Inside Out: My Lives as a Psychiatric Inpatient

By
Jennifer Burwell

Thrown--A Memoir

ChicagoJuly, 1991
Wheres my car?
Im standing at the corner of Cicero, Irving Park and Milwaukee, one of those six-point
intersections so peculiar to Chicago. Theyre horrible to navigate and they make no sense at all
that is, unless you reach way back into the ancient adaption of humans to their geography, when
these intersections were the remains of high, sandy and well-drained prehistorical beaches, a
favored travel route because they rested well above the unnavigable prairie bog that became
Chicago. During springtime, Chicago is said to have been so muddy from the high water that
horses regularly became mired up to their bellies in the middle of the street. Plagued by sewer
and water problems, Chicago became known as the filthiest city in America. Even with the
installation of a massive sewer system, the problems persisted; furious cholera and dysentery
epidemics, and fast-moving contagions like scarlet fever and smallpox, made Chicago one of the
deadliest places to live in the United States. And so, bringing with them that amazing capacity to
bend the land to their needs instead of adjusting their needs to the land, the new immigrants
pulled off an outlandish feat of engineering: they raised the entire city a full five feet. With the
city yanked out of the muck, those old beach trails became irrelevant. And yet they remained-incorporated, paved, annoying.
Its warm for April, but Im still wearing the tight-fitting leather motorcycle jacket that I
bought last November. I saw it in a store on Belmont in the middle of the month, and the jacket
cost exactly as much money as I had until the first of December. I remember I stood there
looking at the jacket, hands shoved into my pockets, chewing the inside of my lip. I couldnt
decide. If I bought it, then for the rest of the month Id have to eat lentils and rice. Without it, Id

Thrown--A Memoir
be the only lesbian in town who hadnt yet put together the uniform: rolled-up Gap jeans (still a
novelty and not yet associated with aging yuppies who, while their girth expands over the years,
are still inexplicably able to buy the same size that theyve always worn), a white (or black) tshirt with the sleeves rolled up, Doc Martins and, of course, a leather motorcycle jacket. I bought
the jacket, and at the end of that winter of 1992 I ate the last lentil of my life, unable finally to
bear the smell, taste, or sight of them.
When I got home the day I bought it, I dropped the jacket on the floor and stomped up
and down on it; later I developed the habit of folding and refolding it as I watched TV. It was
important that the jacket looked worn, like it was a part of me and not just a costume. That jacket
became protector, screen, and talisman; when I was wearing it I found myself looking up from
the sidewalk as I walked. Only after doing that did I notice that certain other women on the street
smiled at me as they walked by. It took me a while to stop expecting them to ask for directions or
a cigarette. Then I learned to enjoy itfelt a quiet thrill at being part of some small conspiracy,
of belonging to something exclusive and slightly provocative. I took to going to clubs around
that timeBerlin, mostly, on West Belmontevery weekend and every other Wednesday on
womens night. My friends went there to dance, but I liked to wander around the perimeter,
basking in this new-found powerto look, to be looked at. I hardly ever smiled, and when I did,
I restrained it to a wry, grudging or rueful up-tilt of one side of my mouth. When did you ever
see James Dean or Montgomery Smith break out in a full-faced grin? I practiced being aloof,
disinterestedmy eyes asking people to give me two good reasons why I should come over and
talk to them. If I sometimes felt lonely, I just folded that back into my act and reminded myself
that I had made it; I was a graduate student in an English department, dating a Third World

Thrown--A Memoir
bisexual woman. In my world, it didnt get any cooler than that. I was right on schedule, had
someone and somewhere to be.
But it turned out that belonging was hard to take, and after a while I found myself looking
the other way or dropping my eyes when women smiled at me on the street. That was February,
and these days I have trouble calling up the energy to leave the house. When I do, I feel as
though Im walking through three-foot deep mud, and I often have to resist the urge to sit or lie
down on the sidewalk. The city has receded into shades of greya dim, pale landscape that rolls
out endlessly in front of me. People move too quickly, talk too quickly; half the time I dont hear
them when they speak, and if I do, I cant fashion an appropriate reply. My brain feels slow and
dull, and I suffer from a persistent buzzing, or tingling, in the back of my head. I feel like Ive
lost a dimension, have become flat and far away; I feel like my friends have pinched off the
space that I used to occupy.
I cry all the time. I regret the past, dread the future, and find the present unbearable. I
wish I could crawl out of my skin, be anyone else, live anywhere but here. I miss homeI wish I
was in Canada, with people who are polite and reserved (cold, some say, but my nostalgia has a
warming effect), who use elastics and not rubber bands, who drink pop, not soda, who go to
washrooms, not restrooms. Who are defined more than anything else, it seems, by that telltale
ou diphthong that Americans prove unable to mock, not being able to pronounce it correctly.
Some days I wish that I could give to someone else the part of my brain that doesnt hurt; I feel it
isnt safe, as if in my carelessness and distraction I might lose it one day. Im dumb, Im
unattractive, Im unlikeable. More than anything else Im confusedhow is it possible to feel
this bad without there being any blood, without having something visibly broken or perforated?

Thrown--A Memoir
I look up and down the street twice, and then stand there helplessly. Maybe I parked
somewhere else and Ive simply traced my way to the place where I parked my car yesterday, or
last week. I wander around for about half an hour in ever-widening circles, sweeping the
neighborhood. Nothing. Its been stolenor worse, towed. Stolen wouldnt be so bad. Its pretty
much trashed, and since the insurance is registered in Ontario and it has Ontario plates, the
Chicago police are unlikely to trace back the $800 worth of parking tickets on the car. I could
definitely use the insurance money. The more I think about it, the more I start to hope that it has
been stolen. A stolen car might be just what I need to turn things around.
If its been towed, though, thats another matter. Sitting in the pound somewhere,
accruing daily debt, probably stripped and useless. Despondent, I make my way to the El and
climb slowly up the stairs to the platform. When the eastbound train arrives, I slump into my seat
and look out through the grime-covered window at the tenement rooftops as they pass by. Then
this sense, this feeling of some displacement in the air around me makes me turn my head
towards the aisle. I look up, and thats when I see him againthe man who looks like his face
has been literally burned off. His face is horrifyingstripped, skeletal. There remains only a
hole where his nose used to be, his orbital eyes bulge, the remains of his lips curl back from his
teeth in the permanent, gruesome mockery of a smile. He should be symbolic, I think, but instead
hes become just another guy panning for money on the El. I look away and down and tears fill
my eyes. Ive just remembered that I left the draft of my Gargantua and Pantagruel paper in the
car. That handwritten draft was the only copy I had, and its not going to be easy to reproduceI
only read half the book and it took considerable finesse to imply the other half in my argument.
The two-block walk home from the El feels endless. When I finally arrive at my
apartment, I drop my backpack by the door, walk straight through to my bedroom without taking

Thrown--A Memoir
off my jacket or boots, flop down on the bed, and pull the sheet up to my chin. It doesnt matter
anymore how much weight people usually assign to this or that misfortune, whatever yardstick
people use to measure their small calamities; for me everything has evened out to the equally
disastrous. I squeeze my eyes shut in an effort never to have been born. If only Bishnu were here.
Mind you, Bishnu's hasnt been much help. She keeps saying that I just need to get out
more, get back into the clubs; Im spending too much time moping around and its bringing me
down. I should talk to my friends about whatevers bothering me, watch more films, read Kant
something orderly that will give my brain a good, bracing workout. She's even suggested that I
get some exercise and find somewhere to go hiking, despite the fact that she finds exercise
distasteful and answers enthusiasms about the recuperative value of nature with the statement
that she never wants to be more than five hundred feet away from concrete. She cooks me
wonderful meals of curried chicken simmered for so long that it falls perfectly, gorgeously off
the bone, offers me bowls full of sweet shndesh, all of which I can only pick at lamely until I
finally get up and throw it away.
Hello? Bishnus home.
Im in here, I croak, surprised at the sound of my voice.
Bishnu appears at the bedroom door. She surveys the outline of my body lying under the
sheet and says, What are you doing in bed with your jacket and, um, boots on? Bishnu's tone is
playful, but I see the worry in her eyes.
Im really tired. Im just. My voice trails off, and my eyes fill up. I close them, and
feel a tear fall across my cheekbone and curve around my ear. I expect Bishnu to ask me whats
wrong, but instead she says, Im going to call Hilarysee if she wants to come over, and then
disappears from the doorway. Im more than surprised that Bishnu is calling Hilary. The fact is,

Thrown--A Memoir
Bishnu has never had much time for Hilary. Were all in the same English PhD program at
Northwestern, take a lot of the same classes, yet still Hilary and Bishnu manage to possess
absolutely nothing in common. I suspect that Bishnu finds Hilary a little bit plodding; and its
true, Hilary doesnt always seem able to quite keep up with Bishnu's brilliant, meandering
commentaries on everything from film to front porch culture. But theres something else that
makes their origins from points halfway across the globe seem almost beside the point: they step
into the world from different directions that have nothing to do with geography.
Feeling deeply wary of the situation thats developing, I pull off the sheet and swing my
legs onto the floor. My right leg has been twisted sideways under the sheet by the weight of my
boot, and a shooting pain stabs through my knee. I start to feel the tingling in the back of my
head again. Where, exactly, is the problem? Is it in my relationships, the car, the lost paper, the
stack of half-read books piled on the floor? Is it in this city, which I love but which isnt home?
All of it knots together, and I find myself relieved by the throbbing pain in my knee, even as
another sharp pang hits me when I stand up. That, at least, is straightforward, tangible.
As if limping might draw attention to the wrong injury, I walk as evenly as I can into the
kitchen, where Bishnu is washing the mountain of dishes that have piled up over the last two
days. I lean carefully against the table, testing my weight on my bad leg, and then ask, as
casually as I can, So, uh, hows Hilary then?
Bishnu's whole bearing is uncharacteristically evasive. She said shes coming over in a
little bit. She has some things to take care of first. Bishnu doesnt turn around, and I feel
suddenly as though Ive become someone about whom something has to be done. I dont like the
feeling. Its bad enough not being able to make any decisions for yourself, but when other people
start making them for you, without consulting you evenwell, it makes a person feel truly

Thrown--A Memoir
useless. Something has just been revoked, and I sag with relief and then shame. I sit down
heavily and massage my knee with one hand while I pick at a crumb lying on the table with the
other. Bishnu and I are avoiding each others eyes, and I have no energy for conversation
anyway. Bishnu's own silence is telling, though; she usually has half a sentence out before shes
through the door and then she just keeps it going until its time for bed. For ten miserable
minutes we sit without speaking, waiting for Hilary to arrive. Finally theres a sharp knock and
the sound of Hilary letting herself in. She walks directly into the kitchen, looks down at me, and
says, So, whats going on?
I stand up carefully and face Hilary, swaying slightly, and then hear myself say, I wish I
was dead.
Silence. Im stunned by what has just come out of my mouth. And yet, having said it
makes it less unthinkable, and I realize that its not as far from the truth as I would have insisted
even five minutes ago. Bishnu stands motionless, her small stature emphasized by Hilarys
height. Hilary looks grim. Okay, she says, and walks out of the kitchen. Bishnu leaves too, and
I hear the murmur of two voices, and then one louder voiceHilary's. I cant hear what shes
saying, but I can tell that shes on the phone.
About five minutes later Bishnu comes back into the kitchen. Weve just phoned a
friend of Hilary'sone of her ex-girlfriends, actually--and this womans therapist says that shes
available to, uh, talk over some things with you, she says. To consult, she adds. She clears her
throat. Anyway, Hilary can drive you thereits not too far from here. Ill come too, she adds,
nodding. I know that Bishnu is being pulled out of her element. Therapy is both foreign and
suspect to hera First World indulgence. The fact that Bishnuwillful, confident, at ease in so
many contextshas allowed Hilary to take charge underlines how alien she finds the situation.

Thrown--A Memoir
Mind you, Im not much better off. I did have a psychiatrist for six months in 1984, set up by my
parents after I told them I could no longer manage university, but thats the extent of my
experience with therapists. Thinking back, I realize that the way I feel right now is deeply
familiar, a kind of superbug version of wretched undergraduate days and nights spent drunk and
miserable. The psychiatrist had seemed as though he was just passing time, waiting for me to get
older, or better, or worse. I did get better, mostly, but ever since then Ive associated feeling
down with a weakness or character flaw that I had grown out of.
I get ready to protest, but instead find myself agreeing weakly to see the therapist. I stand
up and follow Hilary and Bishnu into the living room and over to the door and down to the street.
In the car, I begin to wish with a powerful intensity that Id stayed in the apartment. I long for
Hilary to be gone, never to have come over. I long to be alone with Bishnu, to be sitting on the
couch together, reading or talking or watching TV. I want to tell her that I know Ive been a pain,
that Im making a mess of everything. I want to ask if we could just forget about these past few
months and make it like it was before. Ill eat, Ill exercise. I'll catch up on my reading and start
attending class again. Ill go out with friends.
It seems to me that weve been driving for a long time, and I begin to wonder where
were going. When the car finally slows and pulls into a parking lot, I notice that were pulling
up to a hospital, which seems odd, and then menacing. I hadnt anticipated that wed meet the
therapist at the hospital; Id assumed that wed be meeting her at an office building, or some
version of the converted house where Id seen the psychiatrist in Kingston. When I realize that
Hilary is guiding me toward the emergency entrance, I stop and turn back toward the car, but
Hilary presses a hand on my elbow and turns me back toward the entrance. The double doors
hiss at me ominously as we walk through, and threat seems to hang in the air around me. Hilary

Thrown--A Memoir
steers me over to counter with a large sign saying a triage above it, while Bishnu hangs back,
looking tentative. Hilary leans down and speaks briefly in a low voice to a bored looking woman
in hospital greens, then retreats. I rub the back of my head, which is buzzing fiercely, and sit
down opposite the woman. I try to answer the questions that she peppers at me, but I find that
either I don't understand the question or, understanding it, cant summon a response. No, I reply
to her questions, I dont know why Im here, I dont have a plan, I dont know how they can help
me. I cant produce any documents, and certainly none that could span the yawning space
between the Canadian and American health care systems. In respect to the latter, I can see that, to
this woman, Im becoming an annoying anomaly, one that generates only empty space where
there should be neatly typed information. When I fail to come up with my social security
number, she appears to give up, tells me to take a seat in the waiting room, and calls over
someone who looks like a security guard. Sitting there, with the guard hovering nearby, I begin
to feel a force emerging from the space around mesomething that will sweep Hilary and
Bishnu along just as much as it will me. Something institutional.
After about five minutes the security guard asks us to follow him, and leads us to what he
calls the family room. I imagine that its reserved for grieving relatives, but also, perhaps,
enlisted to quarantine more than grief when the situation requires. The room is niceilluminated
by a soft, warm light, with dusty rose-colored walls and unremarkable but tasteful framed prints
hanging on them. A large, comfortable-looking couch sits against the wall, and in front of it is a
dark, gleaming mahogany coffee table and two large chairs that match the couch. The whole
effect is designed to be neutral and pleasant, and I sit down on one of the couches, feeling
somewhat reassured. I manage to sustain this feeling until I look over at the security guard, who
has taken up a position next to the door, his hands behind his back, looking five feet ahead and

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down at nothing. I stare at the gun on his hip. Is that gun because of me? Can it be that Im the
threat? Have I become someone who requires a man with a gun on his hip?
As these thoughts are passing through my mind, the door opens and Hilary's ex comes in.
Ive met her a couple of times, but cant remember her nameSue, maybe, or Barb. Something
monosyllabic. She joins me on the couch and starts to talk about how shes stayed at this hospital
before and about how great it is, how nice the people are, how much they helped her. She takes
out a handful of quarters and offers them to me.
Youre going to need these for the payphone on the unit, she says.
I reach out and take the quarters, trying to absorb the implications. Does Sue, or Barb,
know something that I dont know, or is she just matching the situation to her own experience?
Up until now Ive nurtured the assumption that Im here just to talk with someone, that Ill meet
with a doctor wholl give me a referral and maybe even some pills, and then Ill go home. Ive
ignored the possibility that Im being propelled toward something more. Ive felt anxious and a
bit weepy since I arrived, but now a sweeping panic envelopes me. I look around the room in
desperation, following a ridiculous notion to jump out a window or rush the door. But there
arent any windows and the door is blocked by the psych tech and the security guard. Im
hopelessly outnumbered by people who seem to have come to the collective conclusion that
leaving me here is a good idea. Besides, theres that gun on the guards hip. Who knows what
hell do if I burst out of the room and start running down the hall? This is Chicago, after all.
Then a man enters and, identifying himself as a psych tech, informs me that hell be
taking me up to the ward. The panic seizes me again, and I look around for something to grip, as
if in finding something hold onto, I can arrest the momentum thats carrying me into strange and
unfamiliar territory. But everything is smooth surface, and everyone around me is looking at me

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expectantly, waiting for me to move. So I get up and walk to the door, passing slowly by the
security guard, trying not to make any sudden movements. Hilary and Bishnu follow me out, and
then hesitate when the psych tech turns and gestures for me to follow him down the hall. I pause,
look over at them, then back at the psych tech. Can they come up with me? I ask, trying not to
sound like Im pleading.
Only one, Im afraid, the tech says, not unkindly. And so I stand there, not knowing
what to do. I look over at Bishnu, who appears as out of place as I feel. Then I look at Hilary,
standing with her arms crossed and feet plantedassured, focused, unphased.
Her, I say, pointing at Hilary.
Unable to meet Bishnus eyes I turn with Hilary and follow the psych tech to the elevator.
As the three of us walk down the hall, I try to trace the path that has led me to this moment. If I
could identify where it began, when it began and how, maybe I could imagine how to end it. But
it wasnt like that; the feeling crept up on me, into me, until I couldnt separate whatever it was
from whomever I was. Until every cell seemed heavy with it, until me heart seemed to beat to the
slow, awful rhythm of it, and my lungs expanded and contracted in time with it. I dont know,
now, if Ive kept my distance from Bishnu because Ive felt too crappy to interact with anyone,
or because Im afraid to breathe on her. Contaminate her.
The three of us exit the elevator when it reaches the 9th floor, and the tech guides me
down the hallway and into a carpeted room with two beds, two dressers, and a bathroom. It looks
like a hotel room. Once were inside, he asks me to get undressed, gives me a gown to put on,
and steps back out into the hallway, where Hilary waits. The request and the setting seem
bizarrely incompatiblethere are no instruments, no charts or diagrams, no stainless steel
instruments anywhere, and yet this man, who is clearly not a doctor or a nurse, has just asked me

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to undress and put on a gown. It strikes me as so extraordinary that I lack any context for
resistance, and so I comply, folding each piece of clothing carefully before setting it on the bed
in a neat pile. I even roll my socks together in a ball. Ive just finished tying the last knot in the
gown when he knocks quietly on the door.
Come in, I say, suddenly not knowing where to put my hands. He enters and proceeds
to pick up my clothing piece by piece, going through the pockets of my pants, my jacket, putting
his hands in my shoes. He even unfolds the socks and turns them inside out. He leaves the
quarters in my pocket, but keeps a paper clip and a washer left over from when Id screwed a
lamp into the wall two weeks ago. I wonder whether he will pat down my body, but instead he
leans over and takes the laces out of my boots.
When he tells me that I can get dressed again, I feel a rush of relief; I had begun to fear
that Id have to keep the gown. I know it makes no sense to stay in a gown given the nature of
my injury, but one naturally associates being in the hospital with wearing a gown. Again, I find
myself wanting a context for how I should be, what I should do. I wait until I hear him walking
down the hall before I slowly and methodically put my clothes back on, including my laceless
boots and my jacket. I sit down uncomfortably on the edge of the bed and look over at Hilary,
whos taken a seat by the door.
Well, I guess I should go now, she says, looking down at her watch. I want to beg her
to stay for just a couple more minutes, but shes already up and halfway out the door. I follow
her out of the room wordlessly and stand there with my arms hanging at my sides, watching her
recede down the hallway and then disappear around the corner.
I figure it must be pretty late by now. Theres no one around, and I stand for a moment,
staring down the hall, not knowing what to do. I turn and walk in the other direction until I find

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myself in a sort of living/dining room area. To my left are two couches and a couple of chairs
all pleasant versions of the ones downstairs. Theres another gleaming mahogany coffee table in
front of one couch, and a smaller one to the side. On the smaller table theres a collection of
magazines fanned out in a neat pileVogue, Time, Chatelaine. I take a couple more steps and
see, against the wall opposite the couch, a television cabinet housing a large TV with a bunch of
books and video tapes below it. To my right is a longish rectangular table that looks like it seats
about twelve. On the wall next to the table is a whiteboard with the days of the week written
across the top, and the hours from 8 am to 8 pm written down the left side. Almost every hour of
every day is filled in with something: art therapy; exercise group; dance; music; yoga;
movie night and, in the middle of every afternoon a two hour block titled simply Group.
Meals and free time have also been slotted in.
I suppose that nothing more is going to happen tonight, so I go back to my room. I have
nothing to sleep in and Im not comfortable putting the gown back on, so I just take off my jacket
and boots and crawl into bed. The quarters in my pants make an uncomfortable bulge that digs
into my hip when I turn onto my side, but I leave them there and turn onto my back. Theyre the
only protection that Ive been offered, and Im not prepared to risk losing them. I dont expect to
sleep, and am surprised when I hear a mans voice saying, Its time to get up. I sense the light
even before I open my eyes, but still Im not prepared for how bright the room is. Im even less
prepared for the person lying in the bed by the window. Where did she come from? How had I
not seen her before? She groans, sits up, and shakes out her long, wavy auburn hair. Then she
leans back on her arms, looks over at me, and says, Im Allieand you are? I hesitate for a
moment before giving her my name, as if it might be dangerous to give this person any
information about me.

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I force myself to return her gaze. Jennifer, I say. My names Jennifer, I repeat, as if
reassuring myself.
Well, Jennifer, welcome to the ninth floor. She leans forward and presses the palms of
her hands against her eyes. Fuck. I did not sleep wellagain. God, what I wouldnt give for
some sedating bedtime meds. Do you take sedating meds? Consider yourself lucky if you do.
No, II dont take any medication, I reply.
Oh. Well, Im sure theyll fix that, she says, leaning back against the wall and closing
her eyes.
I have no idea what to do next, so I sit on the side of my bed trying not to look like Im
waiting to see what this Allie woman will do. Part of me is waiting for her to do something
mental, like start talking to herself or lie back down on the bed and stare blankly at the ceiling,
unaware of her surroundings. Instead, she opens her eyes, swings her legs over the side of her
bed, and walks into the bathroom opposite me. I hear a flush, and then the sound of her brushing
her teeth. A moment later, she throws open the door and walks back to her side of the room.
Cant be bothered with a shower this morning, she mutters, walking over to the four-drawer
dresser beside her bed and opening an overstuffed drawer.
What to wear, what to wear, she murmurs to herself.
I dont move from my position, too busy marveling at the mundane familiarity of the
previous ten minutes. This woman and I really could be sharing a hotel room. Someone will
come around at about 10am to make the bed and leave fresh towels while were out sightseeing.
Well come back around 3pm and have a luxurious nap; when we wake up, well watch TV
while one of us flips through the pamphlets looking for a good place to go for dinner.

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Eventually I get up and walk slowly toward the bathroomslowly enough, I hope, not to
break the spell. But theres no miniature bar of soap at the sink, no miniature bottles of shampoo
and conditioner on the edge of the bathtub, no overturned glass cups on little doilies. Im
disappointedit had been a seductive and comforting fantasy. I lean against the sink and
squeeze my eyes shut; maybe when I open them Ill be somewhere else, somewhere usual. But it
doesnt work, and the heaviness and tingling in my head returns. When I come out, I dont notice
at first the small, clear plastic bag has been placed on the dresser beside my bed. Or was it there
all along? I walk over and pick it up cautiously. Inside it theres a brand new toothbrush in its
plastic wrapper, a little bottle of shampoo, and a small, square bar of soap in its wrapper. I glance
toward the open door, expecting to catch a glimpse of the person who left it here, but theres no
one and no sound except Allie humming softly to herself as she gets dressed. If its been here all
along, how did I not see it? If it hasnt, who put it here?
Allie is heading for the door, and I decide that the best strategy is to stick close to her.
We walk into the dining room, where seven or eight people are sitting at the table eating
breakfast and chatting noisily with one another. Allie grabs a tray off of a metal cart as she walks
by, and then takes up a seat at the other end of the table. Im not sure what to do--there doesnt
seem to be a tray with my name on it--but just as Im about to turn and go back to my bedroom a
woman appears from behind me and says, Im afraid we had to order for you, since you didnt
have a chance last night to fill out a meal card. We ordered a muffin, some cereal, juice, coffee.
Thats your tray at the top on the left.
The woman looks about thirty, with kind eyes and a slightly unruly bob tucked
optimistically behind her ears. Shes wearing jeans and a sweater, and looks like shes just

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walked out of a Lands End catalogue. I dont move, so the woman takes the tray down and
hands it to her.
Hi Jennifer, Im Lynn, she says, smiling at me.
I nod my head, but say nothing.
Im your primary nurse, Lynn continues. Well meet together after breakfast and
discuss your stay.
Okay, I answer, wondering what a stay consists of.
Allie is sitting down at the very end of the table next to the window, and I walk over and
set my tray down opposite hers. Shes already deeply involved in a conversation with the person
sitting next to her, and I take the opportunity to get a closer look at my roommate. She looks
youngnot more than nineteen. Shes leaning forward with her elbows on the table so that she
can hear the person opposite her above the general buzz of conversation, and I notice that she has
slender, delicate hands. Beautiful hands. Theres something vulnerable about the way she holds
them, one tucked inside the other, and I have trouble reconciling this with the confident, offhand
manner in which shed spoken to me, the decisive way she navigates the space around her.
Im not at all hungry, so instead of eating I survey the rest of the table. Most of the people
are young to youngishonly a couple are over fortyand at first glance they look entirely
normal, except perhaps for one older man in his fifties who keeps his eyes on the table when he
talks. Take away the institutional trays, and it would be hard to tell these people from a bunch of
guests at a bed and breakfast. Theres a man who looks about twenty-seven, painfully thin, his
hatchet-sharp features softened by a shaggy mane of shoulder-length hair and a pair of deep
chocolate-brown eyes. The woman sitting beside him is chunky and plainnot ugly, but tending
that way. Shes tucking into her food with singular concentration, while at the same time

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Thrown--A Memoir
directing a constant patter at the woman sitting beside her. The recipient of her monologue is a
small, frail, mousy woman who looks as though shes misplaced something and is trying hard to
remember where it is. Beside her sits a woman with a notepad in front of her, into which she is
scratching out what looks like a series of long mathematical formulae. The entire page is filled
with these calculations, and shes resorted to filling up the margins with tiny, cramped writing. I
admire her focus, even if the activity seems odd and misplaced. Across the table from that
woman sits a young man with white-blond crew cut hair and a farm-fresh face. When he turns
partway in my direction, he exposes a pair of brilliant sky-blue eyes, their color intensified by the
light shining in from the window. Beside him is a subdued-looking woman with dark, long hair
and a tasteful skirt-sweater combination. She wouldnt look out of place shopping in Holt
Renfrew.
People are getting up now and putting their trays back on the cart, so I do the same,
having eaten nothing. It occurs to me that Ill regret not drinking the coffeea horrible
dependency leaves me with penetrating headaches if I dont have a cup before noon. Someone
pushes the cart against the wall, and theres a general dispersal toward either the living room area
or down the hall to the bedrooms. Some glance at the whiteboard as they pass by. Only Allie
hangs back, and I hesitate, not wanting to lose sight of her. She takes a couple of steps, then turns
toward the other end of the hall and shouts, Steeeeven. A moment later the psych tech from
last night is walking down the hall, carrying a small canvas bag. He stops in front of Allie,
reaches into the bag, pulls out a pack of cigarettes, removes one, and hands it to Allie. Then he
fishes out a lighter from his pocket, sparks it, and hold it in front of Allie. She leans toward him
with her cigarette hanging loosely between her lips, lights it, and then straightens up and says
Ahhhh as she exhales. Steven places an ashtray on the table and then stands to one side. I start

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Thrown--A Memoir
to think of Steven as some kind of concierge, absent until summoned, then suddenly there to do
whatever it takes to make his guests stay more pleasant. In the absence of a reason to keep
remain standing beside Allie, I start to feel awkward, and so when she points to her cigarette
pack and asks, You want? I take one. I quit smoking three months ago, around the same time
Bishnu did, but I feel that under these unique circumstances, not taking one might put me at a
social disadvantage. When I inhale, the smoke catches unpleasantly at the back of my throat, and
after two drags I feel dizzy and a little sick. I dont put it out, though; instead, I lean against the
table and let my cigarette burn down on its own. Allie finishes her cigarette, butts it out, and
joins the rest of the people in the living room.
I walk over to the whiteboard and see that the words Art Therapy have been written in
the slot between 9 and 10 am, then look at my watch and then realizes that I dont have it on. I
look over at the people sitting around in the living room, talking or reading magazines, and
experience the familiar sensation of being an outsider. Being inconspicuous suits me right now,
though, and I walk up the hallway to my room. Just as Im about to sit down in the chair by my
bed, I hear a sing-song voice call out, Art therapy, everyone. I take a couple of cautious steps
into the hallway, and then walk toward the group of people who have begun taking up seats
around dining the table. I look around for Allie, but shes already seated herself at the other end
by the window, and the only seat left is the one right next to the woman who has called everyone
together. Shes small, with bleached hair and red glasses that hang from a gold chain around her
neck. She sits with enviable posture, pert and smiling, and welcomes each person by name as
they sit down.
Hello Jennifer, she says cheerfully, turning toward me. Im Rebecca, the art therapist
here on the West Wing. Im starting to get used to the fact that everyone knows my name before

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Thrown--A Memoir
I know theirs, and I start to say Hello, but Rebecca has already turned away and is busy
passing out colored pieces of construction paper to everyone. With a wink she hands me a purple
one and whispers, conspiratorially, My favorite color.
Okay everybody, Rebecca says in a loud, clear voice, its time to begin. I look over
at Allie at the other end of the table; she rolls her eyes dramatically and adopts a pained
expression.
Allie, why dont you begin, Rebecca says, looking pointedly down the table at her.
How are you feeling today?
Allie looks back at her blandly and says nothing. Rebecca stares back at Allie and
narrows her eyes. Theres a pause, and then with the faintest of shrugs she turns to the man
sitting beside Allie, the one who never looks at people when hes talking. Right now hes staring
with lidded eyes at a point somewhere between my and Rebeccas heads.
Ronald? Rebecca says, attempting to move her head into his line of vision.
Ronald shifts his gaze slightly to the right and says, Ive been wondering--it um, do
you? Its just that I cant sleep. Do you really need to come into my room so often at night?
He looks down at the table and begins to fiddle with the ring around his baby finger.
Im afraid so, Ronald, says Rebecca. Until you can assure us that youre not going to
try to hurt yourself again, we have to check on you every fifteen minutes, twenty-four hours a
day. She smiles benevolently. Ill tell the night staff to try not to shine the flashlight directly at
your face, okay? Ronald looks over at the window and nods.
This is the first jarring indication that Im not on some sort of weekend retreat, and it
throws me. I look as discreetly as possible over at Ronald, assessing him. He looks like anyone
else. His hair is rumpled, and hes wearing a grey fishing sweater that makes him look like

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Thrown--A Memoir
someones uncle. The only thing odd about him is the way he avoids looking at people when he
talks. I hadnt realized until now how really central eye contact is to normal conversation. Watch
him as he interacts with people creates in me a strange feeling of anticipation and
apprehensionI wait for the moment he will look up, but am uneasy about what I might see if
he does. Whats hidden in those eyes? I wonder. Then again, maybe hes just cross-eyed and
embarrassed about it. I knew a cross-eyed guy in University, and when I talked to him I always
tried to reposition myself so my face would fall in front of at least one line of sight. But every
time I tried to move hed turn his head, and there hed be, looking elsewhere.
Still, its a minor eccentricity, and apart from that he could be anyone. But hes not. This
man sitting at the other end of the table from me has not only thought about hurting himself, hes
attempted to hurt himself badly enough that he needs to be watched constantly. I dont know
anyone whos hurt themselves, except through carelessness. I know people who drink way too
much, or who do drugs, who date abusive losers or sleep around. Sleeping during the AIDS
epidemic can get you killed. I think again about Ronald, and then about myself. Do I want to hurt
myself? At that thought the floor seems to drop out from under me, and instinctively I grab the
edges of the table. I find suddenly that Ive lost the sense of my own contours, the shape I makes
in the world and the manner in which I occupy space. I look down at my hands and feel my head
expand; when I close my eyes I feel my hands swelling like basketballs. I open my eyes and look
around the table again. Who are these people? I look over at Rebecca, think about Lynn and
Steven. What do they want from me? For the first tilebut not the last--Im possessed by the
feeling that Im Alice at the Mad Tea party, and everyone around me is some version of the
Hatter, the March Hare, or the Dormouse. This isnt because I believe that Im sane and theyre
notif anything, I feel more unbalanced than when I came in--but rather because, like the

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Thrown--A Memoir
characters in the book, everyone around me seems to understand the logic of this world, whereas
I am increasingly baffled by it. Everyone elsestaff and patientsseems to know what their
role is, and Im not even sure exactly why Im here. I know why someone brought me hereI
said something stupid--but thats not the same as knowing why I should be here. Yet I feel as
though the reason must be perfectly clear to the people around me, who have accommodated my
presence with ease. The only people who have acknowledged that I havent always been here are
the staff members whove introduced themselves, and Allie, but even they act as though theres
nothing to explain. Its as if theres something about mesome look or smellthat marks me as
belonging here. I scour my mind again for thoughts of self-harm, but come up only with the
reassuringly obvious fact that my life is a mess right now. The things that make up this mess are
concrete, measurable, and like digging my fingernails into the palm of my hand, they bring me
back to myself.
When my attention returns to the group, the pattering woman from breakfast is speaking.
and then I said, well thats just like the time when I was fourteen and I came across a
wounded bird lying in the grass on our lawn. That poor little bird, it was all I could do to look at
it in such pain.
I look around the table; most people seem to have checked out. A few are doodling in the
corners of their pieces of construction paper; the numbers womanthe one with the notepad at
breakfast--is deeply involved in filling her construction paper with formulae. Allie has backed
her chair away from the table and is sitting with one foot resting on the edge, making an
elaborate show of retying her shoelace. Rebecca is looking at the speaker with a tight, practiced
smile and just the barest hint of impatience.

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Thrown--A Memoir
so then I told him that I couldnt meet him on Tuesday, because I had to pick up the
laundry and then go over to my sistersshe just had a baby, you know.
Just as the woman pauses to refuel with another breath, Rebecca swiftly inserts a clipped,
Thank you for sharing, April, and theres a look of universal relief around the table. April
stops talking and folds her arms, looking a little as though someone has just played a trick on her.
Jennifer? How are you feeling today? Rebecca asks.
How am I feeling? I repeat the words to myself several times, and the more I repeat them,
the more I find myself incapable of understanding the question. How, exactly, do I feel? Through
what mechanism can I package up these sensations and impressions and deliver them up as
sadness, or fear, anger? I want to say, How do you think I feel? but that will come out the
wrong way. Besides, Rebecca seems like the wrong person to ask; she seems like someone who
wants a tidy answer, something that can be condensed into one or two words on a chart. But then
again, I really do want to know if Rebecca has any suggestions about how I feel, or at least how I
might go about finding out. Rebecca is waiting for my reply, and so, not willing to wade into the
psychological, I fall back onto the physical. Im tired, I say. Rebecca nods sympathetically, but
I suspect that, so far, Im a bit of a disappointment.
Today, Rebecca says, were going to draw anger. You can put down anything you
wantit can be a picture of something, or it can be entirely abstract. The idea is to capture the
feeling and what it means to you. After youre all done, well go around the table and discuss
what youve drawn.
Anger. When I think of anger, I think of people being angry at me, and that makes me
feel guilty. How do you draw guilt? A prisoner sitting in an electric chair? A child lying? What
color is guilt? I think of green, but thats more for envy. Guilt should be black. Or at least the

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Thrown--A Memoir
parts of you that are guilty should be rendered in black. Black for guilt, red for pain. Whats the
relationship between guilt and pain? Maybe I should do the guilty parts in black and the painful
parts in red. But then, what happens where they overlap? It will end up looking muddy.
I push these thoughts aside and look down. Theres nothing on my construction paper but
a single, curved line that trails down from the upper right hand corner and ends up somewhere
near the lower left hand corner. A backwards lifeline. I rack my brain for a way of linking the
line to the theme of angerI dont want to disappoint againbut I cant come up with anything.
Fortunately, Rebecca looks at her watch and says were out of time for now and will have to pick
up again on Thursday. Rebecca collects all of the drawingsto what end I cant imagine (is
there a display board somewhere, like in the halls at primary school? Are they going to put it in
my file?)then packs up her things and is gone. Im struck again by the abruptness with which
people appear and disappear around here. Before I have a chance to stand up, I hear a whisper
next to my ear, Wanna go for a smoke? Its Allie. I murmur that I dont think Im allowed to
leave the floor, but Allie just stands up and says, Follow me. She leads me back into our room
and tells me to wait by the door. Then she walks over to her bed, tilts up the mattress, and pulls
out a pack of cigarettes from underneath. She stands back up and walks past me into the
bathroom, indicating with a jerk of her head that Im to follow. Once the door is closed she grabs
a towel, soaks it under the faucet, winds it into a loose rope, and stuffs it along the bottom of the
door. She hands me a cigarette and takes one for herself, and then she reaches inside the toilet
paper role and takes out a lighter. She grins at me and lights both cigarettes.
I dont know what Id do if I couldnt have a cigarette after one of those goddamn art
therapy groups, she says, shaking her head. I feel like I need a cigarette too, but Im also feeling
very uncomfortableI havent even been here for a day and Im already breaking the rules.

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Thrown--A Memoir
Allie flushes the toilet as soon as I drop in my cigarette, and then takes the towel away
from underneath the door and opens it. I cant believe that the smell of smoke issuing out of the
bathroom wont alert a staff member, but Allie, apparently unconcerned, walks over to her bed
and flops down onto her back. Then I remember that Lynn said she would come by after art
therapy, so I sit down in the chair by the door to wait. It feels less awkward than sitting on the
bed. I continue to sit stiffly with my hands on my lap and my sock feet tucked under the chair
until I hear a voice behind me.
Jennifer? I turn my head, expecting to see Lynn. Instead, Im greeted by a large, square
woman holding a proportionally large clipboard. May I come in?
Uh, sure, I say, half rising from her chair.
No, no, stay where you are, the woman says cheerfully. Ill just sit on the edge of the
bed here.
I expect her to introduce herself, but instead she looks down and begins flipping through
the pages on the clipboard. Im from financial services, and Im here to clarify your method of
payment and offer financial advice if needed.
For one unreal moment I experiences a kind of institutional conflation, and think that
theyve found my car and shes here to collect on the parking tickets. For that brief moment it
makes sense to me that a hospital administrator is collecting money for traffic infringements.
I notice here that your student insurance covers you for $10,000, the woman continues.
I didnt know that, but am relieved to hear it. I hadnt really thought about it, but this is a private
hospital and of course Ill need some insurance to cover my stay.
So, do you have any other coverage?
Im confusedwhy would this woman care if I have home or car insurance?

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Thrown--A Memoir
I say nothing, so the woman continues. What method of payment do you intend to use?
Her manner has become distant, mechanical.
Um, my insurance, I say, starting to feel like were going in circles.
The woman looks up from her clipboard. If you mean the $10,000, Im afraid that wont
be sufficient, unless youre discharged in the next couple of days. It costs a thousand dollars a
day here just for the bed, on top of which you have meals, therapeutic activities, appointments
with your psychiatrist, consultations, psychiatric testing, medications, etcetera., etcetera. An
average stay here costs about $13,000-15,000 a week.
The summary of her calculations cycles me through a number of emotions. First I feel
taken aback, then indignant. Part of my Canadianness growing up was born of a superiority
complex connected to having a public health care system. However much it may be limping
along, overburdened and underfunded, its something that Americans dont have. And possessing
what Americans dont have (or not possessing what they do haveif its something bad) is a
large part of what makes Canada Canadian. Well, I think, if I can only afford around six days,
thats just as well. Ill be glad to get out. I probably could have worked it out without coming
here in the first place, if Bishnu and Hilary hadnt intervened. Ill use up the six days, and then
work the rest out on my own, or with the help of my friends, like Bishnu says.
Since I dont say anything, the woman continues. How about I come back a little later
once youve had a chance to put your affairs in order. We also offer long-term financing, if you
choose to take that route. With that, she bounces off the bed with improbable lightness and
walks briskly out of the room.
Im still absorbing what Ive heard, enjoying the sure knowledge that I wontcantbe
in here for more than six days, when Allie, who has been lying on the bed throughout the

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Thrown--A Memoir
conversation says, You know, you cant just leave whenever you want, in case thats what
youre thinking.
But I came in voluntarily, I reply.
That doesnt mean that you get to leave voluntarily, says Allie. The only place you get
to go when your insurance runs out is over to County. And trust me, you dont want that.
Im attempting to absorb this new piece of information when Lynn walks in. Sorry Im
late, she says. We had a situation.
Jennifers just learning the finer points of volunteerism, Allie says.
My throat feels tight, I look up at Lynn and say, slowly, so that theres no confusion, I
came in voluntarily.
Yes, thats right, Lynn says, looking over at Allie and then back at me.
So I can leave when I want, right?
Well, technically, but of course we cant let you go if we dont think youre safe.
What happens if I just walk out?
Well, for starters, the door is locked and you have to get buzzed out by a staff member,
so its not really a matter of just walking out. But if you did manage to leave, say, once you have
outside privileges, then wed have to pick you up and commit you.
But I came in voluntarily.
Yes, and if you agree to stay voluntarily, it will be a lot easier for you to leave.
But youre saying that I cant leave when I want to.
Things are a less complicated if you agree to stay voluntarily.
So, I can leave voluntarily as long as I leave when you want me to.
See what I mean? Allie says.

