Institutionalized

I was sent there to save my life, whether I wanted it or not.

I remember snapping my head back, lying on the floor, to look upside down at the people standing in the doorway. Authority figures.

"Quiet, Alison, quiet. We can hear you through the whole building. When you scream like that it echoes in the halls right down to the kid's ward."

Staring at me, opening up future wounds. I started curling into myself, imagining myself a spiral, a pattern on my little rug. Tighter and tighter...

"Alison! You're keeping everyone else up! Alison! Be quiet!"

I thought I was... but no. I'm still a humming ball of noise. Isn't that interesting? Such simple words they use, simple flat words with sharp edges. I can see them.

"Alison!"

Snap apart, shit you made me lose my place! "Where's my worker? My worker?"

"Bruce?" "Alison, be quiet. I'm your worker. Be quiet now."

Tighter, tighter, tighter, around and around and around...

"Alison, stop it right now! Everyone's trying to sleep! Be quiet!"

My worker isn't helping me...

My worker doesn't know me...

He isn't me, he's a he...

The room isn't me, either...

I want me...

I can't curl close enough, I have joints, bone, elbows and knees, they won't bend in right, I can't escape, heavy body is dragging me down.

Please come back...

My body weighs so much.

Where's mom?

I'm calling and she can't hear me...

Everyone's always asleep...

"Alison! Alison! I know you can be quiet!"

I can be quiet. I can be quiet. I've been quiet for years. I'm unraveling. My limbs are snapping apart. Not a spiral, not a proper anything.

"Alison, go back to bed."

I've been quiet for years. And I finally scream. I've been silent for years. And nobody hears me that can understand. Isn't that just like me?

It's time to leave. My body gets up off the floor and climbs into bed. Or at least I assume it must have. I wasn't really there, so I can't comment.

In the clarity of the darkened room now that the harsh hospital lighting has been switched off, I can see the nurse still stands at the door. I don't like her. I babble to her, I repeat over and over that I want to tell someone something. She snaps at me that I've been going on for 5 minutes now, so out with it.

"I just... I just..."

Finally she turns away, "I'm not going to stand here and wait for you. When you think of what you want to say, tell your worker tomorrow morning."

"Wait! Wait!"

She stops on the edge of the doorway, "Alison, I'm busy now. Say whatever you want to say or go to sleep."

"...What if I start fires? I'm scared I'll start fires. What do I do? What do I do if I start fires?"

"You want to start fires when you get out of here?"

"I don't really want to, but it feels like I might have to..."

"Alison, you're a smart girl. You can decide not to do anything. If you don't want to start fires, don't start fires. There's nothing making you start them. Goodnight." And the door closes, the room is dark.

But I didn't finish what I really wanted to say. What if I start fires? and... What if anything?

I'm alive. There are far too many options.

Experience of a world of distorted emotions and psychosis as routine has shown me no such thing as "decide not to." Not even "decide." It's all random chance, and a kind of crazy cause and effect, often delayed beyond normal reason. I can't remember what caused me to be on the floor, but I'm sure I forgot it a long time ago.

The hourly bedchecker finds me awake twice more, and hisses at me to sleep. I finally do, and at breakfast nobody mentions any screaming in the night. It's always quiet in the Living Area.