Feets
01-31-2010, 10:10 PM
I think I needed to have the breakdown that I've had. I needed to hit the reset button I guess. I didn't need to be in that messed up place that they call a hospital, and that's why they let me out so quick. Yes one night in the funny farm can do alot for a persons character and really make you rethink everything. I'm not as ****ed up as these people but somewhere inside of me wished I was that crazy.Then maybe I wouldn't feel this bad I'd just be in my own little world and untouched by everything else. The doctor that sent me here told me it wasn't going to be like this with a bunch of crazies in there. No she said it was going to be people like me that were just a little messed up and going through some trauma like me. Because that's what they called it acute trauma disorder it's a lesser form of PTSD. Oh, but they lied I walked in there and it was an explosion of crazy. A girl had walked up to me right away and asked if I was her angel here to save her because my wings were so big and bright. I didn't know what to say so I told her yes. And the whole time I was in there she watched me, and followed me, and would talk to me. She also asked me to put my hand on her shoulder and pray with her to make her a virgin again, so I did. I really think it made her feel better. She had stopped screaming for awhile after that. It was not the right place for me and I feel like the people in there knew it. I could feel it. Like I was some outcast in thier world and should not be there disrupting it.
I didn't sleep the night I was in there at all. I couldn't. I didn't trust anything about it. I liked the crazies better than the staff. They didn't treat anybody right and since I was just another one of them in there I was treated the same. I had a huge, I mean monstrous black guy for my roomie. He reminded me of John Coffey from the Green Mile. He wouldn't stop yelling either. Some **** about his mom and brother. He never spoke a word to me, just talked or screamed to himself. He didn't seem to be able to piss in the toilet, it was everywhere in the bathroom except there. And he snored like a mother ****er when he finally did sleep. But I liked it because I knew he was asleep and wasn't going to come after me. I still wouldn't sleep. No I read a Spin magazine over and over in pretty much the dark. The door to the room couldn't be closed all the way so the staff could look in at you.Since the door was cracked open, there was light coming in from the
hallway. A little spear of light that I could use to see with. That’s how the night went.
In the morning I got to take a shower. It was just this big open room with a shower head poking out of one of the walls. No towel bar, no sink, no nothing, a chair where I could put my towel and clothes on, and the only reason I think that it was in there was so they could monitor some of the other people when they were in there. It just seemed so odd in that room, naked except for a shower head and a chair. Then we were able to have breakfast. They parade you down some hallway and they have to unlock three different doors to get into it. The staff serving the food wasn't any nicer or anything just treating everybody like they were nobody, nothing. The food was disgusting. How can you possibly make oatmeal bad. I can't even explain the eggs, they didn't seem to be real eggs but where do you get fake eggs. What the **** are they. I guess the pancakes weren't so bad but I don't like pancakes so that was just great. I sat at a table all by myself while all these people sat crowded on three tables when there was plenty of them in there to sit at. I ended up giving my food to John Coffey and that was the only time he spoke to me. He asked me how long it took to grow my dreads. Nothing to do with giving him food. Earlier he was asking the kitchen staff for more but they wouldn't give it to him. So I give him mine and he asks about my hair. After that I had to sit and wait for all these people to finish thier food before we can leave. This cafeteria is what you would call it I guess. Then the march back through the three locked doors and hallway.
It was free time after that. There was a common area where there was a tv and table with a couple of books with no covers on them and a three day old newspaper. I took the newspaper just so I could do the crossword puzzle. I had to ask they people at the desk for a pencil and they gave me a inch and a half nub of a dull pencil. I could barely hold it. Then I realized I couldn't really concentrate enough to do the crossword. There was a guy my age next to me, he looked normal to me but he had one of the books, I can't even remember what book it was I want to say some ****ing romance novel, but anyway he's reading it upside down. Turning pages and everything. I don't know maybe he had some special talent that he could read upside down. He seemed to be enjoying it. And then there's another guy that would just walk up and down the halls laughing, a real weird slow loud kinda breathy laugh. It didn't sound funny and there sure the hell wasn't anything funny going on. That went on for a couple of hours it seemed like, then we were able to get some outside time.