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Thrown--A Memoir
Listen, Lynn says. Lets not worry about that right now, okay? I know that youve
just spoken to Finance. No ones about to send you to Countyshe gives Allie a pointed
lookand no ones going to commit you. The important thing right now is for us to start
developing a plan for your recovery. The next two days are going to be kind of busythere are a
lot of forms that need to be filled out, and a fair bit of psych testing to be done. Once all that is
taken care of, we can focus more fully on the issues that brought you here. All of this sounds
like preparation for a long stay, and I start to worry in earnest about how Im going to pay.
Before I can say anything about it, though, Lynn hands me a very large pile of paper and
says, Take your time with this, but try to have the MMPI done by tomorrow. We also ask
people to write a brief autobiography. That may take a little more time, but try to finish it within
the next few days. It can be very helpful to us in figuring out how to approach your situation. But
first, how about we have a chat? Allie is still in lying on her bed, now with headphones on;
Lynn walks over and lifts up one of her earphones. Allie, could you give us some time for a
one-on-one? she asks. Allie takes the earphone and places it back over her ear, and then rolls off
the side of the bed and walks toward the door. Have fun, she says as she walks out.
Lynn sits down on the edge of my bed, leans forward, puts her forearms on her knees,
and then looks up at me. So, Jennifer, what can you tell me about why youre here? Ever since
art therapy this morning Ive been dreading another moment like this: Im beginning to feel the
hows and whys piling up, unanswered, around me.
I dont know, I mean, my friends brought me here, because. . .I guess they were worried
about me. They said they know someone who stayed here, I add, doubtfully.
And how are you feeling right now? Its the same question that Rebecca asked, and yet
when Lynn asks me, in her quiet voice with a soft hint of southern drawl, and with what sounds

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Thrown--A Memoir
like genuine concern, my eyes fill up. I look up and see Lynns frank, grey eyes looking back at
me, her hands clasped together. Then I hear a sound like the rushing of blood to my head, and
little dots appear in front of my eyes that start to blank out parts of Lynns face. I stand up and
manage to say, I think I need to--. before my legs collapse underneath me.
*
Im walking down a wide roadpaved, but pebbled rather than smooth asphalt. There
are no sidewalks, just ditches on either side of the road with longer and lusher grass at the bottom
where the lawnmowers cant get in close enough to crop it. Im looking down with the
purposeful intensity of someone searching for something very specific. I cant see my body, just
the alternating appearance of the tops of my running shoes as I walk. Worn white leather, with
three jagged-edged blue suede stripes on either side. Theres a Tennis Association tag threaded
into the first loop of the left shoes laces. I feel myself stop abruptly. I bend over, and a skinny,
sun-browned arm comes into view and picks something up off the ground. When I stand up
again, Im holding in my hand a dirty, worn piece of papermaybe a business card. A brown
stain makes the left half of the card unreadable, but on the other half of the card I can make out
the phrase reasonable rates, and below it, help. Satisfaction swells in me as I tuck the card
into my pocket and turn back the way I came. Not completion, but something on the way to that.
Now my head is up and Im staring straight ahead at a long road that curves off to the
right in the distance. I feel a desire to look at the uniform bungalows that I know are there to
either side, but my head continues to face straight ahead. Eventually I turn up a wide driveway
also pebbledand walk toward an open garage. On the driveway I pass a couple of squished
monarch caterpillars. Once Im inside the garage, I turn around and pull the heavy door shut.
After the washed-out brightness of outside, its hard to make anything out in the dim light. A

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Thrown--A Memoir
single, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling casts a weak light onto the floor, but after a moment
my eyes start to adjust. The floor of the garage is covered with pieces of paper in every different
size and shape. Some are arranged in horizontal or vertical rows, others are clustered tightly
together inside circles that have been sketched out with chalk. Off to the side sits a tall, unsteady
tower of scraps. I try to get a closer look at whats written on some of the pieces laid out on the
floor, but am thwarted when my body walks toward the tower and places the card on top. The
satisfaction that I felt when I had first found the card on the street is washed away in the
contemplation of that pileunordered, uncategorizedand is replaced by a diffuse anxiety that
builds until its barely tolerable. I step from one foot to the other, staring at the pile, trying to
place something. Anything.
*
Im conscious for at least a minute before I open my eyes, trying at first to remember
where I am, then to remember what happened. I begin with an inventory of my body.
Predictably, theres a slight tingling sensation in the back of my head on the left side. Nothing
smells unusual, except maybe a hint of mustiness in the air, the smell of library stacks in winter.
I can feel a tightness around my left bicepa blood pressure cuff?and I can hear at least two
voices. One is Lynns, but the other voice I dont recognize. Even after I conclude that theres no
threat, I keep my eyes closed. I keep them closed because theyre going to want to know what
happened, and because I dont know. Every now and then since I left home at eighteen, Ive
suffered from these occasionalfits. I can be sitting having a completely normal conversation,
and then suddenly Im sucked violently away from consciousness. I wake up a few minutes or
even half an hour later with no recollection of what has happened. These spells dont necessarily
correspond to any particular topic, but they do tend to come on during emotionally intense

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Thrown--A Memoir
moments. Theres no obvious physical cause, although an MRI has shown a small area of tissue
damage and scarring in the left posterior of my parietal lobe. One person called it a low density
area. People speculate about an in-utero or a subsequent quiet stroke that has been just as
quietly compensated for ages ago. Most agree that everyone, under the scrutiny of an MRI, will
turn up imperfect, already compromised from the day they were born or before. But I become
convinced that this low density area is somehow related to these events. When I learn that the
parietal lobe has to do with language and psycho-motor skills, I develop a theory: somewhere
there exists a very specific combination of words and gestures that I was born without, or, more
accurately, lacking the ability to generate or to interpret. I possess all the words, all the gestures,
but I cant make or process all of them in that particular combination. Any part of this lost
combination, when offered, will precipitate an event. In the same manner as lights strobing at a
certain rate can set off an epileptic seizureso certain gestures, tones of voice, glances,
combined with a certain order of words, can set me off, with no warning except a tingling in the
left back left portion of my head. Its the tingling at this very place that convinces me that the
twothe wound, and the wordsare somehow connected.
After a couple of minutes I peek under my eyelashes and see that Lynn is talking with an
older man; both of them are half-facing away from me, so I open my eyes to get a better look at
him. Hes probably in his early sixties, with silver hair, clean shaven. Hes leaning slightly
forwards on the balls of his feet with his hands cupped behind his back, and hes looking down at
the floor and nodding. Theres something tweedy about him, despite the fact that hes wearing a
light blue cotton suit. When I open my eyes more fully, I decide there is something distinctly
academic about him; whether its the shabby vagueness of his outline, or the habitually neglected
posture, Im not sure. I wonder if hes the source of the mustiness.

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Lynn looks around, sees that Im awake, and walks over to the bed. How are you
feeling, Jennifer?
Fine. Good.
You gave us a bit of a scare, there. Do you know what happened?
Im fine, really. Im not about to offer Lynn my theory about words, gestures, and low
density areas.
Lynn looks at me for a moment, and her eyebrows knit together. Then she smiles. Let
me introduce you to Dr. Monteby. Hell be your attending doctor during your stay. The man,
who has been waiting politely behind Lynn, steps forward and says, Hello there.
He asks me again what happened, and I say I dont know. He asks me if this has ever
happened before and I hesitate and nod. Diabetes? No. Food allergies? No. Low blood
pressure? No. The questions continue, and my answer is always either no or I dont know.
Finally the questions stop.
Yes, well, he says, Ill let you rest for a while. Perhaps we can get together early this
afternoon to catch up. How about I call on you shortly after one oclock.
Sure, yes, that will be fine. I feel like Ive just accepted an invitation to tea.
I continue to lie on the bed after theyre gone. Allie comes in, picks up a book, and leans
back on the bed with her knees up. Im staring at the ceiling, looking idly for patterns in the
dotted tiles, when Allie sits up abruptly and says, Oh--theres lunch. Lets go. I havent heard
anything to indicate that lunch is here, but when I walk into the dining area, the carts are there
with another pre-ordered lunch for me. I eat quicklyI have a lot of work to do this afternoon,
and its starting to create a small knot in my stomach. Its not the MMPII figure that, if I dont
second-guess myself, I can probably get through it pretty quickly. Its the autobiography. I feel

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sure that if I can nail that one, my problems will resolve themselves. Something will be unveiled.
Maybe I just need to find a different perspective, I think. Bishnu says Ive been taking things too
seriously, and this gives me an idea for the autobiographyIll try a different tone, one that feels
foreign to me right now. Ill keep it light, a touch whimsical. Nothing too earnest or
overwroughtjust a collection of observations about those amusing, quirky things that make me,
in my unique way, human.
I settle on the bed and begin to write. I was born in a split-level bungalow, the youngest
of three children. I was moody, with a tendency towards tantrums. I stop, and then cross out the
reference to my moodsIm supposed to keep things light, and besides, they might read too
much into it. I continue, As a child, I enjoyed British bulldog and was good at four-square.... I
wonder if they have those games here, and decide to revise. ...good at sports, with a habit of
reading in trees. That last part is supposed to seem quirky, but after I write it down, I wonder if
it just makes me sound weird. A statement like that might get me designated as an introvert. I
stare down at the page, reaching for inspiration. This is going to be harder than I thought; I
imagine pitfalls and snares everywhere. The safest course would be to say nothing, but that may
get me defined as a resistant patient. I begin to doodle geometric shapes in the margins of the
paper, longing for distraction.
To my relief, Lynn appears at the door and says, Dr. Monteby will see you now,
Jennifer. I swing myself off the bed and walk beside Lynn down the hall. Doctor Montebys
office is right beside the nursing station. The door is open, and I can see that the office is small,
dark, and windowless. His desk is littered with files, magazines, journals, pens, notes. Theres
nothing obviously threatening about the space, and yet the phrase, abandon hope, all ye who
enter here passes through my mind.

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Doctor Monteby is sitting at his desk writing hurriedly, and so I stand by the doorway,
not wanting to interrupt. Finally, after a minute, I cough quietly.
Ah Jennifer, yes, come in, he says, without looking up. I take the only other chair in the
rooma heavy, monumental piece that dares you to sit in it. Its way out of proportion for the
office, and in bizarre contrast to the simple, spare black desk chair that Dr. Monteby occupies.
He looks briefly up at my face and then back down at the mess of files in front of him. Then he
pinches the edge of a file that is barely sticking out halfway down the pile, and pulls it out with a
satisfied, Ah ha.
After spending a minute or so looking at the file, he takes off his glasses, puts them
down, leans back, and swivels his chair to face me.
So, Jennifer, it says here that youre a student of literature.
Thats right.
And what are you studying right now?
I attempt a quick mental inventory of my last stated research interests, but all I can think
of is the stolen paper. Or merely towed, left fallow and discarded in some lot on the north side of
Chicago. Privately I opt for stolen, as if this assigns some value to it. As if it means that someone
actually wanted it.
Gargantua and Pantagruel, I say, immediately embarrassed of the shoddy writing, the
lack of a clear argument, the fact that I hadnt even read the whole book and had relied instead
on tendencies I saw in the first part and then on secondary sources.
Mmmm, he replies, sticking out his bottom lip and nodding significantly. He follows
this up with a series of questions about my medical history, family history, financial situation,
current relationships, and so on. I answer each question as directly and economically as possible,

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as if there were some kind of word count within which I have to stay. As soon as I give an
account of my financial situation, this portion of the interview concludes abruptly. He leans back
even further in his chair, to the point where I become anxious about him toppling over. Then he
crosses his legs and puts his hands behind his head.
Jennifer, he says, Whos your favorite writer?
Virginia Woolf. I answer without having to think, and feel heartened by the certain
knowledge that I got this one right.
I see, well, that is interesting. Virginia Woolf, hmm? Such a shame.
I assume hes talking about Woolfs suicide and shake my head with what I hope is the
right mixture of sorrow and regret.
Well then, he says, sitting upright and slapping the palms of his hands on his knees in a
summary gesture, I think that what we have here may be more a question of temperament than
of a disorder.
Temperament?
Temperament. What I mean to say is, perhaps its just the case that you have a
melancholic temperament. Like Woolf. Or Proust.
Melancholic temperament?
Yes. A melancholic temperament.
Ive heard of people being medicalized, having pills thrown at them, but this literary
approach is new to me. I feel a certain thrill at the idea of sharing a temperament with Virginia
Woolf, but then I remind myself that pretty much everyone agrees now that Woolf suffered from
clinical depression punctuated by bouts of psychosis. Theres talk of Woolf having been bipolar.
Then I think about studies theyve done showing that bipolar illness has a long term negative

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effect on cognitive ability, quite separately from acute episodes. Maybe, I think, Woolf didnt
kill herself because she was depressed or crazy; maybe thats no more true than the theories that
attribute it to her childhood experiences or adult liaisons. Maybe she was not delicate, or
tormented. Maybe she just gave herself the long, cool stare and decided that, rather than
watching her genius diminishing in stages, she would retire at her peak.
I look up to see Doctor Monteby already standing. Well talk more tomorrow, he says,
gesturing toward the door with a smile. As I walk back down the hall, I feel conflicted. If I go
along with this melancholic temperament thing, Ill likely be discharged before my insurance
runs out, which is a good thing. After all, what can you do about a temperament? It seems to me
like something that youre born with, immune to medication and too foundational to respond to
therapy. At the same time, the suggestion that Im immune to intervention leaves me feeling let
down. Cleary, something is wrong with mesomething has changed for the worse over the last
few months. Is there nothing to be done, then? Have I simply become more myself, has some
already existing tendency in my personality solidified into a disposition that I must learn to
tolerate, if not embrace?
I feel like I need a cigarette, and I go to look for Allie. Shes not in her room, so I head
for the living room, and almost walk right into the middle of a group of people sitting on chairs
arranged in a circle.
Oh, sorry, I say, backing up.
Hi, Jennifer. Come on and join us. A woman sitting right in front of me cranes her neck
back so she can get a look at me. The thin guy stands up and fetches a chair.

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Hi, says the woman, my names Samantha. Welcome to Group. The woman has a
warm, easy smile, a comfortable air about her. She gestures toward the other side of the circle
and says, go on, Mark.
Mark turns out to be the blond young man from breakfast, the one with the striking blue
eyes. He looks so healthy, so wholesome, that I have trouble imagining how he could possibly fit
in here.
Well, Ive been here for a day, he says, and you all seem like really nice people, and I
dont mean to offend anyone, but I dont think I belong here. Im not crazyuh, no offense; I
was having a hard time, I made a mistake, and thats it. I dont feel down anymore, Ive never
have any weird thoughts or heard voices or thought someones out to get me, and I sleep like a
baby.
He smiles, and I feel immediately sympathetic. I look around at the other people in the
grouppallid skin, downcast eyesthese are people who need, at the very least, some support.
But this boys eyes are clear and bright, his smile is easy and open, his posture casual and
confident. I wait to hear Samanthas justification for keeping him here.
Dude, feel your fuckin head. I look over at the speaker, resenting his challenge. Its
the razor-thin man with the shaggy hair.
Thats behind me now, the young man says, and I wish people would just let me move
on. I almost begin to nod in agreement, but as hes finishing his sentence he turns his head to
face the thin man, and my eyes open wide. On the left side of his head, beneath a barely visible
stubble, is a narrow, angry scar that runs, in the shape of a rainbow, from his temple almost
around to the back of his head. On either side are dots at equally spaced intervals, marks left over
from the staples that had held his head together. At the sight of it I suck my breath in sharply.

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Samantha adjusts her chair so that shes facing directly at Mark. Mark, you only just
came over from the other side yesterday. I understand that it must feel like youve come a long
way from where you were when you came in, and you have, but I think its premature for you to
start thinking about leaving. Is there some reason that youre in a rush to leave?
I just think this atmosphere is unhealthy for me. I cant lift weights, I cant go for runs, I
cant hang out with my friends. This place freaks them out.
The Holt Renfrew woman speaks. Youre a lucky man, Mark. If that bullet hadnt
deflected off of your skull, you wouldnt be here right now. I think you should be content with
that right now.
I feel my mind adjusting to the new Mark. Mark the shooter. Now that I think about it,
maybe there is something a bit unbalanced about him. Maybe the intense blue of his eyes is a
little disturbing, and what had at first looked casual about his posture might be interpreted as
loose and unpredictable. Ive never met anybody whos tried to blow a hole in his head. I havent
even seen it on TVonly heard it, off-screen. The way the character waits for the friend or
spouse or child to walk out of the room and partway down the hall, and then you hear the bang
and you know whats happened. And theres always the jolt, and then the satisfaction of having
anticipated the shot before it rings out.
Ernest Hemingway blew his head off with a shotgun. Every time I think about that, I get
caught up in the logistics of it. It seems like it would take some skill to arrange the gun in such a
way that you could trigger it. You could use your toe, but that would be kind of undignified,
found there, slumped in a chair with one bare foot. You could also use some kind of stick, that
would be cleanerbut again, very awkward.
Jennifer? Samantha and everyone else in the group is looking at me.

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Pardon? In my musings, Ive lost track of what theyre talking about.
I was just wondering if you wanted to say anything before we wrap up.
No. No thanks. I almost add, not yet, as a kind of promissory gesture. Again, I dont
want to disappoint.
She doesnt push it. Okay, then, thats it for today. Well meet again tomorrow.
After the group breaks up, I notice Allie for the first time, tucked away in the corner by
the window. She looks over at me and jerks her head toward our room, flicking her finger in a
imitation of lighting a lighter. I nod almost imperceptibly and get up out of the chair. I really do
need a cigarette.
Allie performs the same ritual with the towel and then lights our cigarettes.
Hey Allie, whos your doctor? I ask, trying not to betray any real interest in the answer.
Allie looks over at me. Oh, God, theyve given you that dork Monteby, havent they.
Word is that hes completely useless. How much insurance do you have?
What?
How much insurance do you havehow many days?
I figure about six.
Well, dont worry, hell have you out by then. He doesnt treat the uninsured.
Sometimes I think his real goal isnt to help peopleits to make them more cost-effective, you
know, rid the world of lingering, expensive illness.
Having a context for Dr. Montebys rather dismissive diagnosis should make me feel
better, but instead I feel like the loser whos drawn the short stick. I try to put thoughts of Dr.
Monteby out of my mind, and since there doesnt seem to be anything that I have to do right
now, I return my attention to the paperwork. This time I start with the straightforward personal

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data forms, and work easily through the first two and half forms before I stop and stare out the
window. I think about Ronald and Mark. Theres something obscene about their failure to cope,
something I dont want to face. I imagine the angereven hatred--behind the acts of violence
that people like Mark and Ronald have committed against themselves. But something more than
the kind of self-hatred that could lead to humiliation of the flesh. Suicide, it seems to me,
suggests a universal hatred of things as they are.
Mind you, the anger around suicide goes both ways. There was that guy last year who
was threatening to jump off of the Burlington bridge during rush hour. It was a sweltering day,
and people had to wait on the bridge in their cars for hours while he just stood there on the edge.
They would miss dinner engagements, miss putting their kids to bed; they were hungry, tired,
hot, and eventually, bored. Maybe they had to pee. After about two hours, people started yelling
Jump! to him, and at just over three hours, he did. He landed on the concrete next to the river. I
wonder how many people felt chastened, and how many people, perhaps as a defense
mechanism, perhaps not, told themselves that it served him right. I remember all of the times
back home when Ive been delayed on the subway. If its a major delay and everyone has to get
off the train, I always hear talk of suicide. I feel shock, for sure, and sadness. But sometimes,
beneath my sadness, Ive detected a sliver of annoyance.
*
After dinner I lie in bed awake for a long time, going over the day, the people, the
organization of this place, the idea of this place. My mind starts to move out in ever-widening
circles, but I stop short of wandering into what Im already thinking of as my outside life. If
theres one advantage I can see to being here, its in the way it facilitates the impression that
theres nothing beyond it; everything outside of here is already becoming watercolor vague, its

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Thrown--A Memoir
outlines blurring into distant background. Perhaps, I think, there are advantages to being in here,
surrounded by people who are worse off than I am. It was living amongst all of those people who
were coping just fine that made me feel my deficits so keenly.
The next couple of days are pretty unremarkableI meet with my doctor, who continues
to take a literary approach to my problems, so that they begin to accrue more and more layers of
metaphor, become abstract and allegorical. Bishnu brings me some clothes, and some books to
read. We talk for a short while in my room until she has to go and do some more reading.
Bishnus PhD comprehensive exams are coming up, which means she has to get through about a
hundred and fifty articles and books in the next two months. She should follow the example of
our fellow classmate, I think, who takes people out to eat and has them summarize books for
him: one person, one book, and then on to the next lunch date. Its expensive, but efficient.
The only disturbing interruption in the course of my days is the daily visit from the
financial services woman. With the exception of Dr. Monteby, the staff members are sympathetic
to my financial situation and, getting paid regardless of my insurance status, undertake what
appears to be a well-practiced strategy of making me unavailable when they see the woman
approaching. My one-on-ones, for example, tend to start moments after Lynn sees her square
form exiting the elevator.
By the fourth day of my stay, Im finding it difficult to get out of bed in the morning. I
feel wooden and sad again, and now that the constant activity that had distracted me for the first
few days has begun to taper off, I experience a return of the heavy, bleak feeling that swallowed
up my days before I arrived here. While I have begun to participate in the groups, engage with
other peoples problems, I remain mostly silent about myself. If at first that silence had as its
cause a profound disorientation, its attached now to a desolate conviction that nothing I say,

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nothing anyone else can say, could lift my mood or change the direction of my thoughts. And I
dont like the direction those thoughts are taking. Whether its the result of my own descent, or a
new vista opened up by the examples of people like Ronald and Mark, the idea of suicide has
crept into my mind. It lurks, almost imperceptible, until my mind, allowed to wander, brushes
past it. And then it attaches itself to me for a while in the form of a possibility, an option. Its
frightening, this dark expansion of options, and at the same time that I find myself withdrawing,
I also find myself very much wanting to be relieved of it.
And so on the sixth day, I arrive at the realization that I must try to get a new doctor if
Im going to make any progress. Im feeling a desperation that Ive been able to separate,
through a series of mental precipitations, from the feelings that brought me in and that are
intensifying. Once separated, it crystallizes into the figure of Doctor Monteby. Ive heard about
another doctor hereAllies doctor, actuallywhos supposed to be good. I decide to talk to
Lynn about it, even though I sense I might be disrupting the accepted order of things. When I
mention it in my one-on-one, I expect Lynn to say that theres nothing she can do; instead, she
nods her head as if shes been waiting for me to arrive at this conclusion. She remains noncommittal, though, says shell do what she can. The next I hear about it is when Im leaning
against the wall between the dining and living room staring idly down the hall and wondering
whats behind the big oaken door at the end. I see a man step out of the nursing station and
indicate with a curl of his forefinger that he wants me to approach him.
When I get there, he says, Hi Jennifer. Im Doctor Boyer. Why dont you come into my
office?

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His office is tidyprecise. A little generic, apart from the large, white phrenological
skull thats marked in sections with dotted lines and that sits, a curious anachronism, on his shelf.
At any rate, this office is certainly better than Doctor Montebys lair.
I understand that youre not happy with your doctor, he begins.
Again, I expect to hear that Ill have to put up with it, but instead he says, Ill support
you if youd like to switch, but youll have to be the one to tell your doctor. Hes probably not
going to like that. And Im afraid that if youre not happy with me, youre out of luck. Im
surprised, then pleased, then apprehensive. How will Doctor Monteby react? What will he say?
What if I go through all of this, and then this doctor turns out to be just as bad? There must be a
million ways to be bad at this job. Too distant, or too close. Missing the point, or inventing the
wrong one. Hating a patient, liking a patient too much, not caring, caring too much. Getting
bored, tired, distracted, irritated. I look up at Dr. Boyer. His eyes are clear and intelligent, and he
seems reassuringly in control.
I dont have very much insurance, I say, not wanting the relationship to start under
false pretences.
Why dont we worry about the later? he replies. Doctor Monteby is in his office right
now, if you want to go speak with him. I nod and look down at the floor. Im getting what I
asked for, but Id sort of hoped that someone else would take care of the details. Am I not
supposed to be fragile right now? Arent they supposed to be taking care of me, protecting me?
Isnt that what this place is for?
I nod and say nothing, still staring down at the floor.
Okay, then, he says. Ill be around until about noon. You can ask Lynn to come and
find me once youre done. He smiles again.

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When I walk out into the hall, Im relieved to find Lynn still hanging around outside the
nursing station. As if shes already prepared for this moment, she says to me, Remember,
whatever he says, you have the legal right to do thistheres nothing he can do to stop you.
I nod again. Lynns coaching has the opposite effect of what she intends; the fact that
shes making this effort to prepare me for a confrontation only underscores its likelihood. Before
I knock on Dr. Montebys door, Lynn adds, Just spit it out. Dont think about it.
Dr. Montebys office door is open, and I stand in front of it for a moment, fighting the
impulse to flee. After a minute he looks up and says, Ah, Jennifer, there you are. I just sent
someone to go get youI was starting to wonder if youd stopped along the way to pursue some
poetic thought. He chuckles.
I smile weakly, feeling the bile rise in the back of my throat. I hesitate at the door,
unwilling to place myself at the mercy of that enormous, engulfing chair that seems particularly
intent today on swallowing me up.
Please, sit down. I dont bite, he says. I perch on the edge of the chair and swallow
hard.
Id like to switch my doctordoctors. I would like to switch doctors.
Im sorry, what did you say?
I feel like Oliver asking for more food. Um, Id like to switch doctors.
His bearing transforms, with alarming speed, from avuncular to hostile. Is there
something youre unsatisfied with? His tone is sarcasticIve been demoted from melancholy
poet to dissatisfied customer. Hes mocking my vulgar temerity to shop around.
Id like to switch doctors, I repeat, in a monotone. The words start to lose their
meaning, become rote and insubstantial.

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He tacks, becomes the benevolent, indulgent father. Jennifer, I know therapy can be
hard to tolerate; its not easy to come to difficult realizations about yourself. Sometimes the urge
to run away can be very strong. Its not reasonable to expect that anythings going to be resolved
in the time that we have. Which, incidentally, is coming to a close. My job is just to set you
going in the right direction. He speaks softly, reasonably. Im the one whos being irrational,
childish. I start to wonder whether it really matters that much. Ill be out soon, if I stick with him.
Its been six days; my insurance has more or less run out. Why not just let him discharge me?
But then, just as Im about to tell him to forget it, his surface composure dissolves.
Fine, he says spitefully, peevishly. Fine, if thats the way you want it. He stands up
and gestures impatiently for me to go. As I stand up to leave, he hisses, Your insurance is
running out. Switching doctors wont fix thatno doctor here is going to work for free.
Im taken aback by the disgust in his voice. Its as if Ive revealed myself to be a lower
life form, as if theres something repulsive about me. Ive failed to come to terms with my
troubles according to the prescribed timeline.
After leaving the office, I stand for a moment beside a glassed off empty hallway, staring
at the elevator and waiting for the adrenaline to leave my body. A sudden, loud thud next to
my head makes me swivel abruptly and take two steps backward in an effort to regain my
balance. Once I right myself, I look in the direction of the sound and then takes another quick
step backward in surprise. In front of me, reflected back in the glass and barely visible, is my
own uneven image. One side of my image is broken by the face of a woman, pushed right up
against the glass, her eyes looking directly at me. Her head is tilted back and cocked to one side,
and her eyes stare glassily from underneath half closed lids. The tilt of the head suggests a
challenge, but the eyes are looking at nothing. There are specks of gummy spittle at the corners

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Thrown--A Memoir
of her mouth, which is slightly open, as if shes just thought of something she wants to say. Shes
wearing a rumpled hospital gown over her jeans, and her feet and arms bare. Skinny arms, raised
palms of her hands pressed flat against the glass. Its like looking, from below, at someone doing
push-ups.
As I stand there motionless, staring back, another figure, a man, walks rapidly down the
hall toward us. When he reaches the woman, he puts his arm around her shoulder and turns her
around so shes facing the other way. Before he walks her back down the hall, he puts his own
hands flat on the glass, raises himself up onto his toes, and shouts, Fuck you! The sound is
muffled by the closed door, but its clear enough. I can see the blue veins on his forearms
standing out against his skin. The muscles in his neck and face are stretched taut, and he looks
furious, enraged. Then he turns around and the two of them walk, together, back down the hall.
At one point the woman half turns her head as if shes going to look back, but the man tightens
his grip and presses her forward.
I look around and behind me, but no one else is here. On my right, Dr. Montebys door is
closed; on my left, also closed, is the imposing oak door. Behind and to my right, curving around
the corner, is the nursing station. There are people inside, but no one offers any indication that
they heard or saw anything. Shaken, I walk quickly back down the hall to my room and close
myself in the bathroom. On my first day here, Samantha made reference to the fact that Mark
had come from the other side. What was then a piece of information without context, thrust
aside by the gravity of what Mark had done to get there in the first place, has now come crashing
into place. This empty hallway clearly leads to another, probably larger psychiatric unit. My new
knowledge makes me feel strange. Ive come to manage the other people in here, the notion of
them; theyre troubled, depressed, suicidalsome of them are weird or just plain irritatingbut

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Thrown--A Memoir
until now theyve bounded what amounts to my world, and Ive gotten used to them. They have
attributes, like anyone elseone likes chocolate bars while another prefers chips, another likes
blue but not green. Trevor always finishes one item on his plate before moving on to the next.
Allie bites her nails, and squints when shes lying. This is the way people are, these are things
that people like and do. And this space, with its television, comfortable chairs, beds, sheets,
bathrooms, ritualsits become usual.
Now theres a whole other space to account for, to absorb and place, and I experience the
frustration of someone who has almost sat down to rest, is halfway into the chair, when the
doorbell rings. Its not just that theres some other unfamiliar, previously unaccounted for space
leading off of this one. These people, the people on my side, have constituted, not a physical
boundary, but rather the limits of an idea. The limits of crazy. Now its horizons are no longer
clear to me. When I came in I thought that everyone would be extravagantly madtalking to
themselves, attacking people at random, shaking and twitching and pacing and rocking. What a
relief it had been to realize that the people we call crazy are really just us, fucked up. Its become
easy to imagine anyone getting to that pointor, at least, anyone with a particular set of
vulnerabilities. I could have been anyone. Anyone could have ended up being me. Now another
category of individual is crowding in on me, and that thin glass door doesnt seem nearly
substantial enough to keep it at bay.
Behind all of this, bewilderment. How did I get to this place? What steps, exactly, did I
take to reach this moment? Perhaps, if the answer or the way back or through doesnt appear
when sought from a distance, it lies in the details. Something that I didnt pick up or put in the
right pile, a streetcar missed, a meal I ate but didnt taste. Somewhere, amongst the infinite
rearrangement of matter and energy, a wrong move. I spend what feels like hours standing in the

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bathroom, pouring over the events and patterns of my life, barely aware of my surroundings,
looking for the misplaced article. Either a lack or a surplussome kind of displacement that
might show itself as a tiny irregularity not perceptible in the normal manner, but there
nonetheless for someone who looks in the proper way.
Finally, I splash some water on my face and leave the bathroom. Allie is lying on the bed.
Hey Allie, I say, have you ever been on the other side? I feel more than curiosity
theres more at stake here, although Im not sure what. It has to do with who I am. Which has to
do with who Im not.
When I first came in, yeah. Then I got out for good behavior. Youre luckyyou got
fast-tracked.
Im lucky. This is a perspective that I didnt consider. Im the fortunate one, not the guy
standing outside on the sidewalk putting mustard on his hot dog, catching a quick meal before
his afternoon meeting. Not the woman whos jogging, or checking her rear view mirror, or
mowing the lawn. Luck is relative, it seems, and here, luck is spatial. Im here and not there, and
thats a good thing.
What was it like? I feel like a grade schooler asking her friend what it was like to have
a detention.
Not great. There were a few people who refused to wash, and you had to be careful who
you talked to. Lots of lifershard core schizophrenics. Everyone smoked, which made the
smoking room pretty unbearable.
They have their own smoking room? I feel a pang of envy.
Yeah. The smoking restrictions are only on this side; those guys can smoke their faces
off. Did you know that over ninety percent of schizophrenics smoke? I read that in Mental

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Health Today. Anyway, just forget about it. Youre cool, dont worry. Its harder to get in there
from here than it is to get out. I feel warm relief; Im going to stay here, on this side, where I
belong.
The next day I have another meeting with Dr. Boyer. He mostly listens and smiles, listens
and looks serious, or listens and nods. I dont feel like Im telling him much, although I have the
uncomfortable feeling thats hes hearing more than I think Im saying. Hes told me that he
follows a psychoanalytic model, which just exacerbates the feeling that extra import is being
added to everything I say and do. It makes me careful with my wordsI weigh them for excess
meaning before I speak, try to keep my sentences as spare as possible. He puts me on an
antidepressant but says nothing about the course of my treatment or when Ill be leaving
nothing about money or insurance. I talk to fill the time; in spite of my efforts, my words seem
directionless, meandering. Because I cant think of anything else to say, I draw from parts of my
autobiography, now a sprawling document that, mercifully, is almost finished. I dont know if
this is something that he wants to hear about, but he doesnt interrupt me, so I keep on going
until he says its time to stop for the day. I dont feel better afterward, nor do I feel worse.
Mostly I just feel a little hungry.
Several more days go by like this, meeting with the doctor, meeting with psychiatric
residents, social workers, attending groups, avoiding financial services. It turns out that falling
apart is a full time job. Despite all of this intervention, I find my depression deepening. insert
One day during art therapy when were asked to draw our mood, I color my eleven by
sixteen inch sheet of construction paper a thick, dense black with a pastel crayon. By the time I
finish, the area of the table surrounding my sheet is covered with black sticky dust; my hands and
arms are streaked with black, and I leave black smudges on everything I touch. Ive inadvertently

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leave a little pinhole of uncolored paper in the upper right corner, and Rebecca asks me what it
meansif it refers to some ray of hope. I stare down at my paper with what I hope looks like
thoughtful intensity. Rebecca lets the silence go on far too long, and toward the end I have
trouble suppressing a nervous giggle. After group Rebecca comes up to me and says that shes
worried about me. I dont respond; I just walk away from the mess Ive made and crawl under
my covers.
*
Its during Afternoon Group that I finally find out why Ronald never looks at anyone.
Samantha has already ventured a few exploratory comments, but today she presses him on it
until he finally says, in a voice that is barely audible, Its just that every time I look at someone,
I cant stop my eyes from looking down at their private parts. I hear a snort and then a cough
from Allies direction, but I dont dare look at her. Laughing right now would be cruel.
Samantha tries to rescue Ronald by observing that we all allow our eyes to rove around peoples
bodies when were talking to them, and he responds, You dont understand. Once my eyes are
there they just stay there, staring at the persons privates until the person moves away. Its
embarrassing, and it makes people uncomfortable.
Samantha asks, Does this happen with both women and men? He looks past her and
nods.
I begin to feel sorry for Ronald, for whom Ive developed a fondness. Hes a very gentle
person, very kind and attentive to other people. I wish I could offer something to make him feel
better, reassure him. If only Bishnu were here. She would think of the thing to say that would
make Ronald smile and stop twisting his fingers in his lap. But shes not here, and I cant think
of anything to offer. Then I start to wonder what Bishnu is doing right nowreading on the El?

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Thrown--A Memoir
Sitting in a cafe with a couple of their friends? Cooking? I havent talked to her much since she
brought me some clothes on my second day. Its not because Im angry at her for bringing me
hereif anything I still feel a little guilty about putting Bishnu through that. Maybe its guilt that
keeps me from calling, or maybe its because this world and the one associated with Bishnu have
begun to seem fundamentally incompatible.
I feel as though, if I were to spend time with Bishnu, this world will become thinner and
thinner, and these people will become flatter and flatter until, like cards in a deck, they will tip
over and fade into the pattern of the rug. Not being able to sustain the idea of both worlds at the
same time, I prefer hanging on to the one thats right in front of me. Besides, Ive come to like
the structure they impose on my day, I like the talks with my doctoralthough he still says
almost nothingI like my one-on-ones with Lynn, I even like the food. If I feel bleached and
hopeless a lot of the time, if some evenings I stare out the window and imagine jumping, well,
thats just more reason not to leave.
*
Some time into my stay, they decide to do a twenty-four hour electroencephalogram on
my brain. To accomplish this, theyve places about twenty evenly spaced electrodes around my
head. The hair surrounding each electrode sticks up a random angles, and each electrode has a
color-coded wire extending from it. The wires fall down the back of my head and are collected
together with a loose band. Then they snake around and trail down my chest, where they all
attach to a little box about the side of a portable cassette player that hangs around my neck by a
nylon strap. Part cyborg, part garish Rastafarian, Ive been forced to walk around the unit, eat my
meals, and sleep wearing this get-up. Allie laughs out loud whenever she looks over at me, and

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even Lynn suppresses a smile when she sees me. The whole thing is awkward and irritating and,
I suspect, useless.
I dont notice at first that fewer people are aroundat the dining table, in groups. It just
seems that gradually Im being asked to participate more, that theyre focusing more on me than
they used to. Frankly, I kind of enjoy it, the attention. But when Ronald disappearsdear
Ronald, whose eye color Ill never knowI look around and realize that there are only a few of
us left. Id sort of assumed that people were absent because they were meeting with doctors or
family or were having tests donethere are a dozen reasons why someone misses a meal or a
group, and theres never a full complement at any given time. Once I start to take note, though,
the relative emptiness of the place is impossible to ignore, and one Tuesday afternoon, I find out
that Allie and I are the only two people left on the unit. That makes the staff to patient ration
about seven to one. Lynn, the other nurses, and the psych techs lounge around, looking bored and
redundant. I try to think of ways to engage them, but with my depression slowing me down, I
just dont have the initiative.
*
The highlight of these days is a trip that Allie and I take with Lynn down to Grant Park.
Its a hot, sunny day, and Im glad that on her last visit to the hospital Bishnu brought me some
shorts. People are spread out in beach chairs and on towels, throwing Frisbees, eating ice cream.
Ive been outside a few times by this point, but Ive never actually gone anywhere; Ive stayed
pretty close to the hospital, like a house cat that, when it finally gets the opportunity to sneak out
an open door, balks at going more than a few feet away. I certainly havent been around a crowd
like this.

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What I notice first are all the colors. On the unit, theres not much opportunity to
experience color. The furniture is beige, the walls are beige, the food is beige. But I also realize
that this is the first time Ive actually registered color at all in months. Thats a good sign, I think,
but its also difficult in an unexpected way. The color drained away from my life so gradually
that I didnt really notice its passing; now, to have it all come back in such a rush is
overwhelming. The fullness of it is almost too much to takeappreciated all at once, the people
on the beach are a splatter of mismatched huesfire engine red against tangerine, teal beside
mustard, forest green next to mauve. All of it in motion, wiggling around on the sand, bobbing
up and down in the water.
At first the three of us stand awkwardly on the edge of the sand. Were not prepared for a
day at the beachwe havent brought bathing suits, or towels, or sun screen. All we have is lots
of time. Eventually, Lynn sits down and takes off her shoes, and Allie and I do the same. The
three of us sit there, heels dug into the sand, staring out at the water. The intense blue of the sky
makes the water look green and cold in comparison, and the sun bouncing off its whipped edges
makes the three of us squint. A few people are swimming, but I feel the automatic aversion of
someone who grew up next to the summer stink of lake Ontario. I remind myself that Lake
Michigan is a whole lot deeper, can absorb more effluvia. Then, out of the blue, Allie stands up
and runs full on toward the water. Lynn scrambles to her feet and takes a couple of steps toward
her, then stops and just watches. At first it doesnt occur to me that theres nothing stopping me
from doing the same thing; when it finally does, I looks over at Lynn and then turn and sprint
toward the water. I look back once and see Lynn standing there, feet spread apart, one hand
shading her eyes. The looking back throws me off balance, and I take a few long steps, feet

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trying to catch up with my head, before I tumble face-first onto the sand. After a moment I roll
onto my back and lie there, staring up at the empty azure sky.
*
Im kneeling on the grass underneath a large apple tree. All around me are fallen
applessmall, no bigger than a young childs fist. The hand that reaches out is just big enough
to cup one comfortably inside its palm. Some of the apples are ripe and easily picked up, but
many others have already rotted. When I pinch the stem of the rotten ones and pull, Im left with
only a tiny stick, gooey at one end. For the really rotten ones, I have to scrape my fingers
underneath the squishy flesh, and then shake it off into the green garbage bag sitting beside me.
The flesh gets under my fingernails and makes them feel tight and swollen at the tips. Everything
smells like mashed apples, and I have to pick my way around them carefully to find places where
I can sit. Its a big jobthis used to be an apple orchard before it was converted to a suburb
and so I let my mind wander to pass the time. I imagine that Im a famous, brilliant scientist who
has decided, on principle, to leave the scientific world with its ego-driven, self-aggrandizing and
self-defeating competitivenessall of which is against the principles of science that I uphold
and have returned to the land to pick apples for a living. Or maybe Im not doing it for money,
maybe I ask only for simple sustenance and shelter. As I work my way across a sea of rotten
flesh, one-by-one my colleagues come to visit me, entreating me to return to the vocation for
which they believe I have been chosen. Such a loss to the scientific world, and all that. I turn
each person away with disdain. Finally theyre all gone, and Im left in peace. Peace turns
quickly into boredom, though, and then I have to rewind the tape and start over again. To
introduce variety, I imagine that Im a spy and this is my cover. Someone approaches me and my
stinking pile of appleshes come to warn me that my cover has been blown and Im in danger

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of being captured. Im not sure how to end this one, though; it seems to call for some kind of
action on my partsome kind of daring escapebut Im not allowed to leave the apples until
theyre cleaned up. I achieve a weak kind of closure by imagining the villains showing up, but
never figuring out who I really am.
As my hand reaches down to scoop up another pile of mush, I hear a soft, mewling sound
from directly above me, and my head tilts back to look up into the branches. Its a still day, but
the sunlight in the leaves creates the illusion that the branches are moving. After a moment I spy
a cat at the top of the tree, crouching at the end of a branch that thins and then breaks apart into
several smaller branches. The cat seems to want down, but it only attempts to climb down a
couple of inches before it starts to back up again. I cant stand listening to its hoarse cries, so I
lean back on my calves, stand up, and walk over to the tree. My hand reaches out and touches the
rough bark. It feels intensely familiar, and as I look up, I recognize every branch, every twist,
every foothold. My body climbs easily up the trunk and into the crotch of the tree, and then I turn
to my right and head up one of the branches leading toward where the cat is crouched. Its mews
have turned to distressed howls. The branch that the cat sits on is too small for my weight, and I
shimmy up the bigger branch beside it. I should be able to reach over and coax the cat onto my
branch, which isnt as steep. Then we can both slide back down.
Once Im beside the cats branch, I hold onto my branch with my right hand and lean my
torso toward the other. My left hand reaches slowly for the cat, but just as Im about to touch it,
the cat jumps onto my back, its claws fully extended, and then skitters down my body and jumps
onto the ground, disappearing around the corner of the house. My position is off-balance to begin
with, and the surprise of the cats claws on my back makes my grip on the thick branch loosen,
so that my entire her body swings around until its hanging underneath. I grab the branch with

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my left hand and hang there for a moment, sloth-like, feet and hands wrapped around the branch.
But the branch is too big around for my small hands, and the weight of my body pulls on them
until they start to slide down around its sides. Then I feel myself let go. I land flat on my back in
the grass, squishing half a dozen rotten apples beneath me. I lie there, waiting to breathe.
*
One afternoon, about a week after our trip to the beach, Allie walks in with a broad smile
on her face.
Whats up? I ask.
Im going ho-ome, she sings.
You got a weekend pass?
No, Im going home homefor good. Im outta here.
I take a moment to absorb this information. Home? Im not sure whether Im having
trouble with Allie going there, or with remembering what it is. I almost want to ask, But why
would you want to go home?
Allie looks over at me, and sees the puzzlement on my face, which she interprets as
dejection, and says, Oh, hey, listen, she says, youll be going home soon, too, you know?
How long has it been, I wonder. I came in on a Tuesday, and I think today is Friday, but I
cant remember the dates. A month? Six weeks? It went by so quickly. And why have they
decided to send Allie home? She doesnt seem any different than she did when I first came in.
She seemed okay then, and she seems okay now. I feel angry, and betrayed. Shes my ally, a
friend even, or at least the kind of friend you make in these very specialized circumstances, and
who feels important and real for the time that you share these circumstances. Trenches. Prisons.
Allie and I have analyzed the staff together, weve broken rules together, weve shared the same

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intimate spaceboth living and emotional. I know more about Allies troubled life than I know
about most peoples lives; I know things about Allie that Allies parents dont know, that shes
never told her real friends. I cant believe shes just going to leave like this.
Trying to sound casual, I say, So, what are your plans when you get out?
Who said I had to have any plans?
Well for one thing, I know theyre not letting you out without having come up with
some kind of plan. So what is it? This is coming out wrongI sound like Im challenging her,
when I want it to sound like polite interest.
Oh, well, the plan is that I go home and take care of myself and get a job or go back to
school or something. They gave me a list of resources, and a healthy foods menu planner.
Allie pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of her front pocket and tosses it to me. I open the paper
and smooth it down on my thigh. On it is a long list of organizations and their phone numbers
employment assistance programs, career counseling services, job marts, diploma opportunities.
Thats it? They gave you this bunch of numbers and thats it?
Well, no, theres a social worker whos supposed to come to my apartment at some
point. I forget her name. And Ill see Dr. Boyer every now and then to renew my prescriptions.
And theres the meal planner. She grins.
The next morning Allie leaps out of bed. I think we should do something to mark the
occasion, but nothing comes to mind. After breakfast Allie and I return to the room. She packs
up her stuff, then sits down on the bed and sets her bag down beside her.
Well, I guess thats that, she says, looking awkward and kind of guilty.
So, take care then, I say.

