Mind Games Ch 5 Where Am I?

I was rudely awoken, my mind in a haze. Peaking down, there were IV’s in my arm. Am I on morphine? The thought floated around in my head, suddenly dispersing. I looked up, finding a fat woman dressed in blue scrubs. “Where…am…I…” I heard myself mumble, gazing into those hazel eyes.

“You’re in a hospital,” she answered bluntly, “you’ve been here for weeks now. We had to feed you through an IV.”

“Oh…” Oh…oh…

“The police arrived to escort you to an institution. Mrs. Ferrell was kind enough to explain what had happened to you.” She placed her arms beneath me and slowly helped me up. A man in white came in, tugging out the needles and then taking my pulse.

“What…kind of institution?” I asked, dizzy from sitting up. The doctor tugged on my shoes, muttering something to the nurse and sliding out the room.

“Fawlden Hospital,” the nurse said, sticking a thermometer in my ear. “So you can get some help. Mrs. Ferrell and the hospital believes that this could turn your life around.”

Confusion hit me as she left the room, mumbling something about clothes and being there in five minutes. I slowly took off the hospital robe, feeling a tug from my neck. I placed a hand on it, realizing it was bandaged. Oh yeah… I threw on my clothes, blood blurring my thoughts. I fell back on the bed, still feeling around my throat. It itched terribly, but it was too tightly covered with bandages to get to.

“You shouldn’t mess with that,” the doctor noted, taking a seat next to the bed. I stopped abruptly, my jaw dropping. I’m really fucked up on this shit. “When you arrive at Fawlden, you’ll be taking Morphine Tablets for another seven days. They will take off your bandages in the next two weeks, followed by antibiotics to reduce chances of infection.” He placed a clip-board in my hands. “Just sign this form and the nurse will take you outside.”

Not knowing what the heck I was in for, I took the pen from the doctor’s hand and signd my name at the bottom of the sheet. He grabbed it and headed out, a nurse rolling a wheelchair in shortly afterwards. She helped me drop into the seat and wheeled me down the halls. The motion seemed so quick that everything passing by was fuzzy. I closed my eyes, feeling a breeze and smelling spring. Hands pulled me out of the chair and into a car, a sound of doors slamming clashing with my empty thoughts.

It was silent except for the random beeps and noises of people talking through walky-talkies. I heard a voice close to me asking questions, but I had no idea if they were directed towards me, so I kept quiet. I was in the middle of falling asleep when a loud voice told me “We’re here”.

Opening my eyes, I found myself being walked into a bedroom, that stuffy aroma of hospital entering my nostrils yet again. A voice told me to rest for a while, that they’ll bring me lunch in a few hours.



“Is there anybody in there?” I heard a voice call, a hand waving in my face. “Heeeellooo?” she sung aloud. “Annnyboooody in there?”

“Could you shut up?” I spat, swiping the hand away to find Liz glaring back at me. I looked around, figuring out I was sitting on a couch in the game room, Prince on the TV. Purple Rain again? You’ve got to be kidding me. “How the hell did I end up here?”

Liz shrugged. “You walked in like a zombie and just stared off. Been trying to talk to you for the past fifteen to twenty minutes, but you didn’t even move…”

I eyed the window, noticing that it was light out. Last thing I remember was that it was night time and I was reading that bipolar disorder book. “What time is it?”

“I dunno, probably around three. Didn’t see you at lunch or breakfast.”

My stomach growled, saliva filling my mouth. How long has it been since I’ve really ate anything? “Okay…wow…” My eyes suddenly flung to the door, noticing Anita angrily shuffling towards me.

“I need to escort you to see Linda for your vitals that you didn’t go to. And then to your therapy appointment,” she growled. I hopped up, dizziness taking over me as we basically ran down the hall. Everything started going black, so I fell down into the seat next to the scale and tried to breath. Linda urgently shut the door and helped me up into the bed.

“Are you okay? What’s the matter?”

I forced myself to sit up. “Can’t breath…everything black…dizzy…”

Linda reached into the fridge and got me a carton of chocolate milk. “Drink,” she ordered, opening a cabinet and handing me a packet of crackers. Cheddar and peanut-butter…ugh.

I chugged the milk, feeling my stomach expand. Finally, I caught my breath. “I’m too nauseous to eat, but thank you,” I muttered, trying to give the crackers back, but she refused.

“You need to eat. Ben told me you slept through both breakfast and lunch… You’ve got to be hungry,” she pounced.

