I will say the most horrifying place I have ever been in was the Tucson State quiet room. I was to be d/c the next day and I needed to be sane enough to START seeing my kid. I was super antsy and I begged the nurse to put me in there so I could chill out. Like every request, with that nurse, you had to make it
three times, the first couple she would sniff, and say, "You don't need it."
I was still having pretty bad synesthesia at the time where all your senses were jumbled and also INTENSE and the did not clean that much at State. I could smell every last person who had peed or pooped in there for at least a decade there was graffiti on the walls, you could see it glisten although it was pitch black and I'm sure some was in blood. I got to experience the collective insanity of all the past residents, thoughts, feelings, statements, actions. I was trembling all over and I was like, "Okay, I have to be unconscious" so I just lifted my hands to the heavens and said "ENTER ALL OF IT." I don't know how long I was in there, but like, when the nurse opened the door I was curled in a ball on the floor. She said "It's time for your 4 pm benzo you can come out now."
I moaned and said, "I don't think I need it." Then I went to my bedroom and lay not on the bed but underneath it. Of course, at the State Hospital such actions aren't really considered strange after the quiet room... surely the staff have to KNOW what is in there? Maybe not if you are in a sensitized state? In any case, they left me alone about it and I was discharged as planned.
And it was one of the best cigarettes I had ever smoked, amen. I also got my kid back and I SUPPOSE the cigarette came first only temporally not in importance. I am pretty sure. You gotta be locked in nut house for weeks to understand what a cigarette can MEAN. I am NOT saying I would not have picked my kid over that cigarette but luckily I did not have to make that
choice.
Anna
Wait until I get my retirement time in September. RJ will be speaking her mind more often.
