Get Me Out of Here (5 page)

“I am authorized to do anything I need to do to keep this ward safe and comfortable for everyone here. And I want the Walkman. Now!”

This was an absolute nightmare. I wanted to scream, to spit, to flail at her with my fists. Instead I walked away, pretending to ignore her. As I resumed my power walking, I heard her tirade of admonishment despite the high volume of Supertramp. I turned around and looked at her. I absolutely loathed her. I took off my headphones, grabbed the Walkman in my right hand, and hurled it at her, aiming for her head. It missed by a few inches, the cassette door breaking off as it fell with a thud to the carpeted floor.

“
Are you happy now?
” I screamed hysterically. “It's all fucked up. I can't use it anymore. I hope you're happy, you fucking bitch!”

“You are absolutely out of control. I'm calling Dr. Padgett.”

“I don't give a fuck what you do. Call him. What? Do you think I'm scared of the bastard? Give me a fucking break.”

Truth be told, I was glad she was calling Dr. Padgett. Dr. Padgett didn't hate me the way she did. He would understand how unfair the nurse was being. I'd let him know just what had happened, just what horrible things the nurse had said about not liking me, about not having to like me. He was the doctor. He was in charge. The bitch wasn't going to have a leg to stand on by the time I was finished.

Having connected to Dr. Padgett, the nurse directed me to pick up one of the patient phones. Ha! She was too intimidated to let me take the phone at the nurses' station because of what I might do. Good. She should be scared. She deserved to be.

“Rachel.” I was calmed by the sound of his voice. “What just went on?”

I told my side of the story, not sparing a detail. Like a defendant on
The People's Court
, I was a polished advocate for myself. I waited for him to concur with my conclusions, to get the nurse back on the line, and to give her a word or two about compassion for patients.

It didn't happen.

“You can't do that, Rachel,” he said, still with the underlying gentleness but with an added element of firmness. “What you did was wrong. It was inexcusable and out of control. You can't get any better if you just let your emotions explode anytime the mood strikes. If you can't control yourself, I'm going to have no choice but to put you in restraints in the lockup ward.”

Betrayal sliced through me like a knife. Dr. Padgett was on her side. He was one of them.

“Dr. Padgett,” I sobbed my hurt and sense of betrayal into the phone, “how can you do that to me?”

“I'm not doing anything to you, Rachel, and you know that. If you feel compelled to act out, then you are going to have to face the consequences. I'm not going to sit here and listen to you try to justify what you did because it isn't defensible. It's destructive. Now please go let the nurse know I want her to pick up the line. I will tell her exactly what I told you. If you continue to act out of control, you will be placed in a more controlled environment. I'll see you on Monday morning rounds.”

I informed the nurse and hung up the phone, numbed. Dr. Padgett had seemed so sympathetic and understanding in our consultation. Now he was as angry as the nurse. I'd pissed him off. I'd blown it. He hated me. And I wouldn't be seeing him again until Monday.

Monday seemed like an eternity.

I got through the rest of Saturday and Sunday by acting docile, moping in my room most of the time. I did mingle a bit with a few of the other patients but still preferred solitude. When I was with the others, I did my best to appear in control. It was only holed up in my room, away from scrutiny, that I let the depression that was swallowing me show.

Every time the drug cart pulled up, I was first in line. I wanted to be numb so I could forget where I was. Most of all, I wanted to forget the faces of my two children. They had been so happy, but confused, to visit me. The sadness in their eyes when they realized I would not be going home overwhelmed me with guilt and made me ashamed of all the responsibilities that I had thrust on Tim. I felt mortified when I thought about all of the money my hospital stay was going to cost, knowing that I was virtually abandoning my children. Whatever they gave me to wash down with the water from the paper cup could never be enough. The drugs only blunted the edge, whereas I wanted to be completely wasted. Oblivious.

I went to bed early on Sunday night, not wanting to be awake for the change of shift, lest I be forced to see the drill sergeant again. I had drifted to sleep fairly easily, but I found myself awake, sitting bolt upright, at two in the morning. What was it about two o'clock?

I couldn't stand the darkness that enveloped me with a fear so choking I could barely breathe. I tried to will myself back to sleep, but I couldn't. My mind turned in on itself, as it had so often in the past. Swelling, sweeping emotions, building to a crescendo, virtually screamed in my ear. My heart was pounding. I stood up. I had to stand up. I had to run.

I started again on the power walk/run, this time discreet enough to do it up and down a small segment of the hall, out of sight and earshot of the nurses' station. The adrenaline rushed through me again, the pumping arms became punches, the pumping legs karate kicks. The more I let loose, the more I wanted to run. I smacked into the plaster, literally bouncing off the walls with a thud, energized by the pain to my hips and arms. Running faster, bouncing harder. It wasn't enough pain. I wanted to shatter myself into pieces just like the Walkman and smash the feelings right out of me.

