Still
Lauren crossed her leg over her knee to slip her sneaker on. She crossed the next leg over the opposite and repeated. She put her leg down and stared at the wall ahead of her with her hands on her knees. Her bleached hair fell on her shoulders and tickled the back of her neck, just where her collar covered a scar.
Her hands remained on her knees. Her shoes remained on her feet. Her eyes stared still and straight.
A used desk sat opposite her with everything she owned on top—sunlight and dust mites, floating. The wind blew in through the open window behind her, carrying the curtains in a bellow, the corners flicking, waving toward her. Shooing her out the door like a mother shooing a child out of doors.
One corner of the curtain slowly raised caressing up and down her back, bringing a shiver; gooseflesh. She was cold. She wore a light-blue cardigan with white and yellow daisies along the collar and button holes.
She waited there on a metal bed with a flat mattress. She sat on a green striped duvet, above the nurse’s corners and waited until she was ready to leave. The wind and the curtain and the room was ready for her departure, she was not. This was not her place. This was not her room, where she would lay in bed and dream or eat chocolate cake, or love a man, not a place for beginnings or ecstasy. This was not her place, her room. Yet she was not ready. But the room knew she was a stranger. She was not like the multitude of previous visitors. She intruded on this room; she brought an unsuspecting presence that did not belong. It was ready for her to go and be gone for good.
The phone on the night table rang--bbbrrriiing bbbrrriiing bbbrrriiing
Her legs did not lift her up. Her arms did not prop and lever her body off the bed. She was stuck, a posed wax dummy.
Her lips began to tremble and her eyes glistened. She was not ready. Her room was evicting her. The concierge was ringing for checkout. Her bags were waiting in the lobby. A taxi had been called. We hoped she enjoyed her stay. Please remember us when you are in this state again. Do you need help with you belongings?
A cicada call blew through the window and Lauren turned her head to listen. Her neck was stiff for lack of turning. Her eyes tracked the rungs on the head of the bed, up and down and up and down, as her ears followed the steady pitch carried on the breeze. She closed her eyes, with her neck still craned to the left, her ear still tuned to a call in the window. Her left arm rose off her knee, the fingers lazily reaching out from her side.
She smelled honeysuckle and cut grass. She smiled and ached. Her eyes closed and her arm reached further.
“Lauren,” said a thin voice. Said a mechanical voice. “Are you ready?”
I’m not ready.
I’m not even here.
The breeze through the open window slept on the sill, pulling the curtains against the mesh screen, pulling her reverie with it.
She stared down at her shoes (still on her feet) and they swam and the floor swan and her nose began to run, which given most circumstances, she would pull a tissue from her sleeve, but in this case, her defiant hands crushed down on her knees, preventing them from lifting her off the bed, grabbing her purse, pushing the chair under the desk and leaving the security and freedom of voluntary incarceration. Her lips pulled down at the corners. Her nose narrowed as her eyes squinted and pushed the tears down her cheeks. Her eyes and nose ran.
She pointed her chin at the ceiling corner to her left, where a single speaker hung, now silent. In a swift movement, she lifted her hands and wiped her reddened cheeks with her palms, then stood. Her fists curled and tensed, ready to flash upward toward her own face. She hesitated, then resisted. Here, it was ok to be weak and admit defeat. It was ok to stay and be unstable and need to talk. She was safe in these halls and rooms with blue walls and speckled tile floors. She knew when to get up and when to eat. She knew who she would see on the grounds; she could duck behind bushes and gazebos to avoid everyone she didn’t know.
People were every where that they should be, but you were still alone. This was safe and predictable.
She was not ready to leave. This was a comfort she had never known. A comfort in instability, perhaps, yet there was a freedom to express herself and to be honest.
Until now.
Until discharge.
She could be more honest than she ever had; it was going to earn her more time to stay. It was checkout time. Her stay was over. It didn’t matter how much she hated to leave. It didn’t matter if she told the truth about how she felt. She has been treated and was supposed to leave. She couldn’t tell anyone that she was afraid. She had tried three days ago, but it fell on deaf ears. If I’m sincere enough, she thought, they might let me stay. They didn’t.
Greta was on the phone when Lauren entered the counseling office at
“Sir, I understand that you are in crisis, but there is nothing I can do. As I told you…please sir, left me finish.” Still barking and wining in the phone. “As I told you before, Sheila is coming in shortly and will speak with you before her first appointment. Are you taking your medication?”
There was only silence now from the earpiece. “You do have a PRN medication for times like this, do you not?” Still the anxious screaming was absent. It seemed he just lost his battle. He was not getting the attention he seemed to crave from Sheila’s helpless receptionist. “Mark, take the Ativan, with water this time, not gin, and lie down in front of the fan. Give it twenty minutes and if you still feel like your stomach is melting, then call 911.”
Mark mumbled a quiet assent and clearly said good-bye. Greta just hung up without further response. “Hello, honey. How are you?”
“I’m fine, thanks,” Lauren said, as she put her magazine back on the stand. “Sheila is usually in early…she’s coming in today, right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. Don’t worry.” Greta was looking down, filling out a client contact report from her conversation with the famously irritated and unsettled Mark. “She just called from her cell, telling me to let you know that she had to make an important errand before coming in.”
“Oh, that’s fine. My day’s clear until Group Breakout at
“Can I get you anything,” asked Greta, as she pushed her chair back and walked around from her side of the desk, toward an open door. “I just made coffee, if you’d like some.”
