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Becoming institutionalized and addicted


AuroraDream

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Before I continue, I just want to mention that a great deal of anguish and torment has been brought to the surface in revisiting my past. The past two weeks I have been more depressed than normal and actually find myself actually welcoming death as a relief from all the pressures of the past and the indignity of my current poverty which seems to be coming at me from all angles more than ever.

But I will soldier on even though I just want to fall apart and cry sometimes, currently I am working 6 days a week 12+ hours a day, In conditions less than ideal for a flower such as myself.

Part of it is the aging of my body and it's ability to cope with the hot cramped kitchen in which I spend most of my time. The rest is the mounting bills and the fact I now have to drive a van with no brakes in order to keep working and continue this ever increasing spiral of debt and ruin.

I've been coping by keeping myself pretty high to keep me from screaming out the back door into the night. My days are a sweaty blur of adderal,endless prep and cooking and standing, the hours I work effectively keep me from having a second job or a life. I cannot even plan anything in advance because my supervisor likes to make up the schedule as he goes along.

It takes a great deal to write about this as I am ashamed of my time in the State Hospital, few people outside of my family even knows.

I was let out of the room the next day and fell into a routine of life at the Cottage, it was a fairly new building. A single story split level structure laid out in a cross shape on top of a hill bordering the southeastern corner of the grounds nearest the iconic water tower. I could see that same tower from my bedroom at "home" I use quotes for that word because home is simply just a word to me.

Home is something I never truly had.

Home is something I am sure I will never find.

For me home is a place I can never visit and will always be just beyond my reach.

In my dreams Home to me is a physical place, wholly mine and is my bullwark against the tide of life's continual assualt on my desires for peace and serenity.

But it can never be....

It was two whole weeks before I would see my family again. I was angry that I was left here, but part of me was happy I was safely out of my Father's reach.

I was actually glad to see them, it was a Sunday morning warm and sunny, i had a plate of Kibbe and Dolmas, cold but savory reminder of my my Dad's mothers Middle Eastern cooking. It was already true comfort food to me before my inprisonment I was told they were only allowed to visit me for 20 minutes which angered me, I was hoping they were here to take me back home, but that was not the case. I quickly scanned the Sunday funnies they had brought with the food. But all too soon it was over, I felt abandoned and sad I went into my assigned room to cry.

The routine of the young patients here was quickly established witjh a full schedule for each patient.

There was a Monday to Friday schedule, with classes, shop, gym, and therapy and drugs 3 times a day. The evenings were free for TV or movies, or after dinner play until dark.

My time there would seem uneventful and boring if I had just followed the routine.

But things have a way of happening with me.....

I pretty much never had much of a connection with kids my own age, having maybe 2-3 friends in my childhood. Instead I had an easier time of connecting with adults, at least the ones keen enough to understand and connect with my level of intelligence.

The VOA daycare I was sent to ws a prime example, I was bullied, and picked on and generally did not fit in with the kids there. The volunteers were moslty college age kids of the folk music generation. I was quickly made the favorite and would get to skip naps and run errands with them into town and would get ice cream sometimes.

The hospital was no exception, my shrink Mike and his boss Kerry quickly realized this and treated me well and I had some perks other patients had no clue about.

During this time all i really ever thought about could be whittled down to 3 things.

Wearing pretty dresses all the time and being a girl.

Being free to live the way I want.

Revenge on those that put me here.

Seriously, even though we weren't locked inside at night and the grounds were pretty much open in the front and back of the property, and anyone of us could just walk off the grounds it still seemed like a jail and we were trapped.

My ward was on the north side of the cross, the east wing was for the youngest and the most severely affected by mental impairment. The West wing was for from what I could tell were for the least affected and was co-ed. This would make my time here more interesting. In the West ward there was a girl named "Joy." She had just recently arrived and already the rumors were flying that she was here because she liked to trade underwear with boys! "What" I said, the information was repeated, "really?" My mind reeled at the very thought of this, and I was already planning how I was going to accomplish making such a deal for myself.

I could hardly believe what I was just told but it being close to bedtime, my plan will just have to wait as will you until my next entry.

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