Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [71]
I must break something. I must hurt something. I must hurt someone. I must hurt myself. Stop! Stop! Stop!
Far from calming me down, the very emptiness of the Quiet Room became the screen on which this terrible fantasy projected itself. The Voices spoke to me through cracks and vents in the walls. The overhead light transmitted messages to me. I couldn't breathe. My skull was coming undone and the Voices became megaphoned until I was sure they would deafen me. I panicked. I had to make them stop. I had superhuman energy, superhuman strength. I literally punched a hole in the wall. I pounded my hands across the safety screen on the windows, opening my knuckles and fingers till the bones showed, and blood ran down my arms.
I was beyond even the Quiet Room.
From far away I could hear the buzzer's blast echoing all through the other units, as the alarm pressed at our nursing station set off lights and alarms all over the hospital. Our staff had called for reinforcements. The big men were coming running. I could hear their footfalls pounding the stairs and halls. I could hear the thumping and grunting as equipment was being dragged into place. I could hear ice cubes rattling in a cooler.
It was going to happen again. I was going to be cold-wet-packed.
Cold-wet-packing was a form of restraint that was only used to calm the most violent and out-of-control patients. Most people quieted down under the influence of other methods. If the Quiet Room wasn't enough to keep patients from hurting themselves, patients were sometimes given tranquilizing shots, and then temporarily put in two-point restraints with their wrists tied. There was also four-point restraints, where wrists and ankles were bound to the bed. Sometimes patients were strapped into Geri—for geriatric—chairs, which were little wheeled contraptions usually used for propping up old people. I broke three Geri chairs by struggling. From experience, the staff knew that only cold-wet-packing would do for me now.
The idea behind cold wet packs was to chill the patient thoroughly. As the body struggled to warm itself, it would use energy. And as the person tired from the effort to get warm, he or she would calm down, ultimately relax, and, it was hoped, fall asleep.
In order for a patient to be cold-wet-packed, a doctor's order had to be signed. As the buzzer was sounding, the staff was paging an M.D. to come to the unit to write the order as quickly as possible. I was so violent that the packing was usually well underway by the time the panting psychiatrist arrived.
When the big men got there, they restrained me while I was being packed. The shot of sodium amytal hadn't taken effect yet. The big burly attendants looked to me just like the horrid rapists of my Voices’ hell. My terror flared. My adrenaline shot up. My strength and power intensified. I could fight off a whole Quiet Room-ful of men. They weren't going to touch me. That I knew for sure. I kicked. I flailed. I bit. Even against a roomful of big men, for a moment it seemed I was winning.
And then they were back in control. It was just as the Voices had shown me. It was just like the rapes in hell. Big strong men held me down while unseen hands stripped off my clothing. Off came my high-tops. Off came my favorite blue sweatshirt with the green frog on it. Off came my only pair of jeans that fit. Off came my socks one after the other. How was I going to cause any problems by keeping my little socks on my little feet? And then finally off came my bra. My undies were all that stood between me and the rape that my imagination had fabricated. I was truly terrified.
And then came the real horror. They hoisted me onto the elevated bed that had been set up for me in the kitchen, or in a special room off the short hallway, or in the hall itself, or wherever they could get set up fast before I totaled the place or hurt someone or myself. With