“No thanks, I just had breakfast.” Lauren liked Greta. She was very comforting and accommodating. The best therapy sessions were held in the waiting room in the few minutes before Sheila showed up. Greta was matronly, yet authoritative. She was the buxom hall monitor in middle school. She was the silencing library attendant. She was the saccharine auntie dressed in stuffed doilies, patting the side of your face, smoothing your untamed curls, when she’s proud of your grades.
“Is everything ok,” Greta asked as she came out of the staff room with a coffee mug reminding us that “The Secretary is the real Boss.” She sat in the seat next to Lauren. Lauren thought she was going to hug her. Her senses were overwhelmed by Shalimar and Raspberry Crème flavored coffee. It made her nauseous. “You’re not yourself. You should be happy. You’re leaving us soon, right. Isn’t that something to be happy about?”
Lauren took a deep breath to stifle a shudder. She knew she should be happy. She knew leaving was starting fresh. She had to get back into the swing of something. She had to move on and live life again. She had to do a lot of other bullshit, didn’t she?
“Yeah, I guess. It’s just…I’m just. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. I’m..,”
“Scared?”
Still scratching her wrists, she nodded slowly. “I don’t think I’m ready. But that really won’t matter, will it?” Greta stiffened and cleared her throat, not knowing how to respond. “Never mind, Greta. I’m fine.”
Greta rubbed Lauren’s arm, her head tilted back, approvingly. “I think you’ll do just fine, if you ask me. Do you think administration would discharge you if they thought you’d quit the first chance you got? You have to believe there is something in you that can’t be beaten. You’re a survivor of something no one should ever have to face. You’re harder than you remember.” Lauren only stared into her lap. “I’ve only known you for five weeks, but I know you. I’ve seen you before and you’re not a quitter. You don’t belong here; you just came to visit for a while. You need to walk out the door and keep looking down the road.”
Greta stood with her coffee cup and walked back to her desk.
A pile of manila folders, legal pads and post-it notes pushed through the door. It carried three canvas bags with wide, stitched loops, stuffed with lined papers, and typed papers, and red- and blue-colored folders and plastic page protectors and a three-hole punch. The walking supply cabinet breezed by Lauren and tipped half of her leaning pile in Greta’s inbox and the remainder of the pile on the table in front of the pigeon-hole mail boxes, to the right of the staff room. The canvas bags collapsed, tired and bursting, under the table. A large Dunkin Donuts coffee and a busy key ring with a Land Rover emblem on it, remained in Sheila’s wiry hands.
Sheila turned and looked at Lauren—who sat half off her seat, scratching the insides of her wrists—as if she was adding her together, then inhaled deeply and asked, “Any calls yet, Gret,” then looked toward Greta.
“Mark.”
Sheila sighed at this. “I talked with him three times yesterday.”
Lauren sat and scratched.
“I know. He wouldn’t go to your voicemail.”
“Yeah—”
“He seemed pretty excited—“
“Yeah—”
“—so I told him you’d call him first thing.”
“Well…,” Sheila tapped the “N” on the side of her styrofoam cup, thinking of a plan. “Did you tell him to take his PRN?”
“I did. He calmed down pretty quickly at that point—“
“Yeah—“
“—so I think he just wanted someone to feed into his drama.”
“Yeah, well, let me do the analyzing, ok? This guy doesn’t need another coddler, that’s for certain…” She walked into her office, placed her coffee on her desk blotter and threw her overcoat across the patient’s chair in front of her desk. “I’m not holding his hand every time he has to use the goddamn ATM or buy a can of soup,” she said from behind her desk. Lauren could not see her from where she sat. “He calls me to tell me that the man in the apartment across the street just looked out his window and just knew he was trying to look at him on the toilet. He gets himself all twisted up like a bread tie—then forget about it! He calls everyone on speed dial, begging them to drop everything to come over and help him call the police. I bet he’s nearly frothing at the mouth by the time his sister gets there.”
She laughed at this. Her laugh always comes out more like a forced exhale—Hhuuuhhhh.
Sheila walked back to the reception area and Lauren sat back against her chair, tapping her fingers on the armrests. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sheila added, smiling, “if she smashes him across the face, just to get his wheels clicking again. It would do more good than the horse tranquilizers Koch prescribes him.” She had her right hand on her hip and drew the fingers of her left hand across her forehead, her eyes closed and her head tilted. “Remind me again why I agreed to do Outpatient?”
Greta, who was gulping her coffee and stacking hearts and spades, cleared her throat, paused, then said, “So, are you going to call him?”
“No, he’ll be fine,” Sheila said. “Besides, Lauren has been waiting for me. I’m sure she is getting very anxious about the big day and has a lot to talk about.” Lauren wondered if Sheila forgot she was in the room, until she looked down at her with a plastic smile. Lauren returned the grin, but didn’t move otherwise. Sheila motioned Lauren into her office. She stood up, smoothing out the back of her dress, and with a quick look at Greta, walked into Sheila’s office. Before joining Lauren in her office, Sheila mouthed “forty minutes” at Greta, while showing her four fingers on her left hand and made an “O” with her right.
When Sheila’s back turned, Greta slowly shook her head from side to side. She knew Sheila didn’t realize that from where Greta sat, it looked like she just signaled “0—4.”
Before the door closed, she heard Sheila say, “Lauren, do you mind if I use the bathroom before we get started?”
Sheila’s office was bare. It did not entertain or fascinate its visitors. It kept them absolutely devoid of emotion or energy. White walls, held white shelves, which held dull brown and grey books; white curtains held the greens and blues and yellows outside.
