Don’t kick at my ribs and tell me not to feel it
Or stab me, then yell for getting blood on your hands
Don’t siphon my tears and rage while I’m crying
Or mock that I’m far too broken to stand
I think what everyone probably thinks when they’re being wheeled past the double security doors of the psych ward—I don’t belong here. Pleading with the emergency room staff did nothing. Not after I uttered the infamous password that would land anyone in crazy jail. I never should have told them I wanted to die. Even though, right now, as the night crew locks my chair into place before shutting the door to this sterile room, I really do want to. Anything has to be better than living like this.
It’s going to be okay, Coral. My husband’s tear-soaked face rushes through my thoughts as I hold onto the memory like I held fast to his hand a few moments earlier when they whisked me away from him. Camren has a tender side that always shows up a little too late. The only thing that keeps me from going into one of my fits that landed me in the ER to begin with is the heavy buzz of whatever medicinal cocktail the nurses gave me a few hours ago. My husband and I don’t know what the fits are. But, we do know how they started.
“Alright, sweetheart,” one nurse says, breaking into my thoughts to have me sign a mountain of paperwork with rules and details I’ll never remember. “The last thing we need to do is a quick strip search before we get you to your room.”
To grant my discomfort maximum intensity, a cold sweat flashes across the goosebumps on my skin, bringing the hospital air from frigid to subzero. It doesn’t matter how empathetic this woman is being—the knit in her brow, the apology in her voice. I don’t forgive her. I don’t forgive my husband. I don’t forgive myself.
A paper set of scrubs the color of muted despair replaces my ER gown before I’m led down a dim hallway. At least they let me keep my hair tie and stocking cap to pull my dingy strands away from my face. The sagging, cheap socks they provided barely keep the cold of the glassy tile floors from my feet. About ten doors down seems to be the length of the place. What appears to be my roommate lays in a ball of covers at the center of a piece of boxed furniture that’s designed like a raised flower bed. But, instead of tulips and tomatoes, it grows little insane people. My roommate doesn’t seem to have sprouted yet. But then again, it is only 2am.
My accompanying nurse places a fresh pair of socks in my cubby along the ivory wall and a foam cup of water in my hand. I’m pretty sure they’ve already taken my blood pressure, but she takes it again, encouraging me to swallow the pills that she presses into my palm. I stare at the tiny tablets. I glance at the shower curtain where my bathroom door is supposed to be. I look back at my flower bed across from the snoring ball on top of her own flower bed. There’s no way I’m going to sleep. Not in a place like this. The pills are bitter going down.
All I can think of as my drowsy eyes trace the stream of hallway light through the cracked door is how I can’t relax without a fan. The weight of the drugs on my face and limbs has my body plenty relaxed, even against the thinnest mattress I’ve ever laid on. But, my mind is its own entity. It wants to play the scary movies. The movies set off the dark thoughts.
My kids must be wondering why their mommy isn’t home yet. What is Camren telling them? Did he give our youngest enough cuddles? Did they hear me the night that it began? They must be afraid. Hell, I’m afraid. I shouldn’t have given up on seventeen years of marriage. I shouldn’t have tried to leave my husband for someone else. Then, he wouldn’t have gotten angry. And, if he wouldn’t have gotten angry—
My heart jolts like a bolt of electricity at the familiar face in the open doorway, half-shadowed and weary. I don’t know how Camren got in here, but I nearly cry from relief. He must know this isn’t the place for me. But, my elation melts at his expression, pained and twisted like his voice as he whispers, “I’m sorry I broke you.”
The tremble starts in my fingers and rushes to my lips where tears seep into the corners, salty and raw. My breath catches as the tremble becomes a quaking, a swarm of bees in my chest that climbs up to my throat. It’s coming. Oh god, it’s coming. I sit up in bed, reaching for my weeping husband as he disappears into the dark hallway. He can’t leave me now. “Camren!”
“Aw, fuck me sidesaddle,” a groggy voice says from across the room, the interruption calming the bees to a low hum. A pile of tousled red hair emerges out of the other flower bed, my roommate’s comical sneer growing beneath her rolling eyes.
I struggle to find my voice, but I find it. “Excuse me?”
“I knew they’d gimme a screamer.”
“I…a what?” I ask, whipping my head to our doorway where a security guard peeks in before cracking the door again. My husband is gone. He was never there. Nothing new about that. Shaking my head to find my bearings, I turn back at the smirking girl with the crooked teeth.
“Listen, Yolanda Bitch, my name’s Piper.” She lets out a big yawn, flopping down flat on the white sheets. “Ask for a shot next time. You’ll sleep better. I hate bein’ woke up three hours before breakfast.”
Her advice along with my paper shirt sticking to the dampness beneath cues me in. The twisted blanket around me bears as a third witness. I’ve been asleep for two hours. Impossible. Giving my face a grounding rub, I force myself back down against the crinkling mattress, though, I’d rather stuff myself in the laundry cart to escape the night. The dreams are getting more vivid.
