Entries II.19-22

Entry 19 (1972)

People do strange things in mental hospitals.  People do strange things everywhere.  In mental hospitals, they seem even stranger because I can’t think straight about what is happening.  It led to many unfortunate incidents.

My friend, Cathy, was a returnee to Child Study.  She had been there before and was Jerry’s patient.  She identified as Native American.  I never asked more about that.  She wore thick glasses and had a wide smile with lots of teeth.  We became good friends when she returned to Western in the summer.  We talked and hung out together.

As I mentioned, returnees had higher expectations on their behavior.  This didn’t seem to improve their behavior.  Cathy and others struggled with this.  She and I had a commonality that is hard to put my finger on.  Partnerships are created, dissolved, and recreated in closed societies.  I spent two months in close friendship with Cathy.

This meant she was exposed to my constant rants about wanting to kill myself.  I imagine she shared those feelings.  The way she expressed it was to help me along more than once.  I have to wonder why I went along with it.  Another mystery about what happens in a mental hospital.

We spent a week at a state camp on a lake in the Olympic mountains.  It was beautiful, forested, and glorious in the Pacific Northwest summer.  We hiked up on a ridge looking east with Jerry.  I could see the Seattle skyline across islands in the Puget Sound.  I recognized buildings and the Space Needle in an act of feeling so close and so far from home.

Patients roamed around unsupervised as there wasn’t anywhere for us to go.  This caused trouble.  I was determined to cut myself.  I found a small metal lid and bent it back and forth for over an hour to break in half to create a sharp edge.  Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be sharp enough and made light bloody scratches on my wrist.  It was viewed by staff as another “acting out.”  No one ever asked what was going on with me or what triggered this bout of self harm.  It was just behavior to be managed.

Cathy and I were alone one afternoon.  I was carrying on about suicide.  Under a tree, she turned to me and said, “You want to die?  I can help you.”

“How?” I naïvely asked.

“Lay down here under this tree.”  Obediently, I laid down.  “Stay there.”  Cathy straddled me.  “I’ll help you die.”  She placed her hands on my throat and started to squeeze. 

It’s a strange thing wanting to die but not necessarily wanting to be strangled.  As she pressed more, I began to thrash around.  She was heavier than me. I wasn’t sure I could buck her off.  At that moment, another patient saw us and ran back to the counselors yelling.  Cathy broke off.  I got up and dusted myself off.

The sad thing was the other patient thought she saw us making out.  It was so typical to be misunderstood in that environment.  Carolyn came to me.  I said, “No, she was strangling me.  Honest, Carolyn, I was BEING STRANGLED!”  I didn’t think she believed me.  I have no idea what Cathy said.

Later when Carolyn and I were alone on a floating dock in the lake, she said, “I know you have problems you haven’t talked about.  Is being attracted to women one of them?” I was impressed she asked me while I was trapped on a float with her. I didn’t swim and required a boat to get back. 

As much as this was an invitation to be honest with a woman that I was of course attracted to, I knew that it was not the right time to be honest.  I had no idea what they would do with the information.  I doubted it could be good.  So, I waxed poetic about some day meeting the right man, having kids, and living happily ever after.  As all girls, I knew the fantasy by heart.  Carolyn’s eyes glazed over but she never challenged me on what I was saying.

Another opportunity to address my real concerns was neatly sidestepped.  As far as I knew, no one noticed.

Entry II.20 (1989)

During the time of this chaos with Adrian, Leslie, Sasifraz, wheelchairs, little kid voices, and Rahne, I worked for a government human rights commission.  As I was walking to work one day, I noticed a feeling I’d never had before.  I parked my car down the street, crossed the railroad tracks, and walked up an incline to the building interior and elevator.  After crossing the tracks, I looked out and realized I felt at peace with the world.