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Oh here, let me give you my phone number. Allie takes my hand, turns it over, and
writes her name and number on the back. I tell Allie that Ill call. She hikes her overstuffed
knapsack onto her back and we both walk out into the hall. As I watch Allie walking toward the
elevator, I reach up and rub the back of my head where it has started to buzz and tingle. I
continue to watch her until she turns the corner and disappears.
The next day I get a new roommate, Christine, who suffers from multiple personality
disorder, or, as its now know, dissociative identity disorder. As such, she comes with an entire
portfolio of identities: Christine, Christina, Mary, and Mother of God. Christine and I talk a lot,
and I find myself becoming fascinated by her. Four characters, each successively more than the
previous. Christine, the depressed one, the one who wants to end it all, the easiest for others to
handle and the most deadly for her. Christine, the most herself, which is okay, except that she
doesnt much like herself. Then there is Christina, the electric onebold, creative, confident, an
artist--and a handful. Christine says she likes being Christina the best. And then theres Mary
pious, delusional. Finally, Mother of Godin full flight from reality and burdened by a horrible
sense of responsibility. Its not easy to be the Mother of God. You may only be a supporting
player, but still, all those people to comfort and all those prayers to answer. As the Mother of
God, Christine feels an oppressive accountability, but also pride and some condescension.
The staff members warn Christine not to advance any further than Christina; Mary or
Mother of God will get her sent to the other side. For the time that shes with me, Christine lives
with the constant anxiety of that possibility, dreading the transition that the very stress created by
that dread is likely to bring on. Christine is suffering from a dizzying bout of rapid cycling, and
in the space of the weekend, I meet every one of her personalities. Christines nice, but a downer,
and Christina is fun, but exhausting. Its hard relating to the other two.

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One night Im awakened by the feeling of a nearby presence. When I open my eyes, Im
startled by the figure of Christine standing beside her bed. Shes opened the top drawer of my
dresser, and is emptying my clothes into a knapsack.
Hey, Christine. Christine, what are you doing? I whisper. Christine doesnt answer,
doesnt even acknowledge the question.
I ask again, Christine, whats going on? Still nothing. I sigh, and not willing to risk a
direct confrontation with whomever Christine is right now, I shuffle down the hall, still groggy,
to the nurses station.
Um, excuse me, I say to the night nurse.
The nurse raises her eyes from her book to the level of my chin, managing not to move
her head at all. Everything about her bearing communicates indifference and irritation. Yes?
the nurse replies.
I think you should come down and check out Christine. Shes behaving kind
of...erratically.
The nurse waits before replying, and if she doesnt let out a sigh, its only because its not
worth the effort. Finally she snaps, Ill be there shortly. I return to my bed to await the nurse,
but she doesnt come, and eventually I fall into a light sleep. A little bit later Im awakened by
the sensation that my body is moving. I look down at the end of the bed, and there stands
Christine, naked now and furiously turning the handle that rolls the upper part of my bed up and
down. I lie there for about a minute, appreciating the novelty, then wait for the bed to roll up into
a sitting position and swing my legs onto the floor. With a final look back at Christine, rolling
the bed up and down with singular purpose, I leave and cross the hall to an empty room. I know
theres no point trying to communicate with Christineshe follows mysterious logics now.

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In the morning Christine is gone. I assume shes been taken back over to the other side,
where shell continue her battle with her selves, a Sisyphean ordeal that she may win for a while,
until the stress of the staffs surveillance and the unpredictability of the other patients lands her
back where she started. I cant imagine how she will ever make it out, caught as she is in a catch22 where the imperative to keep it together initiates the very anxiety that leads to her dissolution.
They say that dissociative identity disorder is the result of some early trauma. Escaping into
other selves to shield the child who has no other strategy for self-protection. While we were
together, Christine inspired in me both fascination and exasperation, but now I mourn the child
she once was, whole and undamaged. And when I imagine what might have happened to blast
her into parts, a deep anger swells in me. It feels like only some divine intervention could put her
back together again, and in the forsaken place where Christine dwells, where uninvited demons
afflict her mind, God seems conspicuously absent.
Ive only just settled back into my room, put my things back in order, when my doctor
calls me in.
So, Jennifer, he says, How have you been feeling?
Ok, I guess. I hesitate to commit one way or the other. I think its clear to both of us
that Im less depressed, that something has shifted or the anti-depressant has been working, but
the world beyond these walls seems alien now, and trying to navigate its complexity seems
overwhelmingly daunting.
Well, he says, I think its time we start talking about discharge. I think staying in at
this point might do you more harm than good. As if reading my mind, he adds, the longer you
stay, the more intimidating the world outside is going to seem. I dont want to see you

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developing a dependency on this place. Too late, I think. Ive become so acclimatized that I find
myself clinging to the safety, the structure, the predictability. I dont want to lose hold of these
people, whose job it is to accept and validate the worst of me, and to whom the worst is not the
measure of a person. I dont have to hide a thing in here, dont have to reassure or protect
anyone.
Right, I say.
So, how does tomorrow after breakfast seem to you? It seems awful; its disquieting
prospect, returning to the site of a failurein my case, the failure to cope, the failure even to
manage those daily routines that others had seemed to take so easily in stride.
Uh, ok, I say, without enthusiasm. You dont think, I add, suddenly suffering a loss
of nerve, that it might be too soon?
He smiles. Im confident that youll do fine, Jennifer. Its time for you to go.
Right, I repeat, and stand up. Im suddenly angry at him, at this place. For creating this
need in me, for making me weak and afraid. I try to remember how awful things were when I
came in, how I was barely able to get out of bed, let alone attend my classes or do any writing. It
seems at the moment, however, that Ive traded one evil for another. Hopelessness and paralysis
for fear and dependency.
I spend the rest of the day in an effort to mentally detach myself from the trappings of
that dependencyfirst, by skipping all of the groups. Since Im now allowed to leave the floor at
will, have the option of disengaging from anything that will encourage my attachment. Im
hardly dependent on art therapy, which I find largely irritating, but still, I make sure that Im
gone before it starts, and that I stay gone through movement therapy (again, no loss there) and
through group therapy. The last one would seem to provide an important opportunity to achieve

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closure, but in my effort to purge myself of vulnerability, I view personal disclosure to be at
cross purposes with overcoming my dependence. I also want to avoid any one-on-ones where I
might be compelled talk about my feelings. I return just before dinner, eat without interacting,
and retire to my room immediately afterward. Im already in bed by the time the evening nurse
comes around with my meds, and lie there waiting impatiently for sleep. I dont want to think
about tomorrow. I dont want to think about anything at all.
In the morning, in that half awake state where past and present, real and imaginary meet,
I turn to see if Allie is still asleep. For a moment the empty, neatly made bed confuses me; Allie
never makes her bed, I think. And then I remember that shes gone, and that Ill be gone soon,
too. The fear returns, and I reach for a way of facing my departure. I skip breakfast, afraid that
Lynn might be hanging out there, waiting to talk to me. If theres anyone or anything that makes
me dread most the prospect of leaving, its Lynn. She may have been doing her job, but Ive
become quite close to her, and the anticipation of her absence threatens to open up a hollowness
in me that makes saying goodbye feel intolerable. But just as Im finishing packing up my
knapsack, Lynn pokes her head inside the door.
So, I hear youll be leaving us today, she says.
Yup.
Do you want to talk about it?
Nope.
No thoughts you want to share?
Nope. I avoid looking at her eyes, focus only on shoving the last of my clothes into my
bag. I walk past her to the bathroom, grab my toothbrush and toothpaste, and walk back over to
the bed, still avoiding her eyes.

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Ok then, she says, still standing in the doorway.
I throw my backpack over my shoulder, and walk past her into the hall, keeping my eyes
down.
Goodbye, Jennifer, she says from behind me as I walk down the hall. And good luck.
Bye, I say over my shoulder.
I walk to the end of the hall and wait for the attendant to buzz me out. It seems ages, but
she finally hits the buzzer and I walk to the elevator and take it down to the ground floor. I walk
out of the hospital just as an el train is passing by; the noise rattles me and for a moment I
hesitate, almost turn and walk back in. All of the city sounds hit me at once, and I suppress the
urge to crouch down and scramble behind a nearby bench. Chicago feels big and loud at the best
of times; right now it threatens to overcome me. I wonder where Ill find a place inside this huge,
lively city, amongst the bold and the jaded, the businessmen and the con men. I step into the riot
of color and sounds and people, and allow the crowd to carry me on.

Toronto--1995
Time is against me, I know that. Immigration wanted me out after I defended my PhD in
1993, but Ive found a way to extend my life in Chicago temporarily: a secretarial job at
Northwesterns Womens Centre. The Centre is run by Arlene Daniels, a sociologist who, along
with directing the Womens Studies Program, created the Womens Centre in the 1970s as a
place for women to receive support and counseling. Arlenes friend and co-worker describes her
as a force of nature, and theres no question that Arlene has a big personality. In many ways,
Arlene is the Womens Centre; she embodies the history and purpose of the place with her
monumental presence. Shes also a bully, and unforgiving, and I spend much of my time there in

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anticipation of her reprobation. My job isnt difficult: I take appointments, publicize and help
with events happening at the Centre, and write a monthly newsletter. Im distracted, though, and
my attention is caught up with concerns other than the next potluck.
In part, Im caught up in a national struggle that has left the humanities on the
defensivepolitically and financially. These are the days of Pat Buchanan and his famous
culture war speech, where he proclaims the advent of a religious war for the soul of America. In
addition to criticizing radical feminism, Buchanan and his allies want to cleanse popular
culture, end affirmative action, rid academia of the fascist, politically correct left, and
withdraw funding for the arts, which is only going toward supporting the depraved imaginings of
queers and baby killers. Academia in particular is under attack from the religious right, which
seems almost to grow daily in numbers and strength on the wave of powerful, vocal supporters
like Lynn Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. As the United States lurches to the right, those of us on
the left are beginning to feel the squeeze.
Far from wanting to escape to the somewhat kinder, gentler shores of my homeland,
however, I find myself appreciating the advantages of remaining in the belly of the beast. Better
to be here, at the epicenter of the battle, than to stand on this sidelines in Canada and watch these
conservative values creep across the border. Better to be part of a frontal assault where lines have
been clearly drawn, sides have been taken, good and evil square off against each other in a battle
for the soul of Americans. While a grad student, I attend rallies, go to Washington for the
reproductive rights march, and participate in a spontaneous, quite literal attack by my office
mates on Allan Blooms The Closing of the American Mind. We stab it with pens, rip out pages.
We stop short of setting it on fire, though; that would suggest intolerance and censorship.

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In the midst of this, my mind is also focused on getting a real job, and I spend a good deal
of my time at the Centre using their computer and printer to launch a massive, scatter-shot
campaign to win a tenure track job. It never really occurs to me to apply in Canada; I came of
age intellectually in the States, Im immersed in its culture and politics, and most of my friends
and acquaintances live here. Because I spend so much time at work looking for a job, I often
forget about tasks related to the Womens Centre, I neglect to record upcoming events, Im late
with the newsletter, I dont pass on important messages. As a result, Arlene is constantly on me.
She finds me vague and indolent, the latter quality in particular fueling her belief that Im a
moral failure. Arlene believes in discipline, hard work, and a sense of purpose, and finds none of
these qualities in me. I suspect that, more than anything else, shes disappointed in meshed
been keen to take me on, and Id possessed the appropriate feminist credentials. Now Im the
once promising daughter who has turned out to be dull and passive, who lacks leadership
abilities and dedication. I can hardly defend myself by pointing out the hours and hours that Im
spending researching and applying for jobs elsewhere, and so I accept her assessment of me, her
continual badgering, her penchant for pointing out my failings. But it wears on me, and one day
in June, I stare into her eyes as she reproaches me and find myself hating her.
At the end of that summer, in August 1994, my time finally runs out. I can find no way to
extend my stay in Chicagothat brash, sprawling adventure I have come to loveand I have no
choice but to return to Toronto. For me, returning to Toronto is less a homecoming than it is the
marking of a colossal failure. None of my job applications have panned out. Its a terrible time to
be applying for a job in an English department; in fact, 1993-94 will eventually be held up as one
of the driest periods in what had become a progressively arid job market in the humanities and in
English particularly. Homeless and jobless, I end up on my brothers couch, a temporary

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arrangement that lasts five months. At night, which means after my brother is finished watching
TV for the evening, I unfold the couch, bring out my sleeping bag, and lie there counting my
shortcomings. In the morning, I fold up the couch, stash my sleeping bag, and get to work on
revising my dissertation, which is under contract with Minnesota Press. Its a good press, and I
should be pleased to be taken up by it. But my immediate circumstances overwhelm any sense of
accomplishment I might have; the book begins to seem more and more unreal in comparison to
my immediate circumstances. I start another round of applications for academic jobs, but it feels
like an empty, soul-killing exercise that leaves me drained and despondent.
Money is a problem. The money Id saved and brought back from the States is running
out, and Ive got to find a way to make more. I turn to my brother, who works in hardware sales,
and he manages to secure a job for me stocking bins of decorative knobs at Home Depot for
Amerock. Most of my job consists of fishing around in the bins to find knobs that have been
misplaced, and then putting them in the proper bin. Its the definition of meaningless work, and
yet something about it appeals to me. Outside of the hardware store my life feels chaotic,
ineffectualorganizing these knobs gives me a pleasant feeling of imposing order, of beating
back a kind of creeping entropy. In a way, this job becomes more meaningful to me than
working on the book. In fact, the revisions to the book arent going well; although it was well
received by the readers to whom Minnesota Press sent it for vetting, there still are many changes
to be made. But my imagination seems to have shrunk, and my ability to hold in my mind the
unifying design of my argument erodes. Im forever getting caught up in conceptual drift, taking
paths that peter out and become overrun by a dense foliage of contradictions. Only when Im
imposing order on the bins do I feel a sense of command, the power to place things precisely
where theyre supposed to be.

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Still, the whole situation is depressing and, finding my mood slipping more and more, I
decide its time to find a therapist. Having been swayed by condemnations of the overmedicalized and medicating psychiatric system, I decide to look in a direction that better fits my
new ideology, and contact a Womens organization that was set up to match women with
suitably progressive, women-centered therapists. Each client is given three people to choose
from. The first person I go to seems promising, supportive and insightful, but when she begins to
insist that I pound on the mattress in her office to release my anger, I decide to move onto the
next candidate. This one has a small house in Leaside, and holds her therapy sessions in her
basement. Im initially uncomfortable with the blurry line that this suggests between her private
life and her therapeutic one; Ive become big on external boundaries, having realized that I have
none. Still, I decide to give it a go. Shes a good listener, and I feel comfortable around her. But
despite her support, I become sickermore and more depressedand it becomes clear that she
isnt really equipped to deal with serious mental illness. She seems uncomfortable with despair,
and stymied by my withdrawal into silence. Her talents appear more appropriate to, say, coming
out issues or relationship problems, and my illness is proving too big for her tiny basement to
hold.
Our sessions end the week after I come in feeling particularly distressed, unable to sit
still, pacing the room, throwing my arms up in the air and letting them come down to smack the
sides of my legs. In a moment of frustration, I slap her coffee table, and she jumps in her chair.
My agitation is enormous, unstoppable, and it ends up overwhelming her.
The next week, after I sit down, she says, Jennifer, I dont think this is going to work
out. I stay perfectly still, say nothing. She continues. I cant rescue you, Jennifer, and I do
believe that you do need to be rescued. Silence again.

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If you want, I can give you some references, she adds.
I sit for a moment, absorbing the fact that Ive just been fired by my therapist, then stand
up and walk out the door. In a moment of intense anger, I abruptly turn around, nearly
overpowered by a desire to punch in her screen door. I pause, my fists clenched, imagining the
glass shattering, the satisfaction that Id feel, payback for all of this rejectionrejection from
her, rejection from academic the institutions to which Id applied. But after a moment my anger
mostly fizzles out, and is replaced with hurt and dejection. My shoulders sag, and I turn away.
Its a fair bus ride back to my brothers apartment, but in an attempt to wear out the rising flood
of emotion, and wary right now of contained spaces, I choose to walk. This hour and a half walk
represents one of my darkest moments. I feel as though Ive hit rock bottom, unable even to hang
onto the one person whose job it is to be there for me. How toxic one must be, I think, to drive
even a therapist away. She had been afraid of me, afraid that in the intensity of my distress, I
might hurt her. Im not just depressedIm dangerous, out of control, a threat. By the time I
arrive at my brothers place, my anger is entirely spent, and Im left only with the feeling that
Im an untouchable, a contaminating presence from which the whole world needs protection.
During the next few weeks my depression deepens. I mostly stop working on the book;
when I do take the odd reluctant look at it, I find myself gazing at the words, disoriented and
uncomprehending. When thoughts of suicide began to intrude with increasing frequency, I
decide that, despite whatever qualms I may have, and despite the fact that it compromises me
ideologically, its time to try the system again. I feel now as though someone working within it
preferably someone affiliated with a hospitalwould have behind them a kind of institutional
buffer against my more extreme expressions of distress. I try to get a psychiatrist through my
family doctor, but no one has openings. The city, it seems, has more mental distress than can be

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accommodated. The thoughts of suicide become more persistent, and so one afternoon I take
myself to the emergency at Womens College Hospital and tell the intake nurse that I feel
suicidal. Im led to a bed, where after an hour a man enters and introduces himself as Dr.
Schertzer. He has dark, curly hair, and wears a star of David in one ear. As he begins to take my
history, what strikes me most is his gentlenessits there in his voice, in the way he prompts
rather than prods. When Im through talking about the Chicago admission, about my current
struggles, he puts down his clipboard.
So Jennifer, tell me what it is that you need, he says.
Its like this, I answer. If I dont find a psychiatrist, Im going to end up back here in a
lot worse shape than I am now. Im going to hurt myself. It feels like a threat, but Im desperate.
This is my last chance for some kind of intervention, and I really do fear what might happen if I
walk out of that hospital without some sort of professional support.
He pauses, seems to weigh his options.
Well look, he says finally, I dont have any regular spots left, but I do keep a few
hours free to deal with emergency cases. I can slot you into one of those hours until an opening
comes up.
So, youll be my doctor? I asked.
Yes, he said. Ill be your doctor.
Im awash with relief and gratitude. I want to hug him. Here is my savior; here, I think, is
someone whos not afraid of me. Not yet, another part of me adds. Still, I felt bolstered,
encouraged. If I really do need to be rescued, this man, with his quiet assurance, might just up to
the task.

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I see Dr. Schertzer in his Womens College hospital for a month before my depression
and suicidal thoughts begin to overwhelm me. One day I walked into his office and find myself
unable to take off my sunglasses. He puts on his own sunglasses in an uncharacteristically
clumsy attempt to express solidarity. I talk of suicide, as I often do these days, but what appears
to catch his attention is the single tear that emerges from underneath my sunglasses and makes its
way down my cheek. Perhaps it merely punctuates what Ive been saying, but as the tear curves
around my jaw and makes its way down my neck, he takes off his sunglasses and says, Why
dont we walk across to the other side? He means the other side of the floor that were on, the
side where the inpatient unit is. I barely hesitate before I stand up and follow him out of his
office and along the hallway that leads to the ward.
*
After being processed, I go straight to bed, but I wake up around midnight and cant get
back to sleep. After half an hour of staring at the ceiling tiles, I get up and walk into the dining
room. Theres one other person there, and I hang back; something tells me I shouldnt disturb
her. Shes pacing with a syncopated, irritated gait that is impatient with the room, the
arrangement of the furniture, the view. The lights are turned way down, but this woman
negotiates the furniture with expert precision. Either shes been in this place for a while, or her
senses are stretched so tight that the very space around her falls back as she approaches. She
ignores me with the self-absorption of someone whose battle is elsewhere, and I feel
embarrassed standing there, as if Im intruding on someone caught up in an intensely private
moment. But then, maybe shes not alone, I thinkmaybe shes never alone. In her head,
anyway. Im reminded that there are worse things than having no one to talk to. Despite the

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womans preoccupation, I feel like standing still is going to get me noticed, so I wander over to
the window and look out, moving slowly and trying not to displace the air around me.
Most of the office buildings are dark; a few display scattered lights. I wonder about the
people behind those lighted windows. Are they doing something that feels important? Are they
rushing to meet a deadline, phoning home and apologizing again for working late? Do they have
somewhere theyd rather be, or somewhere theyre avoiding? I close my eyes and try to
remember what its like to feel as though I have something important to do, even something
small, but I cant think of a single thing beyond the effort to survive. Im overcome suddenly
with longing and contempt in equal parts: imagine being able to believe that the daily stuff of life
mattered; but then, how pathetic to believe that all that living means something.
I stare out the window for the longest time, and when I draw my gaze back into the room,
the woman is gone. The room feels so empty that I begin to suspect she was a product of my
imagination, some projection of a part of me not accessible in daylight. I shake my head, as if to
rid myself of her image, and walk slowly back to my room. Still, sleep doesnt come, and I cant
banish the feeling that someone is watching me; I feel guarded, an animal wariness prevents me
from closing my eyes. When I do finally drop off, my sleep is uneasy and broken, and the sounds
of morning activity outside of my door comes as a relief. Someone sticks their head in and tells
me its time for breakfast, and I sit up, rubbing my eyes in fatigue.
I walk out into the hallway and am greeted by the familiar smell of institutional food. Its
funny how you can feel nostalgia for even the most unpleasant circumstances if theyre far
enough away, and if the trigger, so often a smell, recalls only vague generalities. Unlike most
people, I enjoy hospital foodI like its uniformly over-processed, overcooked, and pre-digested
quality. It makes for less effort. Less chewing, less sorting, less comparing one meal with

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another. The equalizing influence of all that salt. I pick up a tray with my name on it, and turn
around to survey the room.
Im pleased to see that there are round tables here and not lines of rectangular tablesat a
round table you can get away with not exactly facing anyone; everyone is in a state of falling
away from one another, and not interacting feels almost natural. Still, I find it hard to decide
where to sit, not yet having had the advantage of even the most superficial interaction with
anyone. I spot a lively table of people over by the window who are carrying on what looks like a
normal conversation. But they look as if theyre tight with one another, and that means trying to
insert myself and risking the embarrassment of being shut out. I think of high school. I never
seemed to become more than a collection of tendencieson friendly terms with most groups, or at
least with friends of friends in most groups, but if people from each of those different groups had
gotten together and described me, they would have had a hard time convincing one another that
they were talking about the same person. I was never more than on the margins of any group, and
even my best friends were better friends with one another than they were with me. I did once
have a fight with a girl who passed for my best friend, and we didnt talk to one another for two
weeksthat has to count for something. There has to be some kind of investment to avoid a
person for two weeks.
I choose a quiet table, eat my food quickly, and take my coffee back to my room. It turns
out that I have two roommates: Tamara and Suzanne. Tamara is a schizophrenic crack addict
with a BA in English from The University of Western. Shes bright, and completely screwed.
The detox centers cant handle her because of her mental illness, and the psychiatric units cant
handle her because of her addiction, so she ping pongs back and forth between the two
systemswhen the addiction gets really bad she ends up in detox, and when she gets really

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crazy, she ends up in a psych ward. The really crazy part, though, is that they keep putting her in
an open unitone where you can come and go as long as you sign out and back in. For the first
little while, probably just the seventy-two hour period before her Form One runs out, they keep
Tamara in a gown. Then they give her back her clothes, and within half a day shes back out on
the street looking for crack. She doesnt have any moneydisability doesnt come close to
paying for a crack habitso to make up the difference she has sex with her dealer in exchange
for drugs. Shes lucky shes on disability and not welfare, or shed be on her back a lot more
often. In this respect being really crazy is an advantageit pays better, and elevates you to the
category of the legitimately unemployed.
My other roommate is Suzanne, a gorgeous, very manic bipolar woman who is always
under the spell of some enthusiasm or other. Shes also quick-tempered, and easily frustrated.
Tamara, Suzanne and I hang out with a schizophrenic named Charles, whose anti-psychotic
medication has been raised to heroic proportions. We dont exactly interact with Charles,
because hes been turned pretty much into a vegetable, but we tend to bring him along wherever
we go, kind of like a pet. Sometimes its out of kindness; for example, Charles smokes, but
would never be able to do it without help. He just doesnt have the coordination, and so one of us
lights his cigarette and then holds it to his mouth when he indicates that hed like another drag.
But at other times we can be cruel to him--maybe because when we look at him we fear for what
we could become.
One late night we decide to sneak down to the cafeteria. Theres nothing to do or buy
there; it just feels cool to sit in that huge, empty room, only the three of us. We buy four cans of
Coke from the vending machine and sit down in the middle of the room. As always, we get a
straw for Charles; his efforts to tip the can and pour the liquid into his mouth have proven

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disastrous. Instead of guiding the straw for him, though, we sit back and drink our Cokes,
watching him as he tries to get the straw into his mouth. The more he tries and fails, the harder
we laugh. At one point the straw sticks painfully up his left nostrilat least it looks painful, you
cant really tell by his reactionand we laugh even harder. Im laughing so hard that tears are
running down my cheeks and my knees feel weak. Then all of a sudden I stand up, say, Youre
pathetic, Charles, and walk out.
The next night Im lying on my side in bed, almost asleep, when I hear someone
whisper, Hey, Jennifer. I open my eyes and am greeted by Tamara, whose face is inches away
from mine.
Tamara, Jesus Christ! You scared the shit out of me.
Sorry. I thought your eyes were open.
Tamara is squatting, and bouncing up and down on her calves. Here eyes dart back and
forth.
Is something wrong? I ask.
No, noeverythings good. Hey listen, do you want to do some crack?
This should be a no-brainer for meI have a fragile mind, a history of substance abuse,
and Im currently clinically depressed. But then, I think, when else am I going to get the
opportunity to do crack with a paranoid schizophrenic in the bathroom of a psych ward?
Sure, I reply.
Okay, cmon. Tamaras pretty high already, and it makes her seem far away,
unreachable.
I follow Tamara into the bathroom and put a dampened, twisted towel across the bottom
of the door. Tamara pulls out a Coke can and turns her back towards me, as if protecting some

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secret, or shielding a nakedness. The next thing I know, the can is being shoved in my face and
Tamara is saying Suck! I suck, but my mouth isnt really anywhere near the can. Tamara has
missed it by about two inches.
Not bad, eh?
Yeah, not bad, Tamara. I stand there as Tamara hunches back over the can, ignoring
me, maybe even forgetting Im there.
Suddenly she says, Oh fuck. Oh fuck, man, and drops to the ground as if cut down by a
bullet. Oh Christ, I think, looking down at Tamaras crumpled bodyshes having a heart attack.
For Gods sake, help me! Help me!
I reach out to take Tamara by the arm to help her up. Tamara shrugs off my hand and
bends over so far that her face is no more than a couple of centimeters from the floor.
Help me look, will you? I dropped a piece on the floor. Tamara pours over the
linoleum, millimeter by excruciating millimeter. I stand there for a moment watching Tamara,
then move the wet towel aside with my foot and walk out, closing the door softly behind me. I
look back once before I close the door and see Tamara still there, bent over, palms spread wide
and pressed flat against the floor, looking for her little piece of hell.
Tamara gets bumped from the psych wardnot because of that particular incident, but
because her more and more sporadic appearances and her obviously tweaked condition when she
does appear lead her doctor and his team to conclude that this is no longer an appropriate place
for her. Tamaras doctor is a manipulative prick who likes to cozy up to his patientsmale and
femaleand then accuse them of behaving seductively toward him. Hes a total head case, but
he does have a point. This isnt the best place for Tamara. Unfortunately, that place falls exactly
between here and there; its a vacant nowhere that was supposed to be occupied by an array of

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easily accessible community services, promised but never created when somebody first decided,
in the seventies, that long term institutionalization wasnt a good idea.
Three months later, Tamara is dead. I find out because Suzanne recounts how she was
walking down the hallway toward her doctors office for her weekly appointment, and she ran
into my doctor. She says she saw him standing way at the other end the hallway, his feet almost
touching and his arms hanging by his sides. He looked like an oversized boy, she says. As she
approached, she saw that the expression in his eyes was soft and sad. Somehow, Suzanne tells
me, she knew what was coming.
I some bad news, he said. Tamaras dead. She took an overdose three days ago in her
sisters basement, and shes dead.
Suzanne says that before my doctor had even finished speaking, she felt her knees buckle
and she knelt down hard on the floor. As she tells me this, I dont think, this could have been
prevented. I think, this was so inevitable that to prevent it would have required a massive
upheaval in the order of things. This was as inevitable as gravity, or the passage of time.
Keeping Tamara alive would have required rewriting the laws of physics.
*
My eyes scan the grass around my feet as I walk. The grass hasnt been cut in a long
time, and long blades brush against my knees. My body feels light; spare. All skin and bones and
muscle. To my left, not far off, I can hear the sound of tricking water, but otherwise its quiet
down here. The ground under my feet is squishy in places, and I tense whenever I feel the ground
soften. People say that theres quicksand somewhere around here, although I dont anyone whos
actually seen it. Still, you never know. I continue walking and enter a wide, grassy field; straight
ahead I can see a small wooded area. I know that if I walk through the woods to the other side

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Ill find on my right a steep incline, almost a cliff, and that if I climb it, Ill be up against the
fence bounding the golf course. Theres a path up there you can follow that will lead you all the
way to Lake Ontario. The path is very narrow, with the fence on one side and a steep, dangerous
drop on the other. I used to run up the incline and then jog along the path at the top all the way
down to the lake. Once when I was running along the path I got caught up across my chest by a
thin piece of wire that had been strung across it, one end tied to the fence and the other tied
around a tree. If Id been a little shorter, not so tall for my age, it would have caught me right at
the level of her neck. As I stood there looking up at the wire, I felt cold. Somebody who knew
that children jogged along here had strung that wire across the path. Somebody has set a booby
trap just for them.
I stops and looks to her left over at the creek. Some accident of geology has left the creek
and its banks riddled with fossils, and I own my weight in rocks with tiny spirals and shells
embedded in them; one rock even has what, if you look at it from the right angle, might be
interpreted as a fragment of some prehistoric insect. Instead of heading for the woods, I turn
around and walk along the creek until it passes under a big concrete bridge. Under the bridge is a
number of small pieces of Styrofoam, the kind that you find on the inside of boxes containing
electronic equipment. Theres no explanation for why theyre there or where they came from, but
I feel a flush of pleasure at the sight of them. I walk over toward the smaller of the two nearby
pieces and bend over to pick up a small rock. I look over at the piece of Styrofoam, lean back in
an exaggerated way, then heave the rock toward the Styrofoam. The rock hits and then dislodges
it, but there are rocks and branches everywhere in the creek and its not long before it gets stuck
again. This is all part of the game.

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I throw a few more rocks, sometimes dislodging the Styrofoam temporarily, sometimes
missing it altogether. At one point the Styrofoam gets hopelessly tangled up with some branches
and I have to find a stick, walk out, and, balancing on the rocks, poke it until its free. I become
absorbed in my task until it seems as though it is in the nature of the bits of Styrofoam to become
trapped, and it is in my nature to free it. My mind doesnt need to create a story to give the
activity meaning; it is inherently meaningful to me. The elation and then building apprehension
as it travels past rocks and branches, the disappointment of having it jam up again, the grim
determination I feel as I target it, and finally the satisfaction of setting it free.
Its a hot day, even with the sun so low on the horizon, and I stop to scoop up some water
and pour it over my head. Just as Im about to launch another rock at a difficult tangle of
driftwood and seaweed, I hear the sound of gravel behind me and look back to see a car wheeling
down the hill. It comes to a skidding halt in the dirt-covered area that serves for a parking lot and
six older kids pile out of the car, laughing. From the way they walk, it looks like theyve been
drinking. I dont want them to see me; in their state, teasing a younger kid might be exactly the
sport theyre looking for. I look at the piece of Styrofoam one more time, released by some
current from the seaweed but jammed up now by an old brick lying in the water. Then I run, bent
down, into the trees. I run past the fire pit, staying near the water, as if held close by something. I
approach a low bunch of bushes and crawl into the middle. Then I wait, squatting, trying to quiet
my breathing. The older kids run across the grassy area next to the woods, pushing each other
and tossing around a Frisbee. When they reach the woods they head immediately for the fire pit,
then pull beer cans out of their knapsacks and sit down on the ring of enormous logs that
surrounds the pit. I groan inwardly. Theyre not going to be leaving any time soon, and its
getting late.

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While I crouch, I start to feel something like sharp pin pricks around where my bare
ankles meet the tops of my sneakers. I barely notice, though, until the pricks start to travel up my
legs. Then I bend my head and look down at my shoesmaybe I caught some burrs on them
when I was running. Instead of burrs, though, I see that my bare legs are covered with tiny red
ants. Theyve become angry at those points where theyre being blockedaround the top edge
of my shoe and where my thigh meets the back of my calf. I look closer, and to my horror
discover that Im squatting almost directly on top of a red ant hill.
I look over toward where the older kids are and bite the back of my hand to keep me from
making any sound as the ants crawl over me. I put my other hand down in front of me, trying to
ease my thighs up off of my calves. Thats when I feel the rockits the size of a plum, and
almost perfectly round. I drop onto my knees and crawl forward, swiping at the ants on the backs
of my legs with one hand and grabbing the rock with the other. Then I stop and lean back on my
calves again, bringing the rock close to my face. I turn it around in my hand and notice that it has
a tiny set of vertebrae snaking around the circumference in a band that doesnt quite meet itself.
Theres no obvious head or tail to it, just a long trail of vertebrae. Its beautifulthe best Ive
ever seen. This rock would be perfect for my collectionthe centerpiecebut thats not its
destiny. I poke my head up through the bushes for one more look at the group of kids and then
begins to crawl slowly toward the edge of the woods, knees bruised by the sharp rocks, the back
of my legs throbbing with hot, red welts. Just as Im about to reach the boundary of the wood,
something releases in me and I jump up and begin running, yelling at the top of my voice. I run
crazily across the grass, then slow down just slightly and look in the direction of the water, still
running. I jump up and turn sideways, legs spread apart, and throw the rock out into the middle
of the creek. Then I somersault onto the ground, scramble to my feet and keep running, arms

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trailing, feet trying to catch up to my head, all the way up the dirt road and around the corner at
the top. I look back once and think I can just make out a small piece of Styrofoam bobbing its
way toward the lake.
*
A week and a half into my stay I receive a call from my brother to let me know that I
havent landed a job at Ohio State, where I had made it to the top three and been invited for a
two-day campus visit. The reality is, Ive already, begun to fact the fact that, with each passing
day, my chances of success have become more and more remote, and I dont feel that surprised
when I get the rejection call. Still, my devastation is acute. I cant stop crying, and the nurse
finally gives me some Ativan to calm me down. Just as the Atavan is kicking in I decide to go
find Suzanne and convince her to come out with me. I feel a bender coming on. We sign
ourselves out (I, as Virginia Woolf; she, as Madonna), and head off to Decos. Decos is the
coolestalbeit one of only twowomens bar in town. Its huge, with multiple rooms, each
with a different ambience, and I find it hard to imagine that lesbians, who are more likely to find
love over at a potluck or activist meeting than at a bar, are going to fill this place. For a while
they do, though, and I spend the tail end of my clubbing days hanging out here.
When we get there the place is dead, but as the night progresses the crowd starts to fill
out and gain energy. I drink steadily, and after people start approaching the dance floor, I get up
too and begin to move by myself to the music, eyes closed, head thrown back, arms stretched
above me. One moment Im laughingcrazily, too loudly; the next moment Im standing still in
the middle of the dance floor sobbing, my hands clutching my hair. No one notices me; the mass
of bodies just separates and rejoins around mefluid and adaptable. I return to the table to find
that Suzanne, whos straight, has become the object of attention for a sharp-faced woman

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wearing cowboy boots, who describes herself as a trucker just in town for the weekend. After ten
minutes of distracted conversation with the trucker, whom I find at once dull and grating, I drain
my beer and weave toward the bar to get another. Normally I can drink quite a lot, but the
combination of the Ativan and the beer is making me feel woozy. On the way back I knock into
the side of someone on the dance floor and spill half my beer onto the womans shirt. The
woman turns around and gives me a push, but I just giggle, step backward into someone else,
then steady myself and retreat to the edge of the crowd. As Im scanning the bar tables that circle
the dance floor for Suzanne, my eye is caught by a woman standing over by the entrance. I
squint, and tilt my head back to get a better view. Its Anne, who was my first girlfriend, We
split up in 1989, but were still good friends, and Im pleasedif surprised--to see her.
I raise my arm and wave. Hey, Anne. Hey, over here!
Anne looks over, shielding her eyes from the glare of the disco ball, and heads toward
me.
Wow! I exclaim. What a bizarre coincidence, eh? Imagine, both of us coming here on
the same night. But heyI thought you didnt like this place.
I came here looking for you, dummy, Anne says. Your brother called metold me
about Ohio State, said hed called the hospital back and was worried when they didnt know
where you were.
Hey, have you seen my roommate? Shes around her somewhere.
You mean Suzanne? Nope.
Anyway, her stuffs here, I say, gesturing vaguely at a table occupied by two twin
lipstick lesbians. I walk again in the direction of the dance floor.

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Listen, Anne says, trying to walk alongside me through the crowd. Dont you think
its about time to be getting back to the hospital? Dont they have a curfew or something?
I suppose, I reply. But what are they going to do, not let me in? I continue on to the
dance floor and wedge myself in the midst of what is now a very packed crowd, letting them
prop me up. After one song, I realize that Ive been holding an empty beer bottle in my hand and
walk over toward the bar to order another.
Sorry, Maam, youre cut off.
Cut off! I exclaim, incredulous. Since when has anyone ever cut off anyone else at a
queer bar? I grin and steady myself on the bar. Cmon, Fred. Just one more.
My names not Fred, and sorry, youre cut offon the advice of that woman over
there. He points to Anne.
Fuck it, I say, and turn around, intending to have words with Anne. Just at that
moment, Suzanne sweeps by me and heads for the door.
Hey Suzanne! Hey! Where are you going? Hold up! I shout, but she just yanks the door
open and walks out.
Huh, I say to myself. Thats weird.
Anne comes up behind me and takes me by the shoulder. Come on, youre going home.
As soon as I walk out of the door and breathe some fresh air, I get the spins and feel my
legs going out from under me. Anne throws my arm around her shoulder and supports me all the
way up Yonge Street to College. I try to help out, but the full force of Ativan and alcohol has hit
me and I can barely put one foot in front of the other. When we get to the ninth floor, Anne
bangs on the door to summon the night nurse.

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The nurse takes one look at me and says, Just put her to bed like that. Well deal with it
in the morning. Im out before my head even hits the pillow.
*
My night out has a disturbing outcome that centers around Suzanne. Sometime during
mid-afternoon my doctor shows up at my door and asks me to meet him in the interview room. I
groan, roll onto my front, and push myself up to a kneeling position. My skull feels like it has
cracked open, and I lower myself slowly back onto my stomach. After another couple of
minutes, I roll onto my back and swing my legs onto the ground. The room is directly across the
hall, so I dont bother to put shoes or socks on. I walk over in my bare feet and sit down gingerly
in the chair opposite him.
Ive heard some disturbing news, he says, but I wanted to check this out with you
because Im not sure how to take it.
Uh huh, I say, the pain in my head now accompanied with waves of nausea.
I understand that Suzanne went out to a bar with you last night. The tone of his voice
and the mention of Suzanne combine to focus my attention.
Thats right, I answer. Why? Im annoyed at myself for already soundingand
feeling--defensive.
Well, Suzanne told her doctor about something that happened while she was at the bar
with you, and I just wanted to get your input on it.
Well, all I know is that she disappeared somewhere, and then later on she stormed out.
Suzanne tells us that she had an upsetting...encounter with someone in the bathroom.
What do you mean?

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She says that a woman forced herself on her in the bathroom. Shes saying that she was
raped.
What?
She says this woman raped her. He says it slowlynot so it will sink in, but as if
reaching for comprehension. So what I want to know from you is, does this sort of thing
ever...happen?
Do women rape women? I suppose, but...
I guess what I mean is, is this the sort of thing that happens at a womens bar? Youre
not in any trouble, I just want to know if Suzannes story is plausible.
I think back and try to call up an image of the trucker. She did look kind of dodgy, and
Ive seen a lot of unwelcome coming-on to people, but Ive never heard of rape in a bathroom
womens bar. I doubt that Suzanne is outright lying; it seems more likely that her perceptions of
her own and the other womans actions are distorted. But I have no way to know, really. I feel
my loyalties divideon the one hand, to a community of women that is already badly
misrepresented; on the other hand, to a woman who shares my condition and is probably in
genuine distress. I choose to dispense with nuance and just pick a side.
No, that sort of thing does not happen, she says emphatically.
Okay, thats what I thought. He sounds relieved. Incident avoided.
I dont see Suzanne much in the next few days, and when I do, I avoid her eyes. For
weeks after, I cant shake the feeling that Ive somehow betrayed both Suzanne and myself.
*
My nurse, Nellie, hears about my bender, and knows that it has to with not getting the job
I had been hoping for. During our one-on-one nurse, she brings it up. Listen Jennifer, she says.

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A lot of people dont get to have the jobs that they want. I think you should start figuring out
what else you might do. Youre just making yourself miserable, keeping on like this. She
sounds irritated.
Why are you saying this? I ask. I thought you were supposed to be, you know,
supportive. I thought you were supposed to be encouraging.
I am being supportive, Jennifer. But listen, do you think this was my first choice for a
job? I wanted to be a teacher. But there were no positions then, and it wasnt a realistic goal. The
province was dying for nurses, it was a guaranteed job with good benefits, so I did that instead.
And here I am. I look over at Nellie. The knowledge that shed rather be elsewhere makes me
feel like an imposition, and I finish up quickly with her and return to my room.
I occurs to me that I envy Nellie. Nellie just gave up. Changed course. Did the sensible
thing. Why cant I do that? A series of low-paying, Government-sponsored jobs during the
summers I was an undergrad has left me with a fair bit of experience working with physically
and intellectually disabled people. Add to that my jobs taking underprivileged kids and then
young offenders out on wilderness trips, and surely I could cobble together a resum targeted
toward working with disadvantaged and at risk populations. Id have to take the PhD off my
resum, of course; nobody wants to hire someone whos overqualified and is likely to jump ship
when a better opportunity comes along. Having been passed by again and again, youd think Id
be ready to move on. Its not like my classmates have had any better luck. There were eleven of
us, and as far as I know, only one of us has actually found work in academia. Somewhere in
Tennessee, where, during class, students spit out the juice from their chewing tobacco into empty
coke cans. One of our group works in a bookstore. Another runs a yoga studio, a third works in a

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bar. Yet another, a German fellow, the star of the department, works for some large corporation
back in Germany doing something in the corporate world thats extremely lucrative.
Ive crapped out where the job market is concerned, and my efforts are exhausting me
emotionally. I lie on my bed, faced with the sure knowledge that one more rejection and Ill lose
myselfnot just the image of myself as an academic, but a deeper disorientation that will suck
away the last of my agency and purpose. I cant imagine applying for any sort of job right now,
but my knob sorting gig is petering out, and Im in a real jam. And so reluctantly, and only after
repeated prompts from my doctor and the social worker, I entertain the possibility of going on
welfare. Just the thought of it fills me with shame; although I know them to be distortions, I balk
at being associated with the images of welfare slackers and con artists portrayed in the media.
But Im not crazy enough to qualify for disability benefitsreserved for the deserving
disabledand the only option left is to become an undeserving burden on the system. I finally
agree, the paperwork is filled out, and I begin my six mortifying months on welfare.
There remains the question of where to stay. Theres always my brothers couch, but that
thought too fills me with dismay. Its not that its particularly unpleasant, and Im certainly
welcome, but if failing to get a job makes me feel like Im standing still, returning to my
brothers couch feels like going in reverse. Fortunately, a solution presents itself during a visit
from Anne. Shes planning to get a new apartment while shes in law schoolwould I like to get
something together? Sensitive to my financial situation, she offers to pay two thirds of the rent.
Its a bad time to be on welfare, what with the twenty-one percent rollback in social assistance
that the Harris Government has imposed, but with Annes help, I should just be able to make it.
It might be a bit complicated, given the fact that we used to be girlfriends, but we have eight,
stabilizing years of friendship behind us.