Lauren stood at the shelves, tracing the curves of carved stone statues; the smooth human figurines with large, fanged smiles were staring at her. Jade jaguar statues were ready to pounce off toward her. Long, thin, reeds shot out of angular glazed vases beside the shelves.
She could find no pictures or journals; no pod-like human stick figure drawings, no birthday cards or mementos. Unlike the rest of the jokers in this place she clocked out at 5 or
A door clicked shut behind her and Lauren turned as Sheila sat in front of an empty Oak desk, the front of which was facing the wall. “Have a seat, Lauren. I want to hear how things are going.” She waved her hand toward the chair against the wall. Lauren walked over to the low, crouching seat and again sat on the edge, but this time, she was trying not to sit on Sheila’s overcoat, draped lazily over the seatback and seat.
“Please don’t sit on my coat. Could you please hang it on the hook on the door?”
Lauren paused before taking the coat to the hook.
“You have three days left, Lauren,” Sheila said as Lauren sat back down, all the way back this time. “You will be discharged with some outpatient treatment, per Dr. Koch’s recommendation.”
“Yeah, I know. Um…that’s fine,” she lied. “I guess I’m looking forward to leaving. I—“
“Yeah—“
“—um, I think I might have my mother come down from Gracie, to spend some time with me.”
“Yeah—“
“I’ve talked with her a few times last week and she wants to come. It’s a little bit of a hike for her—“
“Yeah—“
“—but she wants to be here.
“How are you feeling right now? You’ve been here, what, six…right, five weeks and I want to know what you will do from here.”
Lauren held her hands on her lap and crossed her legs. She looked at the yellow legal pad on Sheila’s lap. It was empty. Nothing important to remember yet.
“Well, to be honest—“
“Yeah—“
“—I’m not sure what I’m gonna do.” Sheila turned around and rolled back to her desk to grab her coffee. “I’m a little scared about going back home. It’s not a place that I love anymore. Everything—“
“Yeah—“
“—I loved was taken from me there and I feel like I can’t find happiness again. I know the meds are supposed to help me sleep and to drag me off my ass and get moving again, but what’s the point in sleep if I am afraid of it. The pills don’t help the nightmares.”
“Yeah, well I told Koch to try something else,” Sheila added, “but he is so stubborn.”
“All night long, I’m thrashing around ‘til I’m all twisted in my sheets. I sweat through my nightgowns and every once in a while I wet the bed. At least here, I’m locked up in a room with no pictures on the walls and nothing that smells like home, nothing that I can pick up and claim as mine. Other people’s names are scratched on the sills and doors and the desk. My few pieces of clothing sit huddled in the middle drawer of the highboy, while the others hold the dust. The sheets smell like bleach and the floors smell like piss and bleach.”
“Yeah—“
“Even the sunshine is strained and filtered through the grates and screens on the windows. It falls on the bed and the floor and I can hold it in my hands just like I was anywhere else in the world, but it will never remind me of walking through the fields behind my house, or learning to ride my bicycle down a concrete sidewalk on my birthday.
“It will never warm my face. It will never warm my spirit here. It is the pale winter’s sun in this place and it is late summer out there.” Lauren sat on her hands to keep from scratching again. She exhaled in frustration. Sheila stared back at her, not responding, forcing her to continue. Her pen was capped in her hand and the yellow page held only a coffee stain.
Lauren continued: “I can’t explain how I feel. I’m just afraid to leave.”
“Yeah—“
“There’s a comfort in being a stranger to this place. I owe it nothing. I don’t have to take care of it, it takes care of me.”
“We have been through this, Lauren,” Sheila said. “You can’t stay. The clinical team can’t reasonably justify you staying here anymore. HMO’s demand significant justification for ongoing inpatient treatment and the team feels that with a combination of outpatient therapy and a stable medication regime, you should be able to return home, return to the community and find a job.”
Lauren crossed her arms and scowled. “But what about how I feel. No one asked me that yet. I know, the discharge meeting is in three days, and I can say whatever I want, but what good will that do? They’ll be sitting there with the clipboards and clicking pens, waiting for me to say something they can write in their report, hearing, but not really listening, waiting for me to really start to say what I feel, then as soon as I stop to take a breath, they’ll cut my off. ‘Here’s a pen. Sign on the line, make sure to date it. We wish you the best of luck.’
“The goddamn orderly’s waiting with my bags in the hall; the cab’s already out front, already knows where to take me. They’ll hand me my discharge packet with pamphlets that remind me “Who Can Help” and business card with names of people I’ve never met before. My next five steps will already be planned out. I’m sure they’ll have it all spelled out in neat color-coded charts. When is my next bowel movement? Oh, here it is, five-thirty. Great. Something to look forward to.
“Why will they do all of this, just to make sure they’ve done their jobs the right way and sent me on my way with more help than I could ever need. But what about being in here? Why couldn’t I get any help in here?” Lauren was almost yelling at this point. Her hands were not pinned under her legs, but they were not scratching each other, either. Sheila only crossed her legs and put her pen in her lap. She drank her coffee, and almost looked entertained. This only made Lauren lose it more.
“This whole time, I have only wanted some sympathy and compassion, yet all I get are stale expressions and flat smiles. These cardboard cutouts, shaking hands and patting shoulders, they never even eat with us. They leave the campus totally to have tofu and lobster rolls in some bistro in town, while all the rats eat leftovers in the cafeteria. Shit, the lunch lady probably wouldn’t even eat with us, but no one has ever asked her before. The nicest person here is the receptionist! She didn’t have to get a degree to know how to help someone!
