Day Eighteen: Playing the Game

I return to the ward following Gray's and the girls' visit and discover that there are snacks to be had at the nurse's station. I can't really recall when I last ate and although I'm not starving, something about the offering of juice and plain potato chips looks at least a little appealing. I take a bag of chips and a little container of juice and return to my room. As I sit down on my bed across from my roommate who is straightening her bed sheets, I realise that although I have tears still moist on my face, the need to cry has lessened. I open the chips and the juice and start to eat and drink. It isn't milk and honey from the promised land, but it isn't horrible either.

"You have a good visit?" my roommate says as she finishes with her bed and sits down. She is an older woman, probably a good fifteen or maybe twenty years older than me.

I nod and give a little smile. "Yeah. My family. My husband and three girls," I say and sigh.

She nods and gives me a knowing look. "It's hard, I know. But I'm glad they come to see you. Lotsa folks don't get no one and some gets folks come and it makes things worse. I think you love your family a lot and miss 'em though. I seen you crying and I know that kinda crying," she says.

I swallow hard and wipe at a tear that has suddenly escaped my eyes. I sniffle a little bit and brush the potato chip crumbs off my lap. "Yeah, I love them more than I can say," I reply.

"Then you gotta do what you gotta do to get out of here and back to 'em sooner, you know?" she says. I look at her for a moment, trying to figure out what she's trying to say.

"I don't want to be here. I don't need to be here. I need to be home with them. I don't need any of this," I reply, gesturing to the building around us. "I should have never agreed to come here, but I was pressured by the folks at the partial hospitalisation program to come here, get on some meds and 'get stable', " I finish, making air quotes with my fingers as I say the words "get stable."

"What you come here for then?" she asks and I know she's not asking my reasons for signing into this wretched place, but what my particular illness is. Normally I wouldn't answer that question, but over the course of this conversation, some of my walls weaken a bit and I find that I don't mind talking to her so much. It's probably because we're in this together and because she seems, well, not crazy.

"Depression," I say and then add, "I was seriously considering suicide, had a plan and the stuff to do it with me. Then I talked to the therapist at the program and felt better. I got rid of my stuff with her and she made me promise to stay safe and come back the next day. I kept my promise and I was feeling better, more hopeful...and then they decided behind my back that I needed to come here..." I hadn't planned to say all of that, but somehow it just sort of spilled out.

My roommate nods knowingly. "Yeah, I seen that before. And you don't need to be here. You need your family and to be home where you can rest good. You need somethin' more than just that, but not this. This place is for crazy folks. You not crazy. You just hurtin'," she says. "What you needs to do is just play the game here so's you can get outta here an' get home to them babies and your man," she adds.

Her words touch something deep inside me and the tears start up again. I wipe at them and sniffle. "The game? What do you mean?" I ask, thinking I have an idea of what she means but wanting to be sure.

"This place. The rules. The way they treats us and the way we is. It's all a big game. They always be watchin' everything we does -- sleepin', eatin', is we bathin', is we goin' to group, is we followin' the rules, is we fightin' what they ask us to do -- you see? You just gotta do what you gotta do to make them think you improving an' they'll let you go quicker. You don't hafta feel better or even be doin better, just make them think you better," she finishes.

"But isn't the point to actually get better?" I ask.

"Ain't nobody gets better in this place. It's just a place to keep folks from hurtin' themselves or someone else. That's why they so happy to give you meds an' make you follow so many rules. They think those things will keep you safe from yourself and others," she finishes.

As I listen to her, I realise that she is right. This is a glorified holding cell. They try to pass it off as some sort of therapeutic environment by offering a few groups, some recreation time, and a few of our personal effects, but it is anything but that. As all of this comes into focus in my brain, I realise that I had a clue that this wasn't a helpful place last night and a bigger one this morning in the group I attended. Even though everyone in the group had a piece of paper, when the group leader asked us to share, only a couple of the ladies did despite the fact that pretty much every female patient on the ward was present. When the group ended, everyone left immediately and quickly. I would say it was a stampede to exit the dayroom, but there wasn't enough room for anyone to be moving that fast. It was very apparent that no one actually wanted to be there, but everyone was. Why would they do that when they obviously didn't want to? The answer was simple -- they were playing the game.

I want to go home. I will play the game.