Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness (3 page)

I start speaking to myself. “He better not have left.” I am almost squealing, hoping he is going to come through for me. Not only do I have a relationship with Lester in reality, I have one going on in my head. Day-to-day relationships for someone with a mental illness, especially someone who is drug-dependent, unstable and having cravings, can be quite chaotic.

I start praying furiously in the smokers' room. “Lord, let there be a way Lester isn't leaving.” Right then, as I'm staring out into the car park with tears in my eyes, I hear, “What you still doing here?”

“Oh, you're here!” I say. “Thought you might have left already. Everyone else does; thought you'd be next.”

“What's wrong?” He sounds a bit angry.

Just as I start replying Rachel comes out. “Shall we go? You'll need a jacket. It's raining.”

I look at Lester with questioning eyes. “Well, get out of here and bring me back some smokes.”

“Sure. Anything else?” I say obediently.

“No, sweetie, just those things.”

I go into my room to get a jacket. I have a brown check woollen, extra-large man's suit jacket made in Egypt. I decide to wear that over the grey shiny hoodie I bought at The Warehouse a few weeks ago, with my skull-patterned pyjama bottoms and my space boots, which are mid-calf chunky boots with no laces, and with zips at the side that I leave undone. I bought the boots two sizes too big, probably because at the time I had an inability to buy appropriate attire. I thought, fuck what the world says, why can't we walk around in our pyjamas? I top this off with my red hat and sunglasses.

Jo and Rachel are waiting at the nurses' station. I notice Jo's sky-blue beanie, which she is wearing over her newly shaved head. I say, “Nice beanie.”

On the way to McDonald's I get fifty dollars from the ATM and subtly put it in my chest pocket on the inside of my jacket. Knew that pocket would come in handy for something. At McDonald's, Jo gets an ice cream, I get a Filet-O-Fish, and Rachel gets a Big Mac Combo. We sit on the round seats facing the flat-screen television that is playing Juice TV.

I'm not feeling overly talkative as I'm focused on getting the cash back and the smokes to Lester. I am unaware of the rare gift of freedom of being out of the ward, and the freedom that walking normally makes me feel. I'm too busy focusing on what I'm doing in the next hour. I tell myself to relax and chill. The guy isn't coming until 3.30. Just eat your Filet-O-Fish and drink your Coke.

Jo says to me, “My sister.”

Trying to be friendly I say, “Yeah, she's nice.”

Jo looks at me, scowls and starts crying. I don't know what to do. When people cry it doesn't usually affect me.

Rachel puts her arm around Jo and says, “You all good, bud? Don't worry, we leave eh.”

Not the kind to leave her lunch half-eaten, Rachel puts what's left in the bag and says she'll eat it back at the ward.

She walks along the street talking to Jo. I feel as though they are leaving me out and I'm not even present, but I have felt that sense of awkwardness my whole life, always being the third or fifth wheel, the unnoticed one. I've never been one to join in—unless asked, and then I'm a willing participant. I had lots of friends when I was growing up, but even then I felt like a chimer-inner, as if people would exist in my presence without being aware that I was there. Maybe this is why I used to try and over-please people—it was a way of making myself feel included.

I say to my voice, “Clay devils.” The voice says, “They just going to concrete.”

I start speaking to God, asking where the cocaine-laced cigarettes are. He assures me they are mid left left, which means the middle of the main street on the mid left. He touches the left of my spine, just so I'm sure.

“Right, we'll stop at the dairy,” I tell Rachel and Jo. I walk inside and stare at the cigarettes. I'm not entirely sure if God wants me to buy cigarettes so I start walking around the shop. I check my chest pocket just to make sure my cash and eftpos card are there. I'm led to the blue and green Eclipse Mints and then a two-litre Coke Zero. When I'm at the counter, God touches the red of my left eye, which I construe to mean I should choose Holiday Red cigarettes, mid top left. These must be the cocaine ones. Then, for myself, I get Horizon Blue 30g tobacco, which I think must contain opiates. Still feeling alienated, I use my eftpos card and don't even bother being polite.