I hadn’t been at peace while driving ten minutes prior.  I had no idea how long this feeling might last.  I resolved to just notice and feel it.  Regardless of long it was going to last, right then in those moments, I felt a peace I had never experienced before.  It was a sense of being okay with the world and myself.  I hung with the feeling.

It persisted as I walked through the building garage and into the elevator.  I kept this feeling of okay-ness. I marveled at this satisfied, peaceful feeling walking down the hall into the agency front door.  It lasted as I walked to my desk, sat down, and took off my coat.  I took a deep breath as I readied myself for my work day.  As I focused on my desk and coworkers, I felt the feeling vanish as if the wind had dissolved smoke.

The feeling had lasted ten minutes.  Although I knew it would not last, I had thoroughly appreciated it while I had it.  I resolved to notice the next time it happened.  I called it Ten-Minutes-of-Being-at-Peace-With-the-World when I told Rahne later.  Since it happened once, I knew it could happen again.  It was a big step.  It didn’t happen again for a week.  The time frame didn’t matter.  I had seen a glimpse of the possibility.  I could wait.  There was no hurry.  My job was to just notice.

*******

(1972)

The thing about my going to Western State that’s hard to understand is that I came to life that summer. It’s not like my experience there was therapeutically helpful—far from it. That aspect did more harm than good. B.F. Skinner, be damned. What saved me was finally getting away from my parents. I could come back to life. That summer living with those 14 girls and navigating staff gave me my first experience of being alive. I wouldn’t give it up for anything. 

*******

(1990)

Once we got past the “I’ll call you to let you know when and where” method of co-parenting, every week required negotiating with Leslie about where Adrian would spend each night. Despite professional recommendations that stability was the best for Adrian, Leslie insisted on maximum flexibility. For Rahne, Adrian, and I, this worked out to maximum chaos and unpredictability. 

Entry II.21 (2019)

Razor blades were always my drug of choice. I’ve had an endless fascination. It happened early on, starting when I was seven, in the bathtub. I had heard that if someone cut their wrists it would kill them. I knew it wasn’t true. Somehow, at that tender age, I was determined to prove it. I wasn’t afraid to die by that point.

My parents kept an old-fashioned razor on the bathtub that took a double-bladed razor blade so both sides could be used. My memory is hazy as to whether I removed the blade. In any case, one day in the bathtub, I took the razor and made three tiny cuts on my wrists. I made two cuts on my left and one on my right. I held my breath. Nothing happened other than little trickles of blood. I knew it wouldn’t kill me.

Triumphantly, I proved they lied about wrist-cutting killing a person. I wasn’t dead. I don’t know why it was so important, I believe it was the first time I committed an act related to self-harm and suicide. That’s what I think when I look at those small scars and remember what I’d done at such a young age.

My mother never noticed. Razor cuts heal quickly if they’re thin. I never told anyone.  Still, I felt empowered to have proven that I wouldn’t die just by cutting my wrists. As an adult, I know there’s more too it. At seven, it was just one more lie from adults. I guess hearing lies and knowing they are lies is a powerful thing, even at seven. It’s probably true at any age. I can’t go back and ask my seven-year-old self what I was thinking. I can only look at the remains of the small scars and remember that at seven I performed an extreme act to ferret out the truth. The rest of my life has been similar.

It started a life long fascination with razor blades. As addictions go, they’re cheap at $2.89 for a package of ten.

*******

I could stand here and try to say it’s over. But it’s never over. The only “over” part is the events themselves. The reverberations of those events bounce around in the lives they’ve touched forever—not just my life or my parents’ or grandparents’ but also Adrian’s and Rahne’s lives, as well as others I continue to touch. Abuse doesn’t stop rolling out its harm. It passes through into future generations. 

Entry II.22 (1972)

I was awkward in many ways, all arms and legs. I was mentally awkward too. At the Western State High School, we had home economics. I remember sitting around the school room kitchen table in front of the stove and refrigerator talking with the teacher, Mrs. Lawler, another staff member, and two other girls. As the youngest, I was given a pass for not knowing things. When it came to food subjects, I was hopeless.

