new section
book thingy!!!
Adventures in the loony Bin
The day after my dad found out about my OD, he showed up at school right in the middle of my lunch period, and pulled me out of school. Obviously, I was a little confused, but I was happy to miss a few classes, so I went willingly. After he dragged me to the car he sat on the driver’s side and took a deep breath.
“Um… What’s the deal dad?”
“Your therapist suggested an outpatient hospital for you to go to for a while.” An outpatient hospital is pretty much just group therapy that you go to for most of the day, but instead of sleeping there, you get to go home. I thought for a moment before decided that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. At least I wouldn’t have to LIVE with all the crazy people.
“Where is it?”
“Boston. We’re going now.”
“Um, okay.” And we were off!
After about a week of being at “The Boston Center”, I was shipped off to an inpatient hospital. Apparently I was too fucked up for the lower level loony bin to deal with. Anyway, the new place was called the Lowell Youth Treatment Center. Everyone just called it LYTC though. Much shorter. Getting there was a pain in the ass; however, my intake was an interesting experience. Interesting really isn’t the word for it. There really is no word that makes sense.
It was like entering a jail. A tall lanky woman with a big nose and extremely vibrant green eyes let us in. She seemed pissed. I mean, I guess I don’t blame her. Her job was to let crazy people follow her around all day.
After she led us through what seemed like hundreds of locked doors, we were finally in the adolescent unit. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as I had hoped. The walls were white with cartoon characters painted all over them. Our bedrooms were bare except for 3 small beds. The beds had those white and blue striped cheap mattresses on them. You know; the ones that they usually have in the nurses’ offices at schools. Anyway, there was one barred window per room. Mine just so happened to have a lovely view of a brick wall. How cliché. Before I got so see all of this though, I had to be checked in.
The woman who checked me in seemed real nice. She had short blonde hair and a pretty pink blouse on. She looked like a mother. I liked her. I stared at her for a minute and decided that her name should be something like Bonnie or Nancy. It wasn’t.
“Hi, I’m Lorra.” She gave me that “you poor thing” look. “Everything’s gunna be fine hun. What’s your name?”
“Lee.”
“Aw, I have a cousin Lee. She’s a sweetie.” I smiled. It was probably bullshit.
“Anyway, let’s get you checked in Lee.” We sat down. She glanced downward towards my dinky little black purse that I was gripping rather firmly on my lap.
“I’m sorry; we don’t allow handbags on the unit.” I looked over at my dad.
“I guess I can get rid of it.” I grabbed my cell phone out of the bag and set it on my lap next to the purse. Just as I was reaching in to grab my other crucial items, I heard her clear her throat a little. I looked up.
“No cell phones either.” She frowned.
“Ok, well I’ll at least I can take some gum.” More frowning. “I can’t even have GUM!?”
“I’m sorry.” I felt bad. It wasn’t her fault. I wasn’t going to kill the messenger. I took a deep breath, turned to my dad and whispered.
“Don’t forget to bring all of my clothes, and especially my pillow and Benvolio.” Benvolio was a big stuffed teddy bear that my boyfriend Anthony had given me for Valentine’s Day a couple of months before. He would always give me shirts to put on the bear so that it would smell like him. I couldn’t sleep without it.
“Ok hun, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
I reluctantly permitted my dad to leave, and then it was just me and Lorra. She brought me to the nurse’s room and left me for a few minutes.
When the nurse came in she told me I had to undress. I was quite flustered by this demand so I asked her why the hell she wanted to see me naked. She didn’t seem shocked by my audacity as I had expected her to be. She must’ve gotten remarks like that all the time.
“Look, I have to check to see if you are holding any contraband in your--”
“Ok, never mind I get it.” I didn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence. Ew. To this day it still remains one of the most awkward situations of my life.
*********
Finally they brought me to the quarters in which I would be imprisoned for the next few days. I was glad to be anywhere but in a room with that sadistic nurse. One of the other nurses brought me to my room. I was checking out the lovely décor when one of my roommates crept up to me.
“Hi. You must be that new girl. This place totally blows.” I didn’t really know what to say, so I just looked at her for a few seconds. Her hair was long, brown, and dreadfully dirty. She was a little on the husky side, and dressed rather grungily. But surprisingly, I wasn’t very intimidated. Besides, I was more focused on the walls on her side of the room than her threatening appearance.
There wasn’t a square inch of wall that wasn’t covered by posters, drawings, or pictures. There were about 10 doodles with Dana written all over them, so I figured that that was her name.
“Dana?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Hunch.” She started to talk about how much she loved Marilyn Manson and death and blood and gore. I was getting relatively nauseated, so I looked for an out. There was a girl out in the hall bawling her eyes out that caught my attention. Dana took a break from her rambling for a second.