When I leave the shop, Rachel and Jo are sitting on a seat outside. I didn't buy them anything. Normally I would have. I seem to switch between overt kindness and internal nastiness, where I don't say anything but think really negative thoughts about people and the world. I'm probably getting on a low and into a morbid state; it really is one foot after the other.

 

When we arrive back at the ward, it's one o'clock. I have missed lunch, which I'm thankful for. As I walk through I hide my Coke, then I put it on the shelf in my room, proudly displayed with the Coke logo facing forward. I put my new cigarettes in the drawer and zip my cash into my hoodie. I get my T-shirt, a polyester Nike, and put it over my hoodie to hide the pockets, just in case someone suspects I have money on me and I get into a fight. In the ward you get a lot of staunchly religious ex-gang members who don't think twice about pulling a makeshift weapon on you and pushing you around. Little do they know I'm religious too and wouldn't back down, no matter who they are. Despite being a woman, I would stand up for myself.

For some reason I develop a hatred for some of the people who come in here, maybe because of the stories they tell, how they killed someone and that it was okay. Then they tell you they're a minister in a church and it's okay for them to kill people who have done bad things. Then later you find out that the minister is a paedophile.

I generally pick fights with those kinds of people, can't help it. I will generally scream at them 'til I'm black and blue. Luckily when you look insane and you're a white skinny blonde no one takes too much notice of you. Sometimes they yell back at you, but most people find it entertaining. I don't want to be in a gang or be at war, it's just that I see myself taking on the world for God: that is my purpose.

In the early days when I was getting institutionalised I never thought it was because I was mentally ill. I just thought they were trying to stop me taking drugs and the doctors represented a straight world from which I was separate. I guess I thought I was getting put away for being different. In actual fact I was being put away because I had a mental illness and they were assessing and observing me to find out what was wrong. The very fact I couldn't see this would have made the first part of the diagnosis—psychosis—very easy. Until I could come to terms with the fact I had something wrong with me, I would always be seeing my world, the world in my mind and the outside world, in a distorted way. I would continue to feel endless pain and endless rejection, which you get when you're sick because you go against the grain, fighting the world from your imagined world, rebelling against the laws that deem things illegal and legal. You don't see the sense in institutions and rules; you just see them as an axis of oppression. I was not fighting for a just cause, like a revolutionary. I was just wanting to break free from the outside world.

I find Lester. He's sitting on a seat outside the smokers' area, wearing his grey track pants. I ask him if he's all right. He says, “Yeah, babe.” I hand him his smokes. He smiles and says, “Now we're talking. They extra good ones, if you know what I mean,” he adds.

I lift up my shirt and show him the money.

“Okay,” he says. “So we just got to wait.”

“Do you want a Coke?” I say, getting excited, my speech quickening.

“Yeeeeaah, babe,” he says slowly. I think he must have just had meds.

“Okay, I'll be back.”

I walk pass the nurses' station, tap on the window, and wave to Waris. Then I start doing the canoe going past the window as in
Austin Powers
. Guess I'm in a joking mood. I get to my door and remember I need some cups, so I go to the dining room. Mark's in there and he's hoarded six cups, one on top of the other. He's spilled milk all over the tray, making Milo after Milo. He is standing with milk dripping down his beard and his T-shirt. I don't say anything. He grosses me out. Sure he's nice but I still want to get in and out fast.

Sometimes unwell old men remind me of the paedophiles you see on the news because of their appearance. Judgemental I know, but in a place like this you go into survival mode. I decide I'm unsure as to the state of the cups. I feel they are infected from just being in his presence.

I decide to go and see if Waris is still around; she's my nurse for the day. Waris often wears orange and red, and I can't see an island of red in the nurses' station. I look in the second smokers' room by the little library. It is pretty much empty. This room is much smaller than the other smokers' room. It has two couches with nice purple cushions, and is used as a meeting room so it's kept tidy. Don't know if the room is meant to be smoked in but it is.

Waris is on the couch talking to Hemi. He's stressed because they want to move him to the prisoners' ward out in Porirua. He's a tough guy who likes punching the pillars with his bare hands. I gave it a go once but I'm certainly no warrior.

