i swallowed a canary.
2003-02-08 7:48 a.m.

a blank little box to write in is a tremendous exercise in overcoming intimidation. words scare the fuck out of me these days.

so i'm out. and about. i feel like i can't really say anything about it without saying everything. and i couldn't possibly say everything. so i don't quite know what to write... i will say that it was the worst experience of my life. i had expected a medical hospital, one like stanford. somehow i failed to understand that i was, indeed, admitting myself into a bottom of the rung psych center, aged 20 years or so. it was primarily a short term care facility. crazies came and left within a matter of days. lots of homeless, many manics, alcoholics, and addicts. to see paranoid schizophrenics admit, get released, readmit, and get released again, all within one's period of stay, absolutely kills one's self esteem. people would come in bitching about having to stay an extra day, unaware that among them were patients counting by weeks, and in some cases, months. i'd never felt less sympathetic to the majority of the mentally ill.

i guess i managed. and let me testify, force feeding yourself cafeteria food for a month is not easy. it is twice as difficult when you despise food to begin with. being a vegetarian, my choices were fairly limited. i survived on cheese sandwiches and packs of peanutbutter. occasionally, i'd opt for something like "four cheese pizza" which can best be described as elementary school square. my roommate was courageous enough to try sweet and sour pork. it looked like little shits in ass mucous.

but the eating disorder program itself was good. the program wasn't run by the hospital, but rather, it contracted through the hospital, and thus, it was of a much higher quality. i met three amazing women: kelly, colleen, and roberta. kelly is a darling youthful mother of three, petite and giddy. colleen (my roommate) is radiantly beautiful, a former employee of abercrombie, and happens to also live in the small town of eggplant fame. roberta, the youngest of the group, is sharp as a tack, an environmentalist, and a huge bobby jackson fan, as well as smashing pumpkins one.

then of course, there were the others. lenora, a demented lady in her 80's who was convinced that she'd killed 26 people and that all of us would be imprisoned for harboring her. because staff needed to watch over her constantly and could not, lenora was perpetually placed in a lazyboy chair, which she could not get out of. the first day she cried, "get me outta this chair. pete says i gotta get out of this chair," it was a bit annoying. but after two weeks of her sitting in the damned chair 16 hours a day and crying the same exact thing, it was the saddest thing i'd ever seen. she then took to calling the nurses nigger whores, calling some patients fat slobs, and calling roberta a young slut. which is cute because roberta was the most conservative dresser among us. we discovered that just a wink in her direction could get lenora to smile.

then roger. i don't know what to say about roger except he was a meth addict who freaked us all out. he seemed to imagine himself, literally, walking on water. following behind him as he walked in this manner was interesting, as he looked unbalanced enough to topple at any moment, but being stuck behind him was also quite time consuming.

there were ones who seemed very scary. one man who had been in a bear fight, and admitted now for an "attitude adjustment". he was a talker and physical assaulter, so i let him ramble to me in his sexist, racist ways because it seemed the safest thing to do. another who kept insisting, several times a day, that i play checkers with him, and later, insisted that i toke with him once i get out. joe, who was a devout radiers fan and alcoholic. luckily, joe left two days before superbowl sunday, or we might have had a rumble in the jungle. did i mention there were zoo animals painted across all the walls of the ward?

the cast wouldn't be complete without ian. i never figured ian out. he was 20, bipolar, and an elwood p. dowd kind of character. i simply never figured him out. he could be amazingly slow, or brilliantly smart. he taught me how to whistle through my fingers, drew pictures of crabs titled "crab is da bomb", and became convinced he needed a sponsor, though i don't think he'd ever taken a drink. one day, as his shrink walked up to him, he took a bite out of a red apple. he stated simply and plainly, "i guess it didn't work."

i have ian's number. and kelly's. and the number of the ward's pay phones, should i want to contact roberta or colleen. i kind of want to let it go. because, despite everything negative there, i feel much better having stayed. towards the end, it almost felt too safe. and my first day home, i cried. i had no idea what to do with myself, how to eat or not eat. how to get dressed and exist as a person in society, and not feel excitement simply because i was free to walk down the street. or to pump gas. to use a plastic knife, or a metal one for that matter. or to pee in my own toilet.

i'm twelve pounds heavier. one size larger. and though i feel overweight, i'm happier than i've been in a long time. i keep trying to guard myself, making sure i don't glimpse in the mirror for too long, that i don't try on a smaller pant. because everything tells me that this too shall pass. but for the time being, i'm happy just with my toothy grin.

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