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Because my depression is so stubbornly resistant to medication, as a last ditch effort my
doctor has put me on Ritalin. For those people with ADHD, Ritalin has a calming effect; for the
rest of us, its like drinking ten cups of coffee. Because welfare doesnt cover the slow release
version, I have to take the quick release a couple of times a day. While the slow release gives
you an even boost over about eight hours, the quick release gives you an abrupt high that lasts
about an hour and a half, followed by a precipitous dip, at which point you take another one. The
highs are greatI feel like I can do anything, even the most banal chore feels pleasant and
meaningful, and I find it easy and fun to interact with people. If I feel a little uncomfortably
speeded up at times, if sometimes the high mutates into a crushing anxiety that leaves me curled
up in bed, unable to stand even the touch of the sheets on my body, chasing that great feeling is
worth the liability.
With Ritalin coursing through my system, and my finances and living arrangements
somewhat in order, I begin to feel more hopeful, and in a couple of days my doctor agrees that
Im ok to leave. I stay with my bother until Anne and I can find a place, which proves to be
difficult, given the almost zero percent vacancy in Toronto, but eventually we find a two story
apartment in an Irish setter colored brick house on Ossington just south of Bloor. Anne takes the
small bedroom at the front, and I take the larger one at the back, reasoning that Ill need space
for a desk once I return to making revisions to my book. There remains the matter of continuing
to look for paying work so that I can present evidence to the welfare office of my sincere efforts
to improve my station. But the book is much more important to me now than looking for work.
Fueled by an artificial stimulant, my fantasy has found new life, and I reason that If Im going to
land that tenure track job, Im going to need a published book in hand.

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I work on the book in the morning and then visit the welfare office in the afternoon,
which creates in me a profound cognitive dissonance. For the first half of the day, I immerse
myself in the heady world of postmodern and critical Marxist theory, teasing out the utopian
impulse in their logic. Navigating this elevated terrain, when combined with my Ritalin high,
makes me feel smart, focused, in control. But by the time I slink into the welfare office in midafternoon, my second Ritalin has worn off, and the full force of my shame hits me like a punch
in the gut. I keep my eyes down when I talk to the worker behind the glass, imagining her
disapproval at my indifferent efforts to acquire work, at my presence here, at my very being in
the world. Its difficult to reconcile the disparity between my academic work and my social
status, and tough to maintain a coherent sense of myself.
I spend my days swinging between chemically-induced confidence and socially-induced
shame, and my evenings escaping from my double life into a haze of alcohol. During that time, I
manage to obtain one low-paying sessional course in Ryersons Continuing Education Program,
teaching writing and grammar to mature students. The actual classes, which take place in the
evening well after my Ritalin has worn off, are an exercise in endurance. The grading, however,
which I do in the morning after my first pill, is a delight. I blitz through the papers, and if I miss
the odd comma splice, pass over the occasional verb tense disagreement, I more than make up
for it with my effusive and lengthy comments. If my enthusiasm is artificial, well, whats the
difference, really? The work gets done. And if the highs sometimes turn to a crippling anxiety
that leaves me lying with my eyes squeezed shut, unable to tolerate the faintest sound, what
choice do I have? At least Im free from the depression, and I dare to think that maybe this stuff
will beat it back for good.

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ConnecticutFebruary, 1996
The irrational thing, in retrospect, is that I wait until after As the World Turns is over. I
want to see whats going to happen to Lily Snideryesterday Molly Conlan tried to pull the plug
on Lilys life support, and Lilys still in a very vulnerable position. I watch the whole episode,
not exactly on the edge of my seat, but with active interest, while I eat tortilla chips and drink
scotch straight from the bottle. I regret getting the barbecue flavor of chips, wish I had gone for
cheese. By the time the episode ends I can barely stagger over to the kitchen table on which sits a
bottle of little white pills. I have trouble opening the childproof lid; when I finally succeed, I
place the cap with deliberate precision on the corner of the table. Then I empty out all of the pills
and line them up in rows of ten, one row beneath the other. I cock my head and assesses the
effect, and change them to lines of five. It takes three columns of five, running down from the
wall to the front edge of the table, before the bottle is empty. I know what I should doI should
follow Margaret Lawrences example and dissolve the pills in boiling water and then drink it.
That way you dont throw up the pills before they get absorbed into your bloodstream. Thats
what a committed person would do, and I know that because Im not doing it that way, Im not
truly committed. I experience this lack of commitment as a character flaw that easily, typically,
heaps onto all of the other failures Ive been dwelling on, and I anticipate yet another poorly
executed attempt with weary familiarity.
I pick up a single pill, toss it in my mouth, and wash it down with a mouthful of scotch. I
put the scotch back down on the table, slide another pill to the edge of the table and into the palm
of my hand, place it on my tongue like a miniature wafer, and wash it down with another
mouthful. I do this ten times, at intervals of exactly 45 seconds. For a few minutes I feel an
exhilarating and precise control over my destiny. Ten minutes: thirteen pills. Fifteen minutes:

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nineteen pills. I feel really drunk and woozy now. My eyes are getting heavy, and I feel my torso
swaying slightly in the chair. I understand almost from the outset that my suicide attempt is
mostly a cry for help. Yes, Im desperate. Yes, I see no way out of my predicament. Yes, I have
wished many times over the last month that I were dead. But at this precise moment, do I really
want to succeed? The whole exercise seems staged right from the starta controlled gesture that
from the beginning contains its own undoing. And the laying out of the pills, the precise timing
of it all, is almost aesthetic in its execution. Still, this is the path that Ive chosen above all
others, and the risks are real. Nor are they lost on me. I might become disoriented or pass out,
never have that chance to pick up the phone and call for help. Its been a bad precedent to set.
When youre prone to hopelessness, its a good idea to come up with a plan that doesnt include
circling the drain.
At the last moment, just before I lose consciousness, I pick up the phone and dial. At the
sound of the Hello? I say, I think you should come over. There it is-- my inability to commit,
to make a forceful, irrevocable decision. I reckon, however, that if I do this often enough,
eventually whomever is supposed to be at the other end of the line wont be there to answer the
phone, and the decision will be made for me.
*
There are at least thirty-three Middletowns in the United States, named less for their
locations within a state or relative position to larger metropolises than for their suggestion of an
average American town populated by people leading average American lives. Just as Middle
America is more a cultural moniker than it is a geographical one, Middletown suggests, not a
location, but rather a state of mind. One imagines a town reassuringly averse to extremes,
ordinary and unremarkable. Middletown Connecticut is older that most Middletowns, having

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been designated in 1653. Originally a busy sailing port, Middletown lost its historical raison
dtre during the 1950s, when the construction of a highway separated the town from the
Connecticut River. Then historic neighborhoods were demolished to serve Americas new love
affair with the automobile, and another significant chunk of the citys history was lost. For a long
time Middletown was a manufacturing centrefor firearms in particularbut like many other
post-war northeastern cities, industry fled or petered out and jobs disappeared, sending the town
into decline. By the 1990s, when I spend a year and a half there, downtown Middletowns
identity had long been refashioned as a college town that serves Wesleyan University. However,
the evidence of a town in decay persists. The North end continues to be beset by violent crime,
and facades continue to deteriorate. In the early 90s, one article observes, homeless people
outnumbered shoppers on some parts of Main Street.
Wesleyan University becomes my own raison dtre in January of 1996, thanks to a
research fellowship that landed me at its Center for the Humanities for the winter semester. This
is my first real academic gig since graduating in 1993, and I set out feeling optimistic about the
future. Apart from a three hour seminar every Monday morning, and a single obligatory
presentation to the Wesleyan community, we Fellows are left on our own to pursue our research.
Its during this time that I finish the final draft of my book and send it off to be published. In
typical fashion, my feeling of accomplishment is short-lived, and I soon find myself at loose
ends, unable to fix on a new project. I begin to feel like a fraud as I read around in desultory
fashion, searching for something that both captures my imagination and promises to be
marketable.
Its during my time as a Research Fellow at the Center that I meet Lily, an Art History
Professor at Wesleyan. Lily is kind, generous, and encouragingthe sort of person you want to

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have around if youre feeling displaced and groundless. Margaret, a Northwestern friend and coResearch Fellow whod been instrumental in my acceptance at the Centre, first points Lily out
from a distance at the grocery store. I think shes kind of cute, but dont initially give her much
thought beyond that. The first time I really meet Lily is at a dinner for members at the Centre,
which also includes the whos who of lesbians at Wesleyan. Before dinner is over I cant help
but notice that that Lily appears to exist only on the margins of this grouptolerated, but not
fully accepted. They have a way of talking around her, of barely responding to her comments,
that suggests forbearance rather than inclusion. I think Lilys nice, and I sense her interest in me,
but I admit to being torn. On the one hand, my high school experience of always being on the
outside has developed in me a dislike for cliques whose identity is bound up with the exclusion
of others. On the other hand, that same experience has left me with a desire to be part of the in
crowd. The old, formative insecurity never left, and I feel it creep into my assessment of the
social terrain during dinner. I cant say that I exactly feel as though Im facing a choice between
Lily and the chosen ones, but I certainly note the hierarchy, and consider where and how I might
fit into it.
The choice comes later, as I become more familiar with the characters associated with the
Centrenot the Fellows themselves, but rather the ones who attend the talks, and who take turns
hosting the post-talk parties. Its during these parties that I have my chance; I can ally myself
with the exclusive circle, or I can pursue the friendship that Ive been developing with Lily. In
the end I choose Lily. Perhaps its something about Lily that draws me to her; perhaps Ive just
always been more comfortable on the margins. Probably a little of both. The only real first date
Ive ever had is with is with Lily; up until Lily, my habit has been to fall into relationships with
people I already know fairly well. On date night she shows up at the back door of the Centre (not

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having any money to pay for rent, Ive arranged for the Centre to put me up in one of their
upstairs guest apartments) wearing dress pants and a dress shirt. She takes me to a Japanese
restaurant in town, where we find a small table for two tucked away in a corner. Lily appears
nervous, keeps grabbing at her upper lip until shes created a red splotch just under her nose.
There are candles and an appropriately intimate atmosphere. The most memorable part of the
date, however, has to do with the sake. Lilys asked for a glass each, but instead we are presented
with an enormous jug of the stuff. As Lily protests to the waiter, I begin to feel embarrassed for
her. The fact that things arent going just right seems to throw her off balance; she wants to
realign events so that they conform to her sense of the perfect date. In the end the jug remains,
and we pretty much drink all of it. The rest of the night is kind of a blur, and I wake up to find
myself in Lilys bed.
In choosing Lily, I consolidate my outsider position. A particularly memorable
expression of my rank occurs during one of the post-talk parties, which Lily hasnt attended. Im
standing awkwardly in the kitchen, drinking a beer and trying to think of a way to enter into the
conversation. And then one of the women shifts slightly so that her back is to me, literally
pinching me off from the circle. This occurs after Lily and I have become a known item, and
no other expression of my position could match this womans maneuver, and the fact that no one
moves to counter it. I stand for a couple of miserable minutes staring at the back of her head, and
then flee to the living room where I lean against the wall and affect an air of nonchalance. I
continue drinking, engaging every now and then in a brief conversation with various people who
always appear to be on their way to somewhere else. Finally, having gotten good and drunk, I
leave the party, jump on my bike, and weave the two miles to Lilys townhouse, which rests in a
nondescript neighborhood on the outskirts of town. I ring the doorbell, and when Lily answers, I

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half lean and half collapse on herpartly out of relief at having somewhere to go where Im
welcome, and partly in an effort to keep upright. Lily helps me up to bed, without question or
remonstrance. Thats one of the things I love about Lilyher willingness to accept me. Maybe
shes just happy to have someone, but at that moment, it feels like everything.
As my time at the Center approaches an end, I begin to panic at the thought of having
nothing set up for the following year. Once again, none of my academic job applications have
born fruit, and Im left with is another pile of rejection letters to be tucked out of sight in a
drawer. I dont know why I keep them, except perhaps as a reminder of effort spent, tangible
proof that Ive not just been pissing my time away. While I do at least have an apartment to
return to, the prospect of having to go back on welfare, after having spent time in this rarified
environment, is horrifying. Its one thing to have left the hospital and gone on welfare; I could
reason that I remained unwell, that holding down a job was too much. But now that Ive had a
taste of legitimacy, the thought of more visits to the welfare office, of facing the silent
disapproval that I imagine in the face staring back at me through bullet proof glass, leaves me
feeling desolate. One stint on welfare suggests a bad patch in your life; two seems like
recidivism. And then there are Mike Harris cuts to the monthly allowance, and the new division
of the monthly allowance into food and rent money. Id escaped the consequences of this just in
time, but the new arrangement means that, in the governments eyes, I can no longer afford half
the rent for my apartment with Anne and will have to find something cheaper. It doesnt matter
that Annes willing to pay more than her share so I can stay; as far as theyre concerned, if Im
sharing an apartment where the paper cost to me is more than $400, then I must be getting
money under the table from somewhere else. Four hundred dollars a month allotted for rent
what options does that leave a person? Even a rooming house costs more than that.

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Out of desperation, I begin to cast about for a way to remain at Wesleyan. But why
should these people continue to invest in me? The Centre has been more than generous to me,
but its time to move on now, time for another diverting batch of Research Fellows to arrive and
beat back the boredom that afflicts faculty members who live small in University towns.
Especially ones as small and uninviting as Middletown. I am truly thankful for the fellowship,
but as my time comes to an end, the part of me that just cant gain any traction in academia is
feeling used up, disposable. I know that its not Wesleyan, but rather my own feelings of
worthlessness. If I feel expendable, its because I have persistently deflated my own currency,
because I lack any sense of my value absent its confirmation by others. But its easier to blame
the academic machine for bankrupting my chances.
On top of it all, I dont want to leave Lily. I already know about long distance
relationships, how they grow thin under the strain of separation. Relationships may not be
entirely about circumstances, but they can certainly collapse under the weight of them. Lily may
not be my most passionate relationship, but her cheerful steadiness, her acceptance of my
emotional instability, and her support have generated in meif not passionthen at least a
measure of gratitude and loyalty. And love. Yes, love as well. And so I turn to Lily once again,
and once again she rudders me to safety.
Lily has a friend, Gail, who teaches in the English department. Lily speaks to Gail, Gail
makes some enquiries, and a one-year Visiting Professorship opens up for me. Ill be teaching
Intro to Lit, Feminist Theory, and Womens Literature to groups of smart, left-leaning students.
Im both excited and apprehensive about the prospect; its been a long time since Ive taught a
class. Feminist Theory will be a tough one. Its not the concepts so much as it is the nature of the
women who populate these classes. They have a tendency to give no quarter, and everything you

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do is up for scrutiny and critiquethe content youve assigned, what you say about it, how you
moderate the discussion. Its not that students in other classes dont do the same, but rather that
the type of student drawn to womens studies has both a political investment in the material, and
a keen sense of the authority granted to them by virtue of their experiences as women. This focus
they have on their experiences makes it difficult to stick to the textdiscussions veer off into the
personal, and personal anecdotes replace analysis. Men are rare in these classes, although there
are usually a couple, whose tendency is to loudly proclaim their own marginalization,
particularly when we discuss the more stridently feminist texts.
True to form, the Feminist Theory class is challenging and stressful, if stimulating. The
only thing challenging about the Intro to Lit class is the obligatory inclusion of poetryIve
never had a feel for it, and know very little about the formal techniques of poetry analysis. Still,
its both affirming and invigorating to be in front of students again, and if the strain of managing
the content and the students leaves me a little depleted at the end of the day, the feeling of being
part of something, the sense of belonging, balances it out. If my merely temporary status leaves
me short of full membership in the department, it too is compensated by a couple of key
friendships that I form. The first is with David, a disaffected, deeply ironic oddity who, like
many members of English Departments, would rather be writing fiction. Eventually David will
take off for California to join his wife and pursue a writing career, but while Im at Wesleyan
one of my the few social connections I make, apart from Lily. We go bowling together, hang out
at my apartment, go on hikes.
One particularly noteworthy hike, which involves a fair bit of pot, leaves us standing at a
crossroads, unable to recall which direction takes us out of the park. I try to beat back a creeping
sense of paranoia and appreciate the metaphor. The two of us, both a long way from where we

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want to be, trying to figure out which path will lead us home. But the metaphor doesnt hold up;
the fact is, we both know where we want to be, and we both more or less know the path to
getting there. Its the obstacles that prevent us from realizing our desiresfor David, the
unacceptable risk of ditching a secure academia position; for me, the wretched job market and
my mental instability. For the metaphor to work, we should be clambering over fallen trees,
mucking through swamps, scrambling up and down boulders. Instead, were just two very stoned
people who failed to pay attention to where we were going.
And then theres Oswaldo. Like me, Oswaldo occupies a temporary position as a Visiting
Professorfor him, in the Spanish department. If Davids a bit eccentric, Oswaldo is downright
zany. Brilliant and irreverent, Oswaldo splits his time between chasing men, talking about sex
with men, and pursuing his far-ranging intellectual interests. Oswaldo is a delight to talk to, and
my appreciation of a vast array of cultural phenomenasome benign, some prurientdeepens
through my interactions with him. Apart from this, Oswaldos great gift to me is in the detailed
instruction on how properly to drink a cup of espresso. You dont gulp it down like a shitty cup
of American coffee, he informs me; a espresso must be lingered over, like a good conversation.
First add some sugar, and then stir for a minute or two. Take a small sip and talk for a while,
stirring occasionally. Then another small sip. Oswaldo can make an espresso last for upwards of
an hour, a feat that wins my admiration and respect. I can only manage about twenty minutes,
and that only with the application of the greatest restraint. It feels like procrastination to me, and
Ive always avoided procrastination, fearing the destabilizing stress it creates.
The fall semester, while arduous in its way, passes by uneventfully. When Im not
teaching or hanging out with David and Oswaldo, I spend my time over at Lilys house. Life is
okayuntil the onset of the winter holidays and a renewed onset of anxiety about my future.

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This time the anxiety quickly converts into a deep depression, and I return to Wesleyan for the
winter semester already feeling embattled and hopeless. The prospect of going back into the
classroom seems more than dauntingit feels impossible, and I can no longer fathom how I ever
managed it. I slink from my apartment to class and avoid crossing through the campus, unable to
stand the thought of having to engage in conversation. Mostly I lie in bed, staring up at the sad
Christmas lights that Ive put up in an effort to brighten my tiny, dark bedroom. In the end I
barely make it through the first two weeks of class before becoming completely overwhelmed. I
withdraw from teaching, and two weeks later find myself sitting at the kitchen table with a fifth
of scotch and a bottle of clonazepam.
*
Middlesexthe private hospital in Middletownis as unremarkable as the towns
name. Unremarkable food, unremarkable staff, unremarkable activities. Theres the standard
group therapy session every afternoon, but beyond that, the hours merge into an unbroken drift
toward bedtime. The patients who are there during my stay similarly blur into one another, a
generic cast of depressives waiting for their illness to turn a corner so that they can carry on with
their lives. I know that every single person on the ward has a story to tell, a unique set of
circumstances that led them to this place, but their individual features remain submerged under a
blanket tedium. People lack form, and even conversations in the tiny smoking room, the place
where one is most likely to form personal relationships, never extend beyond passing diversions.
Its as if Im unable to see through the blue-grey haze of smoke that hangs in the air, and those
around me remain murky outlines devoid of substance and reality.
The only standout figure is doctor Kaplan, an attractive, tiny woman with a ready smile
and a facility for the humorous bon mot. Not only do I take to her immediately, I waste no time

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in developing a transference for her. I want very much for her to like me; Im attentive to every
passing expression, every gesture, every word, searching for evidence of how she feels about me.
And yes, I find her sexy as well. In the past, Ive found that positive transference can be a good
thing; it binds you to your doctor and helps you really attend to what theyre saying. It has its
drawbacks, though. You can become too caught up with the relationship, so that an obsession
with what the doctor thinks of you begins to interfere with the goal of getting better. You become
distracted by fantasies about your doctor, about what theyre really like and what they do outside
of the hospital or their office. A preoccupation with keeping them engaged can begin to outsize
concern with getting your life in order, to use therapy productively to achieve it. In fact, getting
better starts to feel like a bad thing, because it would mean the termination of your relationship.
A good therapist will work with your positive feeling and help you sublimate the energy that
drives your fantasies, redirect it towards the healing process. A bad psychiatrist will either run
from your fantasies, or worse, become seduced by your preoccupation with their lives.
Fortunately for me, Dr. Kaplan is a good psychiatrist, and manages for the most part to keep
things focused on my condition.
But my time each day with Dr. Kaplan is brief, and the rest of the day limps along, banal
and unremarkable. Even Lilys visits become part of the dull terrain that stretches out in front of
me. One visit alone makes an impressionthe one where she shows up with a monopoly board,
a gift from a member of the lesbian clique. Karen has always struck me as different from the rest
of that crowd. For one thing, she seems kind, though its a kindness buried under a sharp
cynicism that, I suspect, originates in a fear of intimacy. The roots of that fear of intimacy run
deep. When Karen was only six months old, she and her mother were in a car accident. Her
mother was killed; Karen survived only because she was thrown clear of the car, and it took them

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a while to find her. Ive imagined those moments many times, her lying in the grass, or on the
gravel beside the road, alone and bereft. Of course, she wouldnt actually have felt bereft at the
timethose feelings would have come later, layered onto the event by an older child or adult.
Still, the thinking back on it must have had a profound effect on her. I wonder too if she feels
survivors guilt at escaping her mothers fate.
You would think that the loss of her mother under such traumatic circumstances would be
tragedy enough for a lifetime, but she suffers it again during her adulthood. Karens father
suffered from depression, and during one particularly severe bout, she feared enough for his
safety to travel home so she could keep an eye on him. Concerned about his suicidal tendencies,
she made a point of not leaving him alone. At least, I imagine that she would have done that. I
didnt hear the story directly from Karen, who never spoke of it, and so my knowledge of the
events is partial and mediated. What I do know is that she searched the house for a gun, and
found none. I also know that she was in the house when he shot himself in the head. What must
that have been like, to hear the shot, to find the body slumped over a desk or lying on the floor. I
imagine the guilt that she must have felt, still feels, over the fact that in her search she had failed
to find the gun. To have looked and failed is surely more devastating than to have never have
thought of looking at all. All this is to say that its not hard to appreciate why Karen might have
problems with intimacy, and why she might have a particular problem with me. In fact, she later
apologizes for not visiting me in the hospital, saying that she found it too difficult. I feel my own
measure of guilt around that, thinking about how my depression and hospitalization must bring
up old demons for her. Perhaps, I think, my own suicide attempt hits her like a slap in the face. It
makes me feel insensitive and even cruel.

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At any rate, Karen sends this monopoly board via Lily. I find the gift both fitting and
curiousfitting in its promise to break up the monotony of my days; curious in how it requires a
level of concentration and follow-through that is a rarely found in a psychiatric ward. I never
play it, not in the hospital or after I get out, although Ive since played it several times. When I
play, I think of Karen or the circumstances around how I came to acquire the game. I almost
never finish a game, and the board ends up sitting on the coffee table, the victim of a slow
entropy. Pieces lose their place, the cards drift from their owners, piles of money stray until they
collect in one messy heap. I try for a while to keep everything sorted and in its place, but
eventually I give up, put everything in the box, and put it back into the closet. I experience both
regret at not having finished, and relief at finally giving up and packing it in. In the regret and the
relief, perhaps my relation to the game is not so different from how I approached my suicide
attempt.
*
After a week out of the hospital, my doctor enrolls me in The Professional Day Treatment
Program at The Institute of Living in Hartford. Im required to show up every day at nine and
stay there until three. I attend a Wellness group, a Stress Management group, a Skills Training
group, a Body Awareness group, a Womens group, and a Relationship group. Rumor has it, at
least among the people that I meet in my brief sojourn at the Institute, that this used to be the
place where famous screwed up people went. Someone told me that James Taylor had stayed
here, and that theres an entire system of tunnels underneath the grounds to allow celebrities to
move about without being exposed.
I had assumed that when my doctor said this program would be appropriate for me, she
meant that the manner of treatment therapy would address specifically the kinds of psychological

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and emotional difficulties that I was having. It wasnt until later I realized that the Professional
in Professional Day Treatment referred, not to the manner in which the staff members of the
institute conducted themselves, but rather to the class and status of the clientele. Along with me,
theres a former lawyer, a school trustee, a banker turned entrepreneur (the transition didnt work
out), and a doctor. We do all of the groups together, and we get to know one another quite well.
We also play co-operative games in the gym that include climbing a wide rope ladder in pairs,
the idea being that we rely on one another for success. If we dont work together, neither of us
will make it to the top and therell be no cheering or clapping. When were having our groups
and doing our activities, its as if were the only people at the entire Institute. This is especially
notable when were doing some activity in the gymall of that space and only the five of us to
fill it.
I only figure out the nature of the class system underpinning my placement because I
have a habit of slipping out for cigarettes behind the gym after morning activities and before
lunch. Standing around and sitting on the picnic tables are other groups of people who also seem
to know each other well. They stay away from me, though, and I sense a generalized hostility
emanating in my direction. I also notice that all of them are Black or Latino. It takes quite a
while before any of one of them will talk to me at all, but after a couple of weeks a few of them
start responding grudgingly to my comments about the weather. One day, in response to my
observation that the sky is a particularly lovely color or blue, a black woman sits down on the
picnic table next to me and says, You know, youre not really supposed to be on this side. Youall have your place, and we have ours. See over there, underneath that big willow tree where all
the other white people are?Thats where you hang. Not that I careIm just saying.

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I dont exactly know what to say or do. I dont feel like I can just get up and walk over to
my group. I feel like that would trace, across the well-manicured grass, a bold line
underscoring the rigid, racialized class divisions that, however much they can be acknowledged,
cannot be abolished. And it would most certainly be giving in to something I have professed
quite loudly to oppose. Oh, is all I say, continuing to sit there uncomfortably. For the rest of
my time at the Institute, I have a cigarette in the car on the way to Hartford, and one in the car on
the way back to Middletown. During the day, I stay in our lounge and read magazines while I
wait for the next group to start. Its lame retreat, I know, but it goes a long way toward making
the problem invisible to me.
My time at the Institute of Living is threatened when one day I cant get out of bed. The
people at the Institute call my doctor, and she calls me. I tell my doctor that I just cant go, and
she tells me that if I dont attend the Program, as Id promised, Ill be admitted back into the
hospital. I measure the long, impossible journey to the Institutethe three-block walk to the car,
the forty minute drive to Hartford, the endless search for a parking spot, which I may or may not
find, and the walk across the long acres of bucolic landscape. It feels like way too much, but I
manage for a couple of days to drag myself out of bed and attend.
Then one morning I wake up and its impossible. Ive started feeling suicidal again, and
Im not sure anymore that I can control my actions. I sit or pace for over an hour, trying to decide
whether I should go to the hospital. Maybe I can make the trip to Hartford, if I just apply a little
more will. Its a hell of a thing to figure out, sometimes. In my head, I create a kind of pro/con
list for admitting myself: on the con side, the disruption, the confinement, the unanticipated
humiliations, the stress. Cross-border insurance complications, isolation, dealing with difficult
patients and staff. On the pro side: I wont be dead. But still its not an easy decision to make,

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and it occurs to me that I should have practiced making it in a non-crisis situation. Identified the
set of conditions that would indicate that I have to go to the hospital. But then, its hard to really
feel authentic about it without the urgency of a crisis; its hard to get into the role.
Theres also the cry wolf problem. They might not take it seriously, if I simply go in
and say that I feel like killing myself. I mean, what proof do I have? Its like back paindoctors
arent able measure the extent of the injury. How will they know that Im telling the truth? How
will they know that Im not simply looking for attention? How do I know? The calculus is
complicated and requires a level head and the proper perspectiveprecisely the two things that I
lack right now. Maybe the hospital is the best choice. Its a safe placeIve been to this hospital
before and my doctor is on staff at the hospital, which means that I wont be cut off from my her
and assigned some staff doctor. Im bolstered by the knowledge that my doctor knows me and
knows my history. Even if shes not at the hospital, theyll be able to page herI have her pager
number if they dont. Ive never dared use it, but I carry it with me always, one of several
talismans. And there are the thoughts of suicide, inchoate but increasingly persistent. So I choose
the hospital. I get up, put on my coat, check for keys and wallet, and walk the two and a half
blocks down to the hospital.
I pause outside of the entrance to the hospital, still a little unsure. Maybe I should wait for
some kind of definitive proof that Im suicidal. I stand there outside the door, searching for
clarity, and find none. Finally, reluctantly, I step through and walks over to the intake desk.
Um, I dont feel safe, I say.
It sound silly, coming out like that, with no context. It doesnt matter what it sounds like,
though, I know that this statement inaugurates the moment when I give over control of my fate to
external forces. The woman looks up at me, sizing me up. I know that it doesnt matter what she

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thinks of me and my claim; theres a protocol to be followed. So she takes my information and
then has one of the nurses escort me to a bed in the emergency ward. Out of nowhere,
seamlessly, appears the inevitable security guard who stands outside of the drawn curtain.
Theres nothing else to do now but wait until a doctor or a resident has a spare moment. I hope
my doctor is on call; I hope they dont have to page her.
After about forty minutes, a sour, middle-aged woman pulls open the curtain and, not
looking at me, says, Im doctor Jones. What seems to be the problem?
Thats a hard one to explain, but I know the correct answer to give in a situation such as
this.
I dont think I can keep myself safe.
What do you mean by that?
I dont feel safe, I repeat.
Yes, but what does that mean? What exactly are we talking about here? Whats
happening to make you feel unsafe?
her words feel like a challenge, and I begin to doubt myself. Still, I persevere.
Well, I think I might hurt myself.
Can you be more specific? Hurt yourself how? When? With what means? If youre
planning on hurting yourself, presumably you have a plan.
Ummm....
She sighs and looks at me with a hint of distaste. Right, well, at any rate, youll have to
be admitted, she says curtly. But youll have to wait until we have an ambulance and two
attendants free to take you to Connecticut Valley Hospital.

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What?what Valley? I ask, alarmed. Id never questioned my assumption that Id be
admitted back here. Can I talk to my doctor? I need to talk to my doctor. A rush of adrenaline
makes the back of my head heat up. I dont know anything about this other hospital; I didnt
even know that it existed. I do know one thing, thoughif this is the only private hospital in
town, that makes Valley Hospital the public one, and thats not good.
My doctor. Please.
Someone will be coming to talk to you in a minute, the doctor says, and walks out.
Moments later a nurse enters.
Undress and put this gown on please, she says, holding out a neatly folded flannel
package. I ignore it.
Please, can I talk to my doctor now? Her name is Doctor Kaplan.
Your doctors not available right now, the nurse replies. She becomes busy, avoidant.
She arranges instruments, bottles, bedpans. She doesnt look at me, but she stays close to the
perimeter of the bed, just outside of my reach.
I have her pager numberplease, could you just page her? She gave it to me. She
trusts me, I want to add.
That wont be necessary. Please get changed and lie down on the bed; well be moving
you shortly.
I stay sitting up and grab hold of the sides of the bed, refusing to move. This cues the
security guard, who walks over and attempts to pry my hands off the bars.
I want to talk to my doctor.
The security guard attempts to push me back down onto the bed, but in a feat of
athleticism I pull my legs up toward my chest, swing over the rail, and try to make a run for the

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door. The security guard grabs me by the neck of my t-shirt and jerks me backward painfully. I
throw my arms up and try to drop out of my shirt, but it catches on my shoulders, leaving me
even less room to maneuver. I bend over and attempt to charge head-first into the door, but the
guard pulls my arms up and backward over my head, forcing me to arch my back, while another
guard grabs me around the knees and lifts me off the ground. The two of them half-drag, halfcarry me back to the gurney, push my shoulders back onto the bed. A third guard appears and
lies across my legs. A fourth arrives and, while the others are immobilizing me, attaches four
point restraints to my wrists and ankles. Then the nurse reappears with a syringe. Despite the fact
that Im restrained, I manage to prevent my arm, through constant squirming, from staying still
long enough for the nurse to safely stick me with a needle.
Please, I just want to talk to her.
Okay, Maam, the nurse says suddenly. Well let you talk to your doctor. Just settle
down and let me give you this needle. Youll feel much more relaxed.
If I let you give me the needle, can I talk to my doctor?
Thats right, Maam, if you let me give you this needle, well let you see your doctor.
Now stay still, please, I dont want to hurt you.
I hold out my arm and stare at the needle as it approaches my arm. For the briefest
moment my skin resists, tenting inward, as if in defiance of the violation.
Seconds after the nurse withdraws the needle, I feels a familiar falling away, an
expansion of the distance between me and everything else. I stay awake long enough to watch as
they wheel my bed down the hall toward the waiting ambulance, long enough to hear the one of
two security guards who had struggled with me say, as I pass him in the hall, Not so feisty now,
are you. The ceiling disappear into sky, and then the sky disappear into black.

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*
Im sitting in the back seat of a green Dodge driving down a long hill on a barely twolane highway. The car loops around a wide bend at the bottom of the hill, and I know before I
look that spread out to my right I will see a rolling pasture, with a tree line way in the distance.
Up close to the road, therell be a red barn with a painted picture of a Holstein cow in the middle
at the top. To my left, directly opposite the barn and on the other side of the road, Ill see a large,
white house with a veranda and a lawn sloping down toward the road. The lawn will stop just
short of the road, contained by a short, concrete wall that has a narrow break in it where steps
descend the last few feet. The concrete is old, and large cracks vein its surface; in many places it
is covered with a soft dusting of bright green moss. Despite these signs of decay, it possesses a
kind of massive solidity. I know that the cars drive fast along this roadtoo fastand parents
get nervous about letting their kids cross it. I also know that at one time it was a dirt road,
travelled mostly by tractors, and before that, horses.
The car turns into a bumpy, pot-holed gravel drive and continues up until its just behind
the house. I push open the heavy car door and walk around the back of the house into the
kitchen. The screen door slams hard behind mejust as I remember. To my left, theres a small
sofa sitting against the back wall; above the sofa hangs a very old picture of a very young Queen
Elizabeth. On the opposite side are two rocking chairs. Against the third wall is a wood stove,
and beside it, a pile of neatly stacked wood and some newspaper. Even now, when the stove is
cold, it is indisputably the heart of the kitchenmaybe of the whole house. The kitchen, with its
smell of fresh doughnuts every Friday and steaming porridge with brown sugar and milk.
I turn left into the dining room: on my left is a long table, waxed to a mirror-perfect shine
and surrounded by high, straight-backed chairs. On my right, theres a short hallway that doubles

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back into a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. Further on, also to my right, is a formallooking living room. I stop at the door frame and, despite knowing that Im welcome anywhere
in this house, experience the distinct sensation that I need an invitation to go in there. This room
couldnt feel more different than the sunlit kitchen, where the rocking chair tells stories and the
bright, yellow walls invite you to linger and listen. This room is dark, too quiet. Black and white
or yellowed framed pictures congregate on every horizontal surface --old people when they were
young, others long dead. Im fascinated by those pictures, but it feels wrong to go in there and
look at them with shorts on and bare feet.
I back away, turn, and keep walking straight until I reach a small room that looks like an
office. Inside, against one wall, sits an enormous safe with a hole blown through the front of it,
its jagged edges rusted paper-thin. My grandfather must have known the combination to that
safe, but he wasnt there to share it when the safe needed to be open. They must have literally
built the room around it, and now its too wide to fit through the door and too heavy to haul out
the window. I kneel down in front of the safe and gingerly touch the ragged edges of the hole. I
lower my head and peek in, but its pitch black inside, and I cant see anything beyond a couple
of inches. I glance back at the door, feeling apprehensive. I carefully stick my arm in the hole,
almost up to my elbow, and move my hand around inside. Nothing. Nothing but ancient dustat
least I hope its ancient; that would be something. I pick up some of the dust and rub it between
my thumb and forefinger. When I pull my hand out, I see that tiny, almost invisible slivers of
metal have embedded themselves into the tips of my fingers. It will take several painful days for
these slivers to work their way out, but it wouldnt be right to ask for help, or to tell anyone what
Ive done.
*

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The Connecticut Hospital for the Insane opened its doors in 1868. The decidedly bucolic
groundsencompassing a whopping 650 acresare characterized by expansive lawns and large,
gracious shade trees. Complementing its welcoming grounds are the panoramic views of the city
that it affords by virtue of the fact that it rests atop a large hill. The hospital complex itself
consists of approximately eighty structures, whose distinctive styles reflect the different periods
of the institution's development. Theres Shew Hall, the original hospital structure and now the
administrative centre, built in 1867 in the second empire style, with a rectangular tower, a steep
mansard roof, paired columns, and imposing sculpted details around the doors, windows and
dormers. Woodward Hall, erected around 1886 and now housing the geriatric population, is in
the Queen Anne style, its multiple roofs capped by numerous chimneys, wide turrets, and large,
gabled dormers. Then theres Smith Home, which houses the hospital employees and was
constructed about 1909 in the Colonial Revival style, with a cross-gabled roof crowned by a
slender, distinctive tower, and a main entrance displaying fluted pilasters and a large fan in relief
above the door.
Of course, I see nothing of this external grandeur as Im transported from the ambulance
to the hospital. Even if I hadnt been doped, being strapped into the gurney afforded little more
than a view of the sky. When I finally shake off the sedation, I find myself sharing a room with
three other patients, all of whom are lying on their beds with their eyes closed. The walls of the
room are painted a familiar hospital yellow, and the low ceiling is covered with the typical
institutional pop out tiles decorated with tiny holes. The bathroom walls, painted in the same dull
yellow, are decorated by a smear of fingerprints concentrated above the sink and the toilet.
Theres a general air of neglect about the room. When I feel steady enough to get up and walk
out into the hall, I am greeted with the same, relentless yellow, complemented by verdigris green

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floor tiles. The hallway is deserted, and I walk down it uninterrupted until I arrive at a sad
collection of overstuffed chairs and one dreary looking couch. A couple of patients occupy the
chairsthe first evidence of conscious lifebut they show no inclination to interact with one
another or with me. I cross over to the opposite hallway, where I face what appears to be the
nursing station, although I see no evidence of staff. At the other end of the hallway I discover a
large, uninhabited room with a long table surrounded by off-white plastic chairs. I figure this
must be what passes for the dining room. Retreating back into the hallway, I search for the
smoking room, but find only a couple of closed doors which I discover to be locked. With no one
around to talk to, I return to my room, lie back down on my bed, and begin what will turn out to
be one of the longest weeks in my life.
My impression of a placid patient population is abruptly dispelled when dinner time
arrives, and I enter the dining room to find myself inside a chaotic scene. Two people are arguing
over a meal tray, a phenomenon that will repeat itself regularly, since only a portion of the trays
are labeled with peoples names. Another person, clearly agitated, paces back and forth behind
the table talking loudly to himself. A couple of other people who are sitting down are also talking
to themselves, one of them gesturing heatedly. At one end of the table sits a man who glowers
down at the other end of the table, all the while picking angry scabs on his face. I choose a seat
midway down the table, keep my eyes on my tray, and say nothing.
The real trouble comes the next day. Ive just finished lunch and am making my way
down the hallway and back to my room. From behind me I suddenly hear a low growl. I look
around and see the scabbed man approaching me from behind, glaring at me with naked hostility.
I notice that hes holding a fork in his right hand. Like most places, the forks here are plastic, but
I still dont relish the thought of having an encounter with one. I pick up my pace but, in

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glancing back, I can see that hes quickened his own to match mine. I think of camping and how
they say that you should never run when you encounter a bear. Nevertheless, the impulse is
overwhelming, and I break into a fast trot, only to look back and see that hes done the same.
Fortunately, by this time Im only a ten or so feet away from my room. I run in, slam the door
shut, and lean against it, breathing hard. One of my roommates lifts her head off of the bed and
looks in my direction for a moment before setting it back down and closing her eyes. After about
five minutes of leaning against the door, I open it cautiously and look out. My would-be assailant
has disappeared, and the hall is once again deserted. I close the door again and sink down to a
sitting position, my back against the door, and stay that way for the rest of the afternoon.
The next day I put in a desperate call my doctor.
You really have to get me out of here, I say over the pay phone to my doctor.
Ill do my best, Jennifer. Its not that easy, my doctor replies.
No, I mean you really have to get me out of here. I got chased by a man with a fork. A
fork.
That doesnt sound so good.
Can you at least talk to the doctor in here?
Okay, whats the name of your doctor?
I dont knowI havent talked to one. Just phone up and ask for the doctor.
Ill see what I can do, I, she says. Hang in there.
Ha ha, I reply.
By my third day, Ive concluded that CVH is an experiment in social Darwinism, where
only the psychologically strong have the potential to emerge intact. Like prison, it is an exercise
in survival and, like prison, one of the main strategies appears to be avoiding confrontation,

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which mean pretty much avoiding contact altogether. Unlike prison, there doesnt seem to be any
hint of sociality that would allow for the development of allies. Theres something about this
place, some oppressive futility, that makes one want to withdraw into oneself and simply endure.
But what really strikes me is the deserted feel to the place. Occasionally, after going a
long time without seeing any staff, I begin to suspect that weve been abandoned here, that the
people who run the place have just wandered off or failed to come back for their next shift. This
impression leaves me marveling at the meals that show up at regular intervals and at the watered,
well-manicured lawns. In fact, in their luscious unreality, the grounds appear fake to mean
artists rendition of the exterior of some old and venerable institution. The cognitive dissonance
created by the stark difference between this inviting, abundant exterior and the barren interior
makes me wonder if perhaps Im missing something around the wardsome tucked away space
where the business of interaction and healing takes place. But my wanderings simply confirm my
sense of universal neglect, from the washing machine and dryer that languish, apparently unused,
to the often abandoned nursing station.
Saddest of all is a room at the end of the hall that contains nothing but an old, warped
ping pong table. Theres no net, and no visible evidence of paddles. A single ping pong ball rests
in the back corner of the room. When I first enter the room, I walk to the back and pick up the
ball, which has a slight dent in it. I bounce it once on the table, and the sound echoes around the
empty room. I glance quickly at the door, afraid that the sound will summon someone or
something, but I remain alone. I walk over to the corner, place the ball back in its spot, and walk
quietly out of the room. I never go back in there again.
There are ghosts on our floor. Or at least, there should be. After all, it was created in
1868; odds are that someone in that span of time has decided that they have unfinished business

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with the place. Or perhaps, in the days when patients were kept in these institutions for extended
periods, or for life, people lived here for so long that it became the most familiar and comfortable
place to haunt. And then there are the suicides, mention of which I overhear once during
mealtime. Perhaps the ghosts of those people who took their lives, in a space that was supposed
to protect them, wander the halls resentfully, still unable to find the peace that so eluded them in
the final days of their lives. Sometimes I wonder if my own room might have been the site of a
final gesture by some desperate person who, having abandoned hope, wrapped a belt or a strip of
sheet around their neck and hung themselves from the doorknob.
But the real ghostsat least according to loreare to be found along a deserted road
that leads to a secluded corner of the hospital grounds. Under the shade of tall oak trees lies a
large, ancient looking cemetery, the headstones tilted and crumblingthe final resting place of
the insane who once wandered the halls of CVH. Most notable about this cemetery is the fact
that none of the headstones have names on themonly numbers. I have since read that there are
over seven hundred of these nameless tombstones, and that numbers were engraved on them
rather than names in order to save relatives the embarrassment and stigma of being associated
with mental illnessparticularly since for a time in the 19 century, it was believed to be
th

genetic. There are persistent rumors of eerie happenings in the cemetery: voices ranging from
hushed moans to piercing screams, strange lights or dark shadows, vague specters, the ghost of a
bride in her wedding gown.
Apparitions aside, my time at Connecticut Valley Hospital confirms the worst criticisms
launched at public hospitals in the United States. Patients languish mostly unattended, and
theres no one to turn to if someone is behaving in a threatening or inappropriate way. In fact,
CHV has a history of patient neglect; already overcrowded by 1871, the ratio of patients to

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doctors hit 230 to 1 by 1880, making impossible any realization of the then burgeoning ideology
of patient care (as opposed to patient storage). I dont know the staff to patient ratio in 1996, but
it seems to me that a commitment to patient care was never successfully introduced; on the
contrary, any rare staff-patient interaction that I do witness seems to take the form of a power
struggle, and more than once I witness an overwrought patient being led off forcibly by security
guards who appear out of nowhere. Connecticut Valley Hospital, for the time that Im there,
seems a lawless place, the wild west of psychiatric institutions where indifference and antipathy
create an environment of fear and hopelessness.

