Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [92]
After that first day, I would only meet with her on the unit and insisted that a comfortably large male mental health worker sit nearby. I could only feel safe if I knew there were someone nearby to stop her from killing me or me from killing her.
Even so, I couldn't meet with her for the whole forty-five minutes we were assigned. Even sitting next to her was almost more than I could bear. I tried to talk to her, to answer her questions, but the Voices flooded my mind. At the same time, her face began to play tricks on me. I started to talk to her and her face contorted. Her normal face twisted into a leering grin, and then the whole face shifted. Her mouth and nose and eyes all changed positions, and she became a threatening horrible monster.
Then I looked down at my own hands, which were oozing blood and poison. I tried to warn her but I couldn't make my voice heard over the Voices. Once when we were sitting together in the hall of the unit, my anxiety was so great and so painful that I could barely sit still. I leaped to my feet and ran for the bathroom, where I stayed, heaving my guts out, until she left.
For weeks Dr. Fischer and I battled to find a way to meet together. Rather than trying to meet on a conventional schedule, Dr. Fischer had to throw the rulebook out completely for me. She came to the unit twice a day every day to meet with me for five minutes at a time.
Mostly I spent the five minutes we passed together trying to stay in focus, trying to ignore the taunts of the Voices, to rein in my terror, and simply sit still with her nearby.
I knew she was trying hard to help me. I wanted to work hard for her, to do what she wanted me to do. I fought hard. I fought to stay in control. I fought to focus on her face as it twisted and contorted there before me. I fought to concentrate on her words.
After a time, when I had relaxed a bit around her, there would be moments when I was lucid and not quite so frantic. Then I would try to tell her about who I used to be, about the me who would have been her friend if things had been different. I tried to tell her about the me who would have been her peer, not her patient. I tried to tell her about myself in high school, and in college, and about the life I had before I became part of hospital life.
When I began to tremble, and shake with fear, Dr. Fischer gently asked me to tell her what was on my mind.
“Tell me what you are hearing, Lori,” she said.
I hated telling anyone about the Voices. They were too terrible, too frightening. They would kill anyone I told about them. They would kill me if I told. I couldn't tell her. But I wanted to tell her. I wanted her to know. I wanted to please her. I wanted to do what was right.
So I decided to write to her. Over one evening I wrote it all down. I wrote down everything that was in my head, all the sounds and noises and meaningless phrases. All the endless repetitions of “To die!” All the hatred, the bile, everything foul the Voices had said to me and about me. The next morning I stuffed into her hands the transcript of my head.
And now she knew. I waited for her to die. I waited for her to laugh. I waited for her to turn on me in disgust. But she didn't. Instead, she was grateful.
“This is wonderful work, Lori. You've put so much effort into this. Thank you,” she said.
If I couldn't talk it, then at least I could write it.
All through my various times in the hospital, people had been urging me to keep a journal. This time I decided to listen to them and try. I had always loved writing. Back before I had gotten sick I had been good at it. All through my younger days I had kept journals off and on. I loved the fat spiral notebooks