“That’s our other roommate, she’s such a pussy. She’s been here since this morning and all she’s done is cry the whole damn time.”
“Why?’
“Who the hell knows, she just doesn’t wanna be here I guess.” I decided that she would be my escape from Dana’s morbidity.
“Well, I’m gunna go try to talk to her.”
“Psh, ok, it’s your funeral.”
I cautiously walked up to the mystery girl and sat down next to her. She sniffled and looked up at me.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I.. I don’t know. I just… ahhhhhhhh!” She sounded like a blithering idiot. I could barely hear her through her incessant sobbing. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel for her though.
“It’s ok, I really don’t want to be at this retched place either.” She didn’t even acknowledge that I had said anything. She just kept crying.
“Look, we’re roommates. The other girl in our room is a total psycho, so you have to stay here. For me.”
“Well, if you put it that way…” She laughed.
“We’ll look out for each other, okay?” She started to wipe her tears. I helped.
“Ok.”
“I’m Lee.”
“I’m Amanda.” I gave her a hug and she finally stopped crying.
I felt somewhat accomplished that I was the only one that could cheer her up. I figured we were kindred spirits. I was glad I had someone there that I could relate to.
The next morning Amanda and I were sitting on our adjacent beds playing go fish when we heard a ruckus.
“What the hell is that?” She asked. It stopped.
“Eh, who knows, it’s done.” We kept playing.
“Do you have any aces?”
“No! Muahaha! Go fish.” Just as she was reaching for the pile of cards the noise came back. It sounded like someone stomping around. We both stopped playing to listen.
"I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE AND EVERYONE IN IT!" Someone down the hall was screaming at the top of her lungs. Amanda looked at me.
"Who is that?"
"Sounds like Melissa." Sure enough, it was Melissa. She seemed like a fairly normal 16 year old girl when I first met her. Apparently I got the wrong impression. The noises and the screaming seemed to be getting closer.
"Uh oh, she's coming." Said Amanda. All of a sudden, she stopped again. Before either of us could say anything, or even think anything about it, we heard a crash, and then a chair came flying across the doorway and hurdled into the wall on the other side of the hall. Maybe it's one of those things that you had to be there for, but to me and Amanda, it was the funniest incidents we'd ever witnessed.
ok, there is a LOT more that i have to write about being in the hospital, but that was so long that i figured i would split this up into a few different journal entries.
:-) you like?
Adventures in the loony Bin
The day after my dad found out about my OD, he showed up at school right in the middle of my lunch period, and pulled me out of school. Obviously, I was a little confused, but I was happy to miss a few classes, so I went willingly. After he dragged me to the car he sat on the driver’s side and took a deep breath.
“Um… What’s the deal dad?”
“Your therapist suggested an outpatient hospital for you to go to for a while.” An outpatient hospital is pretty much just group therapy that you go to for most of the day, but instead of sleeping there, you get to go home. I thought for a moment before decided that it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. At least I wouldn’t have to LIVE with all the crazy people.
“Where is it?”
“Boston. We’re going now.”
“Um, okay.” And we were off!
After about a week of being at “The Boston Center”, I was shipped off to an inpatient hospital. Apparently I was too fucked up for the lower level loony bin to deal with. Anyway, the new place was called the Lowell Youth Treatment Center. Everyone just called it LYTC though. Much shorter. Getting there was a pain in the ass; however, my intake was an interesting experience. Interesting really isn’t the word for it. There really is no word that makes sense.
It was like entering a jail. A tall lanky woman with a big nose and extremely vibrant green eyes let us in. She seemed pissed. I mean, I guess I don’t blame her. Her job was to let crazy people follow her around all day.
After she led us through what seemed like hundreds of locked doors, we were finally in the adolescent unit. It wasn’t quite as glamorous as I had hoped. The walls were white with cartoon characters painted all over them. Our bedrooms were bare except for 3 small beds. The beds had those white and blue striped cheap mattresses on them. You know; the ones that they usually have in the nurses’ offices at schools. Anyway, there was one barred window per room. Mine just so happened to have a lovely view of a brick wall. How cliché. Before I got so see all of this though, I had to be checked in.
The woman who checked me in seemed real nice. She had short blonde hair and a pretty pink blouse on. She looked like a mother. I liked her. I stared at her for a minute and decided that her name should be something like Bonnie or Nancy. It wasn’t.
“Hi, I’m Lorra.” She gave me that “you poor thing” look. “Everything’s gunna be fine hun. What’s your name?”
“Lee.”
“Aw, I have a cousin Lee. She’s a sweetie.” I smiled. It was probably bullshit.
“Anyway, let’s get you checked in Lee.” We sat down. She glanced downward towards my dinky little black purse that I was gripping rather firmly on my lap.
“I’m sorry; we don’t allow handbags on the unit.” I looked over at my dad.
