HOSPITALS
THE NEXT THING I remembered was being hooked up to an IV in the hospital on the mainland where they pumped my stomach and then hurriedly shoved me into another ambulance . . . one that would take me to the place I would call home for the rest of my teenage years.
I don’t remember much about that ambulance ride. I was sedated again. When I woke up I was lying in a twin-sized bed, unable to move my arms and legs.
It took me a moment or two to focus my eyes and my brain. I glanced around. The walls were painted an institutional green and the ceiling was made up of white squares, each tile riddled with tiny holes.
I tried to move my legs but couldn’t. Same with my arms. Twisting my head, I saw the restraints on my wrists and I assumed my legs were similarly tethered.
“Help!” I cried. “Someone help me!”
A girl with long stringy blonde hair, wearing jeans and a T-shirt, came over to where I lay and peered down at me. She was picking her nose and looking at me as if I were some sort of biologic specimen.
“Can you untie me?” I begged. “Please.”
She shook her head, smiling. “No can do. You gotta wait for the nurse or doctor and they don’t usually get here this early.”
She pulled a fat booger from her nose and stared at it for a moment before wiping it on the pillowcase next to my head. Then, with a toss of her greasy curls, she moved out of my line of sight.
I could see the juicy booger out of the corner of my eye and my stomach rolled. I tried again to pull my hands and feet from the restraints, but they held tight.
I screamed.
I screamed again. And again.
By about the fifth scream the door opened and a burly-looking guy, dressed in a white shirt and pants, strode angrily over to my bed. With the exception of the scowl on his face, he looked like the ice cream man.
“What’s your problem, sweetheart?” he asked. “People are trying to sleep.”
I could see a combination of irritation and amusement on his face and got the feeling that this guy was not someone I would want to meet in a dark alley late at night. So, I answered him as politely as possible.
“Please, sir. Can you untie me? My feet are going numb. I have pins and needles in my legs. I don’t think I can stand it much longer.”
He sighed. “Sorry. Only a nurse or doc can do that. But let me see what I can do. There must be someone making rounds by now. You just stay here nice and quiet. Okay? If you scream again, they’ll sedate you.”
I nodded and he patted my hand and left. About fifteen minutes later, he came back accompanied by a tall woman wearing a nurse’s uniform.
“Hi, Andrea,” she said. “I’m Nurse Bailey. Glad to see you’re awake. Sam says you want to get out of these restraints. Is that right?”
Again, I nodded.
“Well, I don’t blame you. But you have to promise me there’ll be no shenanigans once I release you or else I’ll have to have Sam tie you down again. Okay? Are you going to be a good girl?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “I’ll be good.”
“That’s my girl,” she said. “But first, let’s get your medications down.”
She poured a glass of water from the plastic pitcher sitting on the nightstand and motioned for Sam to lift my head.
“What are you giving me?” I asked.
She smiled. “Just something to take the edge off. Doctor’s orders, you know.”
I clamped my mouth shut, not wanting to take whatever it was she was dishing out.
She noticed my hesitation and pursed her lips. “Now you’re not going to be a problem, are you? No pills, no freedom. You got it? Now open up.”
Deciding the pills were the lesser of two evils, I reluctantly obeyed and swallowed the unknown medications.
Grinning, she untied my right hand and took my pulse, then nodded to the orderly to release the other restraints.
“Do you need to use the toilet?” she asked.
I hadn’t realized it until she said it aloud . . . my bladder was full to bursting. I nodded.
“Okay. Sam, help Andrea sit up.”
My muscles were stiff and sore from being locked in one position for so long and I leaned on the orderly when they refused initially to obey my mind’s commands.
“Sam says you have pins and needles, right?”
I nodded.
“Okay, before you try to stand, I’m going to massage your feet and calves to get the blood flowing. We don’t want you falling and hurting yourself on your first day here, now do we?”
“No, ma’am,” I replied.
She kneaded the muscles in my legs for about ten minutes, causing the pins and needles to intensify and then, finally, abate.
“Numbness gone?” she asked.
“Yes, thank you,” I replied. “Can I go to the bathroom now?”
She nodded and helped me to my feet. “Sam, while I take Andrea to the ladies, why don’t you change her sheets. They look kind of dingy.”
The orderly plastered a fake smile on his face and turned to strip my bed.
Inwardly, I rejoiced. The fat booger that strange girl had bestowed upon me would soon be washed away and trouble me no more.
The first few days in the hospital were a blur. I was kept heavily sedated and, when I was awake, was closely guarded. I surmised this was cautionary . . . no one at the hospital wanted a repeat suicide attempt . . . at least, not on their watch.
