life. I drift into the background, content to let them.Dr Hitchiner will give me something that will take the edge off the anxiety. He recommends that I be admitted to the hospitalâs emergency psych unit to get me through the next couple of days. After that he suggests a private hospital that will be better suited to my needs. Listening to them discussing my future, discussing various medications and facilities, I finally accept what should have been patently obvious from the beginning. I am sick. Desperately sick. And I need help.
When you get a viral infection you can literally feel it entering your system. You start to feel off, get the shivers or the sweats, your temperature rises, you lose your appetite. Mental illness is different. It leaches into your mind like a thief in the night. You mightnât realise you have it, even as you lay splattered beneath the wheels of a train, as you dangle from a rope in your bedroom, or as your severed arteries bleed whatâs left of your existence into the bathtub. It is an insidious and silent killer. For the unlucky ones, itâs only when your body is being loaded into a drawer at the morgue that your family and friends backtrack and come to the agonising realisation that you were infected by the black dog. Iâm one of the lucky ones. Now that itâs out of my blind spot, I see it for what it is. And itâs huge. Itâs so big, in fact, that I canât believe I didnât see it creepingup on me. It took up residence the moment Aunt Mary disappeared into the mist and was let loose on the day I lost Lisa.
The ward nurse shows me to my room while Mum and Dr Hitchiner talk about hospital options. There are four rooms on the ward, each containing only one bed. Clearly we crazies donât like sharing. The other rooms are vacant at the moment, but the nurse assures me that itâs early and they are usually full come Sunday night â depression, and its close cousin anxiety, are obviously more active on weekends. This part of the hospital is all safety glass and stainless steel, its gleaming surfaces a stark reminder of the functionality of the place. The psych unitâs role is to keep us alive, get us through the first couple of nights, and move us on to a more long-term facility.
I donât know how Mum found the time, but somehow, following the phone call, she packed a little bag for me, which brings such a weight to my chest that I can barely breathe. The bag contains my PJs (boxers and T-shirt), toiletries, a few clothes and some books. My life cut down to the bare essentials. I think of an old man going into hospital for the final time, his life pared back to almost nothing, everything heâs earned and accumulated over the years counting for squat. Heâs left with a toothbrush, a shaver, and an oldrobe as his life begins to ebb away. The only things heâll need for the next plane of existence or oblivion are his memories.
The nurse now goes through the bag that Mum lovingly packed while her mascara made a break for freedom and her world was crashing around her. She sorts through it with a fine-tooth comb as if somehow my mother might be complicit in my self-annihilation. I loathe myself for the pain Iâve injected into her heart, infected her soul with. The pain that came within a whisker of permanence. How could I have even contemplated it?
The nurse sits me on the bed and removes my shoelaces. She does it as subtly and gently as possible but thereâs an elephant in the room the entire time. When theyâre under lock and key she shows me the bathroom, my Nikes flapping on my feet like flippers. The bathroom is more soulless stainless steel. The toilet doesnât even have a seat. Youâre obviously supposed to perch yourself on the thin metallic rim, or do what Lisa calls âhoveringâ, which isnât as easy as it sounds. The opaque mirror is built into the wall and is either plastic or perspex. I
When you get a viral infection you can literally feel it entering your system. You start to feel off, get the shivers or the sweats, your temperature rises, you lose your appetite. Mental illness is different. It leaches into your mind like a thief in the night. You mightnât realise you have it, even as you lay splattered beneath the wheels of a train, as you dangle from a rope in your bedroom, or as your severed arteries bleed whatâs left of your existence into the bathtub. It is an insidious and silent killer. For the unlucky ones, itâs only when your body is being loaded into a drawer at the morgue that your family and friends backtrack and come to the agonising realisation that you were infected by the black dog. Iâm one of the lucky ones. Now that itâs out of my blind spot, I see it for what it is. And itâs huge. Itâs so big, in fact, that I canât believe I didnât see it creepingup on me. It took up residence the moment Aunt Mary disappeared into the mist and was let loose on the day I lost Lisa.
The ward nurse shows me to my room while Mum and Dr Hitchiner talk about hospital options. There are four rooms on the ward, each containing only one bed. Clearly we crazies donât like sharing. The other rooms are vacant at the moment, but the nurse assures me that itâs early and they are usually full come Sunday night â depression, and its close cousin anxiety, are obviously more active on weekends. This part of the hospital is all safety glass and stainless steel, its gleaming surfaces a stark reminder of the functionality of the place. The psych unitâs role is to keep us alive, get us through the first couple of nights, and move us on to a more long-term facility.
I donât know how Mum found the time, but somehow, following the phone call, she packed a little bag for me, which brings such a weight to my chest that I can barely breathe. The bag contains my PJs (boxers and T-shirt), toiletries, a few clothes and some books. My life cut down to the bare essentials. I think of an old man going into hospital for the final time, his life pared back to almost nothing, everything heâs earned and accumulated over the years counting for squat. Heâs left with a toothbrush, a shaver, and an oldrobe as his life begins to ebb away. The only things heâll need for the next plane of existence or oblivion are his memories.
The nurse now goes through the bag that Mum lovingly packed while her mascara made a break for freedom and her world was crashing around her. She sorts through it with a fine-tooth comb as if somehow my mother might be complicit in my self-annihilation. I loathe myself for the pain Iâve injected into her heart, infected her soul with. The pain that came within a whisker of permanence. How could I have even contemplated it?
The nurse sits me on the bed and removes my shoelaces. She does it as subtly and gently as possible but thereâs an elephant in the room the entire time. When theyâre under lock and key she shows me the bathroom, my Nikes flapping on my feet like flippers. The bathroom is more soulless stainless steel. The toilet doesnât even have a seat. Youâre obviously supposed to perch yourself on the thin metallic rim, or do what Lisa calls âhoveringâ, which isnât as easy as it sounds. The opaque mirror is built into the wall and is either plastic or perspex. I
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