“I guess I can get rid of it.” I grabbed my cell phone out of the bag and set it on my lap next to the purse. Just as I was reaching in to grab my other crucial items, I heard her clear her throat a little. I looked up.
“No cell phones either.” She frowned.
“Ok, well I’ll at least I can take some gum.” More frowning. “I can’t even have GUM!?”
“I’m sorry.” I felt bad. It wasn’t her fault. I wasn’t going to kill the messenger. I took a deep breath, turned to my dad and whispered.
“Don’t forget to bring all of my clothes, and especially my pillow and Benvolio.” Benvolio was a big stuffed teddy bear that my boyfriend Anthony had given me for Valentine’s Day a couple of months before. He would always give me shirts to put on the bear so that it would smell like him. I couldn’t sleep without it.
“Ok hun, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”
I reluctantly permitted my dad to leave, and then it was just me and Lorra. She brought me to the nurse’s room and left me for a few minutes.
When the nurse came in she told me I had to undress. I was quite flustered by this demand so I asked her why the hell she wanted to see me naked. She didn’t seem shocked by my audacity as I had expected her to be. She must’ve gotten remarks like that all the time.
“Look, I have to check to see if you are holding any contraband in your--”
“Ok, never mind I get it.” I didn’t want to hear the rest of that sentence. Ew. To this day it still remains one of the most awkward situations of my life.
*********
Finally they brought me to the quarters in which I would be imprisoned for the next few days. I was glad to be anywhere but in a room with that sadistic nurse. One of the other nurses brought me to my room. I was checking out the lovely décor when one of my roommates crept up to me.
“Hi. You must be that new girl. This place totally blows.” I didn’t really know what to say, so I just looked at her for a few seconds. Her hair was long, brown, and dreadfully dirty. She was a little on the husky side, and dressed rather grungily. But surprisingly, I wasn’t very intimidated. Besides, I was more focused on the walls on her side of the room than her threatening appearance.
There wasn’t a square inch of wall that wasn’t covered by posters, drawings, or pictures. There were about 10 doodles with Dana written all over them, so I figured that that was her name.
“Dana?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Hunch.” She started to talk about how much she loved Marilyn Manson and death and blood and gore. I was getting relatively nauseated, so I looked for an out. There was a girl out in the hall bawling her eyes out that caught my attention. Dana took a break from her rambling for a second.
“That’s our other roommate, she’s such a pussy. She’s been here since this morning and all she’s done is cry the whole damn time.”
“Why?’
“Who the hell knows, she just doesn’t wanna be here I guess.” I decided that she would be my escape from Dana’s morbidity.
“Well, I’m gunna go try to talk to her.”
“Psh, ok, it’s your funeral.”
I cautiously walked up to the mystery girl and sat down next to her. She sniffled and looked up at me.
“Hey, what’s wrong?”
“I.. I don’t know. I just… ahhhhhhhh!” She sounded like a blithering idiot. I could barely hear her through her incessant sobbing. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel for her though.
“It’s ok, I really don’t want to be at this retched place either.” She didn’t even acknowledge that I had said anything. She just kept crying.
“Look, we’re roommates. The other girl in our room is a total psycho, so you have to stay here. For me.”
“Well, if you put it that way…” She laughed.
“We’ll look out for each other, okay?” She started to wipe her tears. I helped.
“Ok.”
“I’m Lee.”
“I’m Amanda.” I gave her a hug and she finally stopped crying.
I felt somewhat accomplished that I was the only one that could cheer her up. I figured we were kindred spirits. I was glad I had someone there that I could relate to.
The next morning Amanda and I were sitting on our adjacent beds playing go fish when we heard a ruckus.
“What the hell is that?” She asked. It stopped.
“Eh, who knows, it’s done.” We kept playing.
“Do you have any aces?”
“No! Muahaha! Go fish.” Just as she was reaching for the pile of cards the noise came back. It sounded like someone stomping around. We both stopped playing to listen.
"I FUCKING HATE THIS PLACE AND EVERYONE IN IT!" Someone down the hall was screaming at the top of her lungs. Amanda looked at me.
"Who is that?"
"Sounds like Melissa." Sure enough, it was Melissa. She seemed like a fairly normal 16 year old girl when I first met her. Apparently I got the wrong impression. The noises and the screaming seemed to be getting closer.
"Uh oh, she's coming." Said Amanda. All of a sudden, she stopped again. Before either of us could say anything, or even think anything about it, we heard a crash, and then a chair came flying across the doorway and hurdled into the wall on the other side of the hall. Maybe it's one of those things that you had to be there for, but to me and Amanda, it was the funniest incidents we'd ever witnessed.
ok, there is a LOT more that i have to write about being in the hospital, but that was so long that i figured i would split this up into a few different journal entries.
:-) you like?