My roommates were Greta, the girl with the stringy hair, and a short, overweight girl named Sandy. Greta, I later found out, was there for overdosing on heroin, and Sandy was a straight up paranoid schizo. We were part of a small, but select, coterie of adolescent misfits confined to this hospital and we wore our disease labels proudly. I was the lone “suicide” in the group.
We met daily for group therapy and for school. Our illnesses were not a “get out of jail free” card. We still had to attend classes on weekdays. The goal: a GED.
When I heard that, I blanched. Was I going to be here that long?
I met my psychiatrist about a week after I’d been admitted. Over the years, I would meet with him bi-weekly as he tried, mostly in vain, to probe my psyche.
It was at our second meeting that he pulled out an envelope and slid it across his desk to me. The letter had already been opened and I knew its contents had probably been examined by hospital staff. But it was addressed to me in handwriting I would have recognized anywhere.
My hands trembled.
The doctor, aware of my heightened emotion, placed his hand over mine.
“I’ve read it already,” he said. “If you want, I can read it to you.”
Unable to speak, I nodded.
He took the envelope from my hand. “Relax,” he said. “I think you’re going to like this.”
I took a deep breath and leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. “Go on,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper.
“Okay,” he continued as he removed the letter from the envelope. “Dear Andi. It’s raining today and I’m helping my dad bait traps. The sea is rough . . . swells like you wouldn’t imagine. . . .”
The doctor went on reading for I don’t know how long. But as I listened, I relaxed, imagining myself beside Jake as he hauled traps or walked on the beach and, for the first time since I had left the island, I felt safe.
The letter ended, “Love, Jake-with-a-J.”
“Do you want to hear another?” the doctor asked softly.
My eyes opened. “There’s more than one?”
My doctor smiled. “Oh yes. These letters have been coming in daily since you got here. Let’s read another. Okay?”
“Please do,” I said, leaning back and closing my eyes again, and, while my body remained in this austere room, my mind traveled back . . . back to Cutter Island and to Jake.
Time passed slowly in the hospital, each day a carbon copy of the one just past. I think I’d been there around two weeks when I finally found the courage to ask the doctor a question that had been plaguing my mind.
“When will I be allowed to have visitors?”
The doctor hesitated for a moment before answering.
“After the first forty-eight hours here, family can come visit anytime, Andrea.”
I’m afraid my mouth fell open. I’d been in this nuthouse for what seemed like forever and no one . . . not even my mother . . . had been to see me.
My hands gripped the arms of the chair.
Swiftly, I wiped the pain I was feeling from my face. “Can we read a letter now?” I asked, enunciating each word carefully, hiding my despair.
The doctor, his eyes full of compassion and pity, nodded as he pulled an envelope from his desk and began to read.
I closed my eyes, burying my anguish deep inside, and journeyed once again to Cutter and to Jake.
After that session, I began the cutting. Sharp objects were few and far between at the hospital, but I was resourceful. A shard of rock found on the grounds, a pen left on the counter at the nurses’ station, a plastic knife hidden in the waistband of my jeans . . . all these objects and others could be made to pierce the skin and release not only my tainted blood, but the loneliness and self-hatred that were my constant companions.
My self-mutilation did not, however, go unnoticed. And, in retrospect, maybe I wanted it that way. I would “forget” to wear long sleeves and a nurse or orderly would see the wounds I had inflicted upon myself. As a result, all my belongings were tossed as they searched for the offending weapon or weapons.
In addition, the few privileges I’d been granted would be rescinded, therapy ceased, and it was back to Thorazine or some other drug that would leave me in a peaceful, but narcotic, haze.
It was during these periods that I began to hang out with Greta and some of the other former druggies. Spaced out on tranqs, we’d lounge on the grounds, smoking Marlboros and talking trash.
Sometimes, Greta or Jimmy, a boy who had taken a very bad trip on LSD, would score some weed from an orderly or maintenance man and we’d hightail it outside or, in inclement weather, to the first-floor stairwell to get high. If we were caught, Greta would usually bribe the orderly, letting him cop a feel or, as a last resort, go down on him. I was saved from having to provide these services because Greta, bless her black heart, actually enjoyed them.
These outings with the kids would last a few weeks until I was, once again, weaned off the medication. Sober and back in therapy, I returned to my solitary self and began the search for another sharp object. It seemed only the cutting and Jake’s letters had the power to ease my pain and I embraced both methods with equal enthusiasm.
I think that the hardest days for me, contrary to life on the outside, were weekends. There was no therapy to pass the time and no school either. The other kids were usually busy with their families who visited more frequently on Saturday and Sunday than other days of the week.
