Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness (25 page)

Six o'clock comes around soon enough. I get myself another coffee from the service station, take it down to the water and watch the sun rise. I dip my head in the sea to feel the cold water. I check what time the ferry terminal will open. I can't find any information so I figure it will be about nine o'clock. I go to the Subway near the ferry terminal. Behind it there are some train tracks, so I guess trains leave from around here too. I get a Subway seafood sandwich, which I think will be good for my brain, and a Coke and hang out the back on the seats by the train tracks.

When the ferry terminal opens, I buy a ticket for Wellington. The ship will leave at ten. I hang around the terminal waiting for boarding to start. People are milling about everywhere. Most of them look like tourists. I don't talk to anyone or make eye contact. I'm paranoid that a police officer may come in and ask me my name; this has happened when I've been in Picton before. Half of me wants to lie down on the ground and sleep, but I figure I just need to make it back to Wellington and I'll be fine.

An announcement on the loudspeaker says the ship is boarding. I search through my pockets and finally find my ticket. I get on board and say my goodbyes to Picton. I find some chairs I can lie across and fall asleep straight away.

Two hours later I wake up to find some tourists chatting on the chairs beside me. Half asleep I lumber out on deck for a smoke. This wakes me up a bit but I feel I can still use some sleep. I cruise past the food place but I don't want to spend money on food as I'm trying to save. I head down to the bar where there is a band playing. There are leather seats by the window so I sit down, lean my head into the corner of the wall and fall asleep again.

15

 

When I wake up, people are leaving the ship. The weather in Wellington is sunny and warm. I want to take off my hoodie but I have no bag so I just stay hot. I realise it won't be good to walk around in case I'm seen, so I get a cab back into the city. Along the way I watch the cars, looking out for the white Skyline.

The voice has told me to go to the house of Brian, an older guy I dated several years ago who happens to be a lawyer. I don't feel particularly good about doing this as Brian was not particularly nice to me, but the voice says it means I will have somewhere to stay. I also figure that being a lawyer Brian may be able to tell me what my legal rights are with regard to being institutionalised.

I get a taxi to the top of Willis Street and get out at Brian's place. I walk up to the door and I sit in the waiting room he has because he works from home. Things have changed since I was here. There's a rug on the floor as you walk in the door and four chairs placed in a square. The voice talks to me and says Brian is part of my gang and I can trust him.

A woman comes down the stairs, not someone I recognise, and asks me what I'm here for. I say in a soft voice, “To see Brian.” She says he isn't busy so I follow her up the stairs. I look at the paintings and see they are still in their original places.

I get to the top of the stairs and walk into Brian's office. He is dressed in a black shirt and black pants, which I see as a good sign. I tell him I have run away from Ashburn Clinic, have been on the run for a few days, and need a rest. He is standing looking at a document and doesn't look up. I take this to mean the voice is telling him what to do.

He says, “You can sleep here 'til five. My daughter is using that room so you can't stay overnight. I will ring your lawyer from the ward and get back to you.”

He continues reading the documents and I leave the room and go and lie down. There are clothes and tissues everywhere. I tidy the clothes and put the tissues in a bin. I talk to the voice and he says that I can't stay here tonight. I get into bed and rest. I look at my phone and it's after two in the afternoon.

I fall asleep and wake up at five, when the woman who led me up to Brian's office says it's time to get up. I go down and sit in the dining room, hardly able to speak. The woman offers to make me a sandwich and I whisper, “Thank you.” I eat the sandwich. Brian tells me he's going to a meeting and will be back at six.

With everyone having left, I wait on the doorstep. I sit and talk to the voice and look around the garden. It's a rather large garden for somewhere so close to the city. I remember sitting in it in the daytime when I used to live here, just as messed up then as I am now.

When Brian comes back we go inside and into his big commercial kitchen. As he starts making dinner he says, “You were more attractive with blonde hair and what's with the tracksuit?”

