Detour from Normal (22 page)

Beth's journal, May 24, 2011:

Today was terrible. Around 8:45 a.m., Dana called and informed me that Ken had collapsed in the street near our home and that he had called 911. I rushed home as quickly as possible. When I arrived, the paramedics had just shown up and Ken was half-sitting, half-lying on the passenger seat of Dana's car. His face was wet with tears. He was unable to speak, and he was shaking uncontrollably. I was so frightened for him and held onto him for several minutes. When I asked Ken if he would go to Phoenix Mercy, he was barely able to nod "yes." During the ambulance ride, he kept trying to get up off the gurney and cried out each time he was unsuccessful. He was very emotional. Tears streamed down his face the entire trip to the hospital.

The hours passed slowly, and Ken's condition continued to worsen. Eventually he was alternating between bouts of dry heaves and grimaces of pain. No one could tell me what was happening to my husband, and I was terrified that the man I loved was gone and that nothing would bring him back to me. I was certain he would die. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the events of the past few days.

Eventually Ken was sent for a CT scan, and when he returned, his nurse came in with a needle. He injected Ken in the arm and a large lump appeared at the injection sight. Mercifully, Ken soon fell asleep. It
was so wonderful to see him resting peacefully, and for once his snores seemed the most beautiful music imaginable. He slept for a few hours after that. When he awoke, he looked at me with recognition and reached for my hand. He seemed very weak but managed to say, "I'm so sorry for all that I've put you through." At that point it seemed as if a miracle had occurred and my Ken had returned to me. I was so thankful that I cried tears of relief. It seemed the ordeal of the past few days was finally over. Unfortunately, it wasn't very long before he was gone once more.

After a few hours I awoke. Then, for a brief moment, the real Ken returned to my body—or at least that's how my brother and wife describe it. They say I was me again for a few minutes, that I said I was sorry and held Beth's hand. I can't tell you if that were true or not. My next clear recollection was just past midnight on May 25. I was released from my room under Dana's care. I believed that I was getting out of there and that all I had to do was sign a few papers. I followed Dana to a waiting area that seemed like the waiting room from hell. Even though there were only a few people there, it seemed like they were processing just one per hour. After a while it was comical. The same people had been in the same places and same positions for hours on end.
This has to be staged,
I thought. I wondered if Dana had somehow arranged it. I started laughing. I must have sounded insane, but the entire situation was insane. Who sits motionless for hours on end waiting for something? At some point they'd have to get up and ask, "What's going on? Am I next or what?" I could deal with time any way it was thrown at me, but it had to
be painful for my poor brother. By then it was nearly 4:00 a.m., and he must have been cross-eyed from lack of sleep.

Finally, my name was called and Dana led me back to a small room where we were met by a social worker.
That explains the long wait,
I thought. Once Dana and I were seated, the woman sat at her computer and prepared to type. She read a list of psychiatric profile questions from her monitor, which was very familiar to me by then. I answered them succinctly, careful not to provide too much detail and have the woman cherry-picking for facts. I finally got out of there, and what happened after that doesn't exist in my memory. I must have been shown to a bed where I somehow managed to sleep again.

Sometime during the evening of May 24 or early morning of May 25, my mind reorganized once again to a whole new level of mania. Much more of my brain shut down, my senses were amplified, and the way my brain processed data sped up to maximum. Instead of making decisions based on logic and experience, my decisions after that were based almost entirely on instinct and intuition. Instead of struggling through math to solve a problem, my mind instead applied templates of intuition and supplied a rough answer in an instant. My mind at that point was stripped of anything superficial. It operated at its narrowest, fastest, and most efficient ability possible. I sensed things I'd never before sensed and quickly learned to interpret information provided from my amplified senses. From the outside world's perspective, I was a mere shell of the person I had been. I was much like a child living in a world of new
sights, sounds, and experiences, free from fear or worry, fascinated by everything, and living for the moment. From my own perspective, it was a mystical world I'd never imagined. Since my new environment was filled with the extremes of society, I quickly noticed that people were no longer just people—they each had auras of emotion, strange abilities to block each other, and, though they were easily manipulated when alone, they had prejudices that were impregnable when they banded together.

The next thing I remember was waking up in an unfamiliar place. Groggily, I slipped from the bed I'd been sleeping in and walked out of my new room. I soon found myself in a relatively large open area. It had dark brown industrial carpeting; some low-backed, brown, fabric-covered armchairs; a small eating area; and a smoking area outside that I could see through glass doors. People were roaming around, shouting, cursing, and swinging punches at imaginary foes. It all clicked at once: I was in another psych ward.

