Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness (10 page)

 

I wake at six. It's as though my body is programmed to need nicotine at that time so I trundle out to the smokers' room. Lester is watching Virginia walk around the yard. Nola is getting a cup of coffee and lecturing Mark on waste. I doubt he is listening though. He has four cups in each hand. I say, “Morning” to Lester. I sit down and watch Virginia walking around in her red cloak, buttoned at the neck, looking like a cardinal.

“Do you think she makes these speeches in her sleep?” I say to Lester.

“If she could relax long enough to lie down, I'm sure she'd be having a good old rant,” he says.

“Did you hear Nola ranting last night?” I ask him in a hushed tone. “She was going nuts at Carly. Carly tried to take the toilet paper out of her doorway and she screamed, ‘You dirty fucken bitch' at her. I mean, I'm deaf and it woke me. Then she started howling.”

Lester looks at me and says, “Babe, I don't think we should talk to her. It might be contagious.”

I know what he means. In this environment you absorb your surroundings; when you are around mentally unwell people it can be hard to gauge normal behaviour from abnormal.

You are never going to be completely settled in a psych ward because there is always somebody unsettled; if you can't see it or hear it, you can feel it.

I make coffee and go back to my room. I sit and read the Koran but as usual I fall asleep. I get woken at eight by Waris, who says that I now don't have any meds in the morning because they are all given to me at night.

“How did you sleep on the Zopiclone?”

I pause to think. “Ah, yeah, good, good.”

I go and eat my breakfast in the lounge. I look around for Fiona to see if she made it through the night. She walks in as I walk out. “Where you going?” she says, looking disappointed.

“TV room,” I say. “Can't stand watching Anton feed the birds.”

“Urgh, I hate those birds. Wait for me, I'll just get my breakfast.”

I sit and wait and look at the cartoons on the TV. They make me feel kind of depressed, reminding me I'm in here. It's the only place I would ever watch cartoons at eight in the morning. I start thinking about how I'm regressing in life, getting older, going nowhere.

Rachel comes in. “Van ride. Do you want to go on the van ride today, get a coffee?” Any mention of coffee and I'm there. “Sure, sign me up.”

Fiona comes in and sits down. “Oh God, those birds, how gross. Think I'll be eating my breakfasts in here,” she says, putting cornflakes into a bowl. I tip my coffee on to my oats. Fiona looks shocked. “I've have never seen anyone do that before.” I feel a bit embarrassed. “Yeah, well I'm vegan. I don't drink milk and I like trying different things.”

“I think it's cool you're different,” Fiona says, adding sugar to her cornflakes.

To try and divert attention I say, “How did you sleep?” Fiona takes a mouthful and does what she usually does, tries to cover her mouth while talking. “I slept really bad. I was freezing: there were no warm blankets.”

“Yeah, I know,” I agree. “I just sleep in my clothes, sweater and all. You should try being here in winter— it's freezing.”

Fiona finishes her mouthful and starts spreading butter on her toast.

“So you've been in here before?”

“Yeah, like six or seven times. Plus I've been to one down south, even worse than this. They're Nazis down there, check your mouth after you have taken your meds.”

“Oh, that sounds horrible.”

“My track record is getting worse. I'm trying to stretch it out to a year before I get back in but it's rather difficult. Once you have been in a couple of times, seems like you keeping coming back. They reckon I need to stay off drugs but I don't want to. I'm resigned to the fact I'm going to use drugs 'til the day I die. Not their drugs, of course.”

“So what kind of drugs do you take?”

“I started on cigarettes when I was five, moved to pot and alcohol in my early teens, got into E and speed at university, then meth, which sent me over the edge a bit. Now I use morphine—heroin. I don't think there's anything wrong with it just because it's not accepted into mainstream society.”

Fiona looks at me. “You're a bit of a rebel. Maybe you should think about giving the stuff up. Maybe it's why you end up in here.”

I look at her and then put my tray on the ground. “It's hard. Everyone I know does it and I've been using drugs all my life. It's the pharmaceutical companies that are the enemy. It would be nice to have a period of no drugs of any kind and just have water and vegan food.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean about the pharmaceutical drugs. They tend to make you feel like not doing much.”

