Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [117]
Many times I got frustrated by the slow pace. “I want to get out of here now!” I announced to Dr. Doller over and over again. “I'll go live with Steven,” I announced. “I don't care if Mom and Dad are mad. I'll get a job delivering flyers in the city. I'll make it on my own.” But the feeling passed. The clozapine continued its work.
I had no idea how the medication worked. Was it plugging up some hole in my brain that had let all my normal thoughts leak out? Was it going in there like a drill, drilling out some boulder, clearing a path for my real, hidden self to emerge? Was it evaporating the food in my brain that the Voices had lived on? Was it starving the Voices out, leaving nothing but me behind? I didn't know a thing. All I knew was that whatever it was doing, it was helping me feel like a real human being again, a human being who existed in the world with other human beings.
I didn't need to strike out as much anymore. Now, instead of smashing windows, I wrote in my journals a list of the things I found stressful:
pass for a haircut
weekend passes
Dr. Doller on vacation
activities
Dr. Fischer leaving
new therapist?
weight
discharge pending
As much as I hated the slow pace of the discharge, I welcomed it too. As much as I wanted to be discharged, I found the prospect frightening. I knew I was getting better, but I was afraid to test it. I was afraid of being expected to act normal. I was afraid of becoming too stressed out and relapsing.
Still, I stayed with the program. Underneath all the fear I wanted desperately to be better. I wanted desperately to be free. I wanted desperately to begin the life that had been denied to me for so long. There was so much to do before that could happen. For one thing, I needed a therapist. After Dr. Fischer left, people made a number of suggestions. There was a private practitioner in White Plains who might do. There was a doctor Dr. Doller knew. But there was only one person I wanted. When Dr. Doller agreed to be my therapist, I knew I was going to make it.
Next task was to find somewhere to live. Earlier I had rejected a halfway house when my parents and Dr. Doller suggested it. After clozapine it was different. I began to believe that a normal life was possible. And so I agreed to enter a halfway house. In September I had an interview at Search for Change. The last time I had left the hospital I had rejected Search for Change because there was a rumor of a mouse there. This time I wasn't going to let a rodent stop me. This was the place that was going to help me get back into the world again.
Even more than in my last hospitalization, I needed to adjust to doing things on my own. It had been over two years since I last had walked around freely.
Little by little I ventured further and further afield. I walked by myself to the dentist on Mamaroneck Avenue in White Plains. I took another trip into town to get my hair cut. I went with another patient to eat Chinese food. Each trip out caused me anxiety. Just keeping a good hold on myself was an effort. Sometimes I had to take some medication to keep the jittery feelings under control. But each time I went out, I got a little more used to it, and it became a little easier.
I was also coming home regularly, staying with my parents, going shopping with my mom, going out to eat with my dad. I was also getting my things ready for my big move. On one weekend home with my mother, I was going through all my things stored in the attic of our house. Among my old books and papers, my college records and memorabilia, I found my old copy of Helter Skelter, the story of Charles Manson's murderous cult. I threw it straight in the wastebasket. His evil eyes would never torture me again.
In the hospital, keys made the sounds of freedom and control. When I was at my sickest, I heard the sound of keys coming down the hall and knew to stop whatever it was I was doing. If I was ripping up