Dinner is fish cakes and roast vegetables. Brian asks about my “fucking parents” and I say I haven't seen them. I look at my plate and don't feel like eating so I put it on the table and watch him shovel food into his mouth.

He says I need a rich man to take care of me—information that passes right through my head. “So you need a place to stay tonight?” he says. “Well, we will go down the road and find you a hotel. And you don't need to worry about the police. They can't chuck you back in the bin.”

“Oh cool, thank you.”

I can still hardly speak but I'm happy at the news. We leave his place and walk down Willis Street to a hotel. He writes out a cheque and gives it to the receptionist. We go up to the room, which has a decent-sized bed, a TV and an ensuite bathroom. He tells me to take off my clothes. I don't feel comfortable but I figure the voice has put him up to it so I take off my clothes. Brian is sitting on the chair. He says, “Not bad.” I quickly put my clothes back on and he leaves. As he walks out I think to myself, fucking bastard. I realise I was very naïve. If I were well I would never have let myself be treated like that, or gone to a person like Brian for help.

After he's left I get worried that he may come back in. I go into the bathroom and stand in the shower. I decide to shower facing out to the door so I can see if someone enters. I shower and wash my hair. When I get out I stand and look at my body in the mirror. The voice says, “You have a beautiful body; don't listen to him.”

I lie on the bed and look at the TV, then I look out the window and see a car in the car-parking building straight across the road. The voice tells me to get out of the room because there is a gunman in the car. I get changed quickly and go down to the lobby. I quickly walk down Willis Street and decide to go to McDonalds in Manners Mall because I figure it will be safe. All I want to do is sleep but I'm not safe. I walk down to the waterfront and try and enjoy the scenery but I find it hard when I feel like this—on the run.

The voice says, “It will be safe to go back at four.” I look at my phone and it says 12.14 so I wander around the city for hours and hours. I buy some herbal pills to keep me awake but they don't do anything. I try to get into bars but the doormen won't let me in. My tracksuit is the problem: it is starting to go greenish-grey from its original black colour.

The voice tells me that I swallowed poison when I had the pills and I need to drink Coke to neutralise it. I go to Star Mart and get a Coke and sit on a stool in the window. People are going in and out of bars, and coming into the shop singing and buying mince pies. I sit and resent them. They are not in the real world and can't see what's going on. I think how unjust society is that they can walk around like that, but if I were to do it it would be a different story.

I head up the road to Midnight Espresso and have a coffee. They're giving away leftover food. I get a tofu burger and put it in a bag. I look at the clock on my phone. It's four o'clock so I head back to the hotel. I hesitantly enter my room and lie on the bed. The car's still there, but the voice says I'm safe so I fall asleep.

 

The room phone is ringing. I pick it up and a voice says, “Checkout time is 10.30.” I have another shower, boil the jug and make myself a drink with a sachet of instant coffee. I eat the tofu burger, which I cut in half because it's so big.

The voice tells me that I know how the world is going to end and I need to get somewhere safe so I can write about it. He says there is no one I know who can help me and that I have to save money and leave the country.

I look in the mirror. My clothes are starting to wear out. My anxiety and paranoia are growing from lack of sleep and lack of meds. I gather myself together and go to a café in Aro Street. I sit and listen to the music in the café and drink beer. There are not many people in the café and the staff seem friendly. I feel myself relaxing and getting happy. I study the weather forecast in the newspaper. When I look at the picture of New Zealand the voice says, “You leave from Auckland and go to America, and you go to Washington and try to meet the president of the United States.”

 

For the next week I spend my time, day and night, walking the streets, existing on bread rolls from the supermarket and large cans of beer. I wander around the inner city and the back streets of Mount Victoria in bare feet and ragged clothes, thinking I'm going to receive some reward at the end of it, or meet somebody who is going to help me.

At night the voice tells me I am working for a gang that sells drugs and the police are after me. It gives me very detailed accounts of abuse I've received, leaving me with disturbing images going through my head.