“So, I’m all better? Is that what you think? Is that what ‘The Team’ thinks? When will it matter how I feel? My time is measured out in hourly sessions. When has that ever been enough to know who I am?”
Sheila sat up straight and put her cup on the desk. She leaned forward with her elbows resting on the legal pad on her lap. She spoke from behind her folded hands. “I don’t have to know who you are. I just need to help you figure yourself out. I need to know only enough of you to be able to steer you in the right direction. I hear that you are scared, but you will not be alone. You will have help. You will have people to talk with. Unfortunately, I don’t make the rules. As it is, you’ve been here about a week to long.”
Confused, Lauren cocked her head and tightened her brow. “What are you talking about?”
“Lauren, you have no health insurance. You were covered under Greg’s policy, and that ended last week. Dr. Koch petitioned for you to stay here another week, so the discharge planner could arrange outpatient therapies and even contact some social services that might help you get back on your feet. Get a job. Meet some people. You may even want to think about selling the house and moving closer to downtown.”
“Get a job? How am I supposed to go out and get a job, when I can’t sleep at night?” Lauren was sitting at the edge of the seat, ready to leave, or to ask Greta to come in and relieve Sheila. “You obviously don’t care to understand how I f—“
“Don’t put this on me. I’m sorry for what has happened, but there is only so much I can do. I can’t get you insurance to stay here and even if I could, all the beds are full. There are people sleeping in emergency rooms, doped up on Ativan and Valium, waiting to come here. There are plenty of people that have just as many problems as you have. They need their turn to get some help.” Sheila sat back in her chair and turned toward her desk. She grabbed her coffee and put her pen and pad on the desk blotter. “You had your chance, and quite a few handouts, so don’t blame me if you fell asleep during group therapy. Don’t be angry with me just because you haven’t dropped your defenses enough to let anyone in.”
Lauren dissolved into her seat; poured into her shoes.
“I’m, um…gonna get going. I don’t think I have anything left to say.” Sheila did not respond, only remained sitting when Lauren stood. She watched through the doorway as Lauren walked past the reception area, mumbled something to Greta, and left the way she came in.
Sheila stood, grabbed her empty coffee mug and approached Greta. “What did she say when she left?
“She said, ‘Thanks for your help,’ then just walked out. She left early; it’s only been a half hour. Is she ok?”
“Yeah, she’s fine,” Sheila said, looking down, thinking. She had one hand on her hip and the other held the empty coffee cup to her lips. She looked up at Greta with bright, open eyes and a hopeful smile and said, “At least I can still get paid for a half hour.”
The halls were empty. Lauren was glad of this. Sounds of games shows and bingo matches could be heard issuing out of doors, echoing along the hallways. Photocopied announcements hung along the walls with clear tape. Cars were sold, puppies were missing, and extra shifts needed filling. Enigmatic slogans intermingled with friendly reminders, corporate memos and events calendars:
“Have you been a friend today?” [smiley face smiley face]
“Staff reminder: No flip flops can be worn during shifts.”
“Corporate Compliance committee meeting, Thursday
“The beginning is never the end: it is always a start.”
“Therapeutic Ceramics begins September 1st! Bring your brushes!”
She walked along the main floor corridor approaching the administrative wing. She didn’t want to be seen on her way to being discharged. She would not miss anyone and she was sure that no-one threw her a going-away party, but she still did not want to be seen. Every one in this unit, beside the staff, that is, knew the truth of her. They could see it in her eyes; they could smell it on her. Only, they would have no power to do anything for her. Appearances were roadblocks, dust jackets. Diagnoses were labels, yellow caution tape. They spoke, but no one listened. They felt, only to be medicated. They expressed, only fifty minutes at a time.
The door to the conference room was ajar. The receptionist told her to go right in, they were waiting for her. She stayed; she inhaled at the threshold. Her meeting with Sheila three days before was still on her mind. It would be hard for her to hide her feelings when she disagreed with everyone in this room. Through the gap in the door way, Lauren saw a thick laminated table lined with chairs. Words were whispered and chairs creaked when people moved in them. Someone was clicking a pen and another was rustling papers.
“Lauren,” asked a male voice. Lauren exhaled and closed her eyes in resignation. She pushed the door to the room and entered with a half smile. “Lauren,” greeted Dr. Koch, “I thought Nellie said you were coming.”
“Yea, I’m sorry, I had to—“
“We have been waiting for you, Ms. Case. We would all like to get started with the meeting if you are agreeable.”
Lauren looked around at her formidable team of clinical professionals and frowned. “Yes. That’s fine. That is why I am here right?” Lauren walked around to the far side of the room and sat at the head of the long, tan table. The air was still and dry. A glass bowl chandelier hung above the table, with twisted, reaching, metal arms connected at a single point on the ceiling. They cradled the drop of light like a tear at the end of bent paperclips.
Commissioned artwork hung on the walls. Dark forest tunnels, empty desert highways, sunless grey skies, dead trees and lonely, crying children were all anyone here painted. Instead, green fields, colorful menageries, sailboats and children jumping rope were framed and crowded along the chair rail. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of one of the paintings on display to her right. A mother was sitting in a rocking chair, with the moonlight falling across her lap, her child clutched to her chest. The mother was staring out a window, smiling at the moon, smiling at the night.