*
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
Assistant Attorney General
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW RFK
Washington, DC 20530
To:
The Honorable M. Jodi Rell
Governor of Connecticut
State Capitol
210 Capitol Avenue
Hartford, CT 06106
Re: CRIPA Investigation of the Connecticut Valley Hospital
Middletown, Connecticut
August 6, 1997

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Dear Governor Rell:
I am writing to report the findings of the Civil Rights Divisions investigation of
conditions and practices at the Connecticut Valley Hospital (CVH) in Middletown, Connecticut.
We notified you that we were initiating an investigation of conditions and practices at CVH,
pursuant to the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), 42 U.S.C. 1997. CRIPA
gives the Department of Justice authority to seek a remedy for a pattern and practice of conduct
that violates the constitutional or federal statutory rights of patients with mental illness who are
treated in public institutions.
Specifically, we have concluded that numerous conditions and practices at CVH violate
the constitutional and federal statutory rights of its residents. In particular, we find that CVH
fails to provide its patients adequate: 1) protection from harm; 2) psychiatric and psychological
care and treatment; and 3) discharge planning and placement in the most integrated setting.
Suicide Protection: In our judgment, CVH fails to provide its patients with a reasonably
safe living environment. The facility too often subjects its patients to harm or risk of harm. CVH
fails to protect its patients from harm due to inadequate suicide policies and practices; overuse
of unnecessary seclusion and restraint; an inadequate risk management system that fails to
collect, organize, and track incidents of harm and abuse for the purpose of identifying and
preventing potential incidents of harm and abuse. In a 15-month period, three patients at CVH
committed suicide by hanging. In each case, it appeared that staff were aware of the suicide risk,
but failed to take appropriate action. One suicide occurred nine hours after a nurse identified that
the patient had thoughts of suicide, but then failed to assess him for suicide risk or take proper
precautions.

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Suicidal behavior in mental health facilities represents a major threat to the lives and well
being of the patients. By failing to provide adequate suicide prevention training, failing to
provide adequate suicide risk assessments, failing to address known environmental suicide
hazards, failing to properly monitor patients, and failing to adequately review serious suicide
attempts, CVH fails to meet this requirement. Environmental suicide hazards were noted as
contributing factors in each of the reviews following the three CVH patient suicides. As a result,
CVH initiated some corrective action, including replacing shower heads and ceiling tiles in
bathrooms hospital-wide and installing new ventilation grilles in selective bedroom units.
Despite these initial remedial efforts, during our tour of each patient living area, we found
numerous protrusions in bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets that were conducive to suicide
attempts by hanging. This is particularly alarming in a psychiatric facility such as CVH with a
recent history of suicides. Rather than establishing a pro-active, permanent training program, the
philosophy for offering suicide prevention training at CVH appears to be reactionary and
seemingly only tied to patient death.
Seclusion and Restraint: CVHs use of seclusion and restraint substantially departs
from generally accepted professional standards and exposes its patients to harm due to
inadequate reporting, insufficient behavioral programming, poor staff training, and inadequate
policies and procedures. Seclusion and restraint at CVH is applied without adequate professional
assessment and/or supervision, often with significant clinical error, for the convenience of staff,
and without appropriately documented rationale. At CVH, seclusion and restraint are repeatedly
used to respond to behaviors in lieu of the development of positive behavior support plans or
consideration of other targeted behavioral treatment. Contrary to generally accepted professional

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standards, CVH consistently uses seclusion and restraint as an intervention of first resort and
fails to consider lesser restrictive alternatives.
Discharge Planning: Within the limitations of court-imposed confinement, federal law
requires that CVH and the State actively pursue the timely discharge of patients to the most
integrated, appropriate setting that is consistent with patients needs. The discharge planning
process for CVH patients falls well short of these standards of care. Consequently, patients are
subjected to unnecessarily extended hospitalizations and a high likelihood of readmission, all of
which result in harm. CVH fails to initiate, maintain, monitor, or adjust adequate discharge
criteria. Several patients treatment planning documents demonstrate that CVH teams often carry
over the discharge plan language verbatim from one treatment plan review to another, without
assessing new options or any changes that may have affected the patients discharge plans. CVH
fails to maintain an adequate review process necessary to ensure appropriate lengths of stay. As a
result, CVHs patients are likely being unnecessarily institutionalized and potentially deprived of
a reasonable opportunity to live successfully in the most integrated, appropriate setting.
Sincerely,
U.S. Department of Justice
Civil Rights Division
Washington DC

*
Dr. Kaplans phone call, made on the seventh day of my stay, proves sufficient to rouse
CVHs doctor to consider my case. He calls me into his office and asks me how Im doing.
Intensely aware of the dismal conditions that await on the other side of his door, I profess myself
healed in what I hope comes off as considered rather than desperate. He flips absently through

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my file, asks if Im still feeling suicidal. At this point, even if I were still feeling suicidal, I
would have lied about it, preferring to take my chances out in the world than to spend another
day in this bleak place. But the fact is, I really have abandoned the idea of self-harm; not because
I really have been healed, but because fearing for my safety has rebooted my instinct for selfpreservation. In this sense, my admission succeedsnot through therapeutic intervention, but
rather through a kind of aversion therapy that has driven away from my despair.
To my relief, the doctor signs my discharge papers without further ado and informs me
that Im free to go once I arrange for someone to pick me up. Part of me is surprised; the place
has such a Hotel California feeling about it that I had begun to feel as if Id be trapped here
wandering the halls for eternity. Seizing the moment, I walk directly from the doctors office to
the pay phone and call Lily to see if she can pick me up. Once thats taken care of, I collect my
things from my room, and sit impatiently by the nursing station for Lily to arrive. Feeling buoyed
by my imminent escape, I venture a smile at the nurse who sits behind the glass. She looks at me
for the briefest of moments, then turns to a stack of paper on her right. I return to my vigil, and
after about fifteen minutes Lily arrives. As I stand to go, the nurse looks up. My ride, I say,
and walk out.
As we walk to the car, Lily comments the grounds, the old, imposing buildings. She has
an academic interest in parks and architecture.
You know, she says, They say some of the abandoned buildings on this campus are
haunted.
Maybe, I reply. But, I add, pointing in the direction of the building weve just left,
the real ghosts are back there.

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TorontoOctober, 1998
There is a moment between asleep and awake when you forget where you are and why
youre therea hesitation in some unfinished form that is not so much an incompleteness as it is
a state of grace. But however much you try to hang onto that state, you cannot, and then the
effort itself becomes the thing that wakes you. Then, with cruel resolution, the moment emerges
into the intersection of place and time. This is the beginning of the fall. And there you are, in a
bed thats in a room with walls painted in a color that you can or cant name, its light out, or still
dark, and youve worn something to bed or you havent. That is the moment when Im most
likely to cry. It doesnt matter whether Im awakened by a sound, or by the feel of the sheets
against my skin, or by the remembrance of something left undone. Either way, its a long way
down.
Today its a bright voiceTime to get up, Jennifer.
I open my eyes and stare at the pressboard tiles above my bed. I could ignore whomever
it is, roll over on my side and tighten the covers around my shoulders. This will set off a struggle,
though; worse, it will be noted. The best way to get ignored by the nurses is to do what they ask
you to do. You cant disappear, but you can become more transparent. I reject the idea of a
shower as too optimistic, and instead throw on the clothes that in my exhaustion I had let drop
beside the bed last night. These are my only clothes right now. Id like to be able to change at
least my underwear and socks, but since thats not an option, I try to think of very long canoe
trips to the interior of Algonquin park, where being able to put on a new pair of underwear every
day becomes an expendable urban luxury.

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I walk out into the hallway and follow a couple of other people who, I reason, must be
heading for the dining room. I go in and stand in line to get my food. I pick up my tray and look
around at the dining tables, at the sad looking couch slouching in front of the TV. There are
chairs on either side of the couch arranged in a hopeful semi-circle, suggesting at least the
possibility of organized social interaction. I hang back and look around before committing
myself, see how things are breaking down, where the most strategic place to sit is. One woman
near the wall is an obviously bad choice. She looks poorly groomed, even for a psychiatric ward,
and her eyes brim, as if shes waiting for someone to come over and invite all that sadness out.
She looks new. Not only new to this place, but new to the whole idea of having the wheels fall
off. Im not about to get stuck with her. If Im lucky, Ill sit through a damp, snotty breakfast; if
Im not, Ill be followed around for the rest of my stay. Its not that I dont want the woman to
feel better, or at least to cobble together some new, tolerable version of herself. Its that it uses
up a lot of energy to take on someone like that, and I have very little left.
The second table I survey is promisingno one is obviously skittish or weepy, no one
appears interested in anything other than the prospect of getting whats on their plate into their
mouth. And no one seems abnormally interested in that. Theres one brittle anorexic in a
wheelchair, but apart from looking like she will collapse under whatever weight gravity can still
apply to her, she seems fine. I walk over and sits down in the only empty chair. As I take my first
bite, I hear a loud voice behind me.
GodI dont know how they expect us to eat this shit! Hey! Hey you! Server woman!
Come over and try this food and tell me if youd risk eating it. I look over at the server, who
pauses, and then looks in the direction of the nursing station. Its not her job to deal with patient

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outbursts. A couple of nurses glace over in our direction, but they dont make a move to
intervene. The other patients stop eating and wait to see whats going to happen.
I dont want to turn around and look at the speaker, so instead I peer over at the window;
an unusually dark morning makes it possible to make out the dim reflection in the glass of a
woman halfway raised from her seat, hands planted wide on the table, body leaning forward.
Even reflected in the window she projects a disturbing intensity. I feel like the air directly behind
me is positively crackling with it. I stare down at the table. I just want to keep out of trouble. But
then, as suddenly as it started, the outburst is over and everyone goes back to eating. These are
deep waters, and if theyre sometimes hard to navigate, it also means that an event like this one is
easily absorbed, the ripples quickly ebbing away. The only sounds now are the occasional
murmur of conversation and the scrape of trays sliding into the rack that will be wheeled away in
five minutes, ready or not.
Nobody has briefed me on the schedule for the day and so again I hang back, waiting for
some pattern of intention to resolve itself into movement. It looks as though people are heading
toward the living room chairs, some slumping heavily into the over-stuffed couch, others leaning
on an arm of a chair, still others hanging back against the windowsill. Therell be no time for a
cigarette now, and I regret having taken so long to finish my coffee. Sitting in one of the chairs
closest to the elevator is a young staff member. Its easy to tell that shes staffshes the only
one who looks like shes where she intended to be. I guess that its going to be a morning
meetingnot a group exactly, more like a ragged attention to matters of business that have
arisen for the residents. The administration of the ward as seen by its inmates.
There are lots of advantages to the all female psychiatric unit at The Centre for Addiction
and Mental Health, but one definite disadvantage is the amount of emotional processing that

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seems to arise during this type of meeting, which ought to be quick and painless. Today, though,
there seems not much to talk about other than the familiar complaint that certain unidentified
people arent bothering to make the effort to go and find certain other people who have received
incoming calls. Thats pretty bad, actuallya phone call from the outside can be precious, the
promise of a normal conversation, new clothes, or even a visit. After the issue of abandoned
phone calls has been addressed and promises have been made, protocols put in place, the
meeting trails off. As people begin to wander away, I notice that the young staff member looks a
little disappointed. She must be new, because she looks like it still matters whether or not people
are paying attention, instead of looking relieved that no one has anything that needs fixing right
now. Other than the obvious.
I get up as soon as its not rude and go to look for my cigarettes. Even when Ive lost the
capacity to look forward to anything else, I find that I can always look forward to a cigarette. As
far as Im concerned, smoking is the single most important thing you can do in a psych ward.
Even if at times on the outside I might have been tempted to quit smoking, Id keep the habit
going just for these occasions. If smoking is a great way to ally with people when you start a new
job, say--in here its one of the only ways.
I go back to my room, noting in passing that theres one other rumpled bed there, and fish
around my knapsack for my pack of cigarettes. Not there. I begin to feel a creeping anxiety as I
try to remember where I or someone else might have put them. Focus, I tell myself. This would
be the worst time in the world to have run outI want to be the one giving out cigarettes right
now, not the one bumming them. But Im certain that I had some on me when I came in, and the
one thing that they usually let you keep pretty handy these days is your pack of cigarettesno
one wants to deal, on top of everything else, with an addict in withdrawal. I search around for my

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jacket; when I find it I reach down through the hole in the lining of the pocket, but theres
nothing there except a used up pack of matches.
I stand for a moment, thinking hard, trying to reproduce in my mind the combination of
movements Id made when I arrived on the floor. After a moment I reach into my back pocket
and feel with relief the pressed curve of a cigarette package. I take one out and walk back down
the hall, rolling the cigarette between my fingers, and then turn through a door on my right and
into the warm reek of tobacco. This room has a separate ventilation system from the rest of the
floor, so that only I and the few other people in here will experience the full effect of the blue
haze that hangs a foot below the ceiling. Entering the smoking room for the first time can be
awkward, but Im put partly at ease by a half smile directed at me by a woman sitting over by the
window, shoulders hunched forward, forearms on her knees. Because Im still an outsider, I
choose a spot on the bench that puts me at a distance just slightly greater than the distance
between any two other people in the room. Theres a pecking order to be respected here, and
failing to acknowledge it could put me at an immediate social disadvantage. I also know that as a
newbie I shouldnt really be the first one to speak, and so I light my cigarette and stare at the
smoke that ascends in a perpendicular line then breaks and dissipates just below the ceiling.
Im Marsha, says the woman who had smiled as I came in.
Jennifer. Hi.
When did you get here?
Last night. Late, I think. I dont want to seem confused, and so revise. Yeah, late. For
sure, late. Now Im trying too hard.
Silence again. Im reminded of being stuck in an elevator with people you dont know.
Even regular people in this city will go the longest time without saying anything, even in that

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uncommon situation. Ive always wondered exactly how long two strangers could be stuck in an
elevator and not say anything to one another. Of all the people in all the cities I know, Im
certain that two born and bred Torontonians would go the longest. Staring at the button,
embarrassed, refusing to acknowledge their predicament. Squirming at the forced intimacy.
Looks like more rain, eh? Marsha says finally. This isnt your everyday social
situation, but the same old topics get drafted to break the ice.
Yeah, but I like the rain. Thats not exactly truenot true at all, actuallybut at least
it gives me the outline of a personality. Im now someone who likes rain.
The other favorite icebreaker in this city is out of bounds in here: What do you do? No
one ever means how do you spend your time. They mean, How do you make money? (and
how much money do you make?), and for a lot of people in here, thats a touchy subject. Too
many people here havent done anything to make money for a long time. Some never have, and
some never will again. There are lots of other topics that are okaywhat you like to read,
whether you have kids, where you come frombut in my experience there tend to be two main
lines of conversation: other people in here (including the staff) and, in stark opposition, broadly
philosophical questions that could be discussed anywhere, by anyone. Not whether theres a
God, though, or anything vaguely spiritual. Religion and delusion are too close to one another.
My cigarette has burned out, so I walk over and drop it into the tin can that has been
shoved into the corner of the room, and light another. Marsha tosses hers easily in the same
direction and then watches it bounce off of the wall and fall into the can. Nice, I think. Cool.
There are a couple of other people in the room: a woman who looks to be in her mid-fifties with
fly-away grey hair and too-long fingernails. Not manicuredjust neglected. Looking at her, it
strike me that at another time and in another place, this woman might have been suspected as a

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witch. Thrown into the water to float or sink. Sink and youre innocent, float and youre guilty
and its the gallows for you. What a shitty set of options. But then maybe we all would have been
taken for witches, I think, too different and unstable to be absorbed into inflexible and skittish
communities. Did they have witch-hunts in Canada? It seems too colorful for Canadian history.
The only other woman in the room feels dangerous to me, on the verge of doing something that
will require managing. Impossible to tell what it might be, its just an air she has of being unable
to stand things as they are, of needing to smash this moment into the shards of a crisis. She has a
coiled look about her.
The door opens and another woman bursts into the room, her cigarette already lit before
the door has a chance to close. She blows the smoke out of her mouth like she hates it and then
sits down exactly too close to Marsha. Then she leans her head back on the wall dramatically and
says Fuck! with such vehemence that I expect a serious predicament to crash through the door
after her. I know, without really looking, that this is the woman who lost her temper during
breakfast. I remember the voice. The reek of too much perfume begins to fill the room, and I feel
a headache coming on. The woman is pretty, would be very pretty if she hadnt applied far too
much makeup. Her cheeks have been rubbed tubercular red and the rims of her eyes are heavy
with mascara. But what strikes me are her eyes. Theyre greener than any eyes Ive ever seen,
and I wonder if theyre contacts. But it seems impossible that someone could reproduce
artificially the subtle touch of hazel toward the edges, the almost imperceptibly darker shade of
green surrounding her pupils. I have trouble pulling my gaze away from those eyes, and then its
too late and they turn to fasten directly on me. Not challenging, just curious. The woman raises
one eyebrow and says,

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So why are you here? She might as well have said, How is it that you came to be
sitting in my living room?
Um, Im depressed, I say. It sounds lame, coming out like that. Trivial, the kind of
word that describes how you feel when the fourth subway comes at rush hour and theres still no
room to get on.
Mmmm, the woman replies, and then drops her cigarette on the ground and crushes it
with the toe of her stiletto. She looks like she could eat alive anyone in this room. When she gets
up to go, I feel a strong urge to follow her, as if in leaving shes created a powerful wake. She
projects a compelling sense of purpose, but at the same time, Im wary of what that purpose
might be and think that Marsha is the safer bet. Im saved the decision when Marsha gets up at
the same time, and I follow them both out the door. There seems to be a general movement
toward an open door halfway down the hall almost opposite my room, and so I fall into step with
the others who are heading in that direction. Inside the room theres a ping pong table, a boom
box sitting on a lone table pushed against the wall, and a collection of spare, metal chairs
arranged in a circle.
Oh no. Group.
The anorexic is there, deploying her feet in a series of painfully slow maneuvers that
eventually guide her wheelchair into an open space in the circle, and so is the woman with the
fly-away hair. The unnerving woman who had been sitting in the corner of the smoking room is
there, too. The othersabout seven people in totalare all unknowns. Across from me sits a
pair of young women talking conspiratorially to one another; they couldnt be more than forty,
combined. Beside them sits a woman in her sixties or seventies or eighties who is leaning
forward, her head to one side, rocking slightly and moaning under her breath. I dislike her

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immediately. The rest of the women are more or less unremarkable, and everyone waits with
varying levels of impatience or indifference for the session to begin.
It appears that two staff members will be running the groupthe young one from this
morning, and another woman who is neither young nor old, but who wears this room with easy
familiarity. Maybe the first woman is a traineethat can be good or bad. She will still have the
momentum of whatever youthful enthusiasm has brought her here, but shell be inexperienced
and unless she has a natural aptitude for this type of thing, she might make any number of
mistakes that will make the hour awkward and uncomfortable.
Okay, I guess were ready to begin, she says. Lets start by going around the room and
saying our names. My name is Donna, and Im on an internship here while I complete my PhD in
psychology at the U of T. Mistake. Already the people in the group with Borderline Personality
Disorder, if there are any, will smell weakness. Someone who can be manipulated, marshaled.
Each person says her name in turnbored, awkward, hopeful, or merely polite.
So, says Donna, Does anyone want to start?
Silence. I half expect people to start pulling out glasses and making a show of cleaning
them. Donna waits, which is good; sometimes people need a moment to adjust to this sudden
attentionjumping in too soon is a sign of anxiety. Finally, the old woman, whose name is
Hilda, moans with sufficient volume to suggest an effort to communicate.
Hilda, did you have something youd like to offer? asks the other staff member, whose
name is Shelley.
I feel so badI just feel so bad. You have no idea. No, I think, nopethats right, we
have no idea. Were all here on a field trip to witness the unique manner of other peoples
suffering. But then again, if this is her first time inside, it must run head-on into everything she

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has known about herself for decades and decades. For forever. Well past the time when she
thought she knew who she was and what she could and could not expect out of life. At her age, it
might seem impossibly alien to feel like she does and to find herself in this place with these
strange, unpredictable people. I feel a twinge of pity for her, despite her presumption of
uniqueness in a place where what she has what is the equivalent of a common cold.
Okay, says Donna. Can you elaborate on that?
So bad, says Hilda, grabbing a chunk of her hair with her left hand and leaning first to
one side and then to the other. Eventually, when Donna says nothing else, I find myself
becoming lulled by Hildas rhythmic rocking. Everybody else is starting to look bored or
annoyed. Donna had better do something in a hurry, or her audience is going to break apart into
the unconnected pursuit of private demons. Fortunately, someone else speaks loudly enough to
be heard above Hildas keening, and the collective mind grinds back into the present.
My sister is trying to get my daughter taken away from me, says an ample woman with
blond highlights. she says I cant provide a stable environment for her. Shes called CAS and
theyre visiting me this afternoon to interview me. I raise my head in interest. This is serious.
This is drama. Ive been collecting evidence to prove her wrong, but I need some help
organizing it all. I thought, I dont know, that we could go over the official procedure or
something. Like a practice interview, or some tips, I dont know.
The woman clutches an assortment of papers. Some of the pages do indeed look like
forms; others consist of handwritten jottings on ragged fragments of paper; at least one appears
to be a classified ad torn from a newspaper. She starts to flip through the paperslooking for
somethingnot a document, but something about the order of things. Behind the sound of

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shuffling paper, Hildas moans continue soft and regular, their metronome beat keeping time
with her swaying body.
*
.then he says that its my fault and then he just gets up right in the middle of dinner
and walks out. It was humiliating.
How much time has passed? I turn my hand over to look at my watch, but my wrist is
bare. Did I have it on when I arrived? I cant remember. It may have been collected with my
other belongings for safekeeping, although the safest place to keep something in these places is
very close. I glance at the watch of the woman beside me and see that there are still ten minutes
to go until the top of the hour, and I start to feel a familiar, grade-school anxiety. Will I be called
on, or will I be permitted to coast this one out? What have they been talking about, anyway?
Jennifer, did you have something you wanted to say? Its Shelly speaking this time.
I check my posture, look at my hands to see if Ive made some slight movement or
gesture that would imply that I do. I realize that Im leaning forward, lips parted, as if in
expectation or need.
Um, no thanks. As if I were being offered a cookie or a spot on the streetcar. Shelley
doesnt pursue it.
Okay then, says Donna. I guess this is a good place to stop.
Donna is smiling but also looking a little deflated, and I want to go over and tell her that
its nothing personal; this a tough crowd. Instead, I follow the rest of the people out the door and
then walk down the hall toward the smoking room. When I enter, I note with relief that Marsha is
there. I have a lighter, but nevertheless I ask for a light as a way of making contact. Marsha
reaches into her back pocket and in one fluid movement pulls her Zippo out, flicks open the top,

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and produces a flame. I have to bend over, but not so much that she could be considered rude.
After I light my cigarette, Marsha snaps the Zippo shut and places it deliberately on the bench
beside her. That far and no farther, it says.
Theres only one other person in the roomthe dangerous, coiled one. She must have
said her name at group, but I cant remember it. Right now shes looking out the window, and I
take the opportunity to study her. Shes smallish, with a delicate, pointed chin. Theres
something of the pixie about her. But when I look again at her face, that impression vanishes.
Ringing the womans eyes and dropping down her cheeks is a collection of circular scarssome
faded and lighter that the rest of her skin, others still purple, and one an angry, red scab. The
woman absently passes her finger back and forth over the scab, and I feel a shiver of repulsion
pass through my body. Its obvious what has caused those circles. My eyes drop involuntarily to
the orange glow at the end of my own cigarette and I expel a long, measured breath. I dont want
to know why the woman does that. Probably it was at the bidding of some voice or collection of
voicesnagging, cajoling, threatening, seducing her into attacking herself. A crude autoimmune
disease of the mind that compels her arms and hands to act out some sick design. I look away,
not wanting to deal with such a heavy thing on my first day. Im still feeling pretty unstable, and
this sort of thing could tip me over.
But then, this is the irony that lies at the centre of these placesjust when your resources
have deserted you, you end up in a place where you need them the most. Youre protected from
the outside world, but whos going to protect you from the inside one? It takes experiencing it to
appreciate fully the perfect logical contradiction underwriting the whole project. It takes
encountering it several times to accept it as, not a mistake or a flaw in the system, but as
something internal to the way we order our existencein relation to one another, and in relation

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to the objects with which we surround ourselves. People take great satisfaction and comfort in
putting like with like. And different with different. In the case of mental patients, that approach
is both understandably necessary and horribly flawed. A sudden stab of pain brings me back to
the moment. Ive let my cigarette burn down to my fingers and I drop it quickly, shaking my
hand and sucking on the inside of my forefinger. When I take it out of my mouth, I see that there
are twin red spots on the insides of my middle and forefingers where I was holding the cigarette.
I look up at the other woman as she gets up to leave.
Marsha gets up and I and follow her out, leaving the other woman looking out the
window, rubbing her scab.
Gross, eh? Marsha says.
Yikes, I respond.
She looks down and sighs, and were both silent for a moment. Then Marsha lifts her
head and says, Come on, Ill take you on at ping pong. At the moment Im unbeaten, but then I
havent found anyone yet whos been able to finish out a game.
I want to go back to my room and take an inventory of my stuff, maybe see who else is
sleeping there, but Im reluctant to pass up this opportunity to network.
Sure, why not?
It takes a while to round up two paddles and a ball. I like to have my back to the wall, but
something tells me that Marsha does too, and so I graciously take the end that faces the door to
the hallway. The edges of the table are deeply notched from paddles having been slammed down,
and one end of the net sags badly.
I pick up my paddle and weigh it in my left hand, switch to my right, and then back to my
left, sighing at the effort to make even this smallest of decisions. But then maybe its not that

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small. If each choice is a congealing of things as they are, a retreat from things as they might
have been, how many universes did I open up with my indecision? I chose three timesleft,
right, leftdoes that mean three universes opened up? Did the indecision itself open up a fourth?
The prospect of such proliferation is dizzying. When youve lost, misplaced, or been denied the
ability to make decisions and take action, this ought to be a consolation, but it isnt. I dont feel
qualified to create things as they are about to be. I feel I cant be trusted.
I pull my attention back to the game and am surprised, after such a shift in the order of
things, to see Marsha still standing there waiting, watching Hilda and her vestigial swaying to
pass the time until my attention returns. She looks over at me and says, Ready, then? I nod and
serve up the ball to the outside edge of one corner. This should be a sure thing, but Marsha steps
over easily to intercept it and then nudge it just over the net for serve. I pride myself on being
pretty gooda combination of many places like this, and many childhood hours playing against
myself, the other half of the folded up board serving as my opponent. Marsha has clearly had
some practice too, though. The serve goes back and forth and I find myself wanting to win,
invested in itand then find, to my surprise, that the wanting feels good. In the end I lose the
game by two points, but am grateful to Marsha nevertheless for giving me the opportunity to care
about something.
Now begins the deadly part of the day for those who cant leave the floorthat drifting
time between meals and groups when youre left, sometimes disastrously, with nothing but your
own thoughts. Everyone who can has gone out already, and the nurses are ensconced behind the
glass windows of the nursing station. I dont blame them; it must feel impossible to care all of
the time about all of the accumulated sorrow in hereand even if it were possible, it wouldnt be
prudent. Better to parse it out as needed and in order of necessityfirst crises, then groups. Then

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the more official interactions: rounds, team meetings, shift updates, visits from parties with
legal or financial interests. At the bottom, attention to our pervasive state of being at odds with
ourselves and the rest of the world. Too much of that and theyll start to wonder if something
really isnt out of place. Too much mingling with the wrong point of view and maybe you start to
lose touch with the reasons why yours is the right one.
Through the glass I can see them talking and laughing, but I cant hear what theyre
saying. Its like TV with the sound off. I know if I stand right in front of the glass and stare at
them, they will likely ignore me. I tried it once on another wardfor two full minutes. Not
moving, just staring, so close that my nose was almost touching the glass. Not asking for
anything but the right to be noticed. Someone did look up once to see if I was in obvious need of
help, and then went back to what she had been doing. After a while it must have cost them a lot
of energy not to look at me. In the end I walked away, a little more invisible than before.
On the real television is an episode of As the World Turns. Oakdale, U.S.A.--possibly the
only place in the world where nothing has changed. I remember back to when I was hooked on
the showfound myself soliciting updates from friends over the phone, sharing in the can you
believe so-and-so or such-and-such? Eventually I ran out of time and had to give it up when I
landed my job at Ryerson, finally finding myself in possession of the gold ring. Susan Ricci
looks the same, thoughhas looked the same for decades, really. Nominated for an Emmy
almost every year since 1978. Eventually the press started to be unkind, but she remained
gracious about it, accepting to host Saturday Night Live and giving her monologue while the
cast, crew, and stagehands paraded their own Emmys around her. Then finally, in 1999, a win. I
respect hernot for being so gracious in the face of endless defeat and ridicule, or because I
necessarily thinks she deserved the Emmy she at long last receivedalthough I do--but rather

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because anyone who can play such a bitch for such a long time and not have it etch itself on her
face or settle into her gestures must have something special.
Only 11 am. I groan inwardly and walk, once more, towards the smoking room. But
instead of going in, I stop in front of the door and stand there, attempting to take stock of the
situation. After a moments thought, I decide that what I need right now is twenty-five cents, so I
turn around and walks back into my bedroom, pick up my knapsack, and start looking for
change. I bought the knapsack for its impressive array of pockets, and for a while I successfully
maintained an elaborate system wherein particular items or categories of items were associated
with particular pockets. Wallet and keys in the front pocket (common usage); cigarettes in the
small, hidden inside pocket at the top (confidential); change, in the smaller shallow pocket at the
front of the front pocket (less searching); bike light in one side pocket and glasses in the other
(easy access); books, headphones, daytimer, and everything else oversize in the main area. But
all that organization fell apart a couple of months ago, along with me.
After a few moments spent fishing around in the pockets for change, I lose patience, open
all of the zippers, tip my knapsack upside down, and shake. Nothing but couple of subway
tokens and an allen key. I wonder in passing why they didnt take the allen keysurely
something inappropriate could be done with it. I consider for a moment trying to sell one of the
subway tokens, but reject that as too pathetic. I run my fingers along the inside seams of the main
area and come up with a dime and a nickel. Flushed with success, I run my fingers along the
seams of all of the other pockets, but come up only with a disappointing few pennies and a nickel
that has an ancient Nicorette squished permanently onto it, making it unusable. Im about to
leave the room again when I glance over at the table beside my roommates bed, and spy some
change sitting on it. Desperate times, I think, and train my eyes on a dime lying slightly apart

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from the pile. Keeping my eyes on the door, I sidle slowly over until Im standing in front of the
table. Then I reach behind me, slide the dime off the table and into my hand, and quickly shove it
into my pocket.
Instead of going out to the phone, though, I sit down on the bed and think about class
yesterday. The way Id just stood there. Stared, until even the background sounds of shuffling
paper, throats being cleared, had died away, and I finally had the undivided attention that I had,
until this point, failed to command. Someone had coughed then, and I had looked down, gathered
my papers, walked out of the classroom, the building, and straight to CAMH. I was afraid of the
thoughts I was having, afraid of the plans I was making. I arrived forty-five minutes later, still
clutching my lecture notes. I must have sounded pretty convincing, because they decided to
admit me. These are the days when beds are still available when you show upthe days before
all of the closures.
Part of the problem, I decide, is in my failure to generate a protective persona I can put on
for the classroom, so that its my own raw self that I present to the students, day in and day out.
Thats bad enough when things are going wellhaving all those pairs of eyes looking directly at
me, all those ears listening only to me (mostly to me, anyway). But its deadly when Im not
feeling well, when my body is turned inside out and all of my organs are dangling there, bloody
and immediate, so that a frown or a yawn can become a painful rasp drawn across all that
exposed nerve. I feel at those times a visceral vulnerability; each look or fidget or doodle hits me
like a blunt blow. As the semester wore on, I found my footsteps slowing as I approached the
classroom. Sometimes I would even duck into the bathroom before I went to meet my students,
and sit on the toilet, holding my head in my hands and listening to myself breathe. The questions
that I couldnt answer, or that Id promised to answer and then never pursued, piled up around

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me. I begin to wonder if this semester theyll have the students fill out my course survey. How
many weeks do you have to stand in front of them before theyre qualified to evaluate your
performance? These things really matter to someone who, like me, doesnt have tenure yet. Like
almost everyone else in my situation, Im more worried about the survey scores than what the
students really think; its the scores, not the students, that matter when youre still probationary.
I look again over at the nursing station. They may stay behind the glass most of the time,
but they know who I amIve already been processed and placed; intake forms have been filled
in, perused, and filed. Several personal histories are already jockeying with one anotherone
taken by the intake person last night, another by the attending resident, yet another when I
arrived on the unit. There will already be a long series of updates entered into my file as part of
the long, ragged narration of my stay.
20:15, patient presented to admissions, reporting suicidal ideation. Affect subdued.
Oriented to surroundings, communicative, insight. eye contact. Appeared somewhat
disheveled, jeans dirty.
22:00: Pt. transferred to 9th floor unit. Denies impulse to self-harm. Close observation
(15m intervals) x 24 hrs. Belongings inventoriedwallet, watch, $22 and 61 deposited with
security.
Labs: Bili =1.6, cholesterol =115, normal TSH, RPR , ESR =5, ANA.
Recommendation upon admission: Hygiene: bath/shower unsupervised; Clothing: own;
Movement: full range of unit; Sleep: hands and head visible; Environmental restrictions:
belts/cords, sharps; Visitors: discretion of Team; Staff Direction: close observation x 15 m
intervals.
01:15: pt. appears to be sleeping. Respiration noted.

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02:25: pt sleeping. Respiration noted.
04:00: pt. sleeping.
07:30 pt. responded to writers wake-up call. Affect subdued. Writer introduced self as
pts primary nurse. pt. communicative. Somewhat disheveled, dirty jeans. Breakfast intake
minimal. Writer observed pt. interacting after breakfast with other pts., esp. in smoking room.
10:30: Therapist note: pt. was non-participatory in group therapyappeared distracted
affect.
This running commentary will continue throughout the days and nights of my stay. It has
its own specialized language, codes, and symbols, its own narrative conventions, its own set of
tropes and stock phrases. It is designed, like all specialized languages, to communicate the
greatest amount of information with the least amount of effort. Nuances may at times have to be
sacrificed, however, and details need to be generalizable.
The only thing they probably wont know yet is the plan. How theyre going to help me
leave. Because from the moment you step onto the floor youre on your way out, and all
individual and collective effort will bend itself toward that moment. The purpose of your stay is
to leave as soon as possible. Every free meal, every night passed, every free dose of meds, every
moment you spend taking up space in here costs the taxpayer money. And of course, they want
you to feel better. Besides, if they let you stay in too long, it will only make you regress to an
even less healthy state of mind (the deadline after which regression begins is expandable and
contractible, depending upon the nature of your condition and, I suspect, how tolerable you are).
Its possible that theres a positive correlation between how much the cost of a hospital stays is
increasing, and how pervasive the risk of regression during hospitalization is becoming. If they

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could make hospitalization in a psychiatric ward dangerous enough to your mental health, you
would realize the benefits of working the problem out some other way.
At any rate, Im here now, and Ill have to achieve some sort of mutually agreed upon
goal before they can let me out. Or perhaps it will amount to not doing anything worthy of note
for an acceptable period of time. Getting noticed is rarely a good thing in these places, because
the things that get you noticedself-harm, disruptive behavior, refusing to eatare rarely good.
You cant do too much of nothing, either, though. Sleeping all day, for example, is worthy of
notice. Sleeping all day isnt easy to pull off, thoughit takes a lot of willpower to stay in bed
against all of the effort that will be applied to making you get up. Not physical pressure, more
like a persistent, diffuse nagging that gets more and more like fingers on a chalkboard until it
becomes easier to haul yourself out of bed. This is part of what passes for therapy in here
poking you with a stick until you finally heave yourself up and do something so you can have
some peace.
What Ive been avoiding, as I sit on my bed musing, is the fact that I dont really have
anyone I can call. Well, I have people that I can callone of my acquaintances from work,
maybebut calling someone from work will just reinforce my guilt at having bailed again. I
decide in the end that Ill phone Judy, the woman who lives on the first floor of the house in
which I rent the second and third floors. She has a key to my apartment and were pretty good
friendsor we drink a lot together anywayand shes been very generous. She works
somewhere in the health care systema researcher or a secretary or something at one of the
hospitalsand shes been very sympathetic toward mychallenges. I walk up the hall to the
payphone, drop in the change, and dial Judys number. The phone rings until the answering
machine picks up.

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This is Judy. Leave a message, says the monotone voice on the other end of the line.
Oh, hey Judy, its Jennifer. Listen, Im over at the Clark on the, um, 9th floor, and I was
wondering if you could give me a call. The number here isjust a secokay, its 548-8065. I
was wondering if you could do me a favor actually. I kind of need some clothes and a bit of
cashjust something to tide me over for a couple of days. There might be some cash on the
kitchen table, beside the toaster. Or maybe on top of the TV. So, yeah, as soon as youre able,
could you call me? Wheneverwhen you can. Thanks. Its Jennifer.
I hang up the phone reluctantly. That was my only chance, and I was really hoping that
Judy would be home. But then, why would she? Its the middle of the dayshes probably at
work. Where is it that she works again? Not that it matters; I dont have another quarter to call
her at work. It leaves me with a deeply uneasy feeling, relying on an incoming call in this place.
Eventually the long, yawning afternoon and evening are over and only dim area lights
illuminate the common room. The heavily medicated have passed outmostly in bedand the
rest of the women are slouched in front of the TV, watching Law and Order. I join them, and the
evening drags on until Im the only one left in the room, except for the woman who shouted this
morning at breakfast, the stillettoed one from the smoking room. Shes standing still, leaning
forward toward the window, her forehead almost touching the scratched, shatterproof glass. Her
posture suggests an impatience that finds no escape in movement. The result feels like a warping
of the space around her, a curvature that only resolves itself with distance from the centre. I
suspect that if I get too close to this woman, Ill become trapped in some kind of singularity and
only be found much later, in pieces. I neednt worry, though, because whatever it is, it keeps me
at a natural distance. And yet I also feel unable to leave the room, partly because I find myself
waiting for permission. The woman continues to ignore me, and I begin to feel increasingly

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inappropriate, standing there. This woman and the space around her complete one another, and
its me whos the anomaly. I back away, fighting the impulse to keep her in my sights until Im
safely elsewhere. Eventually I turn around and walk quickly to my room, and then find that Im
suddenly exhausted. Theres still evidence of a roommatea rumpled bed, a few scattered
belongings on the bedside tablebut no one is there. Just as well; I want to be alone right now.
Truly alone.
23:45: pt. having difficulty falling to sleepanxiety. Imovane 7.5 mg p.o. given upon
request to aid sleep.
01:15 Appears to be sleeping. Respirations noted.
02: 30. Asleep on initial rounds. Breathing observed.
02:45: Sleeping. Breathing.
*
The next day I put on, with a little more distaste, the same clothes that I was wearing
when I came in. It may have been my idea to come in here, but Im experiencing familiar doubts.
Its just that being in here is so depressing. I havent changed my clothes in two days, and right
now even the possibility of chocolate pudding tomorrow isnt lifting my spirits. Ive learned by
now not to expect that I comes into a psychiatric unit to get well or to recover; I know that I
come in so that they can wear down, mostly through nagging and the passage of time, my
immediate impulse to do myself harm. I come in here to get stable enough to leave, which means
safe enough to be released out into the world. Sometimes, though, it feels like a struggle just to
stay as well as I was when I came in. Dealing with the unpredictability of all these jerry-rigged
people.

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A sudden noise interrupts my thoughts, and I look up to see the stilettoed woman walking
toward me. If she had seemed electric last night and in the dim smoking room, she seems
horribly, garishly out of place out full daylight. She gives off too much color, affects too much
style, she is too resoundingly there to be absorbed by these pastel surroundings. Shes younger
than I thought; the heavy make-up and self-assurance had suggested someone older, but I can see
now that shes somewhere in her twenties. To my surprise, she heads straight for me and sits
down inches away on the couch. She holds out a crumpled sheaf of paper containing long,
sloping writing on both sidesparts in black ink, parts in blue, and one part that looks like it was
written in pencil crayon.
Can you read? she asks.
Im a little taken aback by the question, and pause before I decide how to answer.
Presumably the question has something to do with the papers shes holding, and Im not sure I
want to get involved. Then again, its still a long way until lunch. But before waiting for an
answer, she thrusts the pages closer to me, leans back into the couch, and crosses her legs. I take
the papers, and look over at her. This would be the moment, I think, when she would pull a
cigarette out of her case, give it a few staccato taps, and lean over for me to light it. There would
be a hint of cleavage and the suggestion of musk. Then she would lean back and blow the smoke
up in the air. Violently. Perfectly. The whole thing would be in black and white, shadows
overtaking light, the promise of danger and seduction. But instead, she just looks over absently in
the direction of the nursing station.
The pages arent numbered, and I try at first to arrange them in some kind of order by
matching partial sentences at the bottom of one page with partial sentences at the top of another.
Its impossible, though; nothing lines up, and after a minute or so I give up and just start reading.