This left me alone. I would try to read or watch television to make the time pass more quickly, but, more often than not, I would pull out Jake’s letters and read them, one after another, letting my mind journey to Cutter Island and the brief spell of happiness I’d found there.
All the while, I never told the doctor anything of consequence. I kept my secrets close. No outsiders allowed.
Time passed and before I knew it I’d been at the hospital for two years. I was seventeen.
Never once had anyone come to visit me, but Jake still wrote, not as frequently, but the letters were long and detailed. He’d been granted a scholarship to college starting in September and was spending the summer working hard at any job he could find to secure money needed for room, board and books.
College.
How I envied him. I received my GED that June and my doctor gave me permission to continue my education, taking some university-level correspondence courses. That would be as close to the ivy-covered walls that I would get. But it was better than nothing and I looked forward to it.
My doctor also tried, many times, to persuade me to write Jake back, but I refused. I didn’t want to be a millstone around his neck . . . an obligation, weighing him down. No, he needed to be free . . . free to fly as high and far as he could. Free to reinvent himself and make his mark in the world, even if that meant abandoning me in the process.
But he kept writing and became my anchor . . . my safe harbor . . . my place of peace.
That August, I began my third year committed to the asylum. No one came to visit and there were no cards or presents on Christmas or my birthday. It was like I had died. My mother had simply erased me on that late summer night in 1965. I had ceased to exist.
I wondered what, if anything, she’d told my real father. He’d left us when I was eight.
He’d said, initially, it was for a screenwriting job in California and that he would send for us. But that was a lie. Not long after he’d arrived on the coast, he’d shacked up with a starlet he met on the set of his movie and, in no time, she was pregnant. That’s when he lowered the boom, called my mom, and demanded a divorce.
After that, I only saw him one more time. His girlfriend apparently didn’t like the competition of a pre-pubescent daughter, so she convinced him that he would be better off letting me go and concentrating instead on his new family. I don’t think he was a tough sell, though. He bought it all . . . hook, line, and sinker. And I found myself living with a bitter, angry woman who found little, if any, time at all, for her daughter. Then came David.
I continued to take university-level correspondence courses that third year. The curriculum I followed closely mirrored Jake’s and was heavy in English and creative writing classwork. I often pictured myself sitting beside him in a lecture hall, wildly scribbling notes as a professor droned on before us.
I tried my hand at writing poetry and, with my doctor’s permission, actually submitted some of my work to several small, artsy magazines published in New England. I was surprised when one of my sonnets was chosen for publication. But my joy was muted. There was no one to share it with . . . only my doctor and the other loonies, and somehow that wasn’t enough. I thought then about writing Jake, but shook that idea off, sticking to my initial resolve.
By now, most of my friends from my first year at the hospital had been discharged. Sandy was still there and, I assumed, always would be.
It was 1968 and most of our recent admissions were drug-related . . . bad trips, overdoses, and addiction. These kids came and went quickly. Most of the new arrivals looked to me for guidance. I was eighteen years old and the most senior resident of the adolescent ward. Assuming the role of big sister, I tried to show these new kids how to survive for the short span of time they would be there.
My doctor left on a sabbatical leave in September of ’68 and would not be returning until the following February. In his absence, I was assigned to a new doctor, one I did not like. He tried to use Jake’s letters as a bargaining chip . . . if I revealed something from my past, I got a letter. If I didn’t, he’d only show me the envelope as a teaser, then lock it away in his desk.
I tried to get around his little game by making up stories, but he didn’t buy them. And while he thought he was helping, all he succeeded in doing was to drive me deeper into the darkness that surrounded my life.
I began cutting again during this period, but was careful not to let anyone know. I also lost weight, my depression erasing whatever appetite I had.
When my doctor returned in February, I could tell he was surprised by my appearance. When he’d left, I weighed one hundred ten pounds and had roses in my cheeks. Now, tipping the scales at a scant ninety-five, I was a scarecrow. I’d lost interest in personal grooming, too, and my hair, once shiny, was matted and I knew I smelled bad.
I greeted him sullenly, barely able to conceal my anger at his abandonment. He didn’t say anything, but, instead, simply handed me all the envelopes his replacement had kept from me.
“Take these, Andrea,” he said. “Read them and when you’re ready to talk have one of the orderlies call my office.”
I grabbed the letters eagerly, stuffing them into the pocket of my sweatshirt. Then I nodded to him and left his office. Once back in my room, I lay down on my bed and ripped them open, one after another, as hot tears streamed down my face.
