the jewish general (4)

andy pink, clearwater, fla —

one thing most ordinary people don't know about mental hospitals is that there is no autonomy granted to entrance and exit; if you are brought in, by the police, or by medic, you are admitted completely against your will; there is no recourse, no decision making process, other than a doctor forcibly admitting you to the hospital, onto the ward, potentially against your will, sometimes expressly against your desire. second, there is no way for a patient to get out except by that same doctor — or generic equivalent — making the decision, signing the papers, on your discharge. this is at least true in the usa and canada, and I would be surprised if it were really different in any other western nation.

with dr banon, this situation was put to me thusly: "this is an agreement between you and me" — the object of which was my stay in the hospital. but i had no recourse to the law, to any legal proceeding, whatsoever, and my internment in my camp was entirely the decision of dr banon, i had no recourse, no complaint, no will, there was nothing I could do to get out of the jewish general hospital; not only was our "agreement" above the law, but she was above the law; there was neither principle nor pact; she was the sole authority. i knew that it was a toxic place, that i didn't belong there, that I wasn't particularly out of control in body or out of whack in mind, and i did run away from the place, on smoke breaks, outside in the gardens, I took off, twice, and hopped on the bus, not sure how I had the money, or pass, to travel, but I got on the bus and took the bus to the subway and then went home; how I got into my apt is a bit of a mystery, bob would have had the key, so I guess he would have let me in; it's also possible that sweet louis or ambivalent julie, had the key, but I got into my apartment, both times, and I must have eaten, I must have gone to the store, as the food was terrible at the hospital, I was months starving, and I would have purchased bread, and butter, and I would have eaten; I might have watched tv, or done something benign on the computer, like friendster, but nothing major, quiet, in the house, and then, both times, in the morning, the police came, they did not ring the bell, they hauled their equipment up the stairs, and they knocked on the door, and they presented themselves, and I would have opened the door, and pleaded that I didn't want to return, that I didn't belong there, that I didn't want to go back, that everything was fine in my apt — there would have been the sense that their presence in my apt was part of a larger conspiracy, with a point, and a purpose, and a thesis, but I wouldn't have mentioned that to them — and then I was in the police car, for one, and the ambulance, for the second, and I would be punished in some way, I would be harassed in some way, or my blood would be drawn, and then dr banon, who didn't bother to say much, would offer: "three steps forward, two steps back" — and then my fate would be sealed, I would be left to dawdle in the middle room, and time would slowly pass, as I said little, followed the rules, and tried to mind my business, not eating at all, save the dessert, which came in a cup.

what is most bizarre about the experience at the jewish general is that it is all so ordinary; no one is acting particularly peculiar, it is rare to even see someone talking to themselves, mumbling or laughing, no one runs, or shakes, or does anything out of the ordinary, walking, silence, eating, occasionally a patient would manifest side effects from the medication, usually tremors, or mild convulsions, or a disabled walk, but nothing that one would even bat an eye at outside of a mental hospital, it is all so freakishly normal, and quiet, orderly and dull, almost like a library, except no one is interested in anything. there is a kind of depression, or defeatism, that is really tangible, hard to escape, and no one smiles, certainly not staff, but it is so quiet, listless, monotonous, boring — there is, in short: nothing to do. when leslie, an older patient, admitted to me that he had no story — "I don't have a story," was the way he put it — it crushed me, he had a story, actually a rather extraordinary story, but that he did not know it could only be an index at how little the others — staff, doctors, nurses — valued him or his experience; no one bothered to notice that he was human, with a chronology, a temporality, some permanence of memory, and experience, and so taking his cues from these doctors and nurses, I suppose, he imagined, "I don't have a story," he just said, offhand. he received ect treatments — shocks — and he took these, not against his wishes, but not particularly in line with his hopes, with resignation and calm, but he did once, agitated for some reason, say to the social worker, "what are you now going to do to me? — put a bag over my head and give me three treatments?" — angrily. no one reading this blog knows what a "treatment" is, no one reading this knows the lingo, "treatment," can count, "treatment," but you have an idea, an inkling, of the language, the semiotic codes, the sanitation that goes on in this place. "treatments" —

to kill myself will be an awfully big adventure —

andy pink, with the bag over his head