The team of clinicians sat in the middle of the table, three to a side. Sheila was the closest to her right side and sat clicking her pen, staring down at her empty legal pad, with one hand in her lap. To Sheila’s right, Kathy, the residential supervisor, smiled at Lauren, bristling her bleached mustache, and winked at her. Next to her, Miriam, the discharge planner, sat behind a stack of pamphlets and folders and business cards.
Dr. Koch pillared between two women on the opposite side of the table. Jennifer, the nurse practitioner for Lauren’s unit, sat at the end snapping gum and doodling blue flowers on Lauren’s medication review. The institute’s Medical Head, Dr. Elizabeth Seltser-Forgham, MD, Ph D., Psy-D, DPMR, PP, KY, GED, ect., (or Dr. Doctor to most of the inmates) sat on the other side of Dr. Koch to Lauren’s left, and seemed to be leaning back against him, shielding him, nuzzling him. He could be rubbing her thighs under the table. She could be stroking his shins with her heels. Dr. Doctor glared briefly across the table at Sheila, and then looked back to Lauren. She crossed her arms like his body guard, proudly defending.
“Let’s get started,” began Dr. Koch. He switched on a tape recorder that sat in front of him. “Lauren, this is recorded for our records. Do you give consent for the recording?”
“Sure. That’s fine,” Lauren said, dropping her gaze and nodding at the table.
“That’s great, ok. Then why don’t we start with introductions. I’m not sure if you know everyone here. Of course, I am Dr. Maurice Koch, Director of Psychiatry here at The Elms Institute.” He waved to his right, toward Dr. Doctor.
“Thank you, Dr. Koch,” said Dr. Doctor, as she smiled at him, with her eyes slightly closed and her left hand lightly resting on her collar bone. She slowly faced Lauren and said, “Lauren, we met when you arrived. I am Dr. Elizabeth Seltser-Forgham, Director of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.”
“Hi Lauren,” squeaked a swallow at the end of the table. Jennifer’s gum snapped when she spoke. “It’s good to see you again.” She bubbled and beamed and shrugged her shoulders. Lauren cringed and her fingers lazily extended off the table in a wave.
Lauren turned toward Sheila, fully expecting her not to partake in the roll-call, but was finally surprised by something Sheila did. “Sheila Carson, Social Worker.” Straight and to the point, thought Lauren. No frills, no bells or whistles. No compassion. No emotion. She’s a goddamn stone statue!
Kathy squirreled in her overalls, nervously waved at Lauren and said, “Hey, Lauren. How’re ya doing?” Out of anyone at the meeting, she spent the most time with Lauren, as she was the residential supervisor for her unit of the institute. She spent many hours with Lauren, planning activities, organizing her schedule, reminding her of her appointments and getting her out on the ground for a smoke break. She cracked jokes and tapped people with her elbows. She was outspoken and demanding, yet was everyone’s buddy. When Lauren never spoke to anyone else, she sat next to her and rubber her shoulders and smoothed out her shirtsleeves.
Many times, Kathy would come up behind Lauren when she was sitting in the common room, and start fussing with her hair, French braiding it, pony-tailing it, running her fingers through it. Lauren hardly noticed, but Kathy wished she did.
Lauren smiled back at Kathy and felt something in the way Kathy looked at her that she had never noticed before. She shivered and quickly looked away.
With her elbows resting on the pile of folders, protecting her precious bounty, Miriam cleared her throat and pushed up her thick glasses. Wild tangles of black and grey hair shot outward in all directions and long, brittle strands fell on the arms of those next to her and got caught in the rubber bands holding her packets and papers together. “Lauren, hi, I am Miriam Keilightly. Uhm…I will hopefully help put you in touch with some contacts.” Wow. I feel better already, Lauren thought. This is the one that I’m depending on to have shit together for me once they’ve kicked me out of this place?
The woman was coming apart at the seams (Literally—the cuffs and button holes of her cardigan were frayed and her pencils and pens were chewed and leaking). Miriam fussed with her binders and folders; her packets of helping hands, her leaflets to a new you. “Um, let’s get started, why don’t we,” she mumbled, still fumbling through the papers, not quite finding the starting point. One would think that would be at the top, but this was not the case.
The stress and jostling was too much and the large, blue rubber band holding the majority of the stack together, snapped, sending folders and leaflets across the table toward a startled Jennifer.
Flustered, Miriam gathered her files as Jennifer sat motionless, staring as if she smelled something offensive. “Oh, jeez. I’m sorry everyone. Where was I?” Miriam was apparently in no state to be presenting or lecturing today. Neither was she in a state to be speaking much at all. “Lauren, as your discharge planner,” started Miriam, still searching the pool of documents and serial numbers in front of her—which now had spread over much of the table in front of the clinicians—“it is my job to make sure that you…uh…leave us, as you now must,”—she continued, now with more confidence as she brandished and read one single almond-colored, water-stamped, letter-headed, scribbly-signed, official-looking little white lie—“with the maximum supports, while ensuring minimal dependence on the system. We..the, uh, well, your, clinical team has evaluated your progress over the last five weeks and feel that your rehabilitative curriculum here at the Elms, which was painstakingly tailored to your individuals needs, meticulously designed to nourish positive growth and improved mental health, has been utilized to its maximum potential by the Institute’s fully-trained, well-qualified,”—sort-of drug-tested, somewhat background-checked, minimum wage-earning, Lauren thought—“Residential Care Staff, and therefore, has met the goals for which it was intended.” She looked up from the proclamation in her hands and peered over her glasses toward Lauren, who only kept listening.
