The Death of Small Creatures (28 page)

I left my room and went into the bright sterile hallway, down the corridor to the nurses' station. A man sat there, a male nurse. I found him to be quite attractive, brown hair and short beard, nice shape to his face and mouth. Somewhere in my delusional state I found it in me to be attracted to someone. There was a brief moment in which I sensed annoyance in him, as if to say, “Oh great, here's another one.” But I approached the desk, leaned onto it and said, “I took a bottle of pills, and I think I need help.”

His eyes widened. “You took a bottle of pills?”

“Yes.”

“How many did you take?”

I paused. I had finished off a bottle of Wellbutrin, 300 mg pills, then poured myself a handful of smaller 150 mg pills into the palm of my hand. I chased them all back with water.

The handsome male nurse disappeared to the back room, told me to wait there. Then all hell broke loose. I don't remember how I got from the nurses' station back to my room. The next thing I remember is several people, nurses, standing around the cot, talking in low voices, murmuring about blood pressure and heart rate. A nurse checked my pulse, the machine beeped, then the nurse ran down the hall, presumably to retrieve the house doctor.

The house doctor appeared, a younger man, clean-shaven, dressed in a lab coat, about my age. He was taking my pulse, then slid the stethoscope inside my night shirt. It felt cool and refreshing.

Everything from there on is a blur, or I don't remember at all, but I can describe flashes of imagery: sticky things being stuck all over my chest and under my breasts (I was embarrassed, being exposed this way); long tubes stuck to the sticky things; a machine with lights on it to my left; several people in the room now. Repeatedly, I sat up, kept blabbering something about “reality,” and “I don't know what's real.” And a nice blonde nurse easing me back down, saying, “It's okay, just lie back down.”

Apparently they were giving me an ECG (electrocardiogram), a measurement of the heart's activity. I just lay there, exposed, the machine beeping, the murmur of voices around me, everyone speaking doctor language.

Then I passed out and woke up, over and over again. The nice blonde nurse kept grabbing my hand telling me not to go to sleep. But I did; I fell back to sleep, or rather became semi-conscious. My eyes were closed but the nurse kept lifting my hand, holding it mid-air (my hand was limp) then letting it drop to the bed again. There was talk of seizures. The blonde nurse said, “We're worried that you are going to have a seizure.” This is the last thing I remember before passing out completely.

I slept for hours, waking up a couple of times and seeing the handsome male nurse sitting in a chair at the doorway, watching me. Suicide watch. Then the nice blonde nurse was watching me; they were taking turns. I heard the bustle of other patients in the hallways, getting ready for breakfast, doors slamming shut. The blonde nurse half-smiled. “Can you open your eyes?” I opened my eyes, back into reality, the three-dimensional reality I know so well, back into the world of the living.

Early the next morning, the doctor returned and put an IV in my arm. He had some trouble getting the needle in. He spilled my blood, couldn't get the needle in the first few times, then finally succeeded. I was relieved for him, wanted him to do a good job for his sake, wanted him to do a good job so he could go home fulfilled, to return to his beautiful wife and children, so he could play tennis on Sundays.

So the IV was in my arm. To make me clean. “This is to clear the remaining drugs out of your body,” the nurse said.

When I first woke up this morning I had to pee badly, so the handsome male nurse helped me manoeuvre the IV stand to the bathroom, rather awkwardly, through the door. I was now within reach of the toilet. The nurse asked me at the last minute to pee into a round plastic tray. I felt stupid about this, but did the job anyway then carried it out to him.

The doctor and another nurse came in some time later to give me my second ECG. The nurse was kind but hurried. She stuck the little stickers all over my body, one on my ankle and one under each of my breasts, pushing each breast aside as she did her work. Then wires were attached to each of the sticky pads. She went over to the machine, checked things out briefly, came back and tore off all the sticky pads, then was out the door without so much as a “See ya.” I fell back into bed, closed my shirt again as I realized my breasts were exposed, and did up the buttons.

