An eternity later, or so it seems, the forms are signed in all but one place. My belongings are placed into two unlabeled plastic bags and removed from the curtained cubicle. Naturally I do not intend to sign the form where I waive all right to hold Griegor University Hospital responsible for the ultimate disposition of my belongings which include two checks that are not yet cashed - the only money I have in the world. I tell them as much trying to sound as sane and reasonable as I can but aware I am speaking too rapidly and too copiously.
The clipboard nurse lets me off the hook for it and I breathe a sigh of relief. I again curl into the fetal position, waiting for my familiars to comfort me. Instead, I am alone. This hideous place full of noise and chaos is too profane for my guardians to enter, so I must suffer and endure this torment entirely alone, with no one to comfort me. The voices don't speak to me. No ecstasy or drama consume me to alleviate the terror and panic, no brilliant mind storm rescues me from riding this edge like any other broken member of the human species. I am utterly alone having plummeted from the status of responsible, appointment-keeping client to potential homicidal maniac. I might as well be a victim in some prison camp, my clothing taken from me, chained by my very nakedness in solitary confinement behind this thin curtain in an E.R. cubicle.
Time passes. How much I do not know. Dr. Stranger, just outside my cubicle, makes multiple phone calls from the central hub desk. I make two of my own: one to my boyfriend to let him know what is going on and one to my ex to let him know I won't be back that afternoon. My words are wooden … flat, "I'm being admitted. Yes, I'm being admitted." I try to explain why as best as I can, but I am not even certain why. All I know is I came downtown to obtain samples of Abilify that had not yet expired and to discuss whether I might need to up the dosage a nudge. The next thing I know my world is spinning out of orbit.
As usual, my ex is reserved, short on words, guarded in response. "Okay, well, just keep me posted."
My boyfriend, on the other hand, is impatient, anxious, grilling me with a zillion questions, none of which I can answer. He reassures me he is not angry with me, and I know he is only concerned about me, but his tone still makes me cringe.
"I don't know," I plead. "I'm sorry, I can't think." He won't stop. He's not being cruel or anything, just relentless, wanting details.
"I don't know. I can't think," I keep repeating, truly unable to think of anything else to say or of anything at all, for that matter. My brain seems frozen, cognitively halted at the singular fact that I'm being put in the hospital at this very moment. I'm terrified and I don't like it one bit.
Then the waiting begins, and the third degree. At least three different doctors ask me whether I know why I am here. I tell them all the same story, which amounts to no, I really don't know why, but here's how it came to pass.
And it came to pass that she went downtown to secure new samples of Abilify, for the expired ones seemed not to be working, and she had been troubled by symptoms. And lo, it came to pass that while describing those symptoms, this stranger filling in for her doctor took it upon himself to threaten interference with her life to an untoward degree so that she was moved toward madness and suffered a breakdown before his unworthy eyes. Then it came to pass that he, being unmoved by either pity or compassion for her in her plight determined to punish her for wasting his time. He punished her by taking her to a place where she would be locked up and treated as less than a human being with no say in her own affairs nor even in her welfare, and where she would be subjected to sadists who delighted in doing the precise opposite of what she knew to be best for herself. And so forth, and so on.
Between each grilling an eternity passes. I step outside my cubicle finally and stand by the hub desk craning my neck to see if I can spot my belongings behind it. I intend to grab them, put my clothes back on, and leave if no one is going to actually to do anything with me. Dr. Stranger is still there on the phone and I catch a quick line of his conversation, "history of domestic violence." This surely cannot be about me since it is not one of my issues, but it still makes me wonder and makes what is happening to me seem all the more surreal. Have they mixed me up with someone else?, I wonder.
"Are my things back there? Because if they are, I want them back. If no one is going to do anything with me, I'm going home." Again, I try to sound sane, but Dr. Stranger and the nurse wave me back, assuring me that someone will be with me momentarily, that they are making the arrangements upstairs for my admission.
(* - names and places in this series are changed to preserve anonymity.)