I take the trays back out, grab a couple of cups, and put a tea bag in one and some coffee in the other. I fill them at the zip and Fiona and I go and sit at the table at the end of the yard by the tree. I look around for Lester but I can't see him. Nga is sitting on a seat outside the smokers' room with Lloyd, the Destiny Church extremist who recites passages from the Bible all day. I met him when I was in ICU and just about asked for my door to be locked at night because he was saying I should have sex with him to cleanse my spirit. Can't say I wanted a religious extremist in my room, let alone my bed. He's obviously trying to get into Nga.

I roll a cigarette and Fiona offers me one of hers. I look at the pack and see they are Rothmans, which means they are strong, so I say, “Yes, it'll feel like I'm smoking a cigar.”

Fiona laughs. “It's because it's a real cigarette.”

I look and smile and say, “So, we hair-dyeing today?”

“Absolutely. We'll do it before lunch, around eleven.”

“Okay, cool,” I say. “I'll have a shower and sing a song before then.”

Fiona stubs out her cigarette. “I heard you singing last night. It sounded cool. Do you write your own songs?”

I feel shy talking about my music because I don't consider myself a musician. “Yes, I write my own songs,” I say awkwardly.

Fiona looks interested. “What kind of songs do you write?”

I hate being asked this question so I simply say, “Injustice and songs of ideal love.”

She lights another cigarette. “Wow. How I wish I could write songs. I'm not poetic at all.”

“I don't consider myself poetic, but I have to channel my rage somehow,” I say. “When I first got here I couldn't walk anywhere for a month after I escaped. There's only a small concrete square for a yard in ICU.”

“So you escaped out of here? That's impossible.”

“I jumped the fence in the smokers' area in the day hospital.”

“Where did you go?”

“I ran down to Kiwibank, withdrew five hundred dollars cash, and went to rent a car to drive to Auckland, but I couldn't pay the bond so I caught a ferry to Picton. Didn't sleep. Just walked around all night drinking water because I was starving and didn't want to spend money on food. Next morning I bought a bus ticket to Christchurch but while I was waiting to leave I got picked up by the police for looking Muslim. They did a check and saw I was under Section. I waited there for a bit 'til someone picked me up and drove me to Nelson, to a psych ward there. It was a horrible place, really small steel bars around a tiny outside area and the beds were like the ones you see in police cells. Even worse you couldn't smoke. You had to puff those fake cigarettes that have nicotine in them and scratch the back of your throat.”

I finish talking and light another cigarette.

“Wow, I can't believe you got out of here. What were you going to do if you made it to Christchurch?”

“I was going to change my name and get a passport and go to either Sydney or LA, somewhere with a warm climate so I could live on the street.”

She looks alarmed. “I don't think living on the street is a good idea.”

“Yeah, well it's cheap. I don't want to spend money on rent. All I need is my guitar and I'm fine.”

“Sounds exciting. You must be gutted. How did you end up back here?”

“I was in Nelson for only three hours and then I got escorted on to a plane back here. Waris picked me up at the airport; she was really pleased to see me. I ended up back in ICU for a month with no leave. Hate not being able to walk anywhere.”

Fiona looks intrigued. “What's ICU?”

“Intensive Care Unit, just over there.” I point to the fenced area with overgrown vines behind the acute ward, where we are. “Much smaller than here. Beds are attached to a raised wooden platform. It's for the extremely acute-risk patients.”

“I'm pleased I'm not in there.”

I start to feel tired so I say, “Shall I meet you in the smokers' room at eleven.”

“Sounds good.”

I take myself off to my room and lie down on my bed. The voice says, “You will get out of here but I want you to text me so I can help you.” Rose has come back again. I roll right on to my front and say, “God, turn the cameras off, 69120.”

 

One of the first signs of my mental illness was my preoccupation with thinking I was being monitored by cameras everywhere I went. I spent hours complaining to my parents about cameras. I didn't want to socialise with friends because I thought they had cameras in their homes watching me. I would even think there were cameras watching when I was in a bathroom. I thought that, because of the cameras, everyone was watching my behaviour.