The shadowy figures that approached me from the end of the hall had other ideas. They were big, bouncerlike men, the military police of the hospital scene. The drill sergeant was behind them, scowling as always, directing the two men to take me by force if necessary. I struggled with them with everything I had left, but I was no match for these two uniformed thugs who bound my arms in restraints and carried me down the hall. I was screaming profanity about civil rights and patient dignity, but it didn't faze them. I got the impression they were used to doing this sort of thing.

I heard the buzz of a secure door with a tiny grilled window and found myself in another unit.

I was flooded with both shock and nausea. Weightlessness. This was lockup. The real thing. Instantly filled with remorse, I tried in every conceivable way to talk myself out of there. But it wasn't going to happen. I felt ashamed and violated as they made me remove the shoelaces from my shoes, and then I watched them go through the contents of my purse they had taken from my room and catalog every item.

“
No!
” I shrieked when they took my cigarettes and lighter. They informed me that in the intensive care unit, the pleasant euphemism for lockup, patients weren't allowed to keep entire packs of cigarettes, lest they smoke them all day. Nor were they allowed to have lighters or matches for the destructive acts that could be performed with them. I went straight to bed in the same room as a grotesquely obese woman who was tied to her bed with restraints. She screamed out in her sleep every few minutes. Mercifully, I was given a large and very potent sleeping pill. It was strong enough to drown out the screams and my fear of being cooped up in a room with a woman big enough to take on three security guards and apparently violent enough to require restraints.

I awoke in the morning to see Dr. Padgett standing at my bedside. Smiling, damn him. Like nothing had happened. Like I was still supposed to be stupid enough to believe that he cared about me when he had incarcerated me in this prison of the insane.

“Heard you took a little shadowboxing run last night,” he said.

“I wasn't shadowboxing. I was power walking. Whatever that nurse told you is a lie. She's a complete bitch. She hates my guts. She got these big animals to throw me in this hellhole.”

“She did that, Rachel,” the smile faded from his face, “because it was what I directed her to do.”

“You rotten sonofabitch. How could you do this to me?”

“You were out of control. You knew the consequences. You needed to be here.”

The gentleness was barely audible in his voice. The firmness, however, was loud and clear. How dare this man, whom I barely even knew, take it upon himself to control my life, to decide what I needed and what I didn't?

“I demand that you release me from this unit right now. I mean,
right now
.”

“You were out of control, Rachel. Admit it.”

“I know my rights, you asshole. I had all weekend in this fucking place. I have the right to leave with six hours advance notice. You can't incarcerate me, you prick. I'll go against medical advice. I don't give a shit. I want out, now!”

“You have the right to be released AMA [against medical advice] with written notice,” he said calmly. “But I have the right to commit you for ninety-six hours if I can show a court that you represent a threat to yourself or to anyone else.”

“Fuck you, asshole. I'll have your fucking license. My godfather is one of the best trial attorneys in this city, and he'll have your ass on a platter.”

“All of it is legal. And there isn't a shred of doubt in my mind that I could easily convince a judge that you are a threat to yourself.”

“What did I do?” I sobbed. “What did I do?”'

“You went walking out in the middle of the night, half naked and on very potent medications, admitting to the guard that you were trying to get yourself killed. And you're very lucky you didn't. You went running around the halls of the unit and threw a radio at a nurse's head. You're very lucky it didn't hit her. Then, last night, you started slamming yourself into walls and kicking them. Just look at the bruises all over your body. Convincing a judge that you are a clear threat to yourself would be a cakewalk under these circumstances.”

His eyes drilled into me with the same determined intensity with which I was glaring at him. If I were tough, he was tougher. It didn't happen often, but I had met my match. Slight of build, perhaps. A geek, perhaps. But he wasn't afraid to draw a line in the sand. He had drawn it clearly. I wasn't going to win this battle. I also wasn't going to let him know I knew that.

“I'll be seeing you tomorrow morning during my rounds. Take care of yourself, Rachel. We'll talk more tomorrow.”

“What? You're just going to come in and threaten me like that and then just walk? Coward! Asshole! I'll fucking have your license, you bastard—”

“Listen carefully, Rachel, I'm only going to say this once. I'm not threatening you. You are a clear danger to yourself, and it is my right and duty as your psychiatrist to do whatever is necessary to protect you from yourself. What you choose to do when you're released from the hospital is your business; you can go ahead with therapy, or you can forget the whole thing. I care about you, I want to help you, and I think I can help you. But whatever you do is your decision. So long as you are a patient here, however, I am your psychiatrist. None of this is a threat.

“You, however, have threatened me, and I'm not going to stand here and listen to it all day because it isn't what you most deeply feel, and it isn't going to benefit anybody. As a matter of fact, letting you rant on is only going to let you spin further out of control. So I'm leaving now. I'll be back tomorrow. And when you can show me clear evidence that you have regained control of yourself, I will let you out of lockup.

“You can blame all of this on anyone you want, Rachel, but it isn't going to change the reality that I do care, that what I'm doing is in your best interest, and that you have the ability to control yourself—if you so choose.”

With that he left, paying no heed to the final barrage of insults I raged at him as he walked out the door. Part of me wondered if I would ever see him again—if I had overstepped the bounds and made him have second thoughts about his offer to treat me.