I was in one of Phoenix Mercy's psychiatric units, and I immediately sensed that it was far worse than Pinecrest. Just then something distracted me from my exploration. I could see something—or, more accurately, I could sense the presence of something. There was a kind of invisible shield between each patient and between patients and staff. I'd never sensed anything like that before. I didn't know what I was sensing, but it was all around and I was bent on figuring it out. My intuition led me to believe it was some kind of defense mechanism, so I sat down in a chair next to one of the patients to test the hypothesis. "Hello,
how are you today?" I asked. The female patient scowled at me but was intrigued.
Who is this person? He's not staff. Is he safe? What does he want?
As I chatted with her, the shield flickered. It indeed appeared to be defensive. In no time the shield had vanished and was replaced with an aura of trust.
She let me in.
I exclaimed to myself.
She let the shield down and let me in.
It was absolutely fascinating.

Another patient who had sounded threatening only minutes before began hovering around us to see what was going on, and snap—his shield was gone, too. The three of us talked like good friends. At that point I stood and stepped back. I suspected that the effect was contagious, and I wanted to see it happen. Sure enough, one by one, the patients were drawn to the increasing crowd and commotion in the chairs, and one by one their shields dropped. They were no longer blocking each other. Before I knew it, almost all of the patients were sitting in the chairs. They were a loud and boisterous bunch, and at one point they even began to play hangman on a large whiteboard. It was surreal to see a collection of people who had only minutes before been wandering aimlessly and acting out suddenly pull together and problem solve as a team.

It was a great joy to me to witness all the camaraderie I had started, but I noticed that the staff was, for perhaps the first time, reacting to the patients as well. They looked terrified. None of them had ever seen anything like it: within seemingly moments every patient's behavior had altered from bad to good.
They should be ecstatic,
I thought. I moved closer to them to better hear their discussion. Surprisingly, they were considering calling security. Fixing mentally ill people was fun, but in a twisted way, breaking normal people was even more fun. I took a seat in a chair by a wall where I could better watch the mayhem.

A short time later, one of the PAs announced it was time to smoke. All the patients, now friends, lined up for a smoke together. Just as in Pinecrest, I was the only nonsmoker in the place. Soon they were outside on a balcony whose open side was filled with painted white steel bars, generating the biggest cloud of smoke the staff had ever seen. The patients were all very animated, telling stories, laughing, slapping each other on the back. The staff was mortified. "What's going on?" they were asking. Soon it was all over. Everyone got their fix, and rather than go back and play hangman or talk together, they took up their independent wandering again as if some spell had worn off. It was sad to see it end, but the staff was relieved at least. For that place, everything had returned to normal.

After that I decided to explore. There wasn't much to explore, but it's always good to know the extent of your prison. I had walked only a short way when I heard someone loudly berating one of the staff. "You fat bitch! Why don't you get a fucking life? I bet your husband is fat and ugly just like you. Your fucking kids are probably fat, too, aren't they? Are you listening to me? I'm talking to you, bitch!"

I looked in the direction of the voice and noticed a scrawny, longhaired, bearded man berating a plump nurse. As he insulted and cursed her, she merrily worked away on her computer as if he didn't exist. I could sense that she had her shield up.
How can you block something so invasive?
I wondered.
This shield phenomenon is obviously a lot more effective than I would have imagined.
I'd never witnessed anything like it. I decided to conduct an experiment. I walked up to the counter and put my elbows on it right next to "Rude Guy"—as I decided to call him—and for a few moments, I just watched what should have been humiliation. Not only did the nurse not react, no one reacted, neither patient nor staff.

Then I executed my experiment. "Excuse me? Could you please get a cup of water for my friend and me?" I asked. I winked at Rude Guy and he growled at me for interrupting his fun.

"Of course," the nurse said in a cheery voice. She stood immediately and poured two cups of water, brought them back, and with a beaming smile, offered one to me and one to Rude Guy.
I broke through in an instant. I broke through her most powerful shield by being courteous to her.
It was astounding. Rude Guy thought so, too. He wanted to know how I'd done it. I just shrugged. I probably should have told him. I bet the staff would have appreciated that—him being nice to them. Rude Guy decided I was some kind of superhero after that and followed me around for a while with his cup of water, hoping to con me out of my secret.