, a failure? I'm sure the answer is yes, although they'd never admit it and that is something I will continue to face,unless I overcome it.  I was feeling like an intruder on my own life. I didn't know what I wanted anymore but I knew things had to change.  I was discharged and sent back to life to try, again.



I was 26yrs old and I new life was over as I began to better understand why we respect our elders. I knew I had to undo what I had done, and I didn't know where to start. Who was I now? Who had I become? A little girl born from I don't know where, and raised in Apalachin. I began dancing when I was 3yrs old upon my own request and contingent upon a deal made with my mother that if could go to the bathroom like a big girl then I could take dance lessons. And I continued to pursue dance with that vigor for the rest of my life until now. Needless to say I'm a little heart broken.  All of a sudden I don't know what I want as my patience attention and love for dance faded away into the new reality I was facing,adulthood. I have a part time job teaching kids in an after school program. I make little money, just enough to afford to live in the living room of a dear friend. Soon that will run out, where will I go. I recently thought I was going to get a new job with better pay and benefits but that fell through, how will I earn more money. I may have to go back to working 7 days a week.



I look around me and it seems like everyone is progressing, somehow knowing what it takes to cope if not achieve. I however am without that satisfaction,but I learn to do my best at faking it most the time. Occasionaly someone asks what's wrong. My lips remain pursed or let out a simple, nothing, why? Its not like I could possibly answer that question seriously, not to anyone. Guess that makes therapy a waist of time. How to save myself? Wishing everyday that I was someone new, wishing fairy godmothers were real. Lying at night pretending to watch the shows on my laptop from the living room floor,as my mind runs. Frightened, I'm 26,pretty soon it will be imperative that I am more. I carry that on my back everyday and the air smells bleak.



So when I told Maggie that I had a bad year as we were catching up and she compassionately said "I'm sorry your friends called you crazy" I hung my head in silence and waited for the next moment. We were reunited by our college friends wedding to do's. Everyone was building lives,deep down I had none, and pretending was getting hard to keep up. Maggie had a car and 3 pets and a place to herself, and she maintained it all. Friends were getting married. I was having suicidal thoughts. So I had been to the psych ward twice this year, and maybe I have barely began to recover, and no one can be expected to understand the truth I face. I probably sound like a brat, right? Growing up having everything and ending up with nothing with no idea who I am. Not much to do but guess I'm not the only one. I just grit my teeth and bear it. All my motivation is gone, an ugly price to pay. I look at the homeless people my age on the train with their signs sitting in squaller and I fear it.



I'm lucky for the friendships I've aquired in New York. Without them I would be nothing at all they keep me going and at this point they are basically all I have as I sit here wondering can I mean something to the world. They let me catch a break, what a blessing. My family is where I keep good memories. They are caring loving people a mother, a father, and a brother, but they can't save me from the severity of my truth. Feels like i'm shivering in the dark.