“Do you have anything other than crackers—“

“Eat. I’m not checking your blood work today because you’re already malnourished enough as it is, so just eat and I’ll take the rest of your vitals and you can go to your therapy appointment,” she demanded. Talk about blackmailing.

I tore open the package and chomped on one of the crackers, gagging. “Can I have another chocolate milk?” I asked, mouth full of disgusting food. I don’t really understand it, but the taste of almost any food was empty, bitter, and the texture was infuriating.

Linda gave me another milk, eyeing me like a hawk. I stared back mockingly, drinking the milk so I could swallow the crap down. I felt my stomach gurgle, a groan following it. Butterflies fluttered in my chest as I threw the rest of it in my mouth and chugged my drink. “Can you take my vitals now?” I snarled back at her.

She nodded, wrapping the sleeve around my arm and taking my pulse. She took my temperature and weighed me, moaning that I lost another two pounds and sent me out the door. “Take care of yourself!” she shouted at me from down the hall.

Go fuck yourself.

****************************************************

Dawn swung her chair back and forth, waiting for me to answer her stupid question. “So…are you doing better?” she asked again. “Since they switched your medication?”

She looked dumb, fluttering those long, mascara-caked eyelashes. “I don’t think I need medication.”

She battered her eyes again, pissing me off because of how annoying it was. I decided to look away, over at the oil painting behind her. They should have used more purple. And the shading is off. My eyes flung away from the crappy painting of a cat back at her. “Your concentration seems a little off today… And you appear to be frustrated—“

“Maybe I’m frustrated because I’m stuck in here! I have no friends! No life. All I do all day is take pills and talk to therapists and psychos. I don’t belong here! I don’t belong anywhere.” My thoughts scrambled. Needles, trains, eyelashes, oldsmobiles, pills, family, cats… It was an old, irritated feeling I used to get when I was jacked up on speed. I glared back at the lame cat painting. “Damn, that oil painting needs to be thrown into a wood stove.”

“Jacob, what’s going on? I’ve heard you haven’t been eating, you’ve been sleeping all day… Ben told me you were experiencing catatonia for a good twenty minutes—“

“Flash backs,” I interrupted, looking away from that horrid work of shit some idiot thought was art.

She blinked, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Flash backs! I was having a flash back, I was not catatonic, tell Ben to go back to psychology class!” My temples pulsated. “Shit, get that fucker on some meds.”

“Jacob, you need to calm down—“

“Don’t call me that! My family calls me that and I’m dead to them now, remember? Don’t you have that filed away somewhere in that stupid desk?” I asked. She blinked dumbly again. “Huh?” I went on.

“What flash back did you have?” she asked, leaning against the desk. “Could you tell me about that?”

“The day I get sent to this hell-hole. My neck was bandaged up. I was messed up on a morphine drip…some fat nurse and two pigs, I don’t know,” I muttered, my mind finally shutting up.

“Why was your neck bandaged?”

I sighed with frustration. “Why does that even matter?”

Her eyes glazed over. “We’re all worried about you. We want you to get better, and if you don’t talk this out or do something about it, you’re only going to get worse. Unless you get better, we won’t release you; this was court-ordered, don’t you remember?”

“I wasn’t in court, I was in the hospital for two weeks and then they sent me here, with you fuck-holes.” I drummed my fingers on her desk. “I don’t get how this place is supposed to help people. Everyone here is out of their mind! Shit, look at Cheryl. She’s a nut-case. All you people do is talk to us all day and drug us up. It’s bullshit.”

“Cheryl has generalized schizophrenia and terrets syndrome,” Dawn corrected. “And we try to treat your neuro-transmitters in the brain, that’s why we prescribe you to certain medications. Some work well, some don’t, that’s why we switch your medication. And as for talking, it does help if you actually do talk things out. You just actually have to try.”

“But it’s so hard,” I said, the frustration leaking out of me, “It’s so difficult when I have to talk about things I just want to forget.”

“The only way you can move on from those memories is by talking about them and figuring our why it happened,” Dawn said, clicking her pen. “I know it’s hard. That’s why the majority of people turn to drugs, alcohol, cutting, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, compulsive over eating, hoarding. That is why they end up here or die or have a miserable life. This fear, this anxiety you have, is all from this emotional history.”

“What’s the point if I’m going to be bipolar for the rest of my life? How can people love me or even put up with me?”

“Your bipolar disorder can be mostly resolved with proper medication. The rest you’ll have to fix by talking to me.” She threw her pen back in her desk and stared at me for a long moment. “So, please, help yourself to get better and try.”

“It’s 4:30,” I muttered, getting up and opening the door. “I’ll try next time.”