Later in the morning I met with Dr. P, heard his voice in the hall, reviewing my chart, talking to the nurse about “the unfortunate news of one of his patients overdosing last night.” I was pale and unwashed, hadn't brushed my teeth, hair a mess. He knocked on the door, poked his head in and said, “Trisha,” the way he always says my name, declaratively. When he says my name I feel like I exist.

He was already out at the front desk waiting for me by the time I got out of bed and manoeuvred the IV along the hall to meet him. He was leaning with one elbow on the desk when I approached him, then we were off like lightning down the hall. His pace is fast. He should run track. I fell behind him until we arrived at an unfortunately sunny interview room. I wanted darkness, did not want the bright light on my face, nor the sunlit, gleaming table in between us. I felt so ugly.

“So?” he said. “You've had quite a night.”

“Yeah,” I said.

He then went on to say many things that elude me now. But he was frustrated. He said I was “wearing my pain on a billboard for everyone to see.” He said, “Why do you do that?” I had no answer, except to say that I didn't think the pills would have such an effect on me, that I didn't mean to create such a scene. He balked, seemed unmoved. There was no tenderness or compassion in him this day.

It hurt.

We went back down the hall to my room, which I couldn't find at first because I was so upset and disoriented.

I fell into bed, curled up into a ball and cried for hours, certain that I'd officially blown any chance I ever had of being with him romantically.

He would never fall in love with me.

Clinical Note:

Wellbutrin OD. Mood still low. Please see house doctor's notes for medical details. She admits she might do it (cut herself, OD) again because she feels hopeless at present. Chronic self-injury, Borderline Personality Disorder, plus addictions elevate her risk for suicide at present. No passes. FABs (fresh air breaks) permitted so she can smoke.

December 5, 2011

I'm thinking of taking one of the plastic knives, breaking it into a sharp point and using that as my newest instrument of destruction.

Why do I do this?

Because the pain is so great. Daggers in my chest.

I love Dr. P. He does not love me. It is becoming clearer to me how delusional I have been in believing that one day he might risk everything to be with me. There was a time though when it seemed more real. I believe there was some merit to my thinking. He is a man, and I am a woman after all. I know he has been attracted to me, to my mind, my body, my intellect. But to what end?

I am trying not to take it too personally, telling myself that he would not leave his wife, his family, for any woman, no matter how beautiful and talented and exquisite she might be.

Am I exquisite?

Beautiful?

Talented?

Or just a mediocre hack?

The urge to cut is great.

Some time later…

Approaching the dinner hour: I have been eating meat while in here, have succumbed to my most primitive bloodthirsty appetite, sucking the marrow out of life.

One might be tempted to regard life in a mental hospital as sparse, lacking in ornamentation and lustre, but I see it differently. The uniformity of it all, the track lighting and bland walls, the gleaming corridors, the wood panel doors, the single-person cots (they make no beds for lovers in a mental hospital), even the fake pathetic Christmas tree in the drab lounge area, all of these things for me are luminescent. These things exist on the fringe of a functioning society. Life in here is not, however, dysfunctional; it is ultra-functional. Only its inhabitants are dysfunctional: people like me who fall deeply in love with the wrong people.

Life in here is ultra-functional by virtue of its uniformity, the mealtime schedule, the slippery, ergonomically correct lounge furniture, pill time, snack time, bedtime and so on. They insist upon this ultra-functionality in order to counter the psychotic nature of what exists within it, because it makes them uncomfortable, because people like us make them uncomfortable.

Clinical Note:

Better today. Better ego structure and impulse regulation. Family supports have begun to rally around her. She is not ready to quit cigarettes. She often abuses over-the-counter cold remedies as well. Extensive past substance abuse. She acknowledges that her wish for self-injury and suicide is elevated while she is intoxicated. Zero current plans to kill herself.

Increase passes slowly.

Increase activities.

Family meeting this week.

December 6, 2011

Fifteen minutes until nighttime meds. I am longing for heavy sedation.

Something happened tonight, something I'll regret for the rest of my life, something that made my mother break down and cry.

