Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [65]
Part IV
The Quiet Room
16
Lori New York Hospital, White Plains, New York, November 1985—February 1986
So here I was back again and everything seemed so familiar.
The first unit had been an intermediate-stay unit; this one was for acute care. Both units had a long and a short hallway that joined to make a kind of a T-shape with a glassed-in nursing station at the junction of the T. Each unit had its own dining room. Each had a music listening area with smoking allowed in the back. Each had a day room with a television set and a card table for games and puzzles.
Both men and women were housed on the same unit in separate rooms. Each person had his or her own bed, dresser, an armoire for storing clothing, and a bed table with a reading light. I jumped the waiting list and was given a single room of my own. No roommate could put up with me because my status was always close to the lowest possible one on the unit.
Status! Ha! I knew for sure that I wasn't a rookie anymore. When I was first hospitalized, I thought status meant married or single, or how much money you made. Now I knew all the lingo. Status meant the level of privileges you had earned by your behavior. The highest level—O.U.—was Open Unit, which meant you could come and go as you pleased after checking in. At the other end of the spectrum—the one I knew a lot about— was CO., or Constant Observation. That meant some jailer always had to be within arm's length.
I knew lots of other new words too. Nice, romantic-sounding words like “elopement.” Here it meant to run away. “Danger! Elopement Risk!” read the signs on the doors to the unit, warning everyone to be careful to lock up behind themselves.
Yes, I was a savvy veteran, all right. But it wasn't a good feeling. I saw patients around me I recognized from my last stay. I didn't want to be like them, living a lifetime of bouncing in and out of the hospital.
I had boldly convinced everyone around me that Lori Schiller was never going back into the hospital. That it was a one-shot deal for me. I believed that myself. So the second time around wasn't going to be any fun. All those admitting people would be sorry. I would make them sorry.
This time I wouldn't listen to these doctors and nurses who had gotten me into this fix. This time I would listen to the Voices. They would be my allies. They would protect me and keep me safe. They would guide my behavior and help me to understand my mission.
From the first, my days in the hospital were long and dreary and painfully empty.
For much of the time, I was considered too much of a danger to myself and to others to be allowed to wander freely. So every day I watched as my fellow patients left for music group. Or to go to the library. Or on a group walk to the formal gardens on the grounds. Or on a pass to White Plains to shop or go to the movies.
Fall turned to winter. The days outside grew shorter. I watched the leaves fall from the trees, saw people go from sweaters and caps to full-blown winter clothing, all without breathing a mouthful of outside air or looking straight up at the blue sky.
Every day I awoke early. Sometimes I was first in line for breakfast. Sometimes I burrowed deep under my covers contemplating my long day ahead. Either way, I wished the day away. After breakfast, we all lined up to receive the little cups that held the pills that were supposed to make us better. Next was a community meeting at 8:30 A.M., where everyone—doctors, social workers, nurses, mental health workers and patients—talked about such mundane things as how much money the unit had earned at a bake sale last week, when a certain nurse was going to be leaving the hospital, or the announcement of a weekend trip to Nyack for a street fair.
After the community meeting my long, disturbed days really began. I had no attention span for TV. No one particularly wanted to talk to me, and I certainly didn't want to talk to them. So I paced. I'd begin by walking