This is a true story that I wrote for an english class about my experience in Riverview Hospital on a closed ward. I stayed there for over a month when I was about 17. It was a real eye-opening experience for me.
I woke up every day to the sound of keys clinging on my bedpost. Reluctantly, I would drag myself out of bed to take my morning medication, in hopes that I would still manage to crawl back into bed for another thirty minutes. It was a horrible thing to have crushed medication and jam first thing in the morning; however, this had been my punishment for trying to "tongue my meds". It was almost always thirty minutes before my head nurse, Didi, would come to wake me up a second time and tell me to get dressed so she could lock up my room for the day. At Riverview Hospital, we were never allowed in our rooms until nightfall. Privacy was not a luxery we had.
After getting dressed I would wander to the day room where I would sit and anxiously wait for my turn in the shower. During this time, I would try to lose myself in wordsearches or a book which, sadly enough, were my only two activity options. I knew trouble wouldn't be far away if Ididn't occupy my mind. It could take up to two hours before the tub room was free. However, it was well worth the wait, since it served as a pleasurable opportunity to waste away part of the tedious, tension-filled days. Although I was forced to share the room with a nurse, I was still able to drift away in my thoughts with no distractions from my fellow patients in the mental ward.
My feeble attempts at suicide were always addressed by my psychiatrist, Dr. Severy, in my daily meetings with him. After each meeting I would lock myself in the washroom stall to read, while I waited until somebody came to look for me. This was a way for me to create another hobby to add to my meagre activity list. Inevitably, the nurses always knew right where to find me when it was time for meds.
After we had taken our medication, three of the nurses would lead us to the kitchen where we ate all of our meals in no more than twenty minutes. I would often take the plastic knife off my lunch tray and hide it in my hospital gown. However, I never managed to have it for very long before Ginger, my annoying and very confusing roommate, would tell one of the nurses.
It was not unusual for me to be put in the seclusion room, where I was locked up for several hours at a time or sometimes the entire night. The room consisted merely of a thin, springy mattress and a rough blanket that the nurses always used to wrap me up in before they turned their backs on me and sprinted to the door. Regardless of how hard I would pound on the door when I had to go to the bathroom, nobody ever came to attend to me. Often, I had no other choice but to urinate on the floor. No matter how many times I was "escorted" to the seclusion room, I was still scared to death at the sight of it. I could never understand why I always played these childish games when I knew the consequence was to be locked up and forgotten about.
All the days at Riverview followed this same boring routine, until an inspiring, eye-opening event at Riverview changed my life forever. That day started out like any other day. I was sitting in the smoke room at my regular table, watching the activities of the crazier patients on the ward, when Dubam, another patient my age, came up to me and asked if I would jump out of the window with him. Without hesitation, I said yes. My answer strengthened his resolve, and immediately he hurled the table at the Plexiglass window. The force left a circular mosaic pattern the size of a basketball. The commotion had sparked the nurses' attention, and almost immediately, I was accused for provoking the whole situation.
Dubam and I were locked up, seperately, in two of the seclusion rooms for the remainder of the night. I kept getting up from the mattress on the floor and looking out of the tiny, barred window to the world outside. I felt like a prisoner. My mind was consumed with thoughts of my future. I had thought I wanted to be institutionalized, but now that the illusion was becoming real, I was terrified. Since I had arrived at this locked ward, I had noticed that Riverview wasn't a place people wanted to be. I began to wonder if this was really where I wanted to spend my life. Did I really want someone dictating my every move.
Before I fell asleep that night, I resolved that I would no longer settle for this kind of life. I wasn't going to let my disabilities or the doctor's false analyses ruin my dreams of the future. I wanted my destiny in my own hands. I would behave and cooperate with the nurses and have a future, a future I now desperately wanted.
Kristen Rice-Alam