Lawler was pushing 60 with grey hair, a big voice, and easy laugh. I liked her. I wasn’t one of the cool kids in economics. I didn’t fit in but I tried. 

Lawler said to me, “Joceile, why don’t you boil three eggs?” I knew this should be an easy task but damned if I could remember how to boil eggs. God forbid, I should ask. I worked it out in my mind that in order to boil them, they needed to be broken into the sauce pan. How else could they be boiled? I even forgot the water. It seemed straightforward to my slightly impaired mind.

Next thing I hear from Lawler is, “Joceile, what are you doing?!” as I broke the second one in the sauce pan before turning up the heat.

“I’m boiling the eggs.”

“Not that way.”

“I couldn’t remember how.”

Lawler was easy. “Oh, never mind. We’ll have friend eggs. Kim, help her out.”

I was embarrassed but the deed was done. I knew this story would get told.

*******

Food has always flummoxed me. I am suspicious of it for good reason. At eight with Granny, I refused to drink the mild out of the carton because I was sure I’d seen a spider pour out with the milk into my glass. No amount of cajoling worked. I wasn’t going to drink any milk with a spider in it.

A similar thing happened sitting around the table with Lawler and company. I was drinking a glass of milk. Suddening, I felt lumps in the milk. “Enemies at the gate!” in my mind. What could I do? I couldn’t swallow whatever it was. It could be the end of me. I did the next best thing. I spat out my mouthful of milk on the table. It was shocking to everyone.

“Joceile, what is going on,” from Lawler again.

“There is something in the milk!” I exclaimed.

We all peered at the milk with little globs in it. “It’s lumps of cream,” Lawler explained to me as we all dissected it. “It’s okay to drink. It’s just cream.” Immediately, the girls started teasing me.

I never understood how cream got into that milk. It was another of those Western mysteries. I could only understand just so much of what was happening to me.

*******

I can point to certain incidents making me distrust what was put in my mouth. When we had sore throats, my mother had us gargle with Massengill Douche powder. She’d say, “Gargle, but don’t swallow it. It’s poison.” 

It didn’t taste great but it did numb our throats. My mother claimed she remembered that Massengill’s used to actually have a gargling throat remedy listed on it’s label. It had subsequently been removed. (Ya think?!) However, she still swore by it. 

The effect on me wasn’t so great. Why does a mother give a child something to use in their mouth she knows to be poison? If I swallowed it, would it kill me? This was a trust fall that didn’t work. Worse, it added to my ongoing suspicion of anything given to me to eat.

*******

This situation even dogged me as an adult. Rahne cooked homemade chicken soup. She put in bay leaves telling me to remove the bay leaves before eating the soup. “Don’t eat these. Just pick them out and throw them away.” In my mind, the bay leaves must be poison.

I unquestioningly followed this guidance for ten years. Finally, one day, I said, “Why do you put poison in the soup that has to be taken out?” I thought it would be better to leave the poison out all together.

“What poison?”

“Those leaves.”

“You thought they were poison?”

“Yeah, that’s why we have to take them out.”

“Oh for god’s sakes! They’re not poison. You just take them out because they’re rough and wouldn’t taste good.”

“Oh. They’re not poison?”

“Have you been thinking for the last ten years that I put poison in the soup? And you’re just asking me now?”

“Yeah, I’ve been wondering why you didn’t just didn’t leave them out if they were poison.”

“They’re not poison! Their texture just wouldn’t feel good in your mouth.”

“Why do you put them in there?”

“They’re herbs. It’s for taste.”

“Ah…”

“I can’t believe you thought I’ve been putting poison in the soup all this time.”

Then, I told her about the Massengill story. At least, it gave her a framework for understanding how I could think such a thing. Poison in the food had been normalized for me. I still find myself highly suspicious of food, thinking, “What’s that spot in the mashed potatoes?!”