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Theres no real narrativeits more like a collection of observations about a world that isnt
exactly this one. Sometimes it seems like a jumble of verbs, adjectives, and nouns, loosened
from the constraints of grammar. The overall effect is powerfully evocative, although if asked, I
wouldnt be able to say precisely what was evoked. Some of the sentences, or phrases within
sentences, are beautiful, but they have no object and no direction. Still, I find myself caught up in
the flow of it; every word, having no purpose, becomes fully itselfnot a promise, but the
realization of a promise. This is how one does justice to language, I think. But what can I say? I
cast my mind about, trying to think of a responseclearly the woman is waiting for one.
Its veryexpressive, I say finally.
Thats good, right? she says, uncrossing her legs and leaning forward. Ive decided to
become a writer. I woke up this morning and it just struck me right out of the blue. Evangelina,
I said to myself, you have got to get this stuff down. The world deserves to have this.
Im not sure what the world deserves, but something about the way she writes captivates
me, takes me out of myself and back to a time when the written word still had the power to
elevate my spirit. I cradle the pages in my hands, afraid that theyll break apart or rearrange
themselves. I suppress the urge to take these pages away and keep them for myself, not to have
but to protect.
Yes, well, I think theyreitsvery good.
She nods, as if expecting nothing less than approval, and reaches out to take the papers. I
pause before handing them over and for a moment were both holding on. Only reluctantly do I
let go. I want these words to be mine, I want to have brought something like this into the world.
Untrained, lacking anything approaching writerly discipline, and apparently without method or

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effort, she has managed to put words together in a manner that realizes their potential. I want to
express this to her somehow, but shes already up and heading toward the hallway.
Thanks, she calls over her shoulder as she pushes open the door to the smoking room. I
feel dismissed, and like Ive missed the chance to participate in something larger than myself.
Im supposed to be a literary scholar, after all; I ought to have been able to say something
halfway intelligent to her. This failure winds itself around my already keen sense of not having
lived up to some bright future I had once imagined for myself, and Im overcome with
despondency. I sit on the couch for a long time, alternately running through my deficiencies and
berating myself for indulging in self-pity. I barely notice the call for lunch and eat my food
without tasting it, careful to avoid any potential contact with Evangelina. I neednt worry,
though; shes busy at another table loudly declaring her intention to become an actress.
After lunch, I sit back on the couch and watch the nurses bustle around the station. A
movement at the elevator catches my eye, and I glance over. To my surprise, I see Judy getting
off the elevator carrying a large backpack. My heart starts to beat a little faster with the
excitement of having a visitor and the embarrassment of having a visitor in here. As I walk
toward the door, a nurse buzzes Joan in and then comes out of the station.
Shes mine, I say. I mean, shes here to visit me.
Okay Jennifer, thats fine. Lets just go into your room while I check through this
knapsack. Joan has already handed over the knapsack, and all three of us walk single file into
my room. The nurse puts the backpack on the bed, rummages quickly through it, and then smiles
at Judy and returns to the nursing station.
I brought you a few pairs of underwear and socks, a pair of jeans, and a couple of teeshirts and a sweater. Hope thats okay, Judy says. She sounds almost offhand, and I appreciate

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the effort. Since Judys opened up this possibility of ignoring the situation, I elect not to get into
the issue of where I am and why.
Oh, thanks Judy. Its really great of you to do this, I say.
No problemreally. I just stopped into your apartment this morning and brought the
knapsack to work. Im on my lunch break right now.
Toronto General? The Western? Sinai? I try to remember at which one Judy works. It
could be any of the hospitals on hospital row.
Oh yeah, Judy says, pointing at the backpack. I also brought you some magazines and
a book that was lying on your coffee table.
I reach in and pull out Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes, the book I was teaching when I fell
apart. Frankly, I never want to see it again. I only taught it because I have a crush on the main
characterthe enigmatic, elusive, seductively tragic Robin Votebut it proved almost
impossible to teach. The students became confused and then frustrated with its densely packed
narrative, and declared themselves unable to identify with any of the characters or their
predicaments. I had been forced constantly to offer clarifying plot summaries, so that the fateful
fall of Robin and the painalmost unbearable to witnesssuffered by her lover, Nora, got reduced
to an endless stream of and then, and then, and then. I insisted that it wasnt what happened to
Robin that matteredit was how Robin happened to the other characters. At any rate, I have
vowed never to subject Robin to such abuse ever again. They say never to teach what you love; I
supposes that must extend to teaching who you love.
Thanks, thats great, I reply.
Im keenly aware that Judy hasnt given me any money, but I dont feel comfortable
asking. I make a quick mental calculation of how long my cigarettes will last. If I only smoke

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one every three hours, they should last until tomorrow; maybe Ill know Marsha well enough by
then to bum one or two.
I stand up along with Judy. I wish she could stay a bit longer, chip off another small piece
of the endless afternoon. She walks toward the door and then stops and turns around. She takes
her wallet out of her pocket and pulls out a couple of twenties.
I forgotheres forty bucks in case you need anything. Will that be enough? I couldnt
find any money in your apartment, and this is all I have on me right now.
My eyes fill with tears. I look to one side and take the money.
Thanks, Joanreally, thanks a lot. Joan smiles and then waves at the nurse to buzz her
out.
Ill see you soon, she says. Its not clear whether she means when she next visits, or
when I get out.
Yeah, see you soon.
As Joan disappears into the elevator, I half turn around toward the people who are sitting
on the couch watching TV. I look over at them as I fold the twenty dollar bills and put them in
my pocket. She came, my look says.
*
The days stretch into one another, each more or less the same as the last, punctuated
occasionally by flamboyant outbursts, clashes of will, violent breaks with realitythe theatre of
the crazy. Ive never seen my roommate, and Im beginning to think that they simply never
bothered to make the bed after the previous occupant left. At any rate, calls have been made,
consultations have taken place, privileges granted (and taken away once, briefly, on account of a
minor over-indulgence in alcohol with Marsha at a nearby pub). And then one day into my third

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week, for reasons that remain a little obscure to me, Im told Im ready to leave. They make the
usual rote gesture of directing me toward community resources, access to which usually requires
being on a waiting list for anything from six months to two years. Some of the organizations
have actually stopped putting people on waiting liststhere are just too many people. This
means that you have to wait to get on the waiting list. It might be worthwhile, thoughmaybe
my name will reach the top of the list around the same time as my next breakdown. Ive done
okay during this admissionnot one of those star patients who breezes out after the seventy-two
hour observation period is over, but not one of those lingerers eithermoping around, incurable,
for months at a time.
For weeks, I know, Ill be pushing 9 in every elevator that I enter, forgetting that Im
going somewhere other than here. Im feeling that familiar combination of anticipation and
nervousness that accompanies every leave-taking, and decide that one last cigarette is in order.
No ones in the smoking room but the woman with the scars on her face. I never learned her
name, and weve never actually exchanged more than a few words. We live on opposite sides of
the unit, and even here location counts for a lot. I dont avoid looking at her now; her scarred
face has become familiar, usual. I can look at it and not see it, or if I see it, not think to deeply
about it. And so Im lost in thought, working on an exit plan, when the woman suddenly jerks
her head up, looks directly at me and says, Can I trust you?
It takes a moment for me to realize Im being addressed, and then to process what the
woman has said; when I do, I begin to feel the stiffening of tension in my muscles.
Unconsciously I shift my position to accommodate it, straightening my back against the wall,
uncrossing my legs and placing my feet flat on the floor. Its unlikely that the question has to do
with this womans desire to get something off her chesttheres group and one-on-ones for that.

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More likely it spells the kind of trouble or disclosure that I want to avoid, especially now that
Im almost out the door. Besides, even if it is simply yet another revelation of abuse or
transgression, my head is already elsewhere, already amongst the many who get up, make
themselves breakfast, and get on with their dayswhich turn out shitty or well or in between.
That depends, I say. I wait for a response, but instead the woman swivels her cigarette
around and begins to raise it toward her face with slow deliberation. By the time Ive aligned my
perceptions with the actual situation, the cigarette is already poised a couple of centimeters away
from the centre of her right eye. I know I need to do something, but for a brief moment I remain
suspended. If I intervene, then I break the unspoken bond between residents that is forged in the
collective agreement to overlook acts of insubordination, and sometimes to participate in them.
You and someone else sneak a conspiratorial cigarette in your room, even though the smoking
room is a few feet away; you tuck the stupefying night meds under your tongue and then shove
them, soggy and crumbling, into your pocket to take or throw out later; if youre allowed out,
you down a few beers with someone, coming back slightly drunk and with the warm feeling of
having abused your privileges. But this is not one of those small acts of rebellion or selfassertion; this crosses a very clear line and thrusts me into the uncomfortable situation of having
to take on the role of a staff member.
I cant allow you to do that, I say finally, retrieving a worn out phrase Ive heard during
countless staff interventions.
I thought I could trust you, the woman replies, the cigarette poised in front of her eye.
Trust me to do what? I wonder. What have I been entrusted to do? To watch? To leave
and do nothing? Doing nothing should be easyIve been practicing it for weeks, months. But
something must be done here. I move toward the woman to grab the cigarette and find myself

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heading for the door instead. The nursing station is directly across the hall, and I do what in most
circumstances is unforgivableI walk over and bang repeatedly on the window. Three heads
turn impossibly slowly in my direction, and then one of the nurses gets out of her chair and
walks over, opening the door and leaning her head out just enough to fulfill her duty while at the
same time reminding me that my interruption is unwelcome.
Theres a woman in the smoking room holding a cigarette in front of her face, I say.
Coming out that way it sounds misleadingly benign, and I hope that some prior context will lend
the situation its urgencythat they will recall who this woman is and realize what shes
preparing to do. This appears to be the case, because the nurse abruptly opens the station door
wide and takes two swift, practiced steps toward the smoking room door. Before I can even turn
around, the nurse is through the door and has closed it behind her. Im left standing lamely in the
middle of the hall, staring in the direction of the smoking room, residual adrenaline useless now.
Im not a hero after alljust the messenger.
*
I feel my legs pump, straight out and then back underneath me. When my body leans back, I can
see clear, blue sky above me. When it leans forward, I watch as the sand at the foot of the huge
iron swing-set appears and disappears. I swing higher and higherso high that the chain Im
holding onto slackens at the top of my swing, and it seems, for that moment when Im
suspended, motionless, as though I might fall down onto the crossbar. At the height of my
backswing I can see over the trees that ring the south end of the schoolyard and all the way to the
street on the other side. I continue on like thisup and down, back and forth, until, on one of my
forward swings, I feel the muscles in my arms tense andterrified, exhilaratedI feel my hands

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let go of the chains as my body arcs, feet first, through the air. My feet have barely touched the
ground when I roll onto my shoulder, then around and up onto my feet.
My gaze sweeps across the school ground. No ones here. I climb up to the top of the
slide, grab the handles on either side, and ease down onto the hot metal until Im lying flat on my
back, arms stretched out, my hands gripping the handles the only thing keeping me from sliding
down. The sun has baked the slide burner-hot, and I have on only shorts and a t-shirt, and no
shoes. I wish I could let go, but at the same time I find that the pain focuses my mind in a
satisfying way. The longer I hang there, the more subjective time becomes, until its passing is
measured only by the level of my increasing discomfort. Eventually I feel my hands start to slip,
until Im hanging on with just the ends of my fingers, and then it isnt long before my fingers
slide off the handles altogether. I fall down the rest of the slide on my back, overcome by
frustration and relief.
When I sit up and my eyes drop to my upturned hands, I can see that the skin around the
calluses which fan across the top of my palm are bright red, and the calluses themselves have
been pinched into small, white ridges. I pass the thumb of my left hand across the ridges on the
palm of my right hand, and then climbs back up the ladder, sit down, and repeats the ritual over
again. I do this six more times; by the third time, as I wait for my hands to release, I can feel
tears sliding down the sides of my face and joining the salt sweat that dampens the hair at my
temple. The pain is intense, and the intensity has a purging effect, overriding and dispersing my
thoughts. In the middle of the eighth try, I hear the sound of childrens voices off in the distance.
My head cranes around, but the sound is almost directly behind me and I cant see who or where
its coming from. I feel panic at the thought of them finding me hanging here. The logical thing
would be to let go, but instead my feet try frantically to push my body back up the slide, at the

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same time that my biceps strain to pull my body up. The slide is slippery, and my feet have
trouble getting any purchase. I feel tight anxiety building in my chest, but still my hands dont
release and let me slide down. Im still there, struggling to pull myself up, when the voices fade
away into the distance.
*
Im still standing in the hallway when it dawns on me: the other scars on that womans
face never represented acts complete in themselves; they were rehearsals, and her face is a lurid
map charting a losing battle between her mind and her will. What is it, I wonder, that this woman
doesnt want to see? But then, maybe the act is not so straightforward; maybe its not what she
doesnt want to see, its what she wants to say. Maybe its her voice that she believes has been
lost or stolen from her. Maybe its language that shes renounced, choosing to put her trust in the
body and a primitive form of expression that retains its force precisely because it comes from
something primal, atavistic. So much is lost, though, in the translation. In here, this kind of
acting outwhich is so often an acting out on the bodyis a sure-fire way to get oneself
reduced to a problem that will be managed in one of two ways: either theyll snow you with
drugs, or theyll put you in four point restraints. Nobody here is going to sit down and try to
figure out the symbolic import of a gesture like that. Here the thing is to get the job done and
keep everyone as safe as possiblewhether the individual in question welcomes it or not.
I look around, but theres no one in sight. There must be a group on. The nurse and the
cigarette woman are still in the smoking room, and the rest of the staff remains in the nursing
station. To the residents on the floor Im already gone. The social body shapes and reshapes itself
constantly in here; its in the nature of the organism to accept the loss of one individual and the
addition of another. This is its strength; it may be filled with maladapted people, but it is itself

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exceptionally adaptable. I look once more around the floor with its faded walls and shabby
furniture, and then go back to my room to pick up my knapsack. My bed is made, and so is the
bed of the roommate I never met. Strange. I return to the door and wait to catch the eye of
someone who will buzz me out. I open the door at the sound of the click, take the elevator to the
first floor, and walk out into the street.
13:00 hrs: Affect brighter upon discharge. Pt stated she required prescription. Wallet,
1 black set of headphones, 1 receipt for $22. 61, receipt #05906. accompaniment upon
departure.

TorontoJune, 2001
I remember the exact day when my diagnosis split in half. Im sitting at my desk, reading
an article. I blink, and blink again, staring down at the page. Each word seems to vibrate, and
together they trace a jumpy, ragged line that I stare at, lacking comprehension but absorbed
nonetheless. In the margins, the apparently smooth texture of the page seems to break up into
tiny mounds and craters that reveal roughness and irregularity. Its disturbing, how things look
up close. They dont look anything like themselves. I can feel the recently cut hairs on the back
of my neck pushing against my shirt collar, and I turn my head back and forth to feel the
sensation of them catching on the material. I dont have to look to know that, like the words,
each hair is unique and complete. I shift my position in the chair slightly and feel my jeans catch
me slightly in the crotch. Its not an unpleasant feeling, but it could become that way if I allowed
myself to think too much about it. I look down at my hand holding the pencil. The pencil is
shaking, and I put it down with deliberate care. I cant tolerate being stillnot with this parade
of sensations, and I push the chair away from the table violently and stand up.

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Im scheduled to see my psychiatrist the next day. In the office, I cant sit still, and then I
cant sit at all. I get up and walk over to the filing cabinet standing in the corner, lean on it, then
push myself off and retreat to a bookcase against the back wall.
People are so slow, I say, exasperated. They talk too slowly, they move too slowly,
they think too slowly. Its maddening. Makes my head feel like its going to pop off.
How long have you felt like this? my doctor asks.
Felt like what? I ask.
Have you been eating? my doctor asks.
I jiggle my foot and watch the laces on my sneaker bounce up and down. Now that
someones asked, I find I cant think of the last time I had breakfast or lunch, or finished the food
on my dinner plate. I hitch up my pants, walk over to the window, and begin humming a song
thats stuck in my head.
Jennifer, try to listenthis is important. Have you ever felt like this before? Her words
are measured and slow.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to think, but a hundred interfering thoughts jostle for
attention.
Like this? No, never exactly like this, I reply. I cant really put my finger on the nature
of the thing right now. Its itself. Or its different, thats all. Better.
Despite the cool of my doctors air-conditioned office, Im sweating. I let the sweat bead
above my upper lip, and feel it trickle down the small of my back. I cross and then uncross my
legs, lean forward, and squint until the top half of everything disappears.
Im concerned about you right now, Jennifer, my doctor says.
Why? I ask. I feel good. Really good.

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I understand that, but I still think we need to address this, my doctor says. Probably
adjust your medication.
Why are you always throwing pills and pills and more pills at me? I ask in frustration.
Why do you want to take this away? I ask.
Youre manic, my doctor says.
Im happy, I say.

Dr. Macintosh is a neat man. His desk is neat, his clothes are neat, his hair is neat.
Everything about him projects the image of a man in control, rudder firmly grasped in his wellmanicured hand. I show up at his office wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and flip-flops. The t-shirt has a
picture of a car engine on it, and says Auto Shop: Where Careers Begin. His door is open when
I arrive, and he smiles and gestures me inside toward a chair beside his desk. A single, orange
file folder sits open in front of him, with a couple of sheaves of lined paper on one side, blank
except for my name at the top. Stapled to the other side of the folder is the referral letter that my
doctor wrote. Written at the bottom of the Notes section of the referral is ? Bipolar II.
I sit down, cross my legs, then uncross them and place my feet flat on the floor. He hasnt
taken his eyes off of me.
Hello Jennifer. I guess you know that I run the mood disorder Unit at CAMH and that I
specialize in bipolar disorders. Im going to take your history today and see what might be going
on with your mood. I want to insist that nothings going on, but the circumstances seem to tilt
toward me being on the wrong side of ok, and so I nod and say nothing.

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Right, he says. Lets get started.
He beings with a thorough medical history, and then moves onto my family. Does
anyone in you family suffer from a mood disorder? He asks.
No, I reply, then pause for a moment. Well, maybe my father suffered from
depression, I say. Undiagnosed, I add.
Mmm-hmmm. Anyone else?
I sift through my memory for signs of some other family pathology. No. My answer is
less tentative than I feel. Am I missing something or someone? How would I know, given my
familys historical embargo on expressing emotions.
Okay. Lets talk about you. Have you ever undergone periods of depressiona change
in appetite, sleep disruption, low energy, suicidal thoughts, feelings of hopelessness?
I think about the referral letter that my doctor wrote, complete with a summation of every
admission that Ive ever had for depression. Yes.
How many times?
Multitudes. He smiles.
Can you think of times when youve felt unusually up? When youve felt a sense of
euphoria, as though you could do anything?
Um, not really.
How about periods when you feel speeded up? Where you feel pressure to speak,
engage in impulsive behavior, spending sprees, have a reduced need for sleep, engage in
unusually intense periods of substance abuse?
No. Maybe. I suppose.
Can you describe those periods?

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I think about all of the times that colors have been too bright, too intense, about the times
when people seem as though theyre moving through molasses. How I sometimes feel as if Im
going to jump out of my skin if the world doesnt hurry up. I think about binges, and strings of
one night stands with strangers. I think about that time with Sue and Neal. The three of us were
supposed to rent a movie and watch it at Sues place because she had a bigger TV. Normally this
wouldnt bother me at all, but on that day it pissed me off. The smallness of my TV irritated like
a hangnail, and the fact that the situation was so easily remedied was too tempting. I threw on a
jacket, swung open the door, and propelled myself down the stairs two steps at a time. There are
lots of electronics stores on Yonge Street, I thoughtthis will be no problem. There was the
issue of not having a car, but Id be able to work around that. I thought about taking the subway
theremoney was pretty tightbut the subway seemed impossibly slow, so I walked down to
Gerrard and hailed a taxi. Every stoplight was excruciating, and I said Fuck! under my breath
every time the driver missed a green lightwhat was his problem, anyway? I couldve got there
faster by foot, for Christs sake. Arent these lights set up to turn green at the appropriate
intervals if youre going the right speed? I started counting the seconds between the lights and
trying to correlate the intervals with the correct speed, but that got messed up by corners and
traffic. For a moment I considered taking over the wheelbut by that time we were almost at
Yonge and Gerrard, where the greatest concentration of electronics stores was.
Okay, stop right here, I said as we turned onto Yonge Street. Just wait right hereI
have to go and buy something.
Maam, I cant stop here, the car will be blocking the right lane, and theres no standing
here, the driver says.

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Heres some moneyjust wait here, okay? Or fuck, whatever. I tossed a bunch of
twenties at him and got out.
Yes Maam. I may drive around the block a few times, but Ill come back.
I strode into the closest store and walked directly toward the first person I saw.
Whats your biggest TV? I said.
Sorry, I dont work here, said the man Id addressed.
Well who does, then?
He looked at me, annoyed, and pointed to a skinny, pimply guy behind the counter. Im
guessing that guy works here, he said dryly. I walked over to the counter.
Whats your biggest TV? I asked again.
Is there a particular brand that youre looking for? the guy said.
Yeah, the biggest brand, I said, tapping my thumb on the counter.
Well, our biggest television is the Sony over therethirty-two inches.
Ill take it.
Would you like to see the picture?
Ill take it, okay? Im sure its fine.
The man looked at me warily. How would you like to pay for it? Pay for it. That was
an interesting question.
Do you take checks? I was pretty sure I couldnt cover it, but Id worry about that later.
Uh, sureokay.
I wrote out the check, my hands shaking, and felt elation replacing the anxiety and
irritation of a moment ago.
Would you like me to help you load it into your car?

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Nojust take it out of the box and put it out on the sidewalk. He looked at me warily
again, then decanted the TV and took it out to the sidewalk. The sidewalk was filled with a
stream of people that parted as it approached the TV and then reunited on the other side. I sat on
the TV, tapping my foot, willing the driver to round the corner again.
*
My mind returns to the present, and I look up to find Dr. Macintosh looking back at me
with an expectant air.
Well, there are times when I feel impatient and irritablewhen things move too slowly.
And I guess Im sometimes impulsive, but that seems more like a personality thing.
He smiles again. How about when you were a child, or a teenager?
I recall all of the times that I lost it and was sent to my room. I think about throwing
things, slamming doorsonce so hard that my mirror fell off of the floor and shattered. I
remember the dread I felt at anticipating seven years of bad luck. Do temper tantrums count?
Sure.
And then, as a youthall that pot and booze. To deal with what? The disorienting roller
coaster ride of teenage hormones, or an incipient illness?
Were there times when you felt low or sad?
I think about lying on my bed as a child, suffused with melancholy, singing Where is
Love? from the musical Oliver. I think about the time out west with my parents when I didnt
speak for the better part of two weeks. Standing beside Tim Barclays pool table at eighteen and
wishing, for the first time, that I was dead. How I crushed the feeling until it was so small that I
could ignore it.
I suppose so, yes. I was adifficult child. A difficult teenager.

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Difficult in what way?
Well, moody, I guess. Sort of out of control. But only at home, you know? At school I
was a model student. Until grade nine, anyway, when I began a binge of backtalk, couldnt
seem to keep my mouth shut during class. Id stand in the hallway after having been kicked out
of class again and vow to myself that I would stop, but it always started up again as soon as I was
let back in.
More questions, more reflections on my past. As I talk, a surprising and unfamiliar
portrait of an erratic, unpredictable individual begins to take shape. I wonderdid we make this
thing up together, just now? Is this me, or is this a creation formed out of leading questions and
my desire not to leave here having failed, somehow, to live up to expectations?
After the questions end, he pulls out a tape recorder. He turns it on, and without once
looking at his notes, he summarizes, in exacting detail, the information that Ive provided. Im
astonished at his recall, wish that I could pull the same thing off in lecture, instead of always
having to refer to the scrupulously detailed notes that I set in front of me. Imagine being freed
utterly from those notesfree to detach myself from the lectern, walk around the room. But my
memorys always been poor, and no matter how many times I go over my notes beforehand, I
remain frustratingly tied to them during class. I look up and realize that the doctor has stopped
talking and is looking at me.
Yes? I say.
I was just saying that I think I have enough information to make a fairly accurate
assessment. I think you suffer from a bipolar II disorder, Jennifer.
He launches into an explanation about the difference between bipolar I and II, but Im
barely listening. I did my research before I came, and have a pretty good bead on it. Bipolar II.

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Rapid cycling between up and down that makes ones moods maddeningly unpredictable.
Bipolar II. The less visible sibling to the classic bipolar I that makes it onto TV and into the
newspapers, where one sees depictions of people having splashy breakdowns that involve
breaking big laws and violating widely accepted codes of decency. Bipolar IInotoriously hard
to diagnose and even harder to treatrequiring a delicately balanced interaction between half a
dozen drugs: anti-depressants, a couple of mood stabilizers, a minor tranquillizer, and a pinch of
anti-psychotic, the last one more as a warning shot than anything else. Bipolar II. With the more
demure hypomaniathe same racing thoughts, impulsiveness, poor judgment, poor reality
testing, only less. Bipolar lite. The manias arent nearly as intense, but the depressions are just as
bad. It hardly seems fair.
I leave the office with mixed feelings. Part of me experiences satisfaction at having met
the criteria for something a bit jazzier than your bog standard person suffering who suffers from
clinical depressions. Depression isnt an identity, depression is something you have, not
something you are. People still conflate depression with being down, dont take it seriously.
Bipolar disorder, on the other hand, makes heads turn, sets you apart. Another part of me feels
summed up, packaged, as though a path has been carved out that not only redefines my past, but
lays down my future. From this point on anything out of the ordinary that I do, or feel, or think is
not merely a potential symptomits an expression of my difference. I cant decide how I feel
about that.
*
My new diagnosis comes two years after a major transformation in my personal life,
when I began living with Kathleen. Unlike some of my other girlfriends, Kathleen has shown the
rare ability to take me entirely as I am without either pathologizing my illness or taking on a co-

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dependent role as caretaker. Shes smart, funny, and just quirky enough to be interesting. Softspoken and with a delightfully understated sense of irony. We have our rocky moments, usually
brought on by my more extreme moods, but the recovery is quick and there are no lingering
resentments slowly accumulating into a relationship-destroying crisis. At first my psychiatrist
was wary of me getting involved with her, given the fact that her longest relationship before me
had been three months. But I was hooked from the start, and more than prepared to take my
chances. By now I feel certain that I was right to take the risk. This time it feels solid and right,
and unlike all of my previous relationships, we talk long term. The kind of long term that leads to
mortgages and shared bank accounts. We wear identical rings on the fourth fingers of our left
hands, and I enjoy the satisfying clink that mine makes when I grab hold of the metal bar on the
subway. Im with someone, it reminds me. Really with someone this time.
The thing is, Ive been drinking far too much. Sometimes, in the fog of a hangover, I
think I remember doing some other stuff, but its difficult to say exactly what or when.
Sometimes I feel this craving in my body that I would satisfy if I knew how, if I knew what to
offer. So, despite the fact that Ive never managed more than an occasional appreciation of how
substance abuse might be a bad idea for someone with a mood disorder, I have allowed my
doctor to convince me that this substance problem needs to be outsourced. These are the days of
time-limited, disorder-specific fund allocation, of surgical strikes that target a person one
damaged piece at a time. So I agree, and thus ensues a series of calls and faxes, followed by a
hastily and not very honestly filled out questionnaire, and then I come home one day to a
message left on my machine from some one at CAMH in a manner that allows for total
deniability if Im doing this on the QT. I call back and an appointment is made, and Im off to
cure my drunkenness through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

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Unfortunately, substance abuse isnt my only problem right now. Ive been having those
dissociative episodesa lot. Someone will say something, or look a certain way, or hit on some
phrase or intonation that unlocks my grip on the present, and off I go. Maybe for a minute
maybe for forty. Thats okay in my psychiatrists office, where these episodes can play out, can
be discussed and mulled over in the context of a larger picture that has been unfolding, in fits and
starts, over years of therapy. If I sometimes leave in a state of neither here nor there, and if Im
not always sure at those times where Im supposed to be or exactly how to get there, at least my
doctor has known me long enough to judge just how far out of it I can be and still remain safe.
For a while, the addictions therapy seems to go well. I roll off the relevant parts of my
autobiography with practiced ease, emphasizing those parts that make me sound appropriately
addicted without making me sound like a loser. I try to be co-operative, engaged, charming. I
focus on the narrow issueshow to avoid getting into situations not conducive to sobriety, how
to be mindful, how to increase my awareness, how to sit with unpleasant feelings. I even
read Full Catastrophe Living and start to meditate. I buy a meditation bench that has legs that
fold under for easy transport. I listen to meditation gongs and sit for forty-five minutes a day, my
knees aching on account of the unfamiliar, unvarying position. Initially, I try meditating in the
morning because that seems to be the norm, but I find that, even with the pain and the effort to sit
upright, I manage to fall asleep. I start to feel my head bob and then my torso sway, and I wake
up an hour later, having done nothing but take a vertical nap. When I switch to evenings it goes
better, but after a couple of weeks, I find myself more inclined to watch television than meditate,
and the bench gets consigned to a corner of the room behind a chair.
Still, the therapy sessions go okayor theyre uneventful, anyway. Its okay to be
depressed here because a depressed person is pretty manageable in most therapeutic contexts.

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The problem arises when I feel myself starting to dissociate, because its not appropriate to
dissociate in this particular office. The problem boils down to compartments, and my failure to
occupy them appropriately. Its a spatial problem, reallycaused by clumsy attempts to map the
urban and institutional geography onto complex psychic terrains. One damaged part can end up
being an entire subway ride away from another, so that I find my sick self stretched across the
city. I undertake an effort to leave different parts of myself in other peoples trustone part per
therapist. I know that if I dont do this, if I fail to leave a sick part where it belongsif it sticks
to me, sneaks out of offices in pockets or in the way I movemy preoccupation or distress will
distort and torque, so that the wrong parts get magnified at the wrong time, and the right parts
become invisible. When this happens, I find that my misplaced distress begins to cleave me and
the space around me along the wrong lines.
I go on for a while trying to be only one problem to the addictions therapist. In her office,
I try not to talk, think, feel, or be certain ways. I try to anticipate avenues through which a
seemingly harmless topic, phrase, or word might trigger inconvenient thoughts, feelings, or states
of being. But I find myself thwarted by an annoying tendency to bring my whole self
everywhere. Arriving entire in this context can become a liability--it confuses the boundaries and
issues start to bleed into one another.
It starts with a single sentence: Jennifer, where did you go?
Well, it starts before that, with the discussion of matters only loosely related to alcohol,
matters too close to the bone, too deeply settled into the twist that so often makes me face the
world the wrong way round. But the immediate trouble can be traced back to that sentence, and
the willingness it expresses to follow me wherever I have gone, to pursue whatever has left my
head leaning forward and cocked to one side, my eyes staring at nothing. This type of kindness--

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here, where its not officially required--is more than I can tolerate. And so my head begins to
tingle in that familiar place, and this degenerates rapidly into a contortion that bends my head
further to the side, curls my body in on itself. Then comes the mental struggle between now and
then, and a white explosion in my mind that envelops me in a painful, absorbing dissonance,
making my body arched and rigid. Elsewhere, in the other office, the primary, long-term therapy
office, this episode, this whatever, can be waited outhas been waited out many, many times.
But Im not there right now; Ive let the wrong condition loose in the wrong office. Here its just
about the substancesits about the imparting of strategies, not the excavation of ones past.
What is an event in the other office is becoming an incident in this one.
The next thing I know, Im under the desk with the fingers of each hand wrapped tightly
around two desk legs, in an office that, having been conscripted into a drama for which it is not
equipped, quickly unleashes menacing and unpredictable protocols. Then there are people
talking to me, and about me to one another. When I feel another set of fingers cup my hands and
try to pry my fingers open, I allow myself to let go of the legs, but only to scramble across the
floor on my stomach and wedge myself under a chair. I feel my breath come in sharp, wheezing
gasps, but when someone tries to reach in under there and put an oxygen mask on me, I bury my
face in my armpit and wedge myself even further under the chair. Normally it makes perfect
sense for you to give oxygen to someone whos having trouble breathing, but in this particular
instance the gesture is woefully misplaced. If the constriction of ones breathing is caused by a
turning against the self, if its my own malignant mind that is choking me, then its best to focus
on releasing the mental grip. Its not wise to apply a mask to someone who is fighting something
that, to her, is both inside and outside. It can easily be interpreted as an act of aggression.

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It ends finally with my disoriented and traumatized, but subdued, self being lifted onto a
stretcher and belted in. No one has acted wrongly, no one has acted inexpertly. The
interventions, while makeshift and misdirected, have all been perfectly reasonable. Nor is the
issue one of ill-will, lack of training, want of sincerity, or lack of effort to comprehend. The
whole debacle issues from being the wrong person in the wrong place at the wrong time.
So I stop talking. Right there in the hallway lying on the bed being wheeled to an
interview room. It wont become apparent until someone actually thinks to ask me a question-but it is exactly then that I stop talking. I discontinue the effort to say anything and initiate the
effort to say nothing. When I reach the interview room they take the belt off, but I continue to lie
unmoving on the stretcher for a long time, looking straight up at the ceiling. Other people enter
and leave again. I can hear them talking around me, but I feel like Im listening to them from
under water. While Im lying there I vow to myself, without really thinking of it as a vow, that I
will never attempt to communicate anything to anyone ever again. Im consumed by a powerful
conviction that all it does is contaminate ones intentionsmeaning strays, it desires
understanding but never achieves it; its very foundations are loss and disappointment. Its messy
and uncontrollable and dangerous, and leads to situations like this one. The safest thing is to say
nothing. The only one way to control absolutely the meaning that you make is to stop making it.
As Im being admitted to the ward, I attempt to analyze the position Ive put myself in. I
know that my refusal to speak is in one sense a shutting down brought on by an acute trauma, but
I already suspect that, although its a shutting down, its going to require a constant effort to
sustain. My response hasnt simply happened, its not as if I cant talk anymore no matter how
hard I try. That would be easy. No, Ive taken action. Im tired and injured. Im also angry,
thoughangry that again Ive been caught in another of the systems fault lines, and angry that

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Im the one who will be blamed, who has inconvenienced and misbehaved, who has trespassed
and transgressed. And so, if Im withdrawing from something, its equally true that Im
withdrawing to somewhere. In the first instance, to protect and heal; in the second instance, to
regroup, to collect myself, and to lay in for a siege. A retrenchment. This act of not talking will
be one of the most intense and directed efforts to communicate that I have ever made in my life.
Not talking has very little to do with silenceat least from the inside. A day after Im
admitted, Im starting to feel the words pile up in my head; they clamor, have less and less room
to move around. This pressure intensifies until sustaining my refusal to talk begins to require a
monumental act of will. People seem to think that Ive withdrawn into myself, but in reality I
have never been so sensitive to the people around mewhat theyre wearing, the way they
move, how they look at me, and especially every word that they say. There is temptation, for
sure, but its not in the form of those direct invitations to speak; being anticipated and therefore
fortified against, these invitations are easy to refuse. The temptation lies in the casual,
unreflective banter that slip-streams around me; it would be so easy to let myself be pulled into
it, so easy to let it release the excess pressure building up in my head. This is when I have to
keep my guard up the most intensely--when people dont expect anything from me or even
notice the difference, when my refusal to talk is no longer symbolic.
This refusal is at first very focusedit has direction and it has a destination, to the
addictions therapist sitting in an office four floors below and down the corridor to the right--but
without the presence of the person who occupies that office, it starts to lose sense of its target. I
wish shed visit so that I could be silent at her, but she seems to have decided that its best to stay
away. For her or mine, I dont know. I cant explain to the other patients that my silence
represents something. When it doesnt mean anything to the people around me, its even harder

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to believe in it. I slip only once, early in the morning on my second day when the nurse comes in
to tell me that breakfast has arrived. I raise my head, groggy from sleep and medication, and say,
What time is it? The nurse doesnt say anything about it at the time, although later she invokes
it to make the obvious point that Im capable of speaking.
My biggest problem has to do with people who call to see how Im doing. Its easy when
Kathleen comes to visit because I can cheat in any number of wayswith facial expressions,
body language, even gestures, although I suspect the gestures probably cross the line. But over
the phone, well, theres not a lot a person can do. The first time I accept a call, Im at a loss. I
dont want to be rude--or worse, invisible--but I dont want to cave in either. I decide that Ill
attempt to resolve the problem by tapping the phone every time my caller asks a yes-or-no
answer. Two for Yes, one for No.
Jen, its Sueis that you?
Tap. Tap.
Jen?
Tap. Tap.
How are you?
Nothing.
Are you okay?
Tap. Tap.
Heyis there something wrong with the phone? I keep hearing this clicking noise.
Tap.
Jen, is that you?
Tap. Tap.

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Yes?
Tap. Tap.
Um, is that two taps for Yes? The voice sounds hopeful, and I feel a gratifying sense
of progress.
Tap. Tap.
One for No?
Tap. Tap.
Okay, well, this...tapping is something, I guess. I hope you work this out, Jen. And
besides, I miss the sound of your voice. Im going to go now, ok? So, um, anywaytake care of
yourself.
Tap. Tap.
Not talking turns out to be a really crappy way of communicating.
*
The nurses make a point of talking to me several times a day; I stand, or sit stiffly,
looking at the floor. The patients mostly talk around me rather than to me, not to slight me, but
with the easy assumption that I just dont feel like saying anything at the moment. One very
bright young woman whose promising future, carefully massaged by private schools and
enrichment programs, was shattered by the onset of schizophrenia, always introduces me to her
friends and family in the following way, respectfully: This is Jennifer; shes choosing not to
speak right now. I also meet with my primary in-patient doctor once a daymeetings that
unfold in a predictable manner that always leave me feeling deflated.
Jennifer, we cant help you if you wont talk to us, my doctor says.
Silence.

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Its clear from the way you look at people that you have a great deal to say.
Silence. I wish that I could come up with a way of denying that statement, but Im caught
in the paradox.
Its also difficult for us to know whether or not youre safe to go right now unless you
let us know whats going on in your head.
This time its easy to keep silent. Like him, I struggle to understand whats going on in
my head.
Okay, Jennifer. You can go.
Silence.
In the end, it doesnt take very long for the doctors and nurses to lose interest in my
refusal to speak. After the first few meetings, when I still dont take up his invitation to speak,
my doctor sort of lets it drop. And why not? I seem to be behaving myselfI dont seem to pose
a danger to myself or othersso whats the point of pressing it? Instead, he and the staff apply
indifference to the problem. Maybe they think that by ignoring me, theyll discourage the
behavior; what they dont realize is that I couldnt care less about them. My conversation, such
as it is, takes place with someone else, somewhere other than here. The fact is, I feel as though
Im being horribly rude to everyone in here, particularly the patients. I wish I could tell them all
that its not about them or anything theyve done. No one is to blame. I want to apologize to my
friends who, when they visit, sit with me awkwardly for a while before giving up, patting me on
the shoulder and leaving.
I wait, willing myself to be patient, to persevere. I become lonelyfeel more cut off than
Ive ever felt in my life, even in my most desperate and isolated moments. And then Im just
tired. Really tired. Its been days, and I long to tell someoneanyonewhat I think or how I

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feel about just one small thing. The temperature in the room, the pattern on a shirt, a book
someones reading that Ive read too. I want to join a community againany community--but I
hate to give up on the commitment that I made to myself. It still means something to me, even if
it doesnt mean anything to anyone else, and the inevitability of having to talk again, with
nothing gained or fixed, is discouraging. I havent won anything, I havent made any kind of
point, I havent convinced anyoneincluding, and maybe especially, myself--of anything. In the
end, my doctor comes to the conclusion that this is going nowhere for anyone. My discharge
papers come through shortly after that and I leave the hospital, bitterly disappointed, having said
nothing but What time is it? for five days.

TorontoJuly, 2002
You need to go to the hospital.
I cant do that.
Why dont you sit down and tell me what youre afraid of.
Im going to leave now.
If you leave, Im going to have to call the police.
Im leaving.
Ive already backed myself up so that the doorknob is right beside my hand; now I turn,
open the door quickly, and walk out. I leave the door open behind me, stride out onto the street,
and turn into the park. I continue to walk quickly until Im well off the road and am surrounded
by sheltering trees. Only then do I slow down. If I continue to walk along this path Ill come out
at Duplex Avenue, and from there I can walk up to Lawrence. When I hit Duplex, I turn right
and walk up to Lawrence Avenue. The police will be looking for me now, but that doesnt mean

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much. I dont think theyll try very hard. As if to confirm my suspicion, a police car passes me as
I walk along Lawrence. I wait for a lull in the traffic, jog across the street, and walk into a corner
store. I need something sharp. I dont see any razor blades hanging anywhere, so I walk to the
back of the store where they sell odds and ends and school supplies. On the wall is an Exacto
knife. I pluck it off and walk quickly to the cash, paying from the loose change in my pockets.
The phrase take these quarters, youll need them echoes in my mind. I sit down on a low
concrete wall and take off my left boot. Then I place the Exacto knife, still in its plastic and
cardboard packaging, on the bottom of my boot. I put the boot back on and test how it feels to
stand. A bit uncomfortable, but not too bad.
Now that I have weapon and a warm, safe feeling inside, I start to feel guilty for walking
out on my doctor like that. I stand on the sidewalk, head tilted up and to the side, thinking hard. I
have to go back. I have to go back to the office and turn myself in. Its not fair, what I did to her,
the position I put her in. As I turn to walk back down Yonge street, another police car passes me.
My doctors door is closed, but I knock on it anyway. Normally this would be inappropriate, but
the circumstances seem exceptional. When it opens, I stands there staring at her face, not saying
anything. She steps out and closes the door behind her, keeping herself facing me the whole
time. She tries to convince me to sit in the waiting room until the police come, but I insist on
waiting for them outside. I promises to waitwhy wouldnt I when Ive just turned myself in?
Still, my doctor decides to wait with me and tells her current patient that shell be back in a
moment. I feel guilty about the other patient, having to suspend her session like that. I stand with
my weight mostly on my right foot, and smoke what I figure will be my last cigarette for a while.
At one point I look over at my doctor, whos standing a few feet away, and think, How small

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you are. Ive only ever seen her sitting down, and now that shes standing up, I realize that she
cant be much over five feet. Shes so much taller in her office.
The police take forever to come. Im finishing my second cigarette when a car finally
pulls up to the side of the road and two male officers get out. They approach me warily,
separating and flanking me. I stand still, looking straight ahead. To them Im dangerous;
someone whos a threat to themselves is only a change of heart away from being a threat to
someone else. One of them takes me lightly by the arm and guides me into the back seat. They
always say, Watch your head when they place you into the back seat; Im touched by thatits
a little piece civility in an otherwise humiliating scenario. As they drive south down along Yonge
Street, two things occupy my thoughts. The first is the question of where theyre going to take
me. Id prefer to go the womens floor at CAMH, but I know by now that these decisions are
beyond both my and my doctors control. Theyll take me where theres room. The other is the
contents of my boot. Im not sure how Im going to get it though the security procedures on the
ward, and its imperative to me that it not be discovered. It represents powerin its secrecy, in
its capacity to do harm.
I repeatedly check to make sure its still there, shifting its position so many times that the
police officer whos driving, having observed me through the rear-view window, asks me what
Im doing with my boot. My foots itchy, I say, and that, improbably, seems to satisfy him. Im
relieved to see that theyve pulled up around the side of CAMH, although I realize this doesnt
necessarily mean anythingCAMH is a clearing house now, control central from which they
farm out the depressed, the damaged, and the dangerous to locations throughout the city that
happen to have free beds.

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I dont feel at all crazy; in fact, I feel perfectly lucid and in control. Its only myself as I
imagine it through the eyes of others that seems crazy to me. In most cases, Ive learned that I
ought to take that perspective seriously at these moments. Its not an easy thing to do, because it
involves forfeiting your internal sense of yourself. You work so hard to trust your feelings, to
develop a sense of yourself that emerges from a coherent and united set of impulses and
impressions, and at moments like this I balk at adopting an alternative, ill-fitting point of view.
What I feel inside is so convincing, so right, and it seems proper and fitting that my perspective
is the one that matters.
While Im sitting in the main waiting room, I find out that I wont be staying at the Clark;
Im being sent to Sinai instead. This complicates thingsIve never been there before and that
makes my already shaky acceptance of the situation wobble. For a moment, even the knife in my
boot cant keep me feeling grounded and safe. Anxiety begins to build up in me and I know that
sooner or later its going to have to find some release in action. I try to think back over the events
of the last hour and a half and make sense of them, but the images in my mindsome pale and
dim, others exploding with intensitydont cohere. I leave off trying, sit down, and focus on the
tiny holes in the ceiling tiles above me. Once the adrenaline leaves my body, I even start to feel
something like serenity; theres nothing left but to sit and wait for someone else to decide what
to do with me. It doesnt end up taking long, in institutional time, before a couple of attendants
arrive and pile me into an ambulance. They dont turn on the sirens; this is routine.
While theyre wheeling me up to the psychiatric unit, I try to keep track of the path that
they take, but I quickly lose my bearings in the snaking corridors. When they push me through
the doors of the unit and toward the nursing station, I pass by a young man who steps back
quickly to give them room, and I feel a sudden flush of embarrassment. This isnt the way you

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want to get introduced to the people youll be living with, and it feels to me like forever before
the attendants stop talking at the front desk and wheel me out of the hallway and into a bedroom.
One of the attendants, a close-cropped blond man in his twenties, approaches me.
Okay Maam, he says, leaning just a little toward me. Here you are. Lets not have
any problems, okay?
You bet, I reply.
Im pretty sure that there is going to be a problem sometime soon, because when I think
about the Exacto knife in my boot, I feel a pleasurable anticipation. Part of me recognizes this as
a bad thing; part of me notes it with curiosity. I turn so that my back is against the wall, and
survey my room. Its like any other number of rooms like this: two beds, two small dressers, two
lockers, a bathroom. Theres evidence of a roommaterumpled sheets, some clothes hanging
partway out of the far dresser, shoes. Im disappointed by this; I was hoping to have the room to
myself so that I could operate freely. The plan that is formulating in my mind shifts slightly to
accommodate this new information, and then continues refining itself. I know that I have a very
limited amount of time before someone comes in to go through my bag and my clothesand
perhaps my boots--so I have to work fast. Im still not exactly sure what Im intending to do, but
Im pretty sure that something out of the ordinary is going to take place in the next few minutes.
The bathroom door is directly in front of me; two steps and Im inside and pulling the
door shut quickly behind me. You cant lock these doors, of course, but even if a staff member
shows up right now, theyll likely give me a couple of minutes out of courtesy before they ask
me to open the door. Even with people like me, most staff members will offer up a little bit of
discretion. With what Im about to do, I know, Im going to give away my right to the very last
shred of that. I sit down on the toilet and bend over to loosen the strings of my boots. I take the

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empty one off first, then slide my foot carefully out of the other boot and take out the package. I
throw the package into the garbage, pass the knife from my right to my left hand and then hold it
up vertically in front of me. I stare at the glint of light shining off of the slightly beveled edge of
the blade. When I cock my head to one side the glint disappears, and then I turn the handle in my
fingers until it reappears. I feel like I could do this all night. But instead I break my gaze and
plant my feet flat on the floor. Then an Oh yeah thought passes through my head and I stand
up, open the door quickly, and squirt a little bit of hand sanitizer into my palm. I rub it quickly
into my hands and shut the door again. You can never be too careful.
I sit back down on the toilet, lean over, and place my right forearm on my thigh, hand
palm up. I know this is going to hurt, and I dont look forward to that. Grimacing, one eye
squeezed shut, I draw the blade in a vertical line from the bottom of my thumb pad two inches up
my wrist. Then I place the knife point a centimeter to the left, and draw cut another cut parallel
to the first. I do this once more, again moving one centimeter to the left. By the time Im finished
with the third cut, blood is welling up from the first two cuts and running down and around to the
underside of my wrist, where it pools into droplets and falls to the floor. Then I lean my left
forearm, hand palm up, on my left thigh. As I tilt my right hand down to make the cuts, the blood
from my right wrist runs down the palm of her hand, along my index finger, and onto the blade
edge of the knife. It doesnt get any easier with this hand, but Im less afraid of failing now. I
make these cuts more quicklyaware that theyll be a little more shallow because Im left
handed. When Im finished, I survey my work. My hands and wrists are covered with blood;
unless you knew where to look it would be difficult to isolate the origin of the blood. Theres
blood on the floor, blood on my pants, blood on the toilet seat. The big toe of my right sock has

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soaked up some of the blood, making it feel squishy and wet. I throw the knife into the garbage
and sit for a moment before I stand up and open the door.
Holy shit, you scared me, says the woman that I almost run into as I exit the bathroom.
None of the lights in the room are on, so the only light coming into the room is from the hallway.
The woman takes a step back so that I have room to walk out.
Sorry, I say. I have that effect sometimes.
Sokay, the woman says, edging around me and walking across to her side of the room,
where she lies down on her bed and closes her eyes.
Blood has started to drip from the ends of my fingers but I dont move; I just stand there
facing the way. My wrists dont hurt yetits more the feel of the blood running down my hands
and the knowledge that its making a mess on the floor that distresses me. The mess makes me
anxious. Im still standing there, immobile, when a nurse turns into the room and almost knocks
into me.
Oh, excuse mesorry, the nurse says. Then she turns on the light and takes in the
scene before her. The inside of my hands are crimson, both thighs of my faded jeans have big
ovals of blood on them, and my bloody sock has left toe prints when I stepped out of the
bathroom. Without looking up at me, the nurse pushes me back into the bathroom, sits me down
on the toilet, hits the call button and wraps my wrists in towels. In about thirty seconds, another
nurse comes into the room, assesses the situation, and leaves again. Moments later she reappears
with a massive roll of bandages and a stack of gauze. The first nurse turns on the tap in the sink,
carefully unwraps the towel, grabs my arms and shoves I wrists under the water.
Aaaaaargh, I say loudly.