“It’s just the Trazadone,” Piper says with a sleepy thumbs-up. My face always gives me away, even in the dark. Pulling my beanie down to warm my ears against the shudder, I fight to keep my eyes open. Sleep is the enemy when my mind turns on me. Or maybe this hospital is the nightmare. Maybe I’ll wake up next to Camren’s bare chest rising and falling on his side of our bed—our bed that I’ve avoided for the past two years. I’ve never wanted it more than I do right now. I want to wake up. I want to go home. I want to erase everything he and I have done to each other.
As the Yolanda flower across from me drifts off once again, my tears tap the pillow I’ve folded in half to alleviate the ache starting in my neck. Tension and exhaustion take another swing at me, and I don’t fight it this time. I’ve hurt myself quite enough for the time being. I’m here to rest. And, I let myself do just that.
________________________________________________________________________
My eyes shoot open at the knock on the door, reminding me what fresh hell I’m in. While Piper hums to herself behind the shower curtain-bathroom door, the day nurse wheels a cart full of meds and devices up next to my bed. We go through the pills and blood pressure routine, my head so groggy that my mouth kind of hangs open, even though the pinch from the machine’s cuff makes me feel like my arm might pop off. I’m shocked I’m not drooling.
“You’ve got to hurry up, Corralle,” she says, her tone authoritative enough to make me sit up a little straighter. “Don’t miss breakfast layin’ here. You’ve got to eat somethin’.” Digging through her cart, she hands me a set of matching gray sweats and a clear box of travel-sized toiletries. “Wash up and change. You don’t want to wear that to mornin’ check-in.”
“Oh, I…um, thank you.” I glance at her name tag against her blue scrubs. “D’Jonnie.”
As bossy as she’s being, she pauses with a softness in her eyes as warm as her umber skin. “You’re goin’ to be alright, Corralle.”
A lump knots in my throat and my stomach, my hands trembling away. I appreciate her saying that. I really do. But, I’m afraid to be here. And, I’m afraid to go home. D’Jonnie pushes her cart out of the room as the girl with the red bed head finally emerges from the bathroom. “Time to eat, Yolanda Bitch.” She flashes a freckled grin. “I think it’s French toast.”
I let out a sigh of relief as she prances away, closing the door behind her. Finally. My hand pulls the bathroom curtain as soon as I reach it, my relief dying as I lower my eyes to the toilet. It’s just a rim. No seat. “What the hell?” I don’t even know how someone would try to off themselves with a toilet seat, but this place clearly had to take this precaution for a reason. After pulling my hair into a fresh bun beneath my beanie cap and using a toothbrush meant for Tinkerbell, I decide to go ahead and do my business. No one’s in here, anyway.
A knock at the door sends one hand to the rim to steady myself as the other grips the flimsy barricade between me and the doorway like that’s going to do something. “Yes, I’m…I’m in the restroom,” I call out, dying inside.
I’ve never taken a shit with nothing but a piece of fabric between me and the rest of the world. Hell, public restrooms make me want to go home and scrub myself.
“Okay, Miss Coral,” a deep voice says through the cracked door. “Just doing my rounds.”
This damn curtain is the only thing differentiating this place from a prison.
The dining room, however, gives off the vibe of a convalescence center. As I get in the end of the food line, I immediately regret leaving my cell.
“Yolanda Bitch, come sit with us,” my roommate calls out amidst the sea of hunched shoulders and stoned faces. After grabbing my tray of food that smells like a dirty microwave, I weave between the eight or so tables to the back of the room where some zombie-esque patients are mauling the coffee station next to a lady leaning against the cinderblock wall with a book. Piper flashes me a syrup-filled smile as I slide into the wooden seat across from her at her table.
Next to her, a quiet woman who looks about my age moves a plastic tub of short pencils to make room for my tray of delicacies, offering me a kind grin. She could be Hispanic or mixed like I am, but I can’t tell. As Piper has a grand time cutting her soggy bread with a plastic spoon, the woman snorts in amusement before turning back to me. “What’s up? I’m Mia.”
“Hi,” I say, taking a sip of orange juice. “I’m—“
“Yolanda Bitch.” My roommate elbows Mia with an ornery smile before burping at her plate.
I lean in, too drugged to feel annoyance. “Why does she keep calling me that?”
“She calls everybody that,” Mia says, rolling her eyes at Piper’s increasingly concerning table manners.
Wham!
Piper and I jump at a seething girl slamming herself into the seat on the other side of me. A white bandage takes up half of her face, but her sour mood is evident as hell. Piper’s big eyes grow wider as she flashes Mia a questioning look who returns it with a sly side-eye. She’s seen some shit before. But, even her collected expression turns curious as the fuming newcomer at our table plunges her hand into the pencil tub. I’m not sure what the table has done to her, but she’s glaring at it like it’s making fun of her mother.
“My cheek hurts,” she hisses as tears fill her eyes. “And, they won’t let me have pain pills, anymore.”