Lauren felt defeated. There was no pleading her case. There were no appeals. The Letter has been written and some monkey signed it under “Best Regards.” Lauren could see the textured landscape of a Notary’s seal at the bottom of the page. It meant “Official.” It meant “Check-out time. Your bed’s been filled.” The letters of the seal was a bull’s-eye. It might as well have been stamped directly over her name.
Miriam continued: “Your curriculum consisted of an initial clinical work-up including a battery of psychological examinations administered by Ms. Carson, a psychiatric evaluation completed by Dr. Koch, a complete physical with Dr. Seltser-Forgham’s nurse, weekly intensive individual counseling with Ms. Carson, daily group counseling, or ‘Breakout’ sessions with the Residential Care Staff, ongoing psychiatric and pharmacological reviews by Dr. Koch, Dr. Seltser-Forgham and Jennifer Stetson.
“Each clinician has submitted their final reports and post-discharge recommendations. The team has decisively agreed with discharge and release. We feel that, given the progress you have made in your rehabilitation, the restrictive nature of the facility and the limited access to community services will only hinder your continued growth. The conditions of discharge are…let’s see here, on-going outpatient group grief counseling, to which a referral has already been made. Your first appointment is in one week. Next, you will have continued monthly psychiatric follow-up by Dr Koch, or his nurse practitioner, Ms. Stetson, at The Elms Outpatient Therapy Center. We have also made the recommendation that you also work with a
“Ms. Carson has also recommended on-going individual counseling in addition to the grief counseling.” Lauren looked down toward Sheila, who looked guilty of something. Staring at Sheila’s blank walls and leaping Jaguars, while Sheila tapped and fidgeted and twisted in her seat, was the last thing Lauren wanted do after being discharged. Being discharged was the last thing she wanted now, just as she was beginning to feel she was making something bordering on progress, but rehabilitation does not seem to include the rehabilitated. Only the rehabilitators.
And the insurance companies.
Your Insurance, Inc. HMO has already approved Johnny Insanity for a four-week, all expenses paid trip to The Elms Resort and Spa. He has been assigned to
Just about the time Johnny is sniffing the mattress and licking the toilet seat in his new resort suite, Sally Schizophrenic will decide that her old middle school principal and the High School librarian have finally found where she stores her medications and have substituted them with global positioning transmitters and colored chalk, which means they are tainted and she will stop taking them.
At the same time Johnny gently gets his upper lip mashed between his teeth and the wall of the common room for the first time by a burly Residential Care Staff, and gets his third tranquilizer since arriving, Sally is rocking back and forth in her bathroom, in the dark, in the nude, clutching a photo album that doesn’t belong to her.
This is week three for Mr. Insanity.
By the beginning of week four, Johnny is no longer completely dependent on the care staff to administer his medications, but he is so sedated that he can’t remember his middle name. Nothing can go wrong. He is surrounded by friends, by family. He is no longer swinging and kicking and biting. He stays in his bed at night. He uses spoons and forks and isn’t licking the plates clean. He isn’t licking the toilet bowl anymore for that matter. Guess what, Johnny? You must be stable! DISCHARGE!
This is perfect timing, because the police just picked up Sally Schizophrenic downtown, streaking through the Quik-Mart, knocking over magazine stands and swimming in the pond in the park, throttling ducks. She is frothing at the mouth and every other lock-down is full. Johnny, here’s your cab token, here’s a map of downtown, and here are the prescriptions for the next few months. Oh and by the way…makesuretotakeyourmeds…Why, yes officer, we have a bed for Sally. Does she have insurance? Everyone’s HealthChoice.? That’ll do.
“Lauren, did you hear me,” Miriam asked, finally looking directly at Lauren and not the rest of the room or her typed script. Lauren briefly closed her eyes, experiencing minor lightheadedness and nausea, and looked up toward Miriam.
“Could you repeat that last part?”
Miriam knew that she had lost her at some point, but she was not sure which point. “I said that your team has agreed that this is the right next step for you. They feel, as you may also feel, that you’re ready to move on; that you truly don’t belong in here.”
“Yeah, I..um,” Lauren started. She looked up at Sheila, maybe searching for encouragement in her face, and not really knowing why. Given the way things had turned out, what difference would it make for her to say how she felt? What would they do if she told them she was afraid? Would they kick someone else out just to accommodate her? Doubtful. Her team felt she should be let go and she knew nothing could change that.
Then something occurred to her. She had a plan. She knew now what it would take.
“I’m afraid,” said Lauren. “I think about being outside of these walls, and I am terrified. Yet, I can’t stand to stay here any longer. Have any of you ever stayed here at night?” Lauren looked around at these paid strangers, but no one volunteered. “I didn’t think so. I bet at least one of you have come close, though, right? You leave your headlights on all day and by the time you get out to you car, the battery is dead. You had to work late that night and by the time you left every one else was gone. You walk all around the grounds, but you’re getting nervous because the only people left are the overnight staff. They’re probably all sleeping anyway, but you still don’t trust them to let you back into the building after hours, even to use the phone. So you stay in you car all night long. Or you start to hitchhike down the road, maybe never getting picked up the entire five miles back into town. You stop at the nearest place with a pay phone and call for a tow. You’re so embarrassed because the tow truck driver, miserable and put-out, still in pajamas with sleep lines across his face, asks why you didn’t just go inside to get someone to give you a jump or to use the phone. You tell him just to get the car going and flash a wad of cash in his face.