We had been to the Oak Bay Laundromat, then gone shopping at a vintage clothing store, then to the Dollar Store. I bought hair clips, and a shiny star garland for my mini Christmas tree. I strung the garland around the tree with Mom's help, her feeble destroyed body straining to reach the top of the tree. I put my laundry away, gathered some clean panties for the hospital, and a pair of black leggings. I cuddled the bunnies for a while and gave them their almond treats.

When Mom wasn't looking, I snatched the sharp yellow paring knife from the dish rack, thinking she would never notice that it was missing, put it in my purse and off we went to the hospital. Mom dropped me off and left. I was worried that the nurses would search my purse upon my return (sometimes they do that), but they didn't.

When Mom got home she noticed the knife was missing and raced back to the hospital to retrieve it. She called me in a panic on her cellphone. “The yellow knife is missing, Trish!”

“Oh,” I said.

“You have it!” she said.

She came up here and got the knife, cried in my arms. I held her tight, and she sobbed in my arms.

I feel so bad. I assured her that I would not cut myself in the future, that I hadn't yet used the knife to cut myself. But of course I will, and of course I had already.

Mom spoke with the nurses and told them what happened. The nurse and I then talked privately after Mom left. I told her that I had already cut myself but not to tell Mom, and could I have a bandage?

Tomorrow they will advise Dr. P of what has happened, and I will feel like even more of a fool than I do now.

I wonder what he will think of me, what he'll do. I hope he doesn't take away my fresh-air breaks, my smoke breaks.

I need cigarettes desperately right now.

December 7, 2011

This morning I met with you again. You had written down on your notebook, in full view for me to see,
Borderline Personality Disorder
. My ever-changing diagnosis.

It scared me today when you suggested electroconvulsive therapy, ECT. I thought of Jack Nicholson in
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
, which they have in the movie collection here. I thought how desperate you must be to be suggesting something so severe.

Is this your last-ditch effort?

Clinical Note:

Impulsive cutting of self:

“I've been feeling the urge to do that a lot lately. I felt relieved afterwards. Had my mom not found the knife I don't know what I might have done.”

1. Cut prior to admission to hospital.
   
2. Cut during this admission.
   
3. One OD.
   

Lengthy history of cutting. Long-standing bulimia. Very severe alcoholism, plus extensive history of other street drugs (past intravenous drug abuse, rare). She was heavily abusing over-the-counter cold remedies prior to her first admittance to the Eric Martin Pavilion three years ago. Nicotine dependency.

She has chronic history of very poor impulse regulation. Yesterday's incident of self-abuse demonstrates this. Essentially, her life has been para-suicidal behaviours, which now have escalated in risk.

Trisha's defences:

1. Projective identification
   
2. Denial
   
3. Acting out
   
4. Turning against the self
   

She feels “rejected” when her daily passes are curtailed for her safety. She worries that I will abandon her.

1. DBT (Dialectic Behaviour Therapy) referral
   
2. ECT consult and opinion
   
3. Lamictal
   

December 10, 2011

I have just returned from an eight-hour pass, from mini-Christmas at my sister's place.

My gifts include:

• crystal paw print earrings
  
• pink socks with puffy birds on them
  
• beautiful big violet bath towel
  
• small lead bunny
  
• a glass rabbit candle holder
  
• a crystal bowl from Bowering
  
• a framed picture, blown up, that I took while in NYC a couple years ago: it's a picture of a building front with plate-glass windows into a shop with a pink neon sign out front that says,
  SoHo Psychic
  .
  

We ate roasted chestnuts. I had a big plate of four-cheese ravioli in a cream rosemary sauce and a Diet Coke.

Now I'm back in the hospital, back in blue scrubs. I've just read the purple pamphlet that Dr. S (consulting doctor and expert on ECT) gave me:

Electroconvulsive Therapy
(
ECT
)

Information booklet for patients and families

Caring for the people and families we serve

December 11, 2011

I had my stitches removed this morning. The nurse, Amy, removed the eleven stitches, left twenty-two angry puncture wounds on either side of the cut in the middle. The cut has healed well.