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The nurse withdraws my wrists and wraps them in the bandages. In the meantime, the
second nurse gets a wheelchair and guides me into it, placing my wrists on my lap and covering
them with a light blanket. Neither expresses alarm or asks me why I did it; they have to get me
off the floor as quickly as possible so that the other patients dont see what Ive done. They
might be traumatized by it, or worse, inspired. Not handled properly, this type of behavior can be
catching.
An attendant wheels me back down to emergency and directs me onto one of the beds.
Without looking at me, he pulls the hanging curtain around mefor privacy, or to prevent
contamination. Moments later, the curtain is pulled aside with a clatter of o-rings by a squat, tidy
woman with scrubs and a hair net on. She has a mask hanging underneath her chin, and shes still
smiling from some joke or pleasantry shes just heard. She stands for a moment with feet apart
and hands on her hips, surveying my shirt, my pants, the dried blood under my fingernails,
appraising the situation; then she walks over to the wall and squirts on some hand sanitizer. I say
nothing, nor does the nurse say anything to me. The only sound she makes is a murmured tst
tst, when she undoes the bandages. After she cleans my hands and re-wraps my wrists, I start to
feel sad about not being able to see my incisions, but Im reassured by the small amount of blood
that begins to seep through the bandages. I did that. I did that.
The nurse squirts more sanitizer on her hands and then leaves, and I wait there for
another fifteen minutes or so before a man in his fifties comes in and introduces himself as Dr.
Norris.
Youve made quite a mess here, he says, looking me up and down and then peering
under the bandages. He, too, doesnt ask me why I did itthats not his department. Instead, he
reaches into a drawer and pulls out a tube of what looks like epoxy.

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Super Glue, he says, noticing me looking at the tube. I bet you didnt know that it
could be used to seal wounds.
No, I say. I didnt know that. Im feeling a little sick and lightheaded now, wishing I
could lie down.
Well, let me see, he says, leaning back on his stool and looking up at the ceiling. I
think it was around 1964 that they created cyanoacrylatethats its generic name. But it was
during the Vietnam War that Super Glue really got popularizedby emergency medics who
began using it to seal battle wounds. At least long enough to give them time to transport patients
to where they could have surgery. Pretty neat, eh? Yup, this little tube of glue saved a lot of
lives. The glue that we use now for medical purposed is slightly modified to get rid of some of
the toxicity, but its essentially the same. Of course, not all wounds are appropriate for Super
Glue--the wound has to be fresh and fairly shallow, with straight edges that lie together on their
own. What we have here, he says, looking at my unbandaged wrists with satisfaction, is a
perfect candidate.
To punctuate this observation, he swabs on some iodine, then deftly squeezes two edges
together and applies some glue. Voila, he says, talking his fingers away and presenting me
with her wrist. A sealed wound. Despite my discomfort, Im impressed.
You know, he continues, Youre a smart woman. Youve made the right kind of
cutsverticalbut youve made them in the wrong place. The artery that youre looking for is a
little bit further to the right. Here--see? He rests his forefinger on my wrist a little to the right of
the first cut. Of course, its buried pretty deepyoud have to make deeper cuts than this to get
at it.

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At another, earlier time in my life, I might have been offended by this mans apparent
callousness, but not anymore. Hes not a bad guy. Hes being perfectly genial and good natured
about the whole thing. Some doctors get really mad at you for this kind of thing. Its bad enough
that they spend all their time fixing people upthat they have to wage this constant battle
against the fallibility of the human bodynow they have this person whos damaging it on
purpose and taking valuable time away from the innocent. Id like to explain to this doctor that
this wasnt actually a suicide attempt, that it was simply a necessary actthank him for the
advice, but let him know that its not needed. Im not sure why I did it, only that it was exactly
the right thing to do at the time. Something had to be done.
Okay, there we go, he says, stepping back and surveying his work. Ill let the
nurse know that your wrists are ready to be dressed.
I can no longer see any evidence of the cuts, but am reassured by the fact that theyve
really started to hurt. Theyve been tampered with, but theyre still there, and theyre mine. I sit
down in the wheelchair thats appeared and feel my wrists throb in time with my heart.
I dont get taken back to the room I was in before. Instead, they wheel me into a room
with a glassed wall facing the hallway. I get out of the wheelchair and turn toward the hallway.
Ive never been in a room like this before. Directly on the other side of the glass is a desk with a
computer monitor on it, and a young woman sitting in front of it reading a book. She looks up at
me, puts the book down on the desk, and does something with the monitor. I sit down on the
edge of the bed and look up at the ceiling. In the top corner of the wall theres a video camera.
A nurse enters the room. Okay Jennifer, before you get settled, Id like you
to come with me. She leads me to a bathroom around the corner. I dont have to be told what to
do next.

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She leaves the door slightly ajar, and I wonder if shes afraid that I might attack her; I
wonder if shes wary of breathing in the air surrounding me. She stands in front of me and to the
side and then adopts that staring-at-nothing look that Ive grown used to. I strip down to my
underwear and undershirt and hand her my clothes. She goes through my pockets and pats down
the rest of my clothes, then hands them back to me. I drop them beside me in a pile. I take my
undershirt off next and drop it onto the pile. Then I pause, looking at the floor and willing myself
to be invisible, hoping that maybe the nurse will tell me to get dressed again. She doesnt, and I
slowly take off my underwear and clutch it in a ball, my hands hanging down by my side. This is
how it feels to be truly nakedto undress one piece of clothing at a time under the scrutiny of a
complete stranger. The nurse runs her eyes quickly over my body, as if to make sure that I dont
have anything strapped to me, and then gives me a quick nod to indicate that I can get dressed. In
trying to put my clothes on too quickly, one foot gets caught in my pant leg and I have to hop
twice to keep from falling down. The nurse reaches out to steady me, and my eyes well up. Shes
not afraid to touch me.
Once were back in the room, I swing my legs up onto the bed and lean back against the
wall to wait. Soon another nurse knocks on the door and lets herself in.
Hi Jennifer, Im here for your vitals, she says. She sets down her kit and prepares to
take my temperature via my ear. The surface of my skin feels hot, and my head feels feverish,
but she makes no comment as she records the numbers in my chart.
Im sure you wont be surprised to hear that your movement is going to be more
monitored and restricted than we had planned when you came in, she says. The room youre in
is one of two observation rooms that we keep for high risk patients. Someone will be monitoring
you from that desk twenty-four hours a day, in eight hour shifts. Theyre instructed not to leave

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the desk without calling someone else to replace themeven to walk across the hall and go to
the bathroom. Theres a video camera in the cornershe points toward the ceilingthat
projects an image of the room onto the computer. This allows us to monitor those part of the
room that arent observable from the desk, and to monitor you whenever the curtain is drawn.
If you have to go to the bathroom, someone will accompany you and stand outside the
door, which will remain partially open at all times. Someone will accompany you and will stand
in the bathroom while you shower. Your meals will be brought to you, and youll eat them in
here. You wont be attending any of the groups or otherwise associating with other patients on
the ward, except when under direct supervision by a staff member.
What will I do?
Well, you can have people bring you in reading material, playing cards, some music.
Otherwise, Ill admit, yes, its going to get a little boring.
I nod and lower my eyes. That wasnt what I meant. What I meant was, What will my
life be like from now on? How will I act? How will I be in the world? Ive tried to kill myself
before, with varying degrees of resolve, but Ive never done anything like this beforejust cut
myself up for...what? I know Ive reached a new level of anti-social. But I also suspect that Im
still not appreciating it the way other people are. I get that its bad, because here I am, in this
special isolation room. But I dont feel any sense of gravity. More like a kind of animal
attentiveness. Whats going to happen next? What will I do?
It turns out that the attendant has my cigarettes and so, out of habit, I search out the
smoking room. The only difference now is that I have someone in tow who lights my cigarette
and then stands on the other side of the door while I smoke it. The other people in the room
notice, but no one says anything about it, or anything to me at all. This silence more than

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anything else so far makes me feel my isolation. Is it the usual caution around a new person, or
does the presence of the attendant make people wary of me? I smoke my cigarette in silence and
return to my room.
It takes a few days for me to get used to being monitored all the time; it makes me feel
guilty even when I havent done anything. I try to create small moments of privacyeven by
reading a magazine with my back to the camerabut too often this causes the attendant to come
into the room and check to see that Im not doing something dodgy. At the same time, something
in me luxuriates in my new accommodations. Its nice not to have a roommate, not to deal with
other peoples personalities and pathologies. Theres the matter of having someone come to the
bathroom with me, but Ive even become more or less used to that. Taking a shower in front of
someone doesnt bother me at all anymore; its different when the purpose of your undressing is
part of a normal human ritual, and not a request to expose yourself for inspection.
Sometimes I like the unique feeling of being under surveillanceit appoints me a certain
position and status, imbues me with uncommon value. Im not one of the undifferentiated mass
of malfunctioning individualstheres something even more unusual about me. The other
patients possess certain limits that Ive exceeded, and this gives me an expanded perspective that
they lack, and a kind of freedom as well. My movements may be constrained, but my mind has
broadened, and now I can see horizons that others dont consider.
*
Im standing in a dimly lit parking garage. Only a smattering of cars occupy the
otherwise empty, open space. Directly above where Im standing a bulb casts a weak circle of
light. Behind me, a trail of these light bulbs form a ragged line that recedes and then turns a
corner, ascending with the ramp up to the next level. Ahead of me is total darkness, except for

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one light about twenty feet away. In my right hand, I hold a couple of rocks about the size of
small eggs. Another two of these eggs sit in my pocket, straining my shorts at the back. I feel
long, gangly. Not quite right in my body, as if it hasnt reached where it wants to be. My left
shoulder feels sore, strained, and I have the beginning of a knot along the left side of my neck. A
slight breeze comes at me from the right, summer sweet, dispersing for a moment the hot, heavy
air around me. It smells of Nova Scotia lilacs.
I transfer one of the rocks to my left hand and stand so Im facing sideways to the light
bulb. Then I lean back on my left leg, raise up the right leg, pitcher style, and throws the rock
toward the light bulb. It misses by about three inches, and I feel a mild sensation of
disappointment. I transfer the other rock to my left hand and repeat the motion. This time the
rock hits the light bulb dead-on and it extinguishes with a little pop.
Gotcha, I say, under my breath.
I take another two stones outone from each pocketturn around, and walk twenty
paces back from the light bulb under which I had been standing. I transfer the rock to my left
hand, lean back, and heave it toward the bulb. Another pop, and the sound of tinkling glass.
Not bad, I say, nodding my head.
Another twenty paces, and another throw. This time, though, instead of hitting the light
bulb, the rock veers off to the right and smashes into the side window of one of the cars, leaving
a white spot and sharp, uneven cracks extending in several directions from the centre.
Hooked it, I murmur, appraisingly.
As Im about to retrieve another rock, I hear a yell from the darkened end of the lot.
Youhey, you. What the hell do you think youre doing? Im calling the cops.

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My hand opens, and I look down at the rock sitting in my palm. Then my hand tilts
forward slowly until the rock rolls off onto the floor. I turn right and walk out of the garage onto
the wet grass of the surrounding field.
Fuck you, I say, to nobody in particular.
*
After a week my pleasurable sense of specialness drifts into a sense of deep alienation. It
doesnt occur to me to feel as though Im being denied the opportunity to interact with others;
Ive completely internalized the rightness of the distance that pushes out from me in every
direction. Its a strange position to be in, though; to feel the distancing effect of all this isolation
and at the same time feel the uncomfortable intimacy of all this scrutiny. My only pockets of
contact are in the smoking room. The other patients are wary of me at first, but after a while,
with nothing said, Ive been absorbed into the group in the same way that a tight-knit collection
of neighborhood children growing up together will include the weird, the funny looking, the
irritating, simply as an assumed part of their collective world. Incorporated into what is after all a
single organism having no sense of anything external to itself.
At first, when Kathleen or friends come to visit, I remain aware that Ive exposed them to
a very unnerving set of circumstances. I take it upon myself to create a reassuring environment
I reach for a brief anecdote or, if theres nothing, then I attempt to ignore my surroundings
altogether and keep up a light, empty banter. I try to shift the attention onto themwhats new,
something about the weather, hows work. I position myself so that in talking to me theyre
facing away from the glass wall and the camera and the monitor. I hide the bandages on my
wrists by making sure that, despite the warm weather, I throw on a long sleeve shirt as soon as
Im told that a visitor is on the floor.

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After a while, though, I find myself less and less inclined to put anyone at ease. This
happens around the same time that I start spending much of my day sitting on the floor on the far
side of the bed by the windowthe only place, I have learned through careful observation of the
computer screen as Im waking back into my room, where the camera has a small blind spot. The
spot isnt big enough to fit my whole self into it, but I can maneuver different parts of myself
into privacya hand, a thigh, part of my face, if I press myself against the wall and crouch down
low. Those parts of my body that are invisible feel lighter, less oppressed. But I also have an
unpleasant sensation of being partitioned, and I find that I have to shift the part thats protected
quite often if Im going to stay together. All of this means that, if visitors want to talk to or even
see me, they have to come around to the far side of the bed, and if they dont want to be standing
there awkwardly looking down on me, they have to sit on the floor or at least crouch down.
One day I begin to feel as though Im becoming weak and soft, and so I start a regime of
push-ups and sit-ups, fifty of each, three times a day. Im not working out to stay fit, though; I
start out of an animal need to keep myself sharp, ready for potential threats. By this time Im
doing pretty much everything from behind the bed--on the one hand to minimize exposure, and
on the other hand, because the animal part needs to protect itself from unknown dangers, and the
human part needs to protect others from me. I stop requesting showers, and ignore suggestions
that I have one. I wear the same jeans and t-shirt for days in a row. Somewhere on the unit
theres a washer and dryer, but out there is no longer feels like my space; my world has shrunk to
less than these four walls. More and more the food that they deliver seems unappetizing and
alien. Even chocolate pudding has become unappealing. The staff members dont collect the
trays until they bring in the next meal, and almost always the food is untouched except for the
water and maybe some crackers or bread. I feel my already fairy lean body growing more spare,

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and enjoy the sensation of dispensing with excess, of becoming nothing but what I most deeply
am.
There are two other reasons why I avoid leaving my room except when bodily needs
require it, and the first has to do with my neighbor in the other observation room. The room is
occupied by an elderly woman named Ruth who spends most of her time in a state of extreme
agitation. When Ruth arrives, her distress seems to be almost entirely internally directedher
demons stay in her head, and while she requires frequent calming, none of her agitation takes the
form of aggression. About a week into her stay, though, the drama that Ruth had been acting out
in her head begins to bleed into her environment. This is when she notices me. Thats okay, until
I start to become an objectthe objectof her paranoia. Now, when I walk out of my room and
the woman notices me, she runs out of her room and starts hurling abuse at me.
I never really feel like my personal safety is being compromised; theres enough
surveillance and the muscle to back it up, and the nurses are quick to intervene and pack Ruth
back into her room. But when the verbal abuse orders itself into a narrative, I start to feel a deep
sense of unease. It turns out that Ruth is a holocaust survivor, and through some twist or fold that
diverts the flow of her past into my presentthrough a bending of space and a telescoping of
time--she becomes convinced that Im a member of the SS. Theres no point in reasoning with
her; the conviction has taken hold of her and nothing can release it. Im the enemy. Now, when I
leave the room, Im accused loudly of being a murderer, a monster; Im confronted by a litany of
suffering and horror--in which, apparently, I have had a direct hand. Ive tortured, maimed,
killed; I have gallons of blood on my hands. Ive wrenched children from their parents,
performed the cruel calculus that decides who is worth keeping alive, and who should be
eliminated. Ive destroyed this womans familyeveryone, gone. I dont deserve to live; nothing

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I could do or say will atone for my actions. The woman lifts up her sleeves, thrusts her tattooed
arm at me, demands that I admit what Ive done.
I see the incurable pain on her face and feel shame. Most of my people rested in the
safety of their comfortable lives, worlds away from that horror. My father and mother were too
young to go to war, and the only connection that I have ever had with it is through two pictures
of my uncles in their uniformsboth handsome and sporting rakish grins. They came back older,
a firmer line to their jaws, but still dashing. One brought with him a beautiful English bride;
when Im old enough to notice, I find her accent deliciously exotic. My family got bigger and
healthier because of the warnot just with my new aunt, but with the four strong, equally
handsome boys that she bore, and then the five offspring these children eventually had.
Generations from now, the number will expand to dozens and then hundredssons and
daughters and aunts and grandfathers, all coming into existence because of the war. How many
people wont be born into this womans family? Its not my fault, of course, but it reminds me of
all the things that Ive never had to think about, and it makes me feel ashamed for ever having
felt sorry for myself. Its too much to bear, to have all of that heaped upon me, and so I withdraw
even further into myself. The nurses think Im afraid of being attacked and they reassure me that
Im perfectly safe, but its the violation of my innocence that I fear.
Theres another reason I avoid venturing out into the hallway. One day on my way to the
bathroom, I look left up the hallway to see a woman walking out of her room, arms outstretched
in front of her, holding a paper towel on top of her upturned hands and mumbling some
incantation over and over again. She could almost be making an offering to someone or
something, except that she simply walks around the halls, having no apparent destination or
direction. When a staff member approaches her, she walks quickly toward them, holding out the

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paper towel and increasing the volume and urgency of her incantation. For a while, a couple of
days anyway, the position of my room at the very end of the hallway shelters me from becoming
a target. But then one day when no one else is around, the woman spies me leaning against the
wall and walks swiftly toward me. I start to duck back into my roomthe woman wont be
permitted to follow mebut then curiosity gets the better of me. My attendant is right here; Im
in no physical danger and I want to know what it is that this woman values so dearly, what it is
that shes offering up.
So I stand there, arms folded, waiting for the woman to reach me. As she gets closer, I
begin to suspect what it is that she has on the paper towel. When the woman approaches closely
enough, I can smell itan enveloping, rich stench that makes me instinctively turn my head to
one side. When the women is right in front of me, I can also make out the repetitive, ritual
words: This is my poo. I am being poisoned. The woman repeats the words again and again,
thrusting the evidence in my face. I back into my room, looking over at the attendant, who is half
sitting and half standing, unsure what to do.
Just as the woman is about to follow me, a nurse arrives and says, Mrs. Choss, weve
told you beforeyou cant be doing this. Please return to your room and dispose of your waste.
Mrs. Choss looks up at the nurse, as if wakened by a dream, and turns back toward her
room. And dont forget to sanitize your hands, the nurse calls out after her. I stand, staring
after her, thinking how easily one becomes caught up inside ones delusions, and how awful it is
not to be heard.
As the days go by I becomes possessed by a persistent, nagging pressure. I begin to take
the emergency room doctors words to heart. Hes right, I think--I didnt do a very good job with
my wrists. It was a weak gesture, amateurish. I was embarrassed at the time by my fumbling;

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over time that embarrassment has grown and hardened into shame. Less and less do I feel like I
can tolerate or afford any weakness in myself, and these shallow, harmless scratches on my
wrists are a constant reminder of a weakness, a tentativeness inside me. Im sure that, given
another chance, I can do better. Its not about suicideits not failing to spill enough blood to
stop my heart from beating. Its more a matter of workmanship. I didnt make the perfect cut-total, efficient, and effective. In my mind, no contradiction emerges out of the fact that the
perfect cut is also the successful suicide. The idea of the perfect cut is complete unto itself.
When a weekend pass keeps getting deferred, I decide that I cant live any longer with
these purplish, fading reminders of my failure, that I have to find another way to achieve my
goal. On the unit theres a young man named Yueighteen, maybewho appears to be
thoroughly disoriented. Its almost as if hes had some kind of stroke that has resulted, not in any
real intellectual or physical impairment, but rather in a chronic inability get his bearings. I know
him from the smoking room, and for whatever reason, he seems to have attached himself to me.
Its becomes a symbiotic relationshipI, older and having more experience, give him advice
about life and insanity; he, freer to move about the ward, tells me anecdotes--in an
impressionistic sort of way--about the rest of the patients on the unit.
One day Yu comes into the smoking room when Im in there alone.
Hey Yu, whats up? I say.
Nothing new, he replies.
I lean back and looks nervously at the door. I cant see the attendant, but I know shes
there.
Listen, Yu, I say. Do you have a razor?
Um, ya, he says cautiously.

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Do you think I could borrow it, by any chance? I try not to sound too invested in
his reply.
Why? What are you going to do with it?
Oh, well, its just that I want to shave my legs, you know? But they wont let me have a
razor.
Why wont they let you have a razor?
Well, its just protocolsince, you know, I was pretty depressed when I came in, so
they wait a certain amount of time before giving me anything that might be harmful. But the
thing is, Im really not suicidal at all. I says the last part with conviction, that at least being true.
But dont they have that person whos always there with you? Why wouldnt they let
you shave your legs if shes right there?
Oh, they will, actually. Its just that I dont have any razors and I cant really go
out and get any, so I thought maybe if you had one...well, problem solved. The farther I carry
the deception, the more confident and convincing I feel.
Yu pauses for a moment, trying to assess the situation. He looks down at his hands, and
then looks up at me, skeptical, unsure. He suspects that hes missing something, he knows he
only sees parts of things right now, but he cant think what it might be.
Okay, ya, sure.
I look at him, holding his gaze for a moment, trying to determine whether or not hes
going to betray meeither intentionally or unintentionally. But he has the same open look on his
face as always, and I decide to take the chance. Okay, so, Ill wait here, and you go get your
razor. Then come right back, okay? And dont talk to anyone, okay?
Why dont you just come with me?

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Well, I dont want to make the attendant walk the extra...or actually, Im not allowed
into that part of the hall. I feel my plan unravelingthe public phone is in that part; he must
have seen me half a dozen times standing over there talking on the phone. But after a slight
hesitation, Yu pushes himself up off the bench and says, Okay. Ill be right back.
After Yu leaves, I pop my head out of the room and ask the attendant if I can have
another cigarette, saying something about enjoying having some time outside of my room. They
like that. It may even get entered into my file as evidence of improvement. The attendant, who
has nothing else to do except follow me back down the hall and sit for hours in front of a
computer screen, happily gets out another cigarette for me and lights it. As I sit waiting for Yu to
come back, I feel the rising excitement and general bonhomie of a junkie about to get a hit. I start
to envision how Im going to execute my plan, but my imagination stalls at the fact that the only
real privacy I can steal is when Im in the bathroom with the door mostly closed, and theyll
become suspicious if Im in there for too long. I dont want to rush this. A shower would be
expected to take longer, but the attendant is present in the bathroom for that, and Ill have no way
of getting the razor into the shower once Im stripped down. The best thing, I decide, is to take
care of this in my room, take advantage of the cameras blind spot and my known habit of
spending a lot of time behind the bed in the corner. I can pretend Im doing my exercises; that
will allow me to lie flat and will make it more difficult to see what Im doing.
The longer Yu takes, the more anxious I get. Just as Im beginning to think that hes not
coming back, his face appears in the window. He opens the door just enough to slip his slim form
through, keeping his head down and his eyes averted from both me and the attendant. He
couldnt possibly look more guilty. Having absorbed the importance of secrecy, even if the exact

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reason for it eludes him, he sits down directly beside me and slips the razor from his back pocket
to a place halfway under my thigh. I grab it greedily and shove into my pocket.
Are you sure this is okay? Yu asks, watching the door.
Sure, Yu, its fine. Dont worry about ityoure just helping me out, thats all. Youre
not doing anything wrongits just that I havent been able to get off the floor, so even though
Im allowed to have a razor, I cant get my hands on one. I feel a pang of guilt; Im taking
advantage of his trust in me and his inability to reason anything out right now. Im making him
an accessory to a crime. But Im not committing suicide, I remind myself; Im merely revising a
first draft, honing it, perfecting it. And anyway, if I get caught I wont tell them where I got the
razorIm not going to rat Yu out, no matter what, and Ill get the razor back to him somehow
so that he wont have to explain why he doesnt have it anymore. Theyre not even going know
what happened, if all goes well. I have it worked out nowbefore I do it, Im going to rip two
long strips from the sheets so that afterwards I can wrap the strips around my wrists. No one will
know. It will be the perfect, self-contained crime, a closed loop, an interaction between me and
myself.
Once Im back in my room, I go to on the far edge of the bed and sit down,
breathing evenly, waiting for intention to mature into action. Just as Im about to take the razor
out of my pocket, though, theres a knock on the door and one of the nurses enters, walks swiftly
over to my side of the bed, and stops right in front of me.
Wheres the razor, Jennifer? she asks evenly.
How could they know so quickly? There can only be one answer: Yu has tricked me,
betrayed mehe went right to a staff member after he gave me the razor. The rage of
thwarted desire fills up my chest and makes my skin flush. Theres no point denying it; if

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I dont hand it over, theyll frisk me and toss the room. I stand up, reach into my pocket,
and hold out the razor. I hang onto it for just a fraction of a second after the nurse grabs
itId come so close, and its so hard to give it up.
The nurse is angry. Youve violated our trust, youve taken advantage of Yu, and
most importantly, youve put yourself in danger. We can only do so much, we still rely on your
good faith, and youve demonstrated that youre incapable of honoring that. Were going to have
to cancel your smoking privileges. Its clear that allowing you to interact with other patients isnt
safe for you or them. Her voice, face, posture indicate less anger than disappointment now.
One question, I say. How did you know I had a razor? Did Yu tell you?
What you didnt realize, Jennifer, is that Yu isnt allowed to be in possession of a
razor either. Hes allowed to use one, but he has to come up and ask us for it, and if he doesnt
bring it back in ten minutes, we go looking for it. When he couldnt come up with the razor, we
convinced him that it was in everyones best interest that he tell us who had the razor. He didnt
want to tell us; he clearly has a sense of loyalty toward you. We really had to emphasize the fact
that by giving someone the razor, he might be helping them to harm themselves or someone else,
that he was putting people in danger. Hes quite upset actually, and thats the last thing he needs
right now. Youve set him back as well as yourself. This is precisely why we dont allow you to
participate in activities. Theres more than one way to pose a danger to the other patients, she
adds. I hear and on some level appreciate what the nurse is saying, but mostly my thoughts are
taken up with the missed opportunity. I was foolish, I lacked patiencethat was my mistake. Im
frustrated, and angry at myself. I tried to undertake this project before the conditions were right.
Now I may have to wait weeks for another opportunity.

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I decide to take a different approach to the problem. What they want to see is someone
who has re-entered the social contractor at least who can demonstrate some basic level of
socialization. I reason it out and decide that the following elements are required: 1) orientation to
reality; 2) trustworthiness; 3) insight into ones prior behavior; 4) a willingness to get better (and
to work with the staff toward that end); 5) a plan. I spend hours going over these requirements,
working out and then tweaking how I will revise myself. When I meet with my doctor, I make
myself reasonable, excel at reality testing when questioned about my surroundings and my life
situation (although I demonstrate only a spotty command of current events). I profess insight into
my prior behavior (yes, I was inappropriate). I demonstrate a change of heart (I no longer
desire to commit self-harm), and I suggest productive avenues to pursue when I get out (I
thought I might join a book club, take up swimming again).
My friend Sue calls people without mental illness normals. Its not a compliment.
Normals are people who lack a certain perspective, a certain specialized insightthey are
people suffering from particular limitations. But contrary to popular belief, its not that difficult
for most crazy people to appear sane if they want to. The mentally stable think that they have
exclusive access to what constitutes sanity, but this not true. While the sane may fail to
understand the crazy (never having shared the experience), almost all crazy people have
experienced sanity, and with the proper motivation, focus, and determination, can mimic it
successfully. This is particularly true if the only test of a persons sanity is what they sayits
much easier to identify a crazy person if you watch them in action. They occupy space
differently. But my movements are so constrained now that I havent being exposed in that way.
I see my plan come to fruition in an unexpected way when my doctor comes to me with a
proposition the next day.

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Our goal, Jennifer, he says, is to give you a functional rather than a pathological sense
of control over your environmentthat is, to get you to stop trying to exert your control through
self-harm. Up until now, our energy has been directed primarily toward containing as best we
can the risk that you present to yourself. That hasnt been easyyoure determined, and
resourceful. Because of your actions on the unit, weve had to tighten that containment quite a
bit, but Im thinking maybe its come time to loosen it up a little, give you more opportunity to
make healthier decisions, an opportunity to begin reintegrating.
I imagine having the opportunity to socialize, of being able to sit around and talk to the
other patients. Just a bit at first, maybe, until I feel more a part of things, like he says. It would be
nice to participate in some of the activities on the unitgroup therapy, other informal groups,
even just watching television. Not maybe all at once, but sort of in a graduated wayfirst
general socializing, then maybe some light group activity, then Group. Ive found in the past that
helping people with their own problems, either in group therapy or outside of it, has helped me
direct my thoughts outwards; Ive been able in the past to pull out of that dangerous closing in on
myself that distorts even the most familiar routines. I can see the benefit of being introduced into
some of these activitiesmaybe it will defuse my obsession about my wrists, and maybe thats
for the best. Interaction with the other patients will actually be more therapeutic than any formal,
one-on-one therapy with doctors and nurses. Yes, this is a good idea. I will become a member of
a community again.
So, says Dr. Uller, Wed like to propose a weekend pass. Of course, before we can let
you go, we need you to promise that youre not going to hurt yourself. In fact, we came up with a
contract for you to sign. He holds out a piece of paper. Short and simple. But very important.

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I take the piece of paper and read it. I promise to refrain from self-harm while I am out
of the hospital, and to return to the hospital at some time between 3 pm and 5 pm on Sunday.
I stare at the words. I havent anticipated this much freedom, and I struggle to adjust my
expectations. Of myself. Of my intentions. I try to imagine myself walking out of the hospital,
try to imagine which way Ill walk when I reach the sidewalk. Try to imagine where Ill go and
what Ill do once Ive turned right or left. I could go have something to eat. I could meet
someone for coffee. I could shop. So many things. An undifferentiated mass of options begins to
fragment, first into categories, then into individual items, spaces, dynamics, sensations. A pair of
shoes. DVDs. Starbucks. Running for the bus. Carrots. Picking up a book. Unlocking a door.
Pens. Light bulbs. Marigolds. Sweat. Lighters. Eye drops. A t-shirt stretched across my
shoulders. Its too muchtoo crowded, too unpredictable and demanding. I look out the door of
my room toward the hallway; this is as far as I can see, this is as far as I have gone in two and a
half weeks. Too much. Impossible to control. Without effort, spontaneously, the words written
on the contract and divide, rearrange themselves. Promise to return to. Self-harm. While I
am out of the hospital. I feel something unflex in my mind. My theatre of operations has just
expanded.
Sure, Ill sign it.
Good, the doctor says. Its really important that you honor this contract, Jennifer. For
yourself, and for the other people in your life. He looks at me pointedly, trying to assess my
sincerity. I look directly into his eyes, smiling. This is easy, I think. Its easy to play my well
self. Ive played it before.
Absolutely. Im a little nervous about it, but I think I can handle it. I have a lot of good
friends close by.

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Alright, then, the doctor says. You can leave tomorrow after breakfastIll let the
nursing staff know. And Jennifer, he says, Please call us if things start to go bad, okay? You
can come back any time during the weekend if you dont feel safe.
Sounds good, I say. I allow him to see some of my excitement; after all, its not
inappropriate to the situation as he imagines it. This is a big step toward discharge and freedom;
it makes sense that Id be excited. I add a little nervousnesstap my hands on my thighs, puff
out my cheeks and let out a couple of long breaths. Most of all, I suppress the grin that threatens
to break out on my face, and force it into an understated, barely detectable frown.
Saturday morning comes quickly; Ive hardly had time to formulate the bare outlines of a
plan. I feel unprepared, but remind myself that I have only one small item to purchase and the
rest of the weekend is wide open.
Right after breakfast, my nurse comes to my room.
So, she says. What are your plans for the weekend? One last check. One last effort to
evaluate my state of mind. One last chance to abort.
Oh, you know. Ill probably just relaxwatch some TV, catch up on some reading.
This is mostly true, and comes out easily.
Her reservation is obvious. She sees me several times a daymuch more often than Dr.
Uller. Shes seen how I live, has at least some sense of how I occupy what little space I have; she
hears the kinds of things that I say and how I say them. She can imagine a lot of ways things can
turn bad.
In the end, the nurse feels either reassured or helpless and leaves me to stuff a few things
into a bag: my wallet, the loose change and subway tickets that are sitting on my dresser, my
toothbrush. I dont want to take anything I wont need, get bogged down and slowed up by too

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much stuff. I wave as I approach the door, listen for the click, and in one fluid movement open it
and exit. I walk out onto University Avenue--with its wide expanse of road stretching out in both
directions, and take in the Doppler sound of cars approaching and then receding again. I stop
short and stand for a moment, squinting through the bright sunlight reflecting off the sidewalk.
After a moment, I walk swiftly toward the St. George subway station and takes it west to
Ossington. As I walk down Ossington, I begin to wish that I had a cigarette with me; the swing
of my legs and the clipped sound of my boot heels hitting the sidewalk arent sufficiently
occupying during the ten-minute walk to the house that Kathleen and I bought last year. A
cigarette would help me to compress the distance between here and there. When I do arrive, I
find myself opening the door hesitantly, half expecting the version of myself that last occupied it
to be there still.
Kathleens at work all day, and Im left alone to consider my situation. I look at the
books and papers scattered on my coffee table, and feel anxiety crawl up the back of my neck
and settle into a tight band around my forehead. The presence all of these books and papers and
journals sets me in uncomfortable proximity to where I ought to be, and right now I have to
focus on being fully where I am. Theres really nothing at all in the house that I can read without
the creeping feeling that I should be reading with a purposethat my reading should be of a
vocational natureso I shove the books and papers into a corner of the floor and go into the
kitchen. The coffee grounds from Kathleens last pot of coffee are still in the bodum. I open the
fridge, glance at the contents, then close the door and walk over to the cupboard above the stove.
I spot a can of Alphagetti; I open it, grab a spoon, and return to the couch. As I spoon the cold
Alphagetti into my mouth, I wonder in a detached sort of way if theres any possibility of
changing my mind. I could call Kathleen and ask her to come home. I could call the hospital, or

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just go back in. I could go upstairs and watch TV, have the weekend that I laid out for my doctor.
Even thinking about these possibilities, though, makes me feel unraveledvaguer, less
substantive. I already feel like Im in danger of disappearing, and sitting around passively
allowing the hours to pass will only make it worse.
I get up off the couch and stand there, staring at the wall. A tiny red spider, hardly bigger
than a speck of dust, is making its way toward the ceiling. Whats it going to do when it gets up
there, anyway? I think, annoyed. Theres just more wall, more ceiling. A vast expanse of ivory
white to cross. To what end? So it can come back down the other side? I put the can and the
spoon on the coffee table and move closer to the wall. Then I reach out my hand, squish the
spider, and wipe my finger off on my jeans. Directly after I do this, I am visited by a keen sense
of clarity. Immediately I feel myself solidify; doubt is banished, control regained. This is the
feeling I was in danger of losing, and I embrace it with tears in my eyes. Everything is going to
be okay.
I spend the rest of the day walking along Bloor, passing time until Kathleen returns
home. Im nervous about seeing her; she knows me and wont be so easily fooled. I return home
around five oclock, and moments later Kathleen arrives. I avoid her eyes, afraid that shell know
somethings up and start asking questions. Im not sure that my secret will hold up under her
scrutiny. And so I keep myself apart, putter around the living room tidying aimlessly, go down to
the basement and put in a laundry. If she wonders at my distance, she doesnt say anything, and I
remind myself that theres no evidence to suggest that this is anything other than one of the many
uneventful weekend passes Ive had in the past.
We decide to order Indian for dinner, but even the butter chickenmy favoritelacks
appeal, and I push it around my plate, muttering something about not being used to rich food

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after a few weeks of hospital fare. After dinner is finished and the extra food packed away, we go
upstairs to watch TV, and Im grateful both for the distraction and the fact that it allows me to
avoid interacting too much with Kathleen. If Im more quiet, if I sit further away than usual,
well, that could be attributed to the strain of this latest acute phase of my illness. Still, Im
uncomfortable. While I suspect that nothing short of a direct intervention is going to change my
course, that doesnt mean that being around Kathleen doesnt introduce a lot of conflicting
emotions. Anticipation mixes with new reservations, and both are nearly overshadowed by
intense feelings of guilt. But the impulse runs deep, and I determine to remain focused on my
goal, to stuff down any feelings that threaten to interfere with my plan. Having a talent for
dissociation, in the end Im able to carve my plan off from my relationship with Kathleen and
keep them separate, both safe and intact in my mind. The operation isnt one hundred percent
successful, but it does allow me to pass the rest of the evening with something like composure.
The next morning I wake up early and slide quietly out of bed, not wanting to wake
Kathleen. I drink my coffee on the porch, thankful for the hush of Sunday morning and the
improbability that one of my neighbors will pass by. Kathleen gets up late, well after Ive eaten
breakfast, packed some clean clothes and set my knapsack by the door. Now its Kathleen who
appears distant. She reads The Globe and Mail while she eats breakfast, not pausing, as she often
does, to share some bit of news or comment on an editorial. After her breakfast she moves over
to the couch and continues to read. I stay in the kitchen, contemplating my next move.
All that remains is for me to pick up some razor blades. Its tough, these days, to find a
package of simple razor blades; everything comes now in those replacement cartridges that you
slide into the handle, and theyre a bitch to take apart. Fortunately, I know a dingy little corner
store on College that sells them, and under the pretense of withdrawing some money from the

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ATM, I walk down. Having found what Im looking for, I take the container of blades out of its
packaging and drop the packaging in the garbage on the way out of the store. For now, Ill just
put the container in my pocket, but Ill have to figure out something more circumspect with it
before I leave for the hospital.
This time I decide not to put the blades in my boot, nor do I risk putting them in my
knapsackthat will almost certainly be searched. Instead, I go up to the bathroom and tuck the
container into my underwear at the back. I check in the mirror to see if it creates any sort of
conspicuous bump, but my pants are loose enough now to hide it. I go back downstairs and tell
Kathleen that I think Ill head back to the hospitalits only 12:00, but I find unbearable the
thought of sticking around for another two hours, now that everythings in place. She offers me a
drive, but I defer and say Im fine taking the subway. Her brow creases and she looks hard at me,
and for a moment I fear that Ive given myself away somehow, but then she smiles, hugs me, and
promises to visit later in the week. Ill call you tomorrow, I say, and giving her another quick
hug, I open the door and walk out to the sidewalk. As I walk toward the station, Im at first
suffused with relief that Ive made it through the weekend undetected. Then the previous two
begin to recede, I start to look forward to my arrival at the hospital, and I feel the return of a
pleasurable sense of anticipation. I lower my gaze to the sidewalk in front of me, and begin to
hum a tune.
*
As I ride the subway back to Sinai, I feel happier and more grounded than Ive felt in a
long time. I look around at the other commuters and smile. About a third of them have
headphones on. Lots of people talk about how this habit is emblematic of our self-absorption or a
lack of human connection, but I see it as a perfectly legitimate coping strategy. Riding the

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streetcar on College Street, for example, requires distraction. Sometimes you wait twenty or
twenty-five minutes for one to come, and then several arrive at once. Theres too little space, the
riders are cranky and not shy about expressing it, and one out of three people around you is
talking loudly on their cell phone.
Once, when it had taken twenty-five excruciating minutes for three streetcars in a row to
arrive, a woman who gets on right after me starts reaming out the driver. I know how you feel,
lady, I think, while at the same time resenting her. The driver just missed a green light while he
engaged with her tirade. Another minute of my life, wasted. Then the woman sits down behind
this guy who, at that exact moment, decides to take the newspaper hes holding and drop it into
the middle of the aisle. So she goes after him for littering. Instead of being abashed, he goes after
her, calling her all kinds of unmentionable names. And so it goes, back and forth for a while,
until she gets up to exit the streetcar, still hurling abuse at him from the door. At some point he
must say something particularly offensive, because then the guy behind him jumps into the fray
and tells him hed better shut up. So after the woman gets off, these two guys start going at it.
Mercifully, the litterer gets off the streetcar at the next stop, muttering obscenities all the while at
no one in particular. The streetcar is stopped at a stoplight, so Im able to watch as he reaches
inside the door of a corner store, grabs a newspaper, walks a few paces, and then throws the
newspaper as hard as he can into the air. The leaves rise and separate, some landing close by,
others travelling almost half a block before they settle. One leaf flies out in front of the streetcar
and flattens onto the windshield just long enough for me to read, Human Genome Project
before the wind whips it away.
I much prefer the subway--more room, no phones, more or less regular service. As I ride
this particular subway east toward the hospital, I feel very much like I want to talk to someone. I

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wish that one of those small events would happen, the ones that make people smile at one
another. Or that someones knapsack would bump my knee so that when they said, Sorry, I can
smile back and say, No problem. Or a babytheres nothing that makes people smile at one
another like a baby. Unless the baby is cryingthen only the other parents and grandparents
smile sympathetically; most of the rest of the people either turn away and give each other Why
me? looks, or glare at the parent accusingly. At Bathurst an elderly woman enters, and I
experience a deep sense of pleasure when I give up my seat for her. When she thanks me and
smiles, I feel the warmth of human connection. I raise my head, look around, and breathe in the
body-warmed air. Here we all are, together for this one moment. If the subway stops for
mechanical reasons, here well all be, stuck together. If were stuck long enough, people will
start looking at each other, eyebrows raised questioninglylonger still and theyll start talking to
one another. If only that would happen right now, I think.
I get off at St. George and follow the crowd out onto the street, then walk south to the
hospital. As I ride the elevator up to the ninth floor, I begin to feel hot, feverish. I look over at
the man sharing the elevator with mecompact, bald, unremarkableand watch his edges
vibrate. I squint, and a corona of light appears behind his shiny head. I look down at his shoes
also very shinyand believe that I can make out two tiny little versions of myself reflected up at
me from the rounded tips. I look up again and find myself having to resist the sudden urge to
reach over and touch his face. What would he do, I wonder, if I just reached over and lightly
touched the tip of his nose? Would he grab my arm? Would he back away? Would he pop, like a
balloon too close to a flame? Aware that hes being stared at, the man looks over at me with a
challenging look.

