hospital for lost souls

What if a hospital is the closest thing you've ever had to a home? Where do you end up?

When I started getting admitted to McLean Hospital's PTSD and Dissociative Disorders Unit on a regular basis, it became this place I finally felt safe and loved for the first time in my life. 

Why there? You may ask. Seems like an odd place to find yourself to be at home, especially when hospitals have historically been a damaging experience for myself, stripped of rights, power, and sense of personhood. Proctor 2, however, was something special. Staff were kind, gentle, and uniquely trained to deal with individuals who had experienced major trauma, both men and women, though usually there were mostly women. When I was walked up to the unit for the first time, the first thing I noticed was the silence. Unusual for a psych ward at night.

What is a home? A place one feels safe, like their physical and emotional needs are met. Family.

Silent girls stalking hallways, whispers. a blue haired girl called me a little ghost. I came to know my friend Kerry because she was my roommate every time we were there together, including one long spring- fall we waited on section lists for state hospital beds, and all hope seemed to be lost. We splayed out on our bedroom floor playing bananagrams. Had early morning coffee while Fritz the kitchen worker sang "every day is a happy day." Art projects with pastels and secret late night vending machine missions, stargazing with Rob.

This was the first hospital to see me as a person. My nurse Christina was always assigned specifically to me. We started out just writing notes back and in forth in the notebook they gave me, because I barely spoke. Because they knew the severity of my self-harm and suicide attempts despite how silent I stayed at first.

I shared everything with Christina. She was like an older sister to me, sometimes stern but always for my own good. She never failed to make me laugh through my tears. She would sit by my bedside while I faded away, refusing to eat. She sewed me a My Little Pony blanket and filled a urine cup with flowers when I wasn't allowed to go outside.

Then there was Rob. He had worked there since the 70s but never aspired beyond his position of mental health counselor, which he was so amazing at. Some days he would see me crying in the hallway and squeeze my shoulder, offering kind words. He would make us Bengal spice tea for our scheduled tea time and discus photography with me. He taught me all about the history of the buildings on campus, which I still know by heart.

There were many staff who made me feel beloved and special. They would go out of their way for me when my situation was so dire and few others had hope. I would spend months at a time there, only to be out for a week or so before being brought by ambulance back for yet a longer stay.  At this point I had no outside life. Friends did their own things and I couldn't keep up. Seasons came and went, winter walks through the tunnels and summer lawn sits. The hospital was consistent. Everyone knew me.

I often caused problems, sneaking in razor blades and cutting myself on the unit, putting myself and others in danger. I couldn't let myself be loved. Always I was poised to leave, to lose, for everyone to walk away no matter how many times they promised not to leave me. It couldn't be real, I told myself. I couldn't be loved.

This went on for years. In the May to October I spent in line for the state hospital I felt people start to fade. "it's hard to watch you languishing here," my doctor told me when I asked why he no longer said hi to me in the halls. I noticed a growing distance,a sadness that I was unable to turn things around. I felt them letting go. I knew I had disappointed them.

In October when the ambulance came to take me to Tewksbury State Hospital all the staff gathered around the elevator to hug me and see me off. I wrote that day that I felt like Dorothy leaving Oz. There was no returning ever again.  A ban was placed on me from ever going back there and it broke my heart.

Hospitals can't be homes, I learned, though my heart lingers many places with many people, pieces of me left behind. Some shells I outgrew, others shattered along the way, some abandoned by others. Some hospitals were never homes for my soul but living there still changed me for better or worse. Many places have damaged me seemingly beyond repair. I wake up from nightmares of being held against my will, where my words don't matter, just what they have in my lengthy file condemning me.

I didn't know love though until some of the good ones came into my life and passed through for a brief time, helping me see what they saw in me. I'm grateful to the staff who stood by me and served as surrogate parents, and to the ones who turned away, well, the best revenge is to build my own home one day
within myself, maybe without so many walls up.