I stayed up all night reading and, in the morning, voluntarily showered and washed my hair. After breakfast, which I ate with gusto, I asked one of the orderlies to let my doctor know I was ready to begin again.
The winter of ’69 was a harsh one. Not allowed to smoke within the confines of the ward, I had to brave the elements to feed my habit. Alone, wearing a parka that was now too small, I would hunch down in the basement stairwell, puffing away on my cigarette.
On one such occasion, I brought along with me an old copy of the local newspaper and, with hands shaking from the cold, I turned the pages.
The paper was dated August 1968, and I read the outdated news stories with little interest. As I rifled through the pages trying to find something I didn’t already know, a photo featured prominently on the society page leapt out at me. It was part of a story about an annual charity ball that benefited the local art museum.
There, standing in full regalia, was my mother, a smile I remembered so well pasted on her face. I gripped the newspaper tightly, staring at the picture, then shifted my eyes to the man standing next to her.
David.
I began to tremble. My cigarette had burned down to the filter and its ash seared my fingers. But I felt nothing.
Fueled by panic, I dropped the cigarette and the paper into the snow and ran back to the hospital. My heart pounded and I knew there was only one way to stop the escalation of despair that threatened to drown me.
A sharp object.
I took a minute to calm my breathing and, trying to act nonchalant, cruised the nurses’ station searching for something to use.
I was close to giving up when I saw it . . . a silver nail file, carelessly left on top of a cabinet.
I lingered nearby until the nurse was distracted by another patient, then slipped the metal file up the sleeve of my parka and headed outdoors again.
Back in the stairwell, I ripped off my jacket, oblivious to the cold wind that swirled around me. The point of the nail file was sharper than other implements I’d used over the years and, without hesitation, I plunged it into my wrist and began to carve.
It was dark when I woke up in the infirmary, my wrist bandaged, my arm hooked up to an IV. My doctor was seated beside the bed, a worried expression on his face.
“Good to see you back with us, Andrea,” he said. “This was more than a simple bloodletting, wasn’t it? You really meant it this time.”
I stared at him, not knowing how to respond. Tears welled in my eyes and threatened to overflow, drowning us all.
My doctor leaned over and took my hand in his.
“It’s time, Andrea,” he said. “You’ve kept so much locked up inside for so long. It’s time to let go. I promise nothing bad will happen.”
The picture from the paper rose up in my mind. Mother and David, dressed to the nines, smiling as if they didn’t have a care.
“She stayed with him,” I cried. “After everything that happened, she stayed with him!”
The doctor reached down and picked up something from the floor. It was the newspaper I had been reading, now spattered with dried blood.
“Are you referring to this picture, Andrea?” he asked, turning to the society page.
I twisted my head away, not wanting to ever see the offending photo again. Then I nodded vigorously, unable to speak.
“Okay,” he said. “That’s a start. I’m not going to ask you for more right now. I know you’re worn out. I’m going to order you a sedative. I want you to sleep. Tomorrow, we’ll start again and you’ll tell me what happened back in 1965 . . . what it was that brought you to this place. It’s time, Andrea. And if you don’t do it now, I’m afraid for you.”
I stared at him for a minute, then nodded again.
“Okay,” I said meekly, knowing that this time there would be no denying him. I would have to finally tell someone my secrets. Consequences be damned.
The next morning, I was helped into a wheelchair and taken from my infirmary bed directly to my doctor’s office.
“Good morning, Andrea,” he said. “Feeling better today?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
“You did quite a job on that wrist. And, you were lucky one of your friends got worried when you didn’t come back inside. If you hadn’t bled out from the wounds you inflicted, you probably would have succumbed to hypothermia.”
I blushed, embarrassed by the trouble I’d put everyone to.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t mean to be such a bother.”
“No sorries, Andrea. You were in pain and you reacted. Now, let’s talk about that pain. What was it about that picture that set you off? You said something about your mother still being with your stepfather. Why is that such a surprise?”
I stared down at my hands, not knowing where to start.
“I know this is hard,” he said. “You’ve kept things bottled up for much too long. Uncorking that bottle and letting the genie out is scary. But, if you don’t want to be here forever, then it must be done. And, I think you’ll find that once you let some fresh air in, you’ll feel a whole lot better.”
I nodded. “You’re right; it was a picture of my mom and David. It shocked me.”
“Why?”
“I figured she would have gotten rid of him after . . . .”
I couldn’t go on. I began shaking my head violently.
“I can’t . . . I can’t.”
“Okay. Take a deep breath, Andrea. Why don’t we look at this from another angle? Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about your real father.”
I bit my bottom lip, steeling myself. And, finally, when I was ready, I began.