Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness (2 page)

The nurse doesn't notice. “Did you get that down?”

“Yep.”

“It's lunch.”

“Yeah, I'm coming.”

When I get to the dining room there's a long queue and I stand in the doorway. The room isn't large; all the patients can't eat at one time. The tables are peach-colored pink and the mural on the back wall is predominantly yellow with zoo animals drawn on it. It looks like the hospital's children's ward. Perhaps our minds, tainted with illness, are only fit for cartoons that appeal to children.

I always hate the queue for food. It puts me in a state of heightened self-awareness: I may be the greedy one who just wants to grab all the food and run. I get to the front and take my tray. There're always two loaves of bread on the left of the counter. I stand and wait for my head to be led by the voice, left or right. It says, “Go to the right.” I say, “How many?” under my breath. The voice says, “Five.”

I decide against sitting in the dining room. There is no one I feel comfortable sitting with—years of being unwell have killed my confidence with people. I can talk politely and make conversation but when it comes to friendship I tend to back away. When I'm unwell I don't trust people easily, and when I'm well I don't want to develop close connections in case they develop into an obsession later on. I don't want to rely on one person too much in case they become so important my life depends on them.

I retire to the women's lounge, where only women can watch TV. It's cleaner in this lounge. Oprah Winfrey is on. Over the years I have had countless afternoons in front of Oprah; she's good company. I sit alone on the couch with my lunch. I skip the butter as I've decided to go vegan and don't want any extra additives in my food.

I look up at the TV, bolted into a cabinet high on the wall. I have to crane my neck to watch it. I can't hear it very clearly, and I can't see the remote to change the volume, and there's glass in front of the screen so I can't do it with my finger. I decide not to focus on it and mostly stare out the window at the sun. Occasionally I glance at the TV when I hear the murmur of the audience clapping, then I look out of the room, past the window to a distant hill far away. At least you get some sort of a view here; it beats the other lounge, which has no windows.

I pull in the table, put my tray on it, spread some potato on my bread, and eat without stopping until the food's gone. Medication makes you hungry. It also has really bad side effects. When you get admitted into a psych ward you're generally given Olanzapine, which is an antipsychotic. It's believed to be super-effective in bringing you down, out of mania. Sound good? The problem is that it constipates you terribly and makes you retain fluid. I gain weight instantly. In days I become unrecognisable. It also makes me tired. I drag my weight around, and my brain and thoughts feel clogged and cloudy. My motor functions are working below par and I can't do much but sit and smoke, or sit and sip coffee, waiting for the food.

I resent the system for making it compulsory to receive this kind of treatment. This makes me not want to work with doctors and nurses and family members, which is a problem because these are the people I am reliant on for help.

When it becomes known what is wrong with me I can be prescribed medication that is specific to my needs and illness, but it is hard to understand this when I am unwell. And it can take time to receive the right treatment, particularly when, as now, I was on other drugs when I came in. Naturally, I want to reject the ward's medications and find drugs that are illicit, not part of a hardline system that forces me to regularly imbibe high doses of strong medication.

 

I go into the smoking room; one of few perks of being stuck in here is that you get an indoor smoking room. Lester the radio DJ, nice guy, says, “Darling, how are you?” He speaks slowly with a slight drawl. “I love your colours today.”

He may be referring to my blue hat, red scarf, blue baggy Nike basketball singlet, and shiny white oversized men's basketball shorts. His compliment reassures me that he gets my outfit and I am not dressed like some fourteen-year-old wannabe gangster. I feel I need to justify my purchases so I say, “I got my blue hat at Coin Save and the rest from a Rebel Sport sale. They didn't have orange shorts so I had to get white. I can buy you a hat if you like, next time I'm down at the shops, no problem,” I add.

“Darling, any time you want some of my clothes, come see me.”