Finally, on about the tenth day, it tells me I am going to meet the person who is going to help me fly away from this place in an apocalyptic world to a safe place where I will be looked after. In bare feet, with glass and stones on the ground around me, and at my wits' end, I stand facing the Mount Victoria Tunnel and say to the voice, “I want to die.” Frustrated that I don't have any instruments to use, I start screaming at the voice—pleading at my hands, where I feel sensations—saying, “Fuck off, I can't take it any more, this is the end.”

There's a bottle store nearby. I decide if I'm going to die, I'm going to die drunk. I walk in and have a look around. Suddenly I start crying. I see a storage cupboard with an open door. I walk into the cupboard, get on my knees, and start crying and weeping and squealing. Then, as if I have nothing left in me, I curl up in a ball.

Someone comes in and leads me out of the cupboard. I go to a table that has bottles on it and crawl under it and start crying again, my knees hunched into my face. I cry and cry until eventually I fall asleep with my head on my knees bent right up to my chest.

After a week of no sleep and constant chatter from the voice, I am no longer fully aware of what's around me. I have no more fight left; I am completely lonely and living in my psychosis. I need a break.

I drift in and out of consciousness. A person crouches down beside me and says, “Are you all right?” I say, “Please go away.” I look up and see two police officers. They smile at me and I go with them. We get in the police car and they drive me to Central Police Station. As we drive I tell them all the problems with the government, the media and society in general. I don't stop talking until we get to the station. When we arrive I ask for a cigarette and surprisingly they say yes. They don't take me down to the usual cells. Instead, when we get in the lift we go up to an interview room that has carpet and tables and a chair—not the usual concrete cell that's tiny with a mattress and a sink. I don't say anything. I just stare at the ground. I can't believe I have wound up back at the police station again after everything the voice said.

I sit in the room and entertain myself by looking at the pattern on the carpet. While I'm in the middle of this, a police officer comes and gets me, and takes me back down in the lift to a car. I figure we are going back to the ward but I don't say anything. We pull into the hospital car park and the policeman leads me in through the front door, then the double doors, and then to the nurses' station. The nurses smile at me. I don't smile back. I give everything I have to Rachel. She shows me my room, just opposite the nurses' station. I go outside and sit on a chair and stare at the rubbish. People talk to me but I don't respond.

Epilogue

 

The events described in this book happened three years ago. A month after returning to the ward I was given leave to visit my parents. We got on well and my mother asked me if I wanted to come home. By then I was in a radically different state from when the police had picked me up. I had responded to medication and a period of abstinence from drugs. At home, over time, the idea of the voice being real came to seem stranger and stranger, until one day the voice had become so faint I could ignore it. And then, suddenly, it was gone.

Although I knew I was still not completely well, I didn't acknowledge that I had a mental illness. I went back to using drugs and ended up in the ward several more times. Finally I was left with no choice but to accept an ultimatum and enter Capri, a rehab facility treating alcohol and drug addiction. While I didn't believe I had schizoaffective disorder, I did accept I had a problem with drugs.

I left Capri after a few months, well and on medication. For a year I stayed clean of drugs. I rented my own flat, held down a job as a checkout operator, and attended regular meetings of Narcotics Anonymous. Capri had said in its report they felt my psychosis was drug-induced. This made me think that if I abstained from drugs I wouldn't need to keep taking my meds. When I took myself off Haloperidol, the antipsychotic, I didn't notice too much difference, but when I went off Lamotrigine, the mood stabiliser, I felt some of the old sensations coming back. One day, standing at the checkout counter at work, I noticed my body involuntarily moving forwards, and movements in my jaw. The old feeling was coming back.

For about four months I ignored these symptoms. I stopped sleeping and started meditating. I was about a week away from moving to Melbourne to live when my psychosis suddenly returned. I began to get paranoid about the police turning up at my place and taking me away. My anxiety increased to the point where I was barely eating.