I ask Waris for a cup. I don't care that she's in the middle of a conversation and that I'm interrupting.

“Not now, MaryJane, I'll be with you in a second.”

I don't want to wait so I go back to the nurses' station and knock on the door. Bob is in there. I say, “Yo, man, can you hook us up a couple of cups?”

He looks at me; my anxiety is kicking in.

“What you looking at? Sort out some cups.” I'm treating him like a servant. I start getting tension all through my body.

“Have you had your lunchtime meds yet, MaryJane?” he says, very flatly.

“You don't need to treat me like a fucken baby. You are not my nurse or doctor. It's up to them to give them to me, none of your business.” I can't help but take it a little bit further. “Have
you
taken your pills? You're not so fine yourself.”

“I'm not going to give you the cups if you're going to speak to me like that,” he says.

“Well, best you write that down in my notes: ‘MaryJane not so polite today—observation.'” Then I say, “I want to change my next of kin.” I decide Rose wouldn't ever turn up, even if I were on my deathbed. I change it to Harriet, a sex worker l know. Bill gives me the form and I fill it out, barely legibly in my rage. It's about the fourth time I've changed it this week.

Waris comes up behind me as I start to calm down. She has a little plastic dish the shape of an egg cup. She hands me my meds and says sorry she took so long.

“No worries, all good.” I chuck back my Olanzapine. I keep the cup and say, “Waris, can I have another cup?”

“Oh MaryJane, who's it for?”

“Lester. I'm giving him some Coke.”

“Oh MaryJane, you need to stop giving your things away. I have a bag of clothes of yours to get back.” When I get institutionalised I always go and buy new clothes, seeing as I usually come in with none. I shop at shops where I wouldn't normally buy clothes and I buy clothes I wouldn't normally wear, mainly baggy hoodies and tracksuit pants from The Warehouse that I end up giving away. “So MaryJane, you must promise me—no more giving away of clothes.”

I like Waris so I listen to what she says and I nod my head in agreement. “How 'bout the cup?” I ask gently.

“Oooh, okay MaryJane, but remember to watch yourself in here—it isn't the safest place at the best of times.”

“I know, I know. And, as Dr Aso says, it's no hotel either.”

Waris nervously hands me the cup and says, “MaryJane, we will have to get you into the shower later, wash your hair.”

I use my standard response, knowing the code of ethics says you have a right to your spiritual beliefs. “Now Waris, you know it isn't part of my spiritual beliefs to use soap or wash my hair. I use natural products.”

I justify the use of illicit drugs because I use “natural” ones. I have a problem taking the psych drugs because I feel they are too synthetic and processed. When I am in the ward it is generally compulsory to take medication. I should say that I don't like my medication; it is good to say how it makes me feel.

Finally I get to my room. I walk out carefully with the drinks. The rain's still falling so Lester is in the smokers' room. Jo is being told by Hemi that she is ugly. “Can't stand staring at your face, will you go away,” he says. Jo, oblivious to what he's saying, keeps smiling at him. He looks straight at her and repeats, “Go away.” He gets frustrated and goes outside and does his martial arts on the pole.

I hand Lester a Coke. Jo asks me for a cigarette. “Sure,” I say and give her one. I make a face at Lester and point to my pocket. He mouths, “Thirty minutes,” and points at his phone. I take that to mean someone is dropping off the oil in thirty minutes.

Lester says, “MaryJane, I have a T-shirt in my room to give you. Come, I will show you.”

“Cool.”

I follow him into his room. “Cash,” he says. “We've got to be quick.” He fossicks through his chest of drawers for a T-shirt. “You can have this,” he says, pulling out a grey cotton T-shirt with an Adidas logo. “Okay, so he's coming in thirty minutes. It's still raining so we will sit in the dining room. He won't stay long and then we'll have time for it before dinner. I'll have it first, then leave you some in my room. I'll give you money tomorrow.”

“Cool,” I say. “Thank you. We have to make sure we don't get seen. What's my excuse for going into your room?”

“To get some clothes or borrow a book.”