Lester is wearing a baby-pink, skintight T-shirt and baby-blue rugby league shorts. Judging by how in-shape he is I think he is in his late thirties. You don't ask people their age in here: it's not rehab or a pick-up joint, although pick-ups do happen. You get asked into the toilet. Doesn't matter who you are, when you're unwell anything goes.

Living in the ward you learn not to be shocked, so when Lester takes out his headphones and starts projecting his voice loudly into them as if they were a microphone I jump up and start rapidly gesturing with my arms, as if performing martial arts on speed.

I haven't yet been informed of my diagnosis and am in a state of denial. I feel sensations, as though something were touching my ankle or thigh or arms. Sometimes I feel something massaging my head. I also feel as though my body is being propelled forward, and I have sensations in my fingers and under my feet. I refuse to think these things come about because I'm sick. I believe I have special powers.

For all that is said about people thinking they are Jesus or the true Messiah, when you have a mental illness you can't fathom it's an illness in your head, not God giving you special powers. As well as voices, you get movements and sensations in your body that convince you that you are a special being, sent to Earth on a mission. Because what you believe is so unbelievable you start covering it up. For years I have denied to the doctors that I can hear voices and I am certainly not about to tell them I can feel things.

I have trails of dialogue running through my head so I'm not really following Lester, but I hear him yelling into his headphones, “You're all bastards. Why don't you come over here? You couldn't handle it in here.” Although he is speaking to no one in particular, I have to say I agree with him: psych wards, particularly public ones, aren't for the faint-hearted.

While all this is going on, I'm faux-rapping all the dialogue going through my head, putting on voices. Lester tells me to get down so I do. I climb into the bookshelf, which has no books. Lester leans in and says to me very quickly, and in a way that indicates what he is about to say is very important, “So, do you have any speed?” This sounds like an archaic term, something said twenty years ago—everyone these days does meth.

“No,” I say.

Lester is obviously quite keen. He says, “We should get some oil.”

I'm starting to feel all my Christmases have come at once with the possibility of cannabis oil.

“They have my eftpos card in the safe,” I say.

I think back to my tiny cold damp room with broken floorboards in my old flat, where I had sworn I would be happy on a sickness benefit, having minimal contact with people except the drug dealer, and staying in my room forever. All I needed were drugs, paper and Vivids, and a guitar. I didn't need ambition or a direction, despite what the world said. Nothing wrong with being a nobody, going nowhere, literally seeing the world through a distorted lens. Yet everything you think seems to make sense to you. I was just going to play music and fill my room with my pictures and look at them all day, and the person who found me when I eventually died (I wasn't going to live long) could do what they liked with them.

“Who needs to go anywhere, be somebody or do anything?” I murmur.

“What?” I think he's deaf too.

“Oh, nothing.”

I don't feel comfortable talking about my intimate thoughts so I just say, “I'm not that ambitious.”

I don't feel I need to fulfill my life with an outstanding career or a successful marriage. I'm quite happy to go beneath the radar and escape. When I'm on a high, my mood is elevated and nothing is a problem. It's when I am low that the chaos happens. Of course it would help if someone could explain to me why I get so low. It's because of this that illicit drugs are a necessity. Who wants to stay low?

2

 

Lester and I are still trying to track down some drugs.

“Do you have your phone?”

“No, it's in the nurses' station,” he says.

“Okay,” I say, getting excited, feeling almost greedy or hungry. I swear my head has just cleared. “Let's get the phone.”

Lester goes to the nurses' station. “They're bringing it out, babe.”

We sit for ten minutes, two cigarettes smoked, one coffee drunk.

“I'll go ask again.” He comes back. “They're bringing it out in a minute.”

Twenty minutes, three cigarettes, a cup of tea.

“Okay, I'll ask again.”

I decide to use the bathroom. I go in. There's blood on the seat and urine in the bin. I opt for the men's bathroom, which is through the double doors in the men's wing. I use the cubicle, in and out, sleeve on the handle to avoid germs. I might not be wholly right but I do have some sense of hygiene. I am scared of the bright white soap bars but don't mind the pink soap in pumps against the wall, even though it's really drying.