“Alright, guys,” a tech announces from the center of the room, swiftly passing out the papers in her hand while our trays are collected. “It’s time to start our morning session. As many of you know, we’ve been discussing how non-physical trauma is still trauma…”
While the rest of the room continues scratching their noses and picking their asses, I blink to keep myself awake. It turns out, we don’t need Trazadone. This instructor could be put over a loudspeaker at closing time. I know I’d pass the hell out. Since my food was taken away from me, the only option I’ve got left to distract my drooping head is finagling a bitty pencil between my fingers to draw flowers around the edges of my handout. I start in the corner, my lead pausing when I get to the stem. As my eyes land on the title of the paper, the therapist’s voice fades out—PTSD & Emotional Abuse. Such a heavy subject for a Sunday morning.
My hand makes an attempt to add leaves to my artwork, but words and phrases jump out at me from the paragraphs next to it, shouting things I don’t want to know. Gaslighting. Intimidation. My breath starts to quicken, my nose tightening. Shaming. Stonewalling. Fear of violence. The burning in my eyes isn’t making any sense. This isn’t my life. This doesn’t apply to me. The words begin to blur, anyway. A prickle finds its way to my lips.
“Hey, Coral?” Mia’s voice snaps me back into the room. “You okay, hon?”
I follow her gaze back down to my handout. Oh, hell. The words are shaking because the paper is shaking. The paper is shaking because my hand is shaking. Dropping today’s healing lesson on the table, I shove my hands beneath my rear, avoiding the table’s eyes. “I don’t know why they do that.”
“Hey, it’s okay—“
“My cheek hurts,” the angry girl growls, raising her pencil to our horror before stabbing her own handout right in the heart. As the nursing staff attempts to calm her down, she erupts like a can of pop that’s been shaken, foam and all. Even the lady in the corner looks up from her book.
Piper’s hands rake through her messy hair. “Well, screw me like a kangaroo, finger bang like an orangutang!”
I turn to Mia, folding my arms because they’ve joined the trembling. “Wh…what?”
“Tourettes,” she says with a shrug. My roommate’s still going, talking nonsense and making some of the patients in the room laugh. Others…not so much.
“Hey, shut the hell up, Piper! Damn!”
“You shut up, Yolanda Bitch!”
The therapist calls for the room to settle down, but it takes off like a stack of dominoes instead. A heavyset boy that seems no more than eighteen starts rocking back and forth, groaning about the voices. They want him to kill the man in the wheelchair. The wheelchair guy keeps telling him to fuck off. Another man who looks like he hasn’t eaten in months paces the room while someone keeps crying for their mom. There’s no rest to be had in a place like this. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong here. My body shivers, but I’m so hot that I can’t breathe. A metallic taste hits my tongue. My hand hits my mouth. The bees are coming.
Running from the cacophony, I ignore the nurses’ calls, fleeing to my room. Their arms are around me as I grip the wall next to my bed, a roar like a tormented animal clawing its way out of my throat. Images hide the room from me. Cutting words. Laundry baskets flying down my hallway. The dog yelping at the steel-toed boot. My kids crying as I tell them that daddy’s just stressed, my own tears streaming while we clean up the mess on their bedroom floor. The memories won’t stop, my body convulsing with each one. I don’t know how long I’ve been screaming.
“Corralle! Stop this.” Strong hands cupping my face bring me back into my dorm room of insanity. A strong voice orders me to breathe.
“D’Jonnie?” I choke out, another nurse stroking my shoulder. She’s staring at my quivering hands, and that’s when I notice. I’m still holding the paper. The paper that doesn’t apply to me.
D’Jonnie puts my reading material in my cubby, handing me a little paper cup of water to take something called a “Benzo” to calm me down. The buzz works quickly. But, it doesn’t take all of the pain away.
Lowering my trembling body to my bed, I hang my head. “I don’t belong here, D’Jonnie. I want to go home.”
“Look at me,” she orders, her chin lifting as I sniffle up at her. Pride and strength resonate from her solid gaze, her Haitan accent emphasizing her wisdom. “You are here because you need to get strong for your children. Do you want them to see you like this?”
“No.” My eyes well up again.
She points an umber finger down at me. “Stop letting this man do this to you. You are a woman. You are a motha’. You are strong.” Now my lip quivers for a different reason, her words cutting away the despair. “And, you are here to heal and get betta’ so you can go home to your children and show them what strength looks like.”
With a heavy sigh, she stuffs some tissue into my hand before heading back to her duties, leaving the door open for all of the crazies to peer in at me after their class. The irony is all but lost on me. They think I’m the crazy one. And, maybe I am. Or maybe none of us are. Maybe we’re all just one wound or trauma away from screaming at cinderblock walls and stabbing tables with a pencil.
I shut my eyes in the quietness of the room before curling up with my pillow. D’Jonnie is right. I’m surrounded by therapists and doctors who just want to help me. I don’t have to think about what to make for dinner or going to work the next day. I’ve got to use the time and resources I’m being given because, when I do get out of here, I’m going to show my kids what it means to overcome. I’m going to find out what’s been happening to me these past seventeen years. And then, I’m going to take my life back. Somehow.
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