Gone Crazy Be Back Soon Part Five

After the first day episode1

They put me on the lowest level in their whole level system
I was on CO
Constant Observation
I had to have a staff member constantly with in arm’s length
Every hour or so I had to be with a new staff member
I couldn’t choose which one
So sometimes I got mean ones and sometimes I got ones
Who actually seemed to care
It was a grab bag mix2

I wasn’t allowed to go to any
Off unit activities
I had to leave the door open when I took a shower
Or went to the bathroom
I couldn’t use the play station
Or the game room
With the ping pong and pool tables3

Mealtimes4

Consisted of me
Sitting at a table
With a bunch of kids I didn’t know
And a tray full of a lot of food
That I was too scared to eat5

Staff wouldn’t let me get up
From the table for forty five minutes6

I would watch the other kids
Inhale their entire trays
And then leave to go sit on the hard
Plastic couches and watch Cartoon Network,
Disney channel,
And nickelodeon
And I would sit and stare at the food
While Perra reminded me over and over
That I couldn’t eat it7

Finally after forty five minutes they would take away the tray
And scold me like a little puppy dog
That had just made a puddle on the oriental carpet8

I wasn’t allowed to use the bathrooms
For an hour after I ate9

Meanwhile I still had that horrible poison dripping into my body
Through the tube in my nose10

At least
It hadn’t done any damage
Yet11

The other kids12

Ranged in age from five to eleven
So I was one of the older ones at ten
There were two other ten year old boys
And one eleven year old girl
All there for suicide attempts
The girl pulled her hair out sometimes too
Most of the other kids
Were around six
And there for behavior problems
One boy named Greg
Was severely retarded as well
He couldn’t talk or feed himself
And grunted a lot
My roommate was a six year old girl named Dominique
She liked playing with the units Barbies
On my second night there she warned me too late
That the staff liked stabbing shots in people’s butts
When you didn’t do what they wanted
A nurse overheard and said13

“We only give you shots when you start hitting other kids”14

I knew that wasn’t true
I knew that Dominique was right15

The Quiet Room 16

Was a small room
With a window in the door
And mirrors on every upper corner
Sometimes staff carried or dragged kids down the hall
And locked them in the room
The kids would scream swears
I’d never even learned before
And struggle
They would pound on the walls
And carry on
Sometimes for hours
Until they calmed down
Or were injected with sedatives17

They thought they’d started to fix me18

Because I started to eat again
The truth
Was that I just figured that I’d rather turn evil
Then stay in that unit
And slowly come apart
Piece
By
Piece
And besides I was already being force fed
The poison
Against my will19

At first I would only
Eat things that came out of a container
Like yogurt
And jello
They seemed safer20

Soon they were demanding that I eat
The meals that came up on my tray
They said I only had to eat
25% of everything
they still thought I was worried about gaining weight
I let them think that was the case21

The truth was that
I looked forward to every meal
And savored the tastes and textures
I was literally starved
And had been longing for food for so long22

Soon they increased my meal plan
And I had to eat 50% of my meal
Then 75%
Then 110%23

I groaned at each increase
And made eating out to be something I dreaded
Anything was better then letting them know the truth24


They took me off CO25

And the hospital wasn’t as bad
I started to get used to it there
I could play games
In the game room now
And I hung out with the eleven-year-old girl
Her name was Lauren
We had “school” every weekday
It was really easy and watered down
But it helped pass the time26

We had different groups too
Like anger management
Self esteem
Art therapy
Exercise
And even games group27

Life fell into a rhythm
But Perra was gone28

She stopped talking to me
She was mad because I was ignoring her advice
I missed her
But I was relieved at the same time29

My narrator was still there
Never letting silence last
And Fellingham still threatened and scared me30

But things were bearable
For a little while31