Another maze of locked doors and hallways past the wierd shower room and finally some sunshine. It was a big courtyard surronded on one side by the building I was in and two sides were the backs of houses. I guess they were halfway houses or something there weren't any fences or yards you could just walk right up to them, and they all had back doors going to the courtyard. So I would venture to say they weren't somebodys regular house it had to do something with this institution. The fourth side was a huge chainlink fence that was probably twenty feet high with razor wire on the top. Through the fence it was an alley and there were some bums back there drinking and bull****ting. One of the guys that came out with us went to the fence and tried to start talking to them but the lady that took us out there stopped that real quick. There was a basketball hoop there and a big box full of half flat balls in there. I start shooting around in my socks mind you because they wouldn't give me my shoes with the laces in them. They were supposed to give me slippers even though I had brought my own flip flops but they never got around to giving me anything. So I'm running around chasing basketballs on this court in my socks. At first I was the only one shooting around, me and the lady that brought us out there. She could actually shoot pretty good and was the only one that worked there that actually spoke to me like a human being. After while the laughing guy got up and started playing too then a couple of other guys and we were out there for like a half hour or so then it was back to the building.
We got back in and maybe a half hour after we get back in they finally come get me to talk to the doctor. I get into his private office and we talk for all of fifeteen minutes or so and he says I don't belong here and discharges me. And I'm finally like I'm outta here but that didn't happen for another three hours or so. Paperwork and all that I guess. Walking out of that place I had a different outlook on life after that. No matter how bad I think I am, I am not as bad as those mothers that were in there. I felt sorry for some of them but I really think that is where some of them belonged. But they didn’t need to be treated the way the staff acted towards them. Oh yeah, before I left they gave me this questionaire about the place, about my stay, well I gave them all a big thumbs down. They really had no respect for anybody in there and it seemed like not one of them cared about anything in there the shrink included. It was just a job to them and they wasn’t people in there they were just a product that was part of thier job. So **** all that staff. I wish they could be on the other side and see how they treat people. I think they'd have a different outlook on it after that. That should be part of the hiring process, you have to spend a night in there and get treated like that. Then when they start working there maybe they wouldn't be so arrogant and condecending. I know I wouldn't be but I wouldn't have been that way in the first place. I mean I was in there and I wasn't crazy but I didn't treat anybody in there like they were a lesser person because they were. It just didn't seem like a place for people to get better, it seemed more like a holding pen, a place they can hold them untill they can ship them off somewhere else, or let them free. They need to realize they aren't perfect either and no one is so quit acting like it.
" Sociability is nothing but a big smile. And a big smile is nothing but teeth" Jack Kerouac
I didn't sleep the night I was in there at all. I couldn't. I didn't trust anything about it. I liked the crazies better than the staff. They didn't treat anybody right and since I was just another one of them in there I was treated the same. I had a huge, I mean monstrous black guy for my roomie. He reminded me of John Coffey from the Green Mile. He wouldn't stop yelling either. Some **** about his mom and brother. He never spoke a word to me, just talked or screamed to himself. He didn't seem to be able to piss in the toilet, it was everywhere in the bathroom except there. And he snored like a mother ****er when he finally did sleep. But I liked it because I knew he was asleep and wasn't going to come after me. I still wouldn't sleep. No I read a Spin magazine over and over in pretty much the dark. The door to the room couldn't be closed all the way so the staff could look in at you.Since the door was cracked open, there was light coming in from the
hallway. A little spear of light that I could use to see with. That’s how the night went.
