11.20.08, 8:00am

i'm going home today. i thought i might actually be nervous, but i'm not. i am purely grateful. i know there's a lot in front of me yet, but it will be a joy to go through it after being in here.

snaggletooth joined us yesterday. i believe her to be homeless, judging solely by appearance. she actually seemed foggy but lucid for all of yesterday, but at this moment she is carrying on a phone conversation. problem is that she has the phone base in her lap, and that's it. the receiver is still on the hook. were it just rambling i may not have noticed, but there is clearly a second side to the dialogue. as near as i can tell, it is rough on young women named camela who are arrested for using lemon pledge bubble bath at 110 degrees fahrenheit. i swear, you can't make this stuff up.

11.19.08, 6:15pm

see if i can't think through the snot clearly enough to get some of my thoughts down now. i've sat in group twice today with david crosby, and that guy has a long way to go before he even is in the same neighborhood as better. his entire repertoire is about how he has been wronged and offended and held back, with no consideration for his own role in his problems. now i understand how i must have sounded for the last few months. the only difference is that i think ol' dave here genuinely believes it's everyone else's fault.

i'm actually kind of excited to start therapy. i've never had the guts to do it, though i knew i should, and now there are no excuses. i'm nervous about it - i understand it may be difficult at times - but at what price ignorance? it seems a foolish thing to say, but what a gift for someone to teach me how to be happy. for many or most people that is a natural response. for me it is not. i've had plenty of joyful moments in my life, but i've never been able to look oer a 4-6 week period and say that overall i was happy. and that's how i am broken. my brain chemistry fights happy, and even when it's ok my mind and heart don't know how to do happy.

11.19.08, 11:00am

just finished up group, which has no worth to me when the group is filled with delusional psychotics and paranoid schizophrenics. understandably, they have a tendency to dominate the conversation.

king tut, who until now has struck me as likely a depressive or bipolar or some other basic disorder, apparently has some fairly expansive and complete delusions. he has found a new law in the koran by reading it backwards and is leading a new sect of islam. michael giorgio (his financial advisor) changed his name to giorgio armani after stealing from tut the jewels princess diana had sent him before dying in a car accident. whoa, nelly.

i found out that i'm not going home today. that was a fairly crushing blow, and one for which i was unprepared. it amazes me how the psychiatrists seem unconcerned with the psychological implications of being in a place like this. they are the mental health profession's corollary to the general surgeon - there's no holism, just a problem that needs fixing, nevermind the further ramifications of the remedy.

11.18.08, 10:15pm

i am not a pill taker. i even eschew the use of aspirin and tylenol except in extreme circumstances. but tonight i opted for the ambien they prescribed as a good night's sleep is something one must purchase in here. i am told ambien is essentially side-effect free, but as one who is prone to hangovers i do hope sleep is worth the price i will pay.

today i have been admitted to the inpatient psych ward, evaluated and deemed unfit to leave, essentially forced to eat meat or go hungry (i hope for better things from the kitchen tomorrow) [the ward staff was on my side, but the kitchen couldn't seem to get a handle on the vegetarian thing], attended my first group therapy sessions, met an alternate-future-universe version of myself, carried on a 2-hour conversation with a schizophrenic during which i was accused of having black hair, wearing a black suit with red armbands, being at various times her abusive ex-husband james, her gay half-brother barry whom she loved, jesus christ, satan, and a handful of minor characters whose true roles i could not define. i had a friend and lover visit me and regained hope through that. and i now am being surprised by how quickly ambien acts. beware now the snorgle beet zoom, lobsterdog. hoocha!

as days go, this was a weird one. a new experience.

11.18.08, 8:00pm?

turns out i've never been happier to see someone. the staff here are all sane, but they work here among the craziness and to me seem part of it regardless. but for andy and brandie [yes, i chuckled after i typed that] to come - people from outside of this, and two of my most trusted at that - was an absolute godsend. twice daily we fill out a 'mood sheet', and tonight's was the first i had entered my mood as 'hopeful'.

the downside to this hopefulness is that i am losing some of my feeling of camaraderie with my fellow...inmates? is that a downside? only in that i am here until tomorrow noon at least and do not feel part of it. again, that should be a good thing, but neither am i strong enough yet to be out among them and feel like i have something to offer or like i am an observer. instead i am alone here, a stranger in a strange land. i am the hopeful among the hopeless. and that is a mighty strange feeling when you can't pass that hope on.

i did get my own room for tonight, which a wonderful treat. i got my armful of belongings [brandie had brought me some clothes and books earlier in the day] moved, came in, closed the door and did what i had not been comfortable doing in a shared room - i took a shower. [bear with me here. i know i've rhapsodized about the shower before, but i did it again and i promised myself i wouldn't edit this] hot, wet and cleansing it was healing in a way few likely understand. my shower each day is my chrysalis, the cocoon where i change from my nervous, anxious dream-self into the person i present to the world. it is where i wash off the inability to cope and take in the strength to speak to people. those sheets of water are like massaging hands easing back pain - they push and free up the awkwardness and anxiety to become wit and affability. and there have been few that i have relished like this one. i will likely have another before bed.

i hope to go home tomorrow. nobody really said that would happen, but i think it could. i believe i'm ready, and not because i want out of here. i'm ready to go back to my life.