“I know you’ve almost been there, but I’ll give you a glimpse of what you’re missing. Lying still on the mattress, staring at the ceiling, too many things are happening to be able to sleep comfortably. You’d think this would be the quietest, the easiest time of the day. Meds are given, pillows are soft and inviting and the sheets are clean once again, and everyone will soon zonk out for the night, just wake up to another day of insanity and chasing each other around the courtyard with straight jackets.
“Not so.” Lauren waved an index finger at the room. Dr. Doctor sat up straighter. Jennifer’s gum was quiet and listening. Dr. Koch was annoyed and uninterested, staring up at the clock he was facing. Sheila was Sheila. If she had a coffee she would be drinking. If she had a desk chair she would be lounging. If she had a heart…well, who knows?
“Staring at the ceiling, the room is lit up brighter than the daylight. The lights on the grounds cover every inch, every nook and cranny so that all shadows inside the campus have been chased away. There are no watch towers, no sentinels. The blinding lights on the grounds create a globe of light covering the campus, and a black hole surrounding. Anyone brave enough to sneak out of this place at night will scare themselves to death in the enveloping darkness of the surrounding forests and fields.
“The light bouncing off the grey walls of the room is so bright you can’t sleep. It creeps through your eyelids so that all you see is bright grey. All you feel is grey. You can’t sleep without sedatives, so if you don’t have any, all you do is think about how insane this all is. You start to think how insane you might be to be lying in your bed not sleeping. Then, you remember you’re not in you’re bed; you’re in someone else’s. You’re not at home; you’re in someone else’s. The creaks and cracks are not coming from your old, settling farmhouse; they are the guy in the room next to you jerking off again, his thin bed frame, rhythmically squeaking and groaning. The metallic thumps and screeches aren’t coming from your busted furnace you have to replace someday; they are humming from the radiator in the corner.
“I get nervous every time any staff makes nighttime bed checks. On my ward, it was every fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes, if someone is dangling by their belt from the water pipes snaking along the ceiling, or trying to scratch their veins free with their disposable razor, fifteen minutes is still enough time to revive them. There is still enough time to cut them from the ceiling and start CPR. There’s still enough time to grab some sock off the floor to stop the bleeding from their shallow cuts.
“So every fifteen minutes, I’m freakin’ out. I’m almost wetting the bed, I’m so scared. In the grey twilight, with what’s-his-name still playing with himself next door, I keep imagining the foot steps outside the door are tan work boots, with nicks and smudges on them. I keep seeing them at eye level, like I’m on the floor, again. My heart is racing and I almost stop breathing. I’m clutching the sheets and duvet over my head, but I’m seeing the boots walking around to the end of the bed and waiting. I’m ready to scream. I’m ready to run out of this fuckin’ place every goddam night. No one else, every other crazy bastard in this place is perfectly fine. They drool on their pillows and have their psychotic dreams as if life were normal for them. I’m the only one scared out of my mind and I feel like the craziest!
“Sarah or Joan or Kristy poke their heads in my room just to check that I’m not swinging from the rafters and the floor is free from pools of blood. After a few hours of this, sleep takes over.” Lauren shakes a thought from her head. “Then I start to have nightmares.”
Her eyes are glistening. Her jaw is clenched tight and the corners of her mouth are pulled down. Her hands on her lap are balled into fists. “The longer I stay here, the more I feel this place is taking me over; the less I feel like myself. I am afraid of staying; I am afraid of leaving. I am afraid of leaving any little bit of myself in this place.” She looked up at Sheila, who now sat with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, knowing the truth Lauren spoke, not daring to look back at her for fear that Lauren would see the acknowledgment reflected there.
“I never belonged here in the first place, but I was forced here. I was weak and gave up, but never expected to end up here. And now that I’m here…and nothing has changed…I’m too afraid to leave.
“I’m worried about the stupid things, like doing laundry and cooking for myself. I don’t even know if all my bills are paid. I think of this shit just to keep my head away from the kinds of thoughts that will drive me insane. And I keep thinking of what I will tell people. Of course, I’ve been in touch with my mother, she came to the emergency room and followed me here, and mostly knows the state I’ve been in, but it’s everyone else that I can’t face. Friends, co-workers, people whom I’ve ignored for the last few months. Most people don’t even know the whole story. I stopped talking to everyone after the wake, then a few weeks go by and I disappear. Of course I asked my mother to tell nothing. Just that I’ve gone away. What kind of an excuse is that?” She looked around the table, maybe looking for the answers she knew they would not be able to give her. “I keep thinking that I want to just lock myself in my room and unplug the phone.”
“But, I can get by ignoring people,” Lauren continued. “It’s being alone in an empty house that scares me the most. An empty, creaky, old house on a hill, filled with a lot of pain and happiness at the same time. What a dilemma, right?” No one responded. Dr. Doctor joined Dr. Koch in looking indignant, and both were finally starting to look a little put out. Unsure if they made the right decision? Again, doubtful.
“I can’t leave the house because I imagine myself walking down the street, staring at people passing by, and each face is his face. Hairy chins and thick black brows hidden behind thick block glasses. Children, women, senior citizens melt into stumpy, hulky men with carpeted forearms under lumberjack flannels and deep blue Wranglers.