In the morning I got to take a shower. It was just this big open room with a shower head poking out of one of the walls. No towel bar, no sink, no nothing, a chair where I could put my towel and clothes on, and the only reason I think that it was in there was so they could monitor some of the other people when they were in there. It just seemed so odd in that room, naked except for a shower head and a chair. Then we were able to have breakfast. They parade you down some hallway and they have to unlock three different doors to get into it. The staff serving the food wasn't any nicer or anything just treating everybody like they were nobody, nothing. The food was disgusting. How can you possibly make oatmeal bad. I can't even explain the eggs, they didn't seem to be real eggs but where do you get fake eggs. What the **** are they. I guess the pancakes weren't so bad but I don't like pancakes so that was just great. I sat at a table all by myself while all these people sat crowded on three tables when there was plenty of them in there to sit at. I ended up giving my food to John Coffey and that was the only time he spoke to me. He asked me how long it took to grow my dreads. Nothing to do with giving him food. Earlier he was asking the kitchen staff for more but they wouldn't give it to him. So I give him mine and he asks about my hair. After that I had to sit and wait for all these people to finish thier food before we can leave. This cafeteria is what you would call it I guess. Then the march back through the three locked doors and hallway.
It was free time after that. There was a common area where there was a tv and table with a couple of books with no covers on them and a three day old newspaper. I took the newspaper just so I could do the crossword puzzle. I had to ask they people at the desk for a pencil and they gave me a inch and a half nub of a dull pencil. I could barely hold it. Then I realized I couldn't really concentrate enough to do the crossword. There was a guy my age next to me, he looked normal to me but he had one of the books, I can't even remember what book it was I want to say some ****ing romance novel, but anyway he's reading it upside down. Turning pages and everything. I don't know maybe he had some special talent that he could read upside down. He seemed to be enjoying it. And then there's another guy that would just walk up and down the halls laughing, a real weird slow loud kinda breathy laugh. It didn't sound funny and there sure the hell wasn't anything funny going on. That went on for a couple of hours it seemed like, then we were able to get some outside time.
Another maze of locked doors and hallways past the wierd shower room and finally some sunshine. It was a big courtyard surronded on one side by the building I was in and two sides were the backs of houses. I guess they were halfway houses or something there weren't any fences or yards you could just walk right up to them, and they all had back doors going to the courtyard. So I would venture to say they weren't somebodys regular house it had to do something with this institution. The fourth side was a huge chainlink fence that was probably twenty feet high with razor wire on the top. Through the fence it was an alley and there were some bums back there drinking and bull****ting. One of the guys that came out with us went to the fence and tried to start talking to them but the lady that took us out there stopped that real quick. There was a basketball hoop there and a big box full of half flat balls in there. I start shooting around in my socks mind you because they wouldn't give me my shoes with the laces in them. They were supposed to give me slippers even though I had brought my own flip flops but they never got around to giving me anything. So I'm running around chasing basketballs on this court in my socks. At first I was the only one shooting around, me and the lady that brought us out there. She could actually shoot pretty good and was the only one that worked there that actually spoke to me like a human being. After while the laughing guy got up and started playing too then a couple of other guys and we were out there for like a half hour or so then it was back to the building.
We got back in and maybe a half hour after we get back in they finally come get me to talk to the doctor. I get into his private office and we talk for all of fifeteen minutes or so and he says I don't belong here and discharges me. And I'm finally like I'm outta here but that didn't happen for another three hours or so. Paperwork and all that I guess. Walking out of that place I had a different outlook on life after that. No matter how bad I think I am, I am not as bad as those mothers that were in there. I felt sorry for some of them but I really think that is where some of them belonged. But they didn’t need to be treated the way the staff acted towards them. Oh yeah, before I left they gave me this questionaire about the place, about my stay, well I gave them all a big thumbs down. They really had no respect for anybody in there and it seemed like not one of them cared about anything in there the shrink included. It was just a job to them and they wasn’t people in there they were just a product that was part of thier job. So **** all that staff. I wish they could be on the other side and see how they treat people. I think they'd have a different outlook on it after that. That should be part of the hiring process, you have to spend a night in there and get treated like that. Then when they start working there maybe they wouldn't be so arrogant and condecending. I know I wouldn't be but I wouldn't have been that way in the first place. I mean I was in there and I wasn't crazy but I didn't treat anybody in there like they were a lesser person because they were. It just didn't seem like a place for people to get better, it seemed more like a holding pen, a place they can hold them untill they can ship them off somewhere else, or let them free. They need to realize they aren't perfect either and no one is so quit acting like it.
" Sociability is nothing but a big smile. And a big smile is nothing but teeth" Jack Kerouac