11.18.08, 5:20pm

this is by far the most surreal experience of my entire life. if anyone out there is like me, every movie you've ever seen about a mental ward you have dismissed as melodrama. i will never think that again. i have now had the same discussion with the same guy 14 times. literally, the same words from him. 14 times. incredible. adolf knows every hit from the 50s and is moving into the 60s. california dreamin' has never sounded so...twisted.

today i was in group with a guy we'll call jerry, if only because he is a guitar player who reminds me of the late mr. garcia. he has been my biggest revelation. he is what i could have been and could become. he is physically broken at 56. he has two grown children whose childhood he missed because of his drinking. he wasn't allowed to See them. he has an 18-year-old son who resents him for being a drunk even though he was around. he was drunk and cleaning his gun when it discharged, and no one believes it was an accident. that could be me. holy. crap.

andy's coming at 6:30, brandie at 7, and i don't know if i'm ready for it. i'm still embarrassed to the point where even though everyone knows about this i want to handle it on my own. alone.

duh.

11.18.08, 3:30pm

i have actually had a really beautiful and strange thirty-minute conversation with mama cass. her name is not mama cass, obviously, but that's all you'll get out of me. she is easily the saddest, most broken person i have ever met. my guess is that she is paranoid schizophrenic, the break having happened many years ago. she will leap between times and places and subjects as though it is a consistent narrative. we have discussed her childhood living arrangement, the abuse she suffered as a young woman and the reason she quit her typing classes in july, all in no more than a handful of sentences interspersed with often shockingly accurate scripture.

11.18.08, 8:30am

interview with the psychiatrist. i'm not leaving today.

man, right now i don't even feel like writing. not sure if it's just that i'm feeling a little broken right now or if i'm just out of things to say.

honestly, i'm frustrated that i'm going to be stuck here. i don't believe that i'm an imminent danger to myself, yet they won't let me out until they're sure they have me stabilized. well, i feel stable enough not to be here. i feel less stable in here. i understand that there's not a 'depression ward', but to take someone in who's simply depressed and lump him in with schizophrenics and dementia patients is enough to push him. i am more depressed now than i was when i got here. honestly, based on the unpredictability of the personalities in here, i am afraid to talk to anyone. there are some potentially volatile folks.

holy crap. david crosby [not his real name, duh], alongside whom i was admitted last night, can literally talk about nothing in astounding detail. every last movement, each word and breath, every color and scent and sound of the day he found his cat. amazing the things that a damaged mind will focus on.

11.18.08, 7:30am

this is the worst place i've ever been. it is at least eye-opening. you go to the ER, you get admitted, you strip naked so they can document scars and tattoos, they take your shoes and belt, and you can still believe you're like everyone outside, but sad. but you wake up the next morning and you're in a room with adolf hitler and king tut. you realize the diagnosis means you are sick in the head, just like they are. different disease, same category.

adolf is recruiting a mexican army to take over the world before china and russia do. the good news? starting pay is $1000/week.

the social worker comes in. i'll get her name again later. she comes to the door and asks for a name. 'adolf' he says. last name? 'hitler' he says. she doesn't even flinch.she just asks if there's another name he goes by. amazing. she's pleasant and friendly without being patronizing. it's either natural or she's honed it over years. i actually like her.

by the way, mama cass is not dead. i have found her. she's older, obviously. and she is not well. she does, however, still sing beautifully, provided it's a hymn or christmas carol.

11.18.08, 7:00am

i am unimpressed with an awful lot here. to begin with, not being admitted until 1am after arriving at the ER at 7pm seems a might inefficient. the whole place is dismal, dingy, the only vegetarian offering was crappy peanut butter and fruit. at least there was fruit.

overnight staff was actually alright, charlie the sunshine girl notwithstanding [ed. charlie the sunshine girl was a fairly sizable hispanic dude wearing a gray and pink sweater jacket who's whole aspect said 'glad to be of service - somewhere else, some other time'. he was the psych tech on-site at the ER]. half the 2nd floor unit is under renovation, which means that i, presenting with major depression exacerbated by social anxiety disorder, got a room mate. awesome. at least it was 1am and no one cared to socialize, but all i wanted to do is disappear under the water for 30 minutes and i didn't want to keep roomie up.

beds could be worse, could be better. brandie failed to plan for the possibility of my being admitted, so it was either sleep in my clothes or the handkerchief that leaves one's ass exposed.

7am, rise and shine. 5 hours of sleep on the psych ward. cool. vitals are taken. i meet adolf hitler. he sings beach boys tunes. LOUD. tells blonde jokes. i'm sitting and writing in the breakroom while he tells jokes while a quiet and affable black guy wearing a towel draped over his head reads the paper. i have christened him 'tut'.

huh. turns out that hitler claims he is about to win millions in a lawsuit over shock treatments he received in the 70s. claims he also killed the doctor who gave them to him. 'jumped the fence and then later ran him off the road in his new jaguar'.