“So, I will lock my self in my house. I’ve already installed an alarm system and triple-locked every door and window. I’ve tossed out the mattress, the box-spring and every set of linens we owned. I donated all of my clothes to the Salvation Army and had the carpet ripped up in every room. Every thing that he might have touched, everything that keeps a memory, I got rid of. The house is safe enough, but every thing that I am afraid of is trapped in there with me. I take it with me wherever I go. It’s in my head; it’s a part of me. No security system or dead bolt will keep me safe from what’s in here.” She jabbed her right index finger into her temple, shaking her head.
“Jesus, I can’t even get my head shrunk in this goddam place, and you people do this for a living. I’m supposed to heal in here? I approached the precipice and group therapy and nightly bingo is gonna stop me from swallowing another bottle of sleeping pills?”
“That is not fair,” Dr. Doctor interrupted. We’ve done our part to counsel and rehabil—“
“Bullshit!” Lauren pushed her chair back and slammed her open palms on the table. Jennifer flinched and closed her eyes. Sheila stared at the ceiling with her hands folded. Miriam seemed overwhelmed and held her head in one hand, drawing the other across her dry parted lips.
“What has my money paid for? What has my husband’s life insurance paid for? It’s paid to protect me and to keep me safe. It bought the security system and refurnished the house that he will never sleep in again. Then it paid off the mortgage on the house, twenty-five years earlier than we ever expected. Only then did I remember that when we paid the mortgage off, we planned to retire and travel the country. But that will never happen. So I paid for a new bottle of sleeping pills and washed it down with an old bottle of gin.”
Lauren was standing by this point, her chair lying on its back behind her. “The money ran out by the time I came here, so I counted on my health insurance to cover this place, but of course, that ran out too. So I will make this easy for you. You all think I’m healthy and stable? I’m ready to move on with my life? I should go ahead and get a job, never look back? It sounds so fuckin’ easy, so give me your stupid referrals and call me my cab. I’m better off by myself, than in this place with you people!” Lauren threw the folder Miriam had handed her onto the table and it spun around until is stopped past Jennifer. She rushed behind Dr. Doctor and Dr. Koch toward the doors.
“Lauren,” said Dr. Koch, waiting for her to stop and turn around. Anxiety rose in her chest, not wanting to prolong this conflict any longer, yet hoping they would change her mind. She hoped what she said had meaning to them. Her sincerity was not lost on some, but she was unsure if it would have any effect on them. She only wanted to be safe. She only wanted to stop hurting; to stop feeling.
Lauren turned back to face the table of clinicians who now, from farther away, seemed smaller in the high-backed conference room chairs; smaller, weaker, powerless. Only Dr. Koch and Dr. Doctor watched her; everyone else traced the walls or clicked pens or played with their gum. Lauren stood with her hand on the door knob, tempting them to tell her she can stay, threatening to leave for good, unless they changed her mind. Dr. Koch held up a pen and a single sheet of almond bond paper toward her. “Before you go, can you sign your discharge release form?”
Lauren glanced at the wall behind Dr. Doctor, to the painting hanging there, of the smiling mother feeding her child, and she suddenly had the impression that the mother was choking back pain instead.
She turned the knob and walked out.
In her room, in a rented room that she can’t pay for, Lauren stood, with a gym bag full of clothes in her left hand. Her faded shadow fell on the door she stood in front of. Lauren’s silhouette was as tall as the real Lauren. It was as still as the real Lauren. Only its gym bag was not filled with clothes. And its cheeks did not glisten. The shadow could raise its fists and pound its temples, but could not scream. It could stomp on the floor and climb the walls and dance on the desk, but it would not break if it hit the floor.
And it could not turn around.
This, Lauren agreed, is what she would leave behind. Only a pale shadow. She would not lose friends or long for quiet corners of the greenhouse or the common room or the library. She would not carve her name in the desk or on the inside of the closet door. She had a set of house keys, a broken zipper pull, a button on her shirt sleeve, a wedding ring. She would not use these things to etch a place mark into these walls. She would leave nothing of herself behind.
She thought of Sheila and her jaguar statues and brown ceramics. She knew why there were no family pictures or keepsakes. But Sheila could never truly understand what it meant to leave something in a place without intention. No matter how closely she looks into the corners or the folds of the mattress; no matter how many times she takes the shade off the ceiling fixture or sweeps the floor or checks the waste paper basket, there will still be something of her left in this place. Something she lost and will never get back. Something they took without her approval.
As the days got closer and closer to her discharge, she was beginning to feel closure and anticipation of leaving. Four days before discharge, the night before her final meeting with Sheila, she packed all of her clothes into her Puma gym bag. She kept track of everything. She made a mental inventory to make sure nothing was left. She clipped her nails in the garden. She blew her nose into a handkerchief she kept in the pocket of her track pants. If she could figure out a way to shit in the woods she would have.
A feeling of determination stole over her. Forget, for the time, the drive for sanity and well-being. Forget the necessity for clarity and understanding. She only wanted to come out on top. She would not let this place, these monsters, the other rats in their own grey cages, get into her throughout. She knew that if she left any bit, any scrap of herself here, in the trash, in the bed spread, in the toilet plunger, the disease which ran through this building and curled around its company logo, would find her, two, five, ten years down the road and she would be done.
She came here for help and left still needing the same. The fear of leaving was also the fear of staying. So, she left, hoping this place would leave her just the same. She wished that she would truly stay gone from here.
The shadow reached for the door knob, then hesitated. Lauren turned to face inward on the room and scanned the bed, the dresser, the closed closet, the low desk, the window. The curtains floated. Their whites allowed slivers of greens and blues and browns to cut through. The corners flicked upward toward her.
Lauren exhaled and left her shadow on the door.
