Certifiable Mermaid

One of my most memorable experiences of living in a psych ward was having ice thrown in my face by another patient (an elderly woman with an undisclosed conditional whom we will call “E”). She didn’t like me and it was clear from day one; the other patients knew it and we would joke about it, but this woman terrorized me day and night (more on that later). As a born people pleaser, I can admit that I feel good when people like me, maybe to a fault. Historically when someone hasn’t liked me I try to figure out why and what I can do to change their mind, but I have since learned to let go and let God. E was great practice for me in not taking it personally when someone has decided that I am not their cup of tea.

Before the notorious ice cube attack, E took great joy in tearing up my drawings for other patients. Imagine spending 24 hour days with no cell phone in a bleak hallway, with one tv shared by 20 something patients who couldn’t agree on something to watch. What we did have was paper, markers, and board games, locked away in a cabinet, only available to us at a nurse’s retrieval. I guess they didn’t want us trying to slit our wrists with paper or attacking each other with Connect Four pieces. Regardless, I killed time by drawing portraits of the other patients because there was nothing else to do with our time but attend group therapy sessions and check in with the ward psychiatrist.

E would stare at me with anger in her eyes while I drew, ate lunch, visited with my family, and even when I slept (keep reading for that part of the story). On multiple occasions she would hover over me while I drew pictures for myself and others and attempt to tear them out of my hands before a hospital tech could intervene. I will never know why she didn’t like me. The best I can come up with is maybe I reminded her of someone from her past. One time I tried to make amends with her by asking her if she wanted a picture drawn of her. She smiled and agreed but not more than two minutes went by before she grabbed the paper and tore it up. That was the last time I tried to befriend her.

E’s bedroom was across from mine and most nights she would scream at the top of her lungs, keeping the rest of us awake. This is to no fault of her own. She was clearly suffering with a mental illness that I do not wish upon anyone. However, the noise usually resulted in the other patients commencing in the common area as early as 3 am because we couldn’t sleep. We ended up asking the pharmacist for tranquilizers and benzos because we needed reprieve. The worst thing for people suffering with mental illness is sleep deprivation, and we were at our wits end. We often felt the staff wasn’t doing enough to ensure our healing. We came to the hospital to get rest and care. What we got was no sleep and lots of drugs.

We would wait in the common area until nurses restrained E and injected her with medication that would put her to sleep. Some of the other patients named her medication “booty juice” because the shot was inserted in her butt. It was a running joke in the hall. We would all joke that it would be great to get some of that booty juice to knock us out. If anyone deserved it, it was the rest of us, who were kept awake every night. Everytime E would start hollering someone would say “she’s gonna get that booty juice” and we would all laugh. I know it doesn’t sound very nice to make light of someone else’s suffering, but I want to emphasize that all of us were suffering and humor was one of the only ways we could cope with all of the chaos around us and inside our own minds.

There was one night where E was particularly quiet. My roommate and I were finally able to get some sleep… until I woke up to the sound of my sweet roomie screaming. I woke up to E standing above her bed, glaring and ready for trouble. The night staff was notoriously negligent, and how E was able to “escape” her room and make her way into ours is a testament to that. The night staff were supposed to monitor the hallways 24/7 and the nurse desk was even right next our room. I was pissed but also too drugged up to respond with anger in the moment. I just sort of laughed to myself because I wasn’t surprised. E had been scheming the night when she could come into my room and tear up my drawings. And sure enough, she walked over to my cabinet, grabbed my papers and started tearing. Even with my roomie and I yelling, the nurse on staff that night took her time to intervene.

I was surprisingly calm but my poor roommate was terrified. She was the one who woke up to a woman with a demonic face hovering over her bed. These are literally the types of horror stories that people imagine when they think of psych wards. The next morning I made it clear to the staff that someone needed to be outside of E’s room at all times during the night. They refused to move me to a room further away from her. Again, normally I am a people pleaser and avoid confrontation, but I had had enough. The lack of sleep and frustration with the staff pushed me to get more assertive than I had ever been. I raised my voice a little bit and told them that my roommate and I deserved to sleep and heal while we’re here, and that the night staff wasn’t doing their job to ensure that. From then on, someone was outside E’s room at night.

I was protected from E in the night now, but the daytime was free game. I tried to avoid her, but it was impossible. We all had to eat in the common area. One day towards the end of my stay in the hospital I was sitting at a table by myself minding my own business, and before I realized what was happening, E was standing in front of me with a cup of ice, excited to assault me with it. That sounds dramatic, and the reality is that I am dramatic, but thats really what happened. She shoved the cup in my face and the ice cubes smacked me like a cold slap in the middle of a deep sleep. It was unexpected and awful. Again, this could have been prevented if the staff was watching her. The tech was five feet away from her, but he was too late to intervene.

Some of my companions in the ward said they would’ve slapped her back or gotten physical with her. Yes, she harassed me, and maybe it just seemed like I was taking it, but the reality was that this woman was suffering. She had no visitors during my entire stay in the ward. My family came to see me everyday and my boyfriend and I talked twice a day on the hall’s “pay phone” (more about this in future posts). I wasn’t alone, even though I felt like it. E really seemed to be alone. She had been in the ward for so long that she was required to be taken outside by staff to get sunlight. The rest of us were not permitted to leave the ward until the social workers approved us for check out. The ward was essentially E’s home. I got to leave after eleven days, but I imagine she is still there.

Even though E made my stay a lot more difficult, I left with compassion in my heart for her, and some stories that still make me laugh. She helped me learn some worthwhile lessons. Not everyone is going to like me, and I might never know why. Extending kindness can’t convince everyone to be your friend. The reality is, some people are going through a struggle we can’t fathom; her struggle and mine coincided but they didn’t mesh and thats okay. I pray that she is safe, warm, loved, and well taken care of. She has a special place in my heart even if I don’t have one in hers. Mental illness is real, scary, and often feels out of control. I wish peace for E and everyone struggling.

I hope this story helped you see the humor in my daunting situation, but also evoked compassion and empathy. In my next post I plan to write about the ward’s “pay phone” and the fight us patients put up to be able to call our loved ones. Stay tuned. 💖