I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can by Barbara Gordon

Author:Barbara Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Moyer Bell and its subsidiaries
Published: 1979-12-07T16:00:00+00:00

8

A Workable Truce

The hospital’s reality soon became my only reality. I was at the mercy of my sickness. Turning in and away from the world I had known, not answering letters, not returning phone calls, I was safe in the womb, being taken care of, feeling mad. In a matter of days my new sick friends on the hall seemed more real to me than people I had known intimately for years.

The only part of the day that mattered was talking to Julie. And in my pain and frustration, I saved up all my anger for her. She became the target for the rage I felt about being in the hospital, my rage against my parents, my rage about everything. As days went by and the pain in my head increased, I cried out to her, “There is no end to worst in this illness. Each day is the worst. It’s a living death. Please help me.” I called her names and attacked her professionalism when she wouldn’t give me the medication I demanded. “Dr. Bernstadt said I need medication.” I railed at her like a spoiled child. “That’s the only reason I’m in this loony bin—to find the right medication. I’m not crazy. I’m not! For God’s sake, give me a pill. Something! Take my money, take my beach house, take anything I’ve got. If you were a doctor you would end my suffering, please!” But she always refused, telling me again and again that to have a lasting recovery, I had to take nothing. Pills couldn’t bring back my life. Only I could do that. It was my best chance.

I told her I’d fake it. If she wouldn’t help me, I’d fake being well to get out of this hellhole. Then she said, without batting an eye, that she would take me to court. She meant she would have me committed, and she knew that I knew she could do it. Most voluntary patients, as I was, don’t know that mental hospitals can claim the prerogative of committing a patient if he acts “against medical advice.” “AMA” means something very special in a mental hospital, and I had seen how it worked when I filmed my documentary on the abuses of the psychiatric profession. You don’t decide when you’re ready to leave a mental hospital. The doctors do, and if they decide to keep you for “your own good,” then being a voluntary patient doesn’t mean a thing. While I was in the hospital, I never met one patient who claimed before a judge he was being detained against his will and won. And Julie used that threat of commitment against me. I hated her for it.

“You’re a doctor, Julie. You’re supposed to be a doctor who helps people,” I said to her one day. “Aren’t you ashamed that you haven’t helped me, that you won’t give me something? I hate you. I hate you. You have no humanity. You don’t help people. You cause pain.”

But she just sat there calmly.

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