I decide to kill some time, which is what it's all about in here. That's when you're low. When you're on a high you're busy writing manifestos and singing about revolution to change the world because you have forged the belief that you are a supreme being.

With revolution on my mind I stride confidently into the smokers' room to check how Lester's doing. He's having a fight with Lance the flasher. Lance walks around with his fly down and likes to occasionally pull out his penis. I have taken a liking to repeatedly whispering “Kiddy fucker” whenever he's around.

Lester throws Lance towards the wall with a great push. This scares him off and he walks to the next room to see who else he can impress. You'd be surprised what people get confronted with in here and it doesn't even raise their eyebrows. I say very unequivocally, “Kiddy fucker,” as Lance exits. That's my five cents.

Just as I'm about to ask for my phone, the nurse brings in Lester's peach-pink ceramic one. We compose a text message, which takes a little time, and send it. “He won't take long to respond. He's a good friend,” Lance says. It reminds me of the times I used to sit in a friend's place waiting to score, while his connection would have to come, get the money, go away, get the drug and come back again, and then you would have to cook it. Drugs really are a waiting game.

My adrenaline is high, but still a caffeine hit wouldn't go astray, so I go make Lester a tea and me a coffee. When I get back he says, “Sorted it babe, we're in. They're going to come in as visitors and bring it. We need money.” In my current state I haven't really thought through the whole concept of using drugs, but then again when have I ever really thought things through carefully? I have been saving benefit money for the three months I've been in here. I start speaking without thinking. “I've got money; you can give me half later. I'll just say I need to go to Macca's and I will use the ATM then.”

Lester looks relieved. “Sounds good. Perfect, sweetie.”

“I will need that cash back off you,” I say. I might need a bond for a place to live when I finally get out of here. That's what I'm saving for; it can
't all go on drugs.

“Can I go out dressed like this?”

“You need a jacket.”

“Okay,” I say. “I will go see if Rachel will take me.”

Rachel is an occupational therapist who works with day patients in a separate wing, but she's often over in my part of the ward with Jo, a patient who suffers quite severe schizophrenia, and she sometimes takes me out with Jo.

I search for Rachel and know I've found her when I see, through the doorway of the lounge, the three stripes down the arm of her black Adidas jacket. She is watching
The Tyra Banks Show
with Jo.

“Hey, you guys up for a walk? Nearly lunch, I feel like Macca's, what you reckon?”

Rachel looks at Jo. Jo is quite shy. I make a joke to try and make her laugh so she is not scared of me. She hears some pretty nasty voices and often needs a lot of reassurance that her sister isn't trying to kill her.

Jo smiles at Rachel. Rachel says, “Okay, give me twenty minutes.”

I go to my room and decide to clean it. It's good to de-clutter your room before taking drugs. Even though it's just cannabis oil, I can get forgetful when in an altered state and spend my time looking for things because they are in hard-to-find places.

I look at my collection of Coke cans, take them off the shelf, and then put them back. I decide I quite like them. I gather up my ironed-out Fruit Burst wrappers, which I use as pictures on my shelf. I replace my banana and my orange; they have had enough time together and it would be best if they spent some time apart.

I decide I might be spending a bit of time on the floor so I move the pictures and get another sheet. I stick some more pictures on the wall opposite my bed and do a quick check for used polystyrene cups. I spot one on my windowsill and remove it.

In case I start getting forgetful and unfocussed when I have the oil, I start planning what I might do, but I have an inability to concentrate hard on things so I don't hold the thought for very long before deciding to go check on Lester and see what he's up to. I look at the clock. Sweet, it's 11.50.

I go and make a coffee and look for Lester but he's not there. I start getting panicky. I obsess for two minutes, then on impulse go and check his room. He's not there. I check the nurses' station. They say he's probably in the bathroom. I panic. Maybe he has backed out or is leaving.