I think I know the code to make someone turn off the cameras. After I've said it out loud I start to cry into my pillow. I hate feeling I'm under scrutiny and people can see me. I talk to the orange and say, “You are not my mother. Mothers love their children. You wouldn't have abandoned me to a far-off land, to an abusive family, and let me get AIDS and end up in here.”

I feel some blood trickling down my leg, my period. “I'm not a man, I am a woman.” I look at the blood and the voice says, “It's me. Rose has gone for a bit. That blood is not white blood, it's African blood, and it's not your period, it's blood from your AIDS. You need something to dry up the blood.”

I look at my blood and say, “It looks strange.” I go to the nurses' station and look for Waris. She's not around so I ask another nurse, Serena, for a pad. She goes and gets one for me, and I go to the bathroom. Then I go back to my room and lie down.

The voice speaks to me. “You will need to see a doctor.”

“And say what,” I say defensively, “that I'm a white African and I have AIDS, and by the way I'm a man and this ain't my period? I'll be in here for another year at the rate I'm going.”

I feel a sensation on my lips and my inner ear. “Just listen.” Rose's voice is back. “I want you to get your cell phone off Waris after lunch and text me. You need to see a doctor. You can't keep bleeding like this. It's a left-over cut from when you were raped.”

I'm getting a bit stressed out by all this rape talk, and sick of it because every time I get in here the voice prattles on about it.

“I'm going to ignore you and have a cigarette,” I say. “I'll ask to see a doctor later but I'm not saying anything.” I walk to the dining room. It's 10.15. The water's hot so I make a coffee, then I go to the smokers' room. I see Nga and Lloyd coming out of the bathroom. It grosses me out she's sixteen and pregnant and he's way over thirty. I feel like screaming abuse at him but I don't.

Feeling enraged, I go outside and sit on a seat at the top of the yard. Hemi's out there punching a pole. I don't say anything as I feel too shy, so I just smoke and lean down with my upper body bent over my thighs. I look at the concrete ground as I desperately don't want to look at Lloyd. None of my business I suppose.

Lester comes out and sits beside me. He kind of grunts. “What's wrong?” I say. It's unlike him to be unhappy.

“Oh babe, I got to lie down. I refused my meds and got angry so they gave me an injection.”

I stand up and say, “What! Check your rights! They can't do that—you have the right to be treated with respect.”

Lester looks at me and some dribble comes out of his mouth. I decide I don't want him to have the humiliation of being a zombie all day. “Come on, I'll take you to your room.” I loop Lester's arm around my neck and put my hand around his waist and lead him to his room. Waris sees me and says, “No MaryJane, you let him walk on his own.”

“Nah, I'm getting him into bed. You didn't need to give him an injection.”

“It wasn't me,” she says, looking a bit hurt. “It was another nurse and it was ordered by the doctor.”

“Everyone has the right to refuse medication.”

It had taken me a long time to realise this. Often in the past I had wanted to refuse medication but the nurses hadn't listened and injected me anyway. It can be one of the tough things about being in the ward, people giving you medication you desperately don't want.

Some nurses respect your desire not to have the meds—they will wait a day or so until the doctor comes and talks to you about it. Other nurses don't listen and take matters into their own hands. Perhaps they assume that, because you are mentally ill, you are so impaired you won't know whether you are receiving fair treatment or not.

The last time they gave me an injection was after I had refused medication and escaped. When I was returned to the ward I was in a state of extreme anxiety and lost all impulse control; I screamed at the nurses as they were forcing me down on the bed. I didn't get physically violent with them but I felt I was being controlled.

In the barren walls and rooms of this hospital the reality is that the people controlling you are not your friends and family. The psych ward is an institution controlled by government, just like a jail. Force can be used—it's one of the only places other than a prison where this is the case. But I had stolen nothing. I had killed no one. I had not even as much as harmed anyone. The treatment was a far cry from what's described in pamphlets on The Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Right.