- Detroit, October 1991 -
Warm colored sphere lights illuminated the walk way into the hospital.
It's October, I'm clinging onto my knit sweater desperately. Chilled air still slips in like the spam emails in your inbox. You don't notice until it gets too much. I'm cold and it's overwhelming.
I'd like to be in the hospital now.
When we do get inside, I stare at the large stained glass window on one of the walls.
The ground floor has higher ceilings, more detail put into it's presentation.
It's the type of window you'd see in a chapel.
Jesus with one hand up, the other holding a cross.
A dove is above him, 'light' cascading down from its figure.
I have a sense I've seen the window before.
I don't dwell on it but I get more nervous with each day as the settings of my dreams become real places I visit within a few months.
I've been told by a friend that she thinks I'm psychic.
Not a good thing to tell a psychotic person.
But I guess I feel like I psychic if my dreams predict where I'll end up in a month or more time.
Oh well, mom flagged down a sign directing us to the ER.
It's a floor up. We search for an elevator.
I feel a sense of urgency... a sense that I'm escaping my body against my will.
I can't do much about this feeling, but my body twitches and tics anxiously to express the odd feeling.
It almost feels as if I'm high when I get like this.
I feel like I'm floating.
"There's a Starbucks in here somewhere, we can get something to eat while we wait."
America's healthcare system for people who aren't insanely rich is a very poor institution.
Luckily my parents are on the more comfortable side when it comes to money, but I feel guilty about this trip regardless.
When we get into the Emergency Room, it's stuffed with people, either concerned mothers of infants, elderly people warding off the flu or random hypochondriacs.
That aside, say for the odd rich guy whose probably just been stung by a bee and had a weird reaction, all the people in here are here as a last resort.
You can't waist money on nothing or even something serious if you can't afford it.
Mom looks around awkwardly, turning to the security guard and asking how the situation works.
We don't seem to rushed or urgent, so he just looks at me with a tilt to his head.
I'm twitching and flinching at nothing. He raises an eyebrow and tells us to take a ticket from the machine and wait till they call our number.
We get number 64.
The digital sign above says the number 42.
We know it will be a wait, just depends how long.
There's only one nurse at a desk in the whole ER.
So yeah, it might take a bit.
Mom thanks the security guard, slips the ticket into her puffer jacket pocket before ushering me out of the crowded room.
"Alright let's go get a snack" she suggests, and we walk the quiet and dimly lit hallways of the seemingly endless hospital.
Eventually she finds a sign that directs to the Starbucks.
It's up another floor, so we get on another elevator.
"Hopefully by the time we get back they'll have gone through a fair amount of people" mom thinks out loud, looking at the metal doors.
Hospital elevators are quite spacious.
You could fit a twin bed and then some in here.
Well they do... those rolling hospital beds.
Anyways, I skipped around the elevator like an elementary school kid.
I hoped it would get some energy out of my frantic body.
It doesn't really but I enjoy doing it for some reason.
I may be sixteen but I have the charisma and energy of a five year old who had a sip of coffee against their mother's permission.
We get out on the floor of the Starbucks and lucky enough it's right there when you walk out of the elevating metal box.
We slip inside and wait behind a pregnant woman and her friend... or girlfriend... I don't know.
"The tuna sandwich looks good" mom mutters, looking into the glass display case full of food that's been turning stale with each passing minute.
What a waste. Perfectly good food that people could eat that just rots away in a display case.
Why don't pictures suffice?
Or like in Japan where they make those hyper-realistic food replicas.
Oh well, pointless moral questions.
The women in front of us are done ordering and it's our turn.
Though it's October, they're already rolling out the Christmas drinks.
I stare at the menu above, looking at all the festive drink names.
Eggnog latte.
That sounds good.
I block out mom's voice ordering until she turns to me and asks what I want.
"An Eggnog latte and a vegetable wrap"
I don't trust the food in chain coffee shops.
I will probably hate the wrap.
I'll eat it though.
I'll eat anything right now.
So we wait and eventually I'm grabbing the little brown paper bag with my wrap and the warm cup with my latte.
I shuffle my fingers around it. The longer they remain in one spot, the heat of the cup becomes too unbearable so they have to move a bit. An endless dance of some morphed version of hot potato.
