An Unquiet Mind - Kay Redfield Jamison [8]
The hospital itself was not at all the grim place I had imagined it would be: the grounds were vast, quite beautiful, and filled with magnificent old trees; at several places there were extraordinary views of the city and its rivers, and the lovely antebellum buildings conveyed the Southern graciousness that once was such an integral part of Washington. Entering the wards, however, abolished the illusion created by the genteel architecture and landscaping. There was, immediately, the dreadful reality of the sights and sounds and smells of insanity. At Andrews I was used to seeing relatively large numbers of nurses on the medical and surgical wards, but the head nurse who was taking us around explained that at St. Elizabeths there were ninety patients for each psychiatric attendant. Fascinated by the idea that one person would be expected to control so many potentially violent patients, I asked how the staff protected themselves. There were, she said, drugs that could control most of the patients, but, now and again, it became necessary to “hose them down.” “Hose them down”?! How could anyone be so out of control that they would require such a brute method of restraint? It was something I couldn’t get out of my mind.
Far worse, though, was going into the dayroom of one of the women’s wards, standing dead still, and looking around me at the bizarre clothes, the odd mannerisms, the agitated pacing, strange laughter, and occasional heartbreaking screams. One woman stood like a stork, one leg tucked up; she giggled inanely to herself the whole time I was there. Another patient, who at one time must have been quite beautiful, stood in the middle of the dayroom talking to herself and braiding and unbraiding her long reddish hair. All the while, she was tracking, with her quick eyes, the movements of anyone who attempted to come anywhere near her. At first I was frightened by her, but I was also intrigued, somehow captivated. I slowly walked toward her. Finally, after standing several feet away from her for a few minutes, I gathered up my nerve to ask her why she was in the hospital. By this time I noticed out of the corner of my eye that all of the other candy stripers were huddled together, talking among themselves, at the far end of the room. I decided to stay put, however; my curiosity had made strong inroads on my fears.
The patient, in the meantime, stared through me for a very long time. Then turning sideways so she would not see me directly, she explained why she was in St. Elizabeths. Her parents, she said, had put a pinball machine inside her head when she was five years old. The red balls told her when she should laugh, the blue ones when she should be silent and keep away from other people; the green balls told her that she should start multiplying by three. Every few days a silver ball would make its way through the pins of the machine. At this point her head turned and she stared at me; I assumed she was checking to see if I was still listening. I was, of course. How could one not? The whole thing was bizarre but riveting. I asked her, What does the silver ball mean? She looked at me intently, and then everything went dead in her eyes. She stared off into space,