"Ok, fingers crossed our number is coming up soon" mom offers, though we stop in a random corner with a bench so we can eat our food. There's one of those round traffic mirrors on the wall across from us. I watch it the entire time.
I feel comfortable knowing that I can see anyone coming regardless of which of the three hallways there are connected to whatever open spaces we're sitting in.
I should get one of those, I'll never be caught off guard.
I'll be able to watch my room at all angles.
I know it would feed into my paranoia, but wouldn't it make my paranoia lessen?
I don't know.
"I love you" mom suddenly says, coming to rest her head on my shoulder once she's finished her sandwich.
She does this all the time.
We're very close.
I think she's my best friend and I'm hers.
We never fight.
The last 'fight' was when I wouldn't stop shouting criticisms at the tv when we were watching those corny Christmas movies.
She suddenly shouted for me to shut up but eventually we started giggling.
So not really a fight.
Another time I wrapped my legs in my chain necklace and lifted my legs in the air, blocking her view of the screen.
"Oh no, I've been put in shack-" I was cut off.
"Put your fucking feet down!"
We laughed about that too.
"Im sorry about this, I know today has already been a train wreck for you" she was running around doing tons of legal work and stuff. Getting documents signed and shit.
She's a lawyer and today has been specifically hard for her, trying to meet a deadline.
"Just take this as proof that I love you a lot" she laughs softly, "whatever you need, I'm going to make sure you'll get it, I don't like seeing you in this state."
The reason my mom made me go to my psychologist today was due to a psychotic episode a couple of days ago.
I tore my room apart looking for cameras.
Yeah, I do that a lot.
My parents were having a hard time agreeing on something and brought me in as a middle man to decide who was right.
Horrible thing to make a child do but I forgive them.
They're trying.
But regardless, I burst into a fit of tears.
I was loosing complete touch with reality and couldn't handle their fighting.
"Quit crying, it's not like they're getting a divorce" my brother shouted at me.
That was the night my brother and dad found out about all the hallucinations and paranoia.
Before that point, neither of them believed me.
Oh well.
A lot of crazy shit is how I'd describe my life.
"Alright, let's go, I don't want to miss our turn"
We didn't miss our turn.
It was only at 45 by the time we got back.
This would be an insanely painful wait.
So we got ourselves situated on two chairs and I pulled my backpack off.
The only thing I had in there was a bag of nuts I forgot to eat and 'The Communist Manifesto'.
Well... not only that... there was a lesbian manga, but I wasn't about to read that to my mom.
Please note that trying to entertain your mother with Karl Marx doesn't work.
She will beg you to stop reading considering she doesn't understand half the words the man uses.
Proletariat.
What does that mean?
Bourgeois.
Who are they?
Hitherto.
What?
So I asked her if she was afraid of death, we pondered the topic for about twenty minutes.
Eventually a couple hours past of us trying to be introspective with your conversations and sort of succeeding.
The number was 54.
Fuck.
Eventually my dad texted mom saying, "if you aren't seen in the next hour, come home"
Well luck was on our side that night, because a shift change happened and suddenly the line was moving like wildfires.
Soon enough, 64 was called.
"Number Sixty-four?"
We got up to the desk, separated by the nurse with a sheet of glass that had some holes that were connected to a voice box I guess.
I was asked why I came in.
I said that my psychologist told me to come because I've been experiencing psychosis.
After that, the ER nurse was all over me.
She took my blood pressure while letting all her concerned thoughts out.
"That must be so scary!"
"Yeah... it is..."
"What a horrible thing to hear things! Do they say mean things?"
"Not really, unless you consider plotting to kidnap me as being mean"
"Do you see things?"
"Yes"
"What types of things do you see?"
"Like dark figures, things moving on their own... one time I saw my throw blanket wave at me... usually things look like they're melting"
"Oh that must be so stressful"
I don't know if it's the psychosis itself that's stressful. I think it's the fact that no one believes you, or if they do, they're terrified and think you're loosing it. Then you resort to not saying anything about it. Then you feel incredibly lonely.
I'm used to being on my own.
This feels different.
It's isolating.
It's lonely.
It's a lonely disorder.