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I close my eyes and lean my forehead against the cool metal of the elevator door. Maybe
I drift off for a second or two, because moments later when the door opens I jerk my head up
with a start. The man retreats into the hallway, the door closes again, and I lean back against the
wall, my heart beating fast, my mouth dry. I need to regain control of myself. I begin to take
long, deep breaths, breathing in through my nose and blowing the air out slowly and evenly
through my mouth. Im almost there, and its important that I appear together for the nurses. Ive
already proven to them once what Im capable ofit wont take much to raise their suspicions. I
try to envision myself as someone who has experienced an average weekend pass. Someone
whos slightly relieved, but also slightly reluctant to return to the unit. How would that person
stand? How would they move? For how long would they keep a persons gaze before looking
away? I should have put the razor blades in my bootno, theyre better where they are right
now. The elevator dings, and the doors open. I walk directly toward the nurses station, smiling
in a tentative sort of way.
Well Jennifer, how was your weekend? asks the nurse on duty.
Fine. A little stressful, but overall, unremarkable. Boring, really.
The nurse smiles. Okay then, Ill walk you to your room. This is unusual, and I feel my
heart starting to beat fast again. Its all I haveplease dont take it away.
Have a seat, Jennifer, the nurse says, gesturing to the chair by the door. Ill just have a
look in your backpack hereand oh, could you take off your boots please?
I bend over to untie my boots and feel the razor blade case dig into my lower back. I take off my
boots and shove them over toward the nurse, trying to look slightly put upon. The nurse goes
through my backpack, confiscates a pack of matches, and feels inside my boots.
I smile. Okay, boss?

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Yes, Jennifer. And welcome back.
*
I had planned to do something with the razor blades right away, but I find myself putting
it off until the afternoon, and then the evening, and then the next day and the day after that, until
I can no longer tell myself that Im waiting for the right moment. I carry the blades with me
everywhereI dont dare put them anywhere that the staff might search. At first they feel
foreign, but as the hours and then days go by I find myself no longer seeing them as separate
from my body. At first I dont feel much like staying in my cornerthe trip outside must have
done that much for mebut I spend time there, anyway, so that they wont see it as odd if I
retreat there to act out my plan. At some point this strategic, self-imposed withdrawal starts to
feel right, and I begin to forget why Im spending more time in the corner, and then I forget that I
once had a reason.
The longer I stay in my room, apart from everyone else, the more feral I start to feel, and
the more I feel my humanity stripping away. By the fourth day Im spending most of my time
curled up in my corner, and at the end of that day I take my blankets and pile them up around
me. That night I sleep in the corner on the pile of blankets. I rarely speak the next day, and pick
at my meals sitting or squatting on the ground by the bedding. I dont miss or even really
remember what its like to smoke; its a human need, a human excess, and I want to rid myself of
excess.
When Im not sitting or curled up in the corner, I pace like a caged wolf, circling the
room. I feel awkward and strange around visitors, partly because I dont feel like they speak the
same language that I do. Their verbs and their nouns are no longer mine. I live in a world
organized according to a strange logic, and it requires new words to express it. I still

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communicate with my doctorthe nurses pretty much leave me alone nowbut my answers to
his questions are basic, concrete. I no longer enjoy or relates to metaphors, symbols, concepts
all of them products of human excess. What do they have to do with the immediate animal need
for food, sleep, the elimination of waste? There should be a massive excision of the fat in
language, a banishing of frivolous ambiguity. I limit myself to words that describe my needs and
my environment, and then I forget the distinction between the two, as well as the distinction
between the living, the non-living, and the very space that surrounds me. I will make a self so
densely packed that any molecule coming within a certain distance will be drawn in. Eventually,
everything will be absorbed and there will be only infinitely dense matter, the thing itself.
When I judge myself sufficiently compact, when I feel like Ive eradicated all surplus, my
thoughts return to the razor blades in my pocket. I wake up in my corner one morning before
dawn and, keeping low to the ground and close by the bed, I reach behind and retrieve the
package. Theres still a layer of enveloping plastic around itthe kind that you need a pair of
scissors to penetrate. I begin to chew at the plastic around the case. It takes a long timethe
plastic is tough, and its difficult to get any purchase on it. My chewing eventually manages to
create a tear that I work at with my front teeth until it separates enough to pull the case out. Then
I tuck the plastic underneath the mattress, slip the case into my pocket, and fall back into a deep
sleep.
When I awake again, the room is full of sunlight. Ive slept late, but my breakfast tray is
still sitting on the dresser. The eggs and the coffee are cold, but for the first time in what seems
like ages, Im famished. I eat quickly, eagerlycereal, eggs, a bun, assorted fruit, juice, coffee. I
even drink the extra container of coffee cream. After eating, I feel better than I have in a long
time, and Im suddenly aware of how weakened Ive become, of how, in my pursuit of

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purification, Ive allowed myself to neglect even my most basic needs, and in doing so have
introduced the very sort of vulnerability that I had hoped to exorcise. I shake my head in an
effort to clear my mind, and try to refocus on the task before me.
The first thing I do is tear two strips off of the sheets to use for bandagesthe problem
being, as always, that I have to do this in such a way that its not noticeable. I ease myself into a
supine position and rest back onto my elbows, arms invisible to the cameras, but find that I need
both hands to tear the sheet and in this position I can only free up one. So I sit up, cross-legged
and facing the bed, and pull myself toward it. Then I untuck the bottom end of the sheet and
make a horizontal notch in it with a razor blade, five or six centimeters up from the bottom edge.
I take the sheet on either side of the notch and begin to tear it very slowly, trying not to make any
noise. I tear it about halfway along the length of the bed and then make a vertical notch and rip it
off. Then I tear this strip in half. I hold the two strips up appraisingly, and then lay them out on
the ground beside the bed, as if they were part of some ritual vestment.
I sit back against the wall, arms resting on top of my bent knees, and look down at the
razor blade hanging from between my thumb and forefinger. I remain that way for a long time,
imagining what Im going to do, running through it in my mind. After a long while, I feel a
nugget of doubt appear. Isnt this plan just another manifestation of weakness? How is it an
expression of control? I envision a wheel turning, and me caught upon it, returning to the same
place I was when I came innot strong at all, just the victim of a pathetic repetition compulsion.
Out in the hallway, I can hear the poo woman loudly proclaiming her victimization. A wave of
revulsion washes over me, and then a jarring realization. God, I think, look at me--Im crazier
than even she is. How did I become so dangerous? And how am I any different from the person
who attacks someone else with a blade, except in the object of my violence? For the first time, I

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start to feel something like disgust over my brutality, and for the first time I start to see it from
the outside, as if through someone elses eyes. Jesus Christ, I say out loud. I think of Kathleen,
and what it must have been like to witness the outcome of my bloodshed the first time around.
Horrible. Frightening. I begin to see myself as monstrous and fearful. Then a powerful sense of
loneliness overwhelms me, as I think about how far now Ive strayed from the community of
humans. How low Ive descended.
I look down at the razor blade again and drop it as if scalded. It lies there like a reproach,
glinting up at me. I can barely stand the thought of picking it up again, but then I can hardly
leave it lying there. I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and with the corner of one of the strips
of sheet I gingerly pick up the blade and wrap the strip around it. I wrap the second strip around
the first, and then look around for somewhere to put it. It doesnt feel safe to put it in my garbage
can; they might go through it. I cant very well stuff it under the mattress for some other soul to
find, and I dont want it in my backpack. I recall that theres a large, covered garbage can in the
bathroom, and though Ill be followed, theyll allow me to leave the door only slightly ajar; I
should be able to dump it without anyone seeing me. Standing up, I shove the wad down the
back of my pants and head for the bathroom, not needing to look back to know that the attendant
is right behind me. I close the door as far as I dare and, looking once behind me, drop my
package into the garbage can. Then I stand for a minute staring at myself in the mirror, searching
for recognition. Apart from looking pale and a little gaunt, I appear pretty much as I remember
myself. Reassured, I turn, remembering at the last moment to flush the toilet, and head back to
my room.
*
The first thing I do after that is pick up the pile of sheets in the corner and toss it onto the

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bed. The second thing I do is request a shower. I find Im self-conscious about getting undressed
in front of someone, but the attendant merely sits on the toilet reading a textbook, paying no
attention to me. Once Im in the shower, I tilt my head back and let the water run over me for a
long time, long enough that the attendant, whose name, it turns out, is Dawn, says, Come on,
Jennifer, how much time do you need? This toilet seat is really hard and my ass is killing me.
Mm-hmm, I say, distracted by the feel of running my fingers through my hair as
I comb out the shampoo. My hair has grown since the last time I showerednot a lot, but its no
longer shaved as close to my head as it was the night, just before I was admitted, that I decided
longer hair made me look...weak. The bristle has softened now to something that feels more
plush. I wash my body with the shampoo and rinse it off carefully. Finally, reluctantly, I turn off
the shower and step out. Dawn barely glances up from her book. It must be weird, I think, doing
this for a job. Shadowing crazy people. Or maybe shes young enough that the unexpected or the
unbelievable can still be considered something unencountered.
I find myself craving human contact, so I go to the only space where thats guaranteed
the smoking room. When I enter, Yu is the only one there. I sit down and look over at his face.
How sad he looks, I think. How lost.
Hey Yu, whats going on? I ask.
Oh, you know, nothin, he says, not looking over at me.
No, seriously Yuwhats the matter?
Whats the matter? Ill tell you whats the matter? Im only eighteen years old and my
life is over. Weve talked about this beforeyou even agreed with me one time. I think
your exact words were, Yeah, its all fucked up, for sure.
Oh, hey, Yu, come on. I was probably having a bad day. I was probably talking about

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myself. MaybeI dont know. But listenyour life is not over. They have excellent meds for
schizophrenia now; if you stay on the meds, you can live a pretty normal life. I mean, relatively
speaking. Some of them make you pretty tired, but...
I dont have schizophrenia. Im bipolar. Or so they say.
Oh yeah, right. Well, thats not so bad. Better prognosis. One or Two?
Two. Or so they say.
Well, the depressions can be a bitch, but you can get a lot done on the upswing,
and you avoid all the full-blown psychoses that the Ones have. Um, mostly.
Ya, well, look at you.
Okay, then, lets look at me. So how long was I like that? A week?
Like what?
You know, curled up in a ball plotting the perfectly self-destructive act.
Well, I dont know what was going on in your head, but Id guess you slept
on the floor in the corner of the room for a total of about two and a half weeks.
Two and a half? Yeesh. Okay, then two and a half weeks. Im thirty
seven. And I had my first breakdown when I was eighteen. Thats twenty-one years. In twentyone years, Ive been sick enough to be hospitalized for, lets say, a total of four months. Those
are a bit of a write-off, admittedly. But still thats...ummm, lets see--thats two hundred and
thirty-six months that Ive been more or less okay. Subtract from that about another twelve
months worth of accumulated days when I was either clinically depressed or hypomanic. That
leaves two hundred and twenty-four months left when Ive managed to achieve the same level of
general unhappiness as everyone else.
What?

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All Im saying is that you still have the same opportunity as others to go to school, find
a career, date, get married, have kidswhatever. You cant let these episodes define you, even
when other people do. I think of my former Chair. Asshole, I say, under my breath.
Pardon?
Nothing. Yu, theres something different about you, and when you get out, therell still
be something not different.
And?
And I think you need to consider the advantage of your position, vis a vis the general
population. I, for example, have what at first sight appears to be a serial tendency to come off my
tether. However, if you look at it from a different angle, youll see that this gives me an
advantage: Im familiar with the bottom, and they arent. Not a single thought that I have or
action that I take or avoid taking is predicated on the absolute failure to consider that there is a
bottom, and that I can end up there. I believe that this failure on the part of most of the general
population to accept their vulnerability, to acknowledge the contingency of the way of life that
they cling to, reflects a kind of developmentally delayed sensibility. The normals have their
deficits, too, thats all Im saying.
Normals?
Yeah. Anyway, Ive come to think that everyone should fall apart at least once. Yu
raises his eyebrows, but says nothing.
Not perilously, I continue. Just a loosening of the bolts. It might be good for a lot of
people if they allowed themselves to come unstuck. Its a shame, Yu, how many people live their
lives on the verge of a nervous breakdown, when they should just go ahead and have one. I
think of the majority of my colleagues.

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Mm hmm, Yu says, looking longingly at the door.
People dont realize how much of a slave to staying sane they are. They walk around,
terrified of mental blocks, failing memories, saying or doing something inappropriate. Im saying
that to lack, every now and then, the ability to see reality in the conventional way might have its
up-side. Of course, a person can take that too far, I add, thinking about the extremity of my
actions in the recent past, but the principle stands.
Yu continues to look at me with a blank expression.
I spread my arms out, palms up, and step back. I look at Yu, and smile. It is, my friend,
an altered relationship to the taken for granted.
Okay, I get that, Yu says. But do you have any concrete advice, since youre so
experienced? Is there something Im supposed to do here? Because Im not sure....
Look at me, Yu. What am I doing right now?
Uh, standing. Sort of on your toes. Holding your arms out like the Madonna, kind of,
only scarier.
Im living, Yu. Go forth and live your life. At that, I flick my cigarette expertly into the
tin can sitting in the corner, and walk out.
My doctor must notice some change in me, because two days after I threw away the razor
blade and achieved a change of heart, he suggests that I might be ready for discharge soon. It
strikes me as odd, that he would discharge me directly from isolation and out into the world, with
nothing in between. I reflect on the fact that Id surely benefit from some integration with the
other patients before I leave. I still have little idea what people do during the day in here, whether
there are groups and what they might be. Im not even very familiar with what the other side of
the ward looks like. On the other hand, Im anxious to escape my room, which holds for me now

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the taint of danger and excess. And so I agree that its time to go, and we make a plan for
discharge the following morning. Once theyve made up their mind, they like to move things
along pretty quickly.
When I return to my room, I bundle up my dirty sheets, take them to the laundry hamper
in the bathroom, and put on a fresh set. I feel cleaner already. Then I call Kathleen to let her
know that Im being discharged. I cant tell what she thinks about that, although she does
wonder, as I did, why they havent first moved me for a time into the general ward. But if she
feels at all tentative about my return home, she doesnt say so, and merely tells me that shell be
home around six tomorrow and will see me then. After we hang up I return to my room, lie down
on the bed, and begin the wait. The boredom that I soon feel strikes me as a good sign; at least
my thoughts are no longer straying toward self-harm. I smoke a lot of cigarettes that afternoon
and evening, and welcome the dispensing of my sedating medication, which never fails to put me
to sleep within fifteen minutes. The next morning, after I eat my breakfast, I pack up my things
and go stand in the hallway with my knapsack beside me, reasoning that the more visible I am,
the more likely the nurses are to move things along. Sure enough, it takes only about ten minutes
for my nurse to come out of the station and let me know that Im free to go. She returns to the
station and buzzes me out with a wave of her hand.
These leave-takings, one would think theyd be attended by some sort of event or
acknowledgement, something by way of closure, but most often you just slip out without a
ripple. The world inside here remains unmarked and unchanged by the departure of any one
individual, and things carry on as if that person never existed. Perhaps its for the best this time;
the thought of leaving something of myself behind in this placeeven a memoryis extremely
disconcerting. More than ever before, I want to forget and be forgotten, to erase my time here

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from the record and banish it from my mind. Not easily done, it turns out. Thoughts of my
Mount Sinai admission will dog me for years, always accompanied by the fear that I could get
that crazy again. As it turns out, I was right to be afraid.

TorontoMay, 2009
One thing you can say about Sunnybrookit has lovely grounds. Or rather, it borders on the
lovely: to the south, a steep decline into a ravine that combines the suggestion of wilderness with
a semi-domesticated path running alongside a rocky creek. To the east descends a narrow road
bordered by what almost amounts to a forest, even if in reality its only about five trees deep. If
you follow the road down, it leads to an open park where picnickers loll about in the sun or play
frisbee. If you cut right before the open grass, youll end up beside the dog park where women
and a few men watch their fancy dogs gambol about while they stand and talk in small cliques.
The inside of the hospital is modern and spacious, with an elegant glass elevator running up
through the middle of the foyer. There's one significant exception to this expansive and
welcoming space, in the form of a small, unremarkable brick afterthought attached to the rear
end of the hospital. This afterthought is where I spend six weeks of my life during the cold, rainy
spring and summer of 2009.
There are two parts to the psychiatric ward: the general ward that houses everyone who's
not an immediate threat to themselves or others, and the intensive care unit, that contains those
people deemed too unpredictable, aggressive, or suicidal to risk putting them in with the general
population. The intensive care unit has four beds, a small common area, and its own nursing
station. The bedroom walls that face outward toward the nursing station are made of glass,
giving the nurses a clear view of the occupant. I pass the first forty-eight hours or so of my stay

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on this unit, and thats where I meet Peter. Peter claims that he works for the TTC in data
management, and although the foundations of my relationship with Peter turn out to have little to
do with his life circumstances, being more of an intellectual nature, I become fixated in those
first couple of days upon whether Peter really doesor didwork for the TTC in this capacity.
He seems too crazy in the bones to ever have achieved the level of self-possession that I imagine
a higher level job like that would require. Its an odd sort of prejudice of mine, given the fact that
I regularly go mad and still manage to hold down a professional job. Later, when hes out of
hospital clothes and has his wallet back, Peter shows me a business card that seems to confirm
his occupation, yet even in the face of this proof I never quite shake my initial impression that
hes made the whole thing up, along with his daughter and his ex-wife.
Peter is intense, compelling. For the time that I know him, that intensity is expressed in
two ways: a lively interest in Eastern mysticism, and a towering hatred of his doctor. Peter is
indifferent to the contradiction embedded in his two preoccupationsrage, and a Buddhism
based on the doctrine of metta, or loving-kindness. Its as if his rage and paranoia are directed
with such laser precision at his doctor, that the rest of his life is left untouched and thus available
for the outpourings of kindness and the humility of a beginners mind. Peters threats toward his
doctor, confined to the verbal but with the occasional promise of more, leave him confined to the
intensive care unit for weeks; the confinement reinforces his sense of persecution, which leads to
more threats toward his doctor, and thus a longer confinement. I never actually meet Peters
doctor, which gives the man the same sort of provisional status in my mind as Peters job and
family. Most of the time I believe that Peter is his own worst enemy, but he is at times so
convincing about his doctors wickedness that I sometimes find myself wondering if perhaps

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Peters account of his situation has some truth to it. Maybe his doctor is hateful; maybe he really
is keeping Peter locked up out of spite or caprice.
After a couple of days in intensive care, my red wristband is removed and replaced with a
blue band (the patient may exit the unit if accompanied by someone else), and Im relocated to
the general ward. I begin my stay with a host of good intentions: I will eat properly, structure my
day with reading and visits, and meditate every evening. I will beat this latest episode through
the steady application of the life skills I have laboriously acquired over years of therapy and selfreflection. I have such confidence in this strategy that I begin to feel positively upbeat about the
whole experience. Perhaps I ought to see it as an opportunity to regroup, to correct the
increasingly disordered thinking that has left me confused and unpredictable.
In the end, its the meditation that launches the disaster. But its a more global
transformation in my life circumstances that sets the stage. Its been seven years since my last
admission, and in that seven years, a massive change has occurred in the form of two little girls,
now three and six years old, who call me mom. I havent been sicknot reallysince before
they were born; Ive never had to face being a sick parent, never had to leave my children this
way, or try to explain why. Never abandoned them like this. Its this last thought that trips me up
one evening when I pull out my meditation bench, place beside me a small bronze Buddha on
loan from my friend Diane, and kneel down to stare at the blank wall a foot in front of me. I
begin by counting my breath, as I always do: one-one, two-two, three-theeup to ten and then
back down again. Focusing only on the breath, letting all other thoughts pass through without
dwelling on them or concerning myself with them at all. I perform this rotation successfully
about fifteen times before a troubling thought begins to assert itself: if I cant even take care of
myself, how am I ever going to take care of my children? Over and over this distressing mantra

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repeats itself, leaving my breathinitially even and groundedcoming in short, frantic gasps.
The back of my head begins to buzz intensely, and I collapse forward onto my hands, feeling
myself beginning to wheeze. The last thing I remember is grabbing hold of the Buddha.
My next memory is being surrounded by voices. Someone begins to slap my face lightly.
Jennifer? Jennifer? I can hear them, but am too far away to respond. Then someone is trying to
put an oxygen mask over my face, and I jerk my head back and forth in an effort to escape. I hear
a voice in the hall telling the patients to go to their rooms. I can sense the panic in the room. And
then Im gone again.
When I regain consciousness, Im lying on a gurney with Kathleen standing beside me,
apparently engaged in battle with the staff.
Take the tube out! You need to take the tube out. Shes just dissociatedshe doesnt
need to be intubated.
A voice from my left. Just please tell her to stop moving her head around. Shes going to
damage her throat if she continues like this.
Justtakethetubeout!
Silenced by the tube running down my throat and unable to give an account of myself, I
can only watch the exchange and try not to gag or throw up. The extremes to which theyve gone
this time seem all out of proportion to the situation; Ive dissociated many times in hospitals,
more times than I can count in therapists offices, and while people have attempted to apply
oxygen masks before, no one before now has taken such inordinate measures. A nurse tells me
later that when they discovered me lying there, theyd thought I was dead. I point out some of the
more obvious ways of disproving that assumption, but am met only with a stony stare, as if I
couldnt possibly understand.

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Eventually Kathleen convinces them to take the tube out, and after a time Im wheeled
back to the psychiatric intensive care unit, where I find myself reunited with Peter. We dont talk
much, though; the intubation has left my throat swollen and raw, and I croak painfully when I
speak. I do take two phone calls, one from Sarah and one from Diane, and in hoarse whispers
recount the details of the ordealor at least those that I remember. Im grateful for their outrage
on my behalf, an outrage that for me has been sidelined by attention to my injury. Its true that
intubation carries a host of dangerslaceration of the throat or esophageal perforation, vocal
chord damage, elevated intra-cranial pressure, decreased oxygen supply, cardiac arrest, death
but for me, the danger lies not in the physical, but rather in the psychic damage emerging from
the intervention. The whole experience had been frightening and traumatic; my voice had been
taken awayliterally, but also figuratively. I had been denied the chance to be heard, and instead
people had taken my body and imposed their will on it. Fighting back had been useless. No
surprise, then, that I will ultimately end up trying to speak through my body, to take control of it,
however self-destructively.
In fact, my Sunnybrook experience will come to be divided into two parts: pre-intubation
and post-intubation. Before the intubation, Im determined to lay low and use the time to sort
myself outrest, reflect, mediate, heal. After the intubation, I cease to care about my safety and
wellbeing, just as I stop caring about being a good patient. I do ultimately become angry and
resentful about the intubation, and criticize the attending nurses poor judgment; I call repeatedly
for the staff to be educated about what constitutes a dissociative episode. My doctor is supportive
but cautious when I complain, studiously careful not to say anything that might implicate the
staff. At the time, it feels to me as though hes preoccupied with protecting the people involved,
as though he becomes an arm of the institution whenever I mention the intubation. When my

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complaints go nowhere, the focused anger that I feel toward the offenders begins to turn inward,
morphing into something less defined and more self-destructivean aggressive recklessness that
ends up severing me from any investment in my safety and welfare.
The next day Im moved over to the general ward once againthis time into an empty
room. I spend most of the rest of the day lying on my bed listening to music on my iPhone.
Every now and then a song strikes me as particularly evocative, and I make a mental note to send
it to Sarah. Its a practice that I began before the intubation when, depressed and at a loss, I sent
her Amy Manns I know Theres a Word. Sending songs to Sarah becomes one of my favorite
pastimes in Sunnybrook; each day I fix on a song that captures my mood, and then fire up my
laptop and send it off. After Im out of the hospital Sarah will comment on the wild incongruities
in the playlist Ive created, but then rightly observes that this makes sense, given the rapid
cycling and sometimes distorted thinking that define my condition. I fail to keep track of the
songs that I send, and when later I asked Sarah for the playlist, she simply replies, Why would
you want to re-live that? Because Ive lost hold of the details, I think. Because I dont
understand the person who sent those songs, and I want to understand her.
I come to depend heavily on my phone to pass the time listening to music or talking with
friends. It turns out that this latter pastime gets caught up an ongoing debate, communicated to
me via the nurses, about the use of cell phones on the floor. According to the staff, some patients
have become resentful towards those other patients who have their own phones, and theres talk
of banning the use of cell phones on the unit. I adopt a pragmatic position: surely, given the fact
that there is only one public phone on the unit, its to the advantage of all patients if some of us
free up the use of that phone by availing ourselves of private ones. The debate limps along
throughout my stay, but my relationship to it is distant; my phone will stay in my pocket

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regardless of the outcome. Unless the staff members intend to restrain me and take it, theres no
way Im giving it up; it offers a way of expressing, through music and conversation, what Im
feeling and thinking, and its far more comfortable to talk while lying on my bed than it is to take
calls in the noisy common room, perched on a hard wooden chair, trying to ignore the one or two
other patients inevitably impatiently beside you.
As for my laptop, theres one nurse in particulara dull, unpleasant woman with
astonishingly bad teethwho alone holds to the rule that all electronics must be submitted to
the nursing station before bed. Sometimes, as a strategic gesture of goodwill, I will offer up my
laptop to this nurse at the end of the day. More often, however, I simply tuck it into the bottom
scaffolding of my bed and drape the sheet over the side. Its a small rebellion, and careless, given
the fact that few people here have laptops, and most wish that they did. Theres always the
possibility that someone will chance upon it and steal it. If I remain unconcerned, its not
because I dont value my laptop; its more another expression of the fuck it attitude that has
settled over me since the intubation.
In the days following my return to the unit, the three other beds in my room remain
empty, and I ease into almost a full week of welcome single-occupancy. No forced conversations
with roommates, lights out when I choose them to be, a private room for visits. During the
couple of times that my girls come to visit, I let them play with the settings on the empty beds,
enjoying the pleasure that they take in contorting the beds into ungainly positions. At least I can
offer them that. And instead of meeting with the nurses in the cramped, windowless interview
room, I can meet them on my own turf. Not that there are many one-on-ones at Sunnybrook.
Most nurses just pop their heads in the door and ask how its going. To be fair, a couple are

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disadvantaged by merely a passing familiarity with the English language, but others seems
content to accept a simple Fine, thanks as sufficient evidence of due diligence.
But then theres Leah. Leahs old school, was around before psychiatric nursing consisted
of something other than towering stacks of paperwork and patient updates that have as their
source the video cameras strung along the hallway and positioned strategically in the common
spaces. Leah always comes in and sits in a chair opposite me for our conversations. She has a
way of asking how I am, of looking at me, that suggests she really does want to know, that shes
not going anywhere until she finds out. The attention is seductive. Even if nothing has happened,
even if my mood has been monotone since the last time I talked to her, I find myself reaching for
something to offer. Some latent thought of self-harm, a disturbing dreamanything to keep
Leah there and engaged. Its not easy to generate topics during that week I spend alone in my
room, mostly listening to music and reading Razor Wire Dharma: A Buddhist Life in Prison, by
Calvin Malonea book that Diane loaned me along with the brass Buddha. I find the book
diverting, and inspirational in a distant sort of way, but its hardly something that Leah will want
to hear about. Leah wants to know whats wrong, and if nothing is right, I cannot find a way to
distill, in communicable form, the loss of ballast that has left me unbalanced and heedless.
Theres really only one other nurseJackiewho expresses a personal interest, who sticks to
the one-on-ones and who possesses the instincts and intuition that appears to be so lacking in
many of the others. Jackie gives solid, practical advice, is a practiced listener and an outside-thebox kind of thinker. Jackie believes in herbal remedies, meditation, bending the rules if she
thinks it will benefit the patient. Still, shes no Leah.
Toward the end of that solitary week, once I have my white bracelet, I begin to hang out
in the ravine. If youre living at the back end of Sunnybrook, getting to the path at the bottom of

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the ravine along the usual routes is inconvenient; you can either walk west all of the way out to
Bayview and scramble down a steep gravel pitch, or east to the dog walking park. Both of these
options take a fair bit of time. Fortunately theres a third, more direct route, one that will become
a favorite of mine: walk directly south to the fence that separates Sunnybrooks grounds from the
ravine, look both ways in case theres a security guard lurking about, and then swing underneath
and through a neglected opening at the bottom that has been created by the run-off of countless
rains. Its quick, but risky; the ground drops away precipitously on the other side, and until I can
swing myself over enough to find a foothold, Im pretty much hanging there and in danger of
skidding out of control all the way down to the path by the creek or, more likely, into one of the
many trees that grow along the sides of the ravine. Even after Ive found a purchase, the only
way to get down is to crab-walk feet first, grabbing onto trees along the way to slow my descent.
At first I simply enjoy walking along the creek, being surrounded by trees and feeling far
away from the smell and feel of the hospital. Its not long, however, before these trips start to
reflect my growing recklessness. Initially, I merely stop taking the appropriate care during my
descent. I slide down much faster, allow the mud to cake onto my hands and shoes and streak
down my clothes. I stop trying to avoid the broken glass that litters the side of the ravine. Then I
take to crossing the creek and taking off my shoes so that I can scale, using my toes to grip, the
even steeper southern side of the ravine. For the time being, I limit myself to found risk, but in
the not too distant future, I begin searching for something edgier. Something more intense.
And so one day I walk along the side of the ravine and begin collecting bits of broken
glass, left there by partiers or those too careless or lazy to clean up after themselves. Then I
climb halfway up the side of the ravine, sit down on a log, dig a small hole, and dump the bits of
glass into it. I cast around for a long stick and shove it in upright in the ground next to it, to mark

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my place. I sit there for a long time, staring at the bits of glassclear glass, green glass, the odd
piece of blue glass. If I half close my eyes, the combination of colors is pleasantly attractive.
When I open my eyes and look directly at them, I feel a kind of power swell in methe power to
take action according to my own will and not someone elses.
I return to my collection every day, sometimes twice a day, and stare at the glass. Then
one day looking isnt enough, and I reach down to scoop up several of the pieces. I open my
hand and let the glass drop through my fingers until one blue, triangular shard is left. Two of the
points are dull with time, but the third one remains fairly sharp. I think about all of the people
right now who have the power to tell me what to do, where I can and cannot go. I think about the
intubation and the helplessness I felt. And nownow I have a weapon. I look down at he scars
on my wrists, a crude palimpsest created out of moments such as this. My heart begins to beat
more quickly. I look again at the glass, grasp the dull side between my fingers, bring up the sharp
edge, and draw it across my cheek.
The spell is broken by my action, and I drop the glass and quickly touch my cheek. To
my relief, no blood comes away on my fingers. A small scratch, thensomething that might go
unnoticed. For the first time Im not looking forward to seeing Leah; its one thing to defy her
injunction against visiting the ravine, to speak in vague terms about feeling self-destructive, quite
another to actively engage in self-harm. If Leah or any of the other nurses find out, my privileges
will be taken away for sure. I may even end up back on the other side. I lower my head and sit
for a moment until the adrenaline dissipates, and then climb up the slope and creep along the
edge of the fence, looking for the way back over. It isnt possible to exit the way Ive entered
the ground is too steep there. Even if it were possible to swing down into the drop, its
impossible to swing oneself back up and under the fence. I continue to shuffle along the top of

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the ravine, holding onto the fence, until I reach a point where its been bent over at the top. With
the help of an adjacent tree, I climb up the fence, perch on top, and then jump onto the grass. I
walk over to a bench, sit down, and light a cigarette. You arent supposed to smoke here, or
anywhere else on the grounds, but this small transgression is entirely overshadowed in my mind
by the more serious infraction Ive just committed in the ravine. I touch my face again, stand up,
and walk reluctantly toward entrance to the unit.
*
No one notices the faint scratch on my cheek, and as if fades, my attention becomes
diverted by the introduction of two new characters onto the ward. At the end of my week of
solitude, I wake up one morning to find that I have a roommate. The woman is lying in bed with
her eyes half-open, her dirty blond hair splayed out on the pillow. Im a little disappointed at the
loss of my privacy, but nevertheless I stand up gamely and introduce myself, ask the woman how
its going.
Uggh. My brain feels like a Mandelbrot set, she replies.
Im immediately impressed. Not many laypeople know what a Mandelbrot set is, and it only
happens that I recognize the reference because Ive recently read Chaos: Making a New Science
by James Gleik, and was particularly taken by the beauty and complexity of the Mandelbrot
images with their baroque, recursive fractal borders.
Chaos theory, I say, as a way of establishing the fact that Im equal to the metaphor.
The woman says nothing, but a slow half-smile suggests approval. Im going to like this
woman, I think, and then, on the heels of this thought, comes the realization of how isolated Ive
let myself become in the last six days, how withdrawn I am now from life on the ward and the

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people who populate it. Peter remains on the other side, his outrage apparently unabated, and
there really hasnt been anyone else with whom Ive made a connection.
When I return to my room after breakfast, I learn that the womans name is Marsha, that
shes extremely wealthy and lives in an expensive, exclusive neighborhood, and that last night
she asked a police officer to shoot her in the head.
I ran out the back door and across the lawn to our fence, but I couldnt get over it before
the police were on me, Marsha says. So I fell down on my knees, pointed my hand at the side
of my head, and repeatedly told the guy to shoot me. I imagine her hand pressed, gun style,
against her temple, her thumb triggering shot after shot. He just kept saying Im not going to
shoot you, maam, she continues. We got locked into a back and forth about it for a while, and
then he jumped me and the whole thing ended with me being led to the police car in handcuffs.
I admire her gesture; despite my current preoccupation with self-harm, Im not sure that
Id have dared ask a police officer to shoot me, even at my most unhinged. I dont doubt
Marshas sincerity in the moment, but I suspect that underneath it lay the sure presumption that
he wouldnt actually do it. Perhaps, I think, I lack the same degree of confidence.
Over the next few days, Marsha and I hang out together a lot, becoming confidantes of a
sort. I learn that Marshas husband spends most of his time living out of town, leaving Marsha
alone to take care of her two kids and, eventually, to spool out of control. When Marsha, whos
also bipolar, starts to unravel, friends and relatives urge her husband to move back to Toronto.
But his job requires that he stay out of town, and he cant seem to break the habit of hauling in
millions of dollars, even knowing that his wife is on a tear. He does eventually come back home
when he realizes how far gone Marsha is, or when the social pressure starts to make him feel like
a negligent asshole, but the understanding even at this point is that the move is temporary.

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Hes kind of useless, anyway, Marsha observes. Doesnt cook or clean. Doesnt have
a clue what activities the kids are involved in. Probably couldnt even name the school they
attend. I think of Kathleen, with her careful attentiveness, her cool efficiency at planning and
directing the girls activities, and give silent thanks that Im not saddled with someone like
Marshas husband.
Marsha is a rare brand of patient, the kind that you hope youll encounter in what can
begin to feel like a swamp of unmanageable pathologies. Shes smart, personable, interesting,
and demonstrates excellent reality testing. In this latter respect, Marsha stands in stark contrast to
the other patient whom I meet. It begins as Im walking down the hall and hear a male voice say,
Professor Burwell? I hesitate, initially disoriented by the title, and then turn and am greeted by
a young man with jet black hair and vivid green eyes who is looking at me with a tentative
expression. He looks to be in his early thirtiestoo old, I think, to be a student. But then, who
else would call me Professor?
Its Sean, he says. Sean Gold from your Media Studies course. I think back. I havent
taught that course in years, and looking at Sean, Im struck by how much time has passed since I
started joined Ryersons English department in 1997. On the heels of that thought, an
appreciation of how long its been since Ive considered my job a career. The passage of time,
measured in plans made but never carried out, constant disruption by my illness, the erosion of
my ambition, the regression from forward movement into treading waterall of it has stolen the
notion that Im pursuing some sort of vocation. At the same time, Im struck by the fact that, in
some far away place, I still occupy a position of authority. It seems so unlikely, given my current
positionmonitored, suspect, posing a potential problem to be averted or solved.

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Sean. Right. Um, how are you? I try to sound casual, as if we were meeting on the
street. As if meeting in this setting isnt unbearably awkward, and as if my question was just the
usual meaningless salutation and not a potential foray into territory potent with suffering and
madness.
Good. Great, actually. Really great. In another context, at another time, I would be
pleased to hear that Sean is doing so well. But here, the only people feeling great are either
manic or delusional or both. I become alert to potential pathology.
Good. Thats good to hear, Sean, I answer. An uncomfortable silence ensues, wherein
Sean nods his head repeatedly and I rock back and forth from heel to toe, hands stuffed in my
pockets. Finally, it becomes intolerable. Listen, Sean, Id love to talk, I say finally, but I have
to meet with someone now. Maybe later? It feels like an obvious dodge, but I need to retreat
and regroup. I back away two steps and then turn and hurry toward my room in what I hope
suggests purpose and not flight. I close the bedroom door and ease myself into the chair by bed.
The important thing is not to make any sudden movements right now; my identity feels fragile
and discordant, I feel myself in danger of breaking apart. But as still as I remain, fissures
nevertheless begin to appear, threatening to expose the breach between who I am right here, right
now, and the person I play on the outside.
If only there were a mirror in my room; if only I could privately check my reflection for
reassurance. But reassurance about what? That Im still who I was twelve years ago? I dont
need a mirror to know that Im not the same. However fragile that person was, she still found
episodes of illness foreign and exceptional, she still belonged securely on the outside. Im not so
sure thats true anymore. Despite my seven years of relative, if sometimes precarious health,
places like this have come to fit me too easily; I step into them with the ease of experience and

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familiarity. Its not that the inside isnt complicated, frustrating, even crazy-making. Its not that
I dont resent the limitations placed on me, the abuses of power, the benign or not so benign
neglect. Its that I now understand the logic of these places, know how to navigate their spaces,
the collection of personalities. Thats not so true at work anymore, what with my research in
chaos and my teaching infected by the near constant fear of a breakdown.
Still, Ill have to deal with Sean at some point. At the moment, though, he feels too much
like a rebuke, a painful reminder that I have untended responsibilities elsewhere
responsibilities that others have had to take on in my absence. And so I spend most of the
afternoon lying on my bed, door closed and earbuds in, aimlessly flipping from song to song,
looking for the right one for my mood. My hearts not in it, though, and my mind feels too
divided to fix on a single song. Too soon, a nurse pokes her head in the room and tells me its
time for dinner. I swing my legs onto the floor and steel myself for another meeting with Sean.
At least the others will be there, I think, the ones who see me only for what I am in here. I open
the door carefully and poke my head out. There, standing beside my door, is Sean.
I didnt want to disturb you, he says, but Id really like to talk. He has an anxious,
expectant air, radiates the thrum of suppressed energy.
Thrown by his sudden appearance, I mask my discomfort by leaning against the wall and
putting my hands in my pockets.
Please, call me Jennifer, I say. This is hardly the place to stand on ceremony. I smell
the food and my stomach rumbles, but theres no getting around this now. Whats up? I ask. I
take my hands out of my pockets, cross my arms, then uncross them and let them hang by my
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Id like to discuss mysituation with you, if I could, he answers. I let out the breath I
didnt know I was holding. This is familiar territoryreassuring young people about their
situation. I can do this.
Sean continues. Well, its just that Im about to come into a lot of money, and I was
wondering if you could give me some advice about what I should do with it.
Oh?
Ya. Only, to get the money, I have to convince some people of something. Especially
my brother. I recall now that Sean has a twin. I picture them sitting together at the front left of
the classroom. I cant remember his brothers name, but I can see the two of them clearly
always in that same spot, always together.
Okay. I imagine a sibling spat over some inheritance.
Ya. Ive been toldor I just know, somehow, I guessthat somethings going to
happen, or it could happen, if my brother would just believe me. The thrum seems to intensify,
though his body remains still.
Whats that? I put my hands back into my pocket and lean against the wall.
If he believes me, if I can convince him that theres this time coming soon, or that it
could come, where therell be, you know, a kind of peace of earth, or a kind of Eden, I guess,
then Ill get this money. Or noif I convince him, then the money and the peace will come at
the same time. Three billion dollars. Its just, Im not sure what to do with it. I mean, should I
keep it, or should I do something good with it?
Oh no, I think. Another delusion, another adjustment. I shift my thinking and prepare to
enter into the logic of his world. If Ive learned one thing, its not to challenge the convictions of
people in this state. It just makes them angry, and does nothing at all to change their thinking.

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Well, I point out, if were living in a kind of Eden, then is the money really necessary?
I mean, wont it be a bit redundant?
No. That is, the one sort of depends on the other. I cant really explain.
No, I think, you cant really explain. You cant, because its not real, and it doesnt follow the
rules.
Well, does Eden depend on what you do with the money?
No, no. They happen at the same time.
So, you dont need to use the money to bring on Eden. I find myself slipping into
teacher mode. Youre argument must be logically consistent. What evidence do you have to
support it? Are youre sources legitimate? I stand now with my legs apart, facing Sean.
Sean sucks in air and blows it out forcefully. I just need to know what I should do with
the money. And how Im going to convince Carl about all of this. He keeps telling me Im
making it all up, that Im imagining it, that Im manic.
Oh, rightCarl, I think. Thats his name. Carl Gold. Bright studenthardworking. Just
like Sean was.
I dont know Seanwhat do you want to do with the money?
I cant decide, thats the problem. I think about all the stuff I could buy, but then I also
think about all of the people I could help.
Jennifer the teacher and specialist in utopian literature wants to point out that its unlikely
that Seans ideal world would have the kind of capitalist economic structure that would support a
buying spree. More often you encounter something like a barter system in these imagined
utopias.
My stomach rumbles again.

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Lets go eat, Sean. We can talk about this over dinner, if you want.
We do talk about it over dinner, and later that day, and for the rest of his stay. I continue
to struggle with the relationship between the money and the ideal society, unable to tie down the
causal connection. Sean often expresses anger at his doctor for not validating his vision, and
frustration toward his brother for refusing to believe him. Because I see no point in challenging
the delusion, and because Sean communicates to Carl what Sean views as my support, I end up
coming under Carls fire. Sean tells me that Carl is disappointed and annoyed that Im
pretending to buy into Seans massive, manic daydream. Carl, it seems, doesnt suffer from
Seans condition; Carl is the responsible one, systematically advancing his career, raising a
family, holding down a mortgage. Sean lives with his mother, jobless, unable to make a go of it
on his own, while at the same time straining against his mothers impulse to control him. Seans
life sort of sucksparticularly in comparison to his brothers. Who, in Seans situation, wouldnt
fantasize about being the centre of events that will lead to heaven on earth? Seans advantage, if
you want to look at it that way, is in having the ability to realize his fantasy, if only in his mind.
Time and/or more drugs will likely shatter the illusion eventually, but for now, Sean is at the
centre of the universe, and part of me cant help thinking that its an enviable position to be in.
*
Throughout all of this, I continue my visits to the ravine. Sometimes, in a rush of disgust
over the compulsion that drives me back and then back again, I bury all of the glass and throw
away the marker, vowing not to return to the spot. But I always do, and when I do I always dig
up the glass again. Most of the time I just sit and stare at the pile, but sometimes Ill pick some
pieces up and shake them around in my hand like dice, or let them fall slowly from one hand to
the other. Sometimes Ill pick up a single piece and hold it between my fingers. At these times, I

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feel suspended between the part of myself that craves normality, and the part that has become
bound to some darker purpose. To impose my willif only on myself. Control, lack of control
I teeter between the two, lose sight of which actions represent mastery, and which, the loss of it.
My second visit to the other sidethe ICU sidebegins with a small act of denial
executed by the attendant who sits in the nursing station opposite the dooran exceptionally
large, unattractive woman with small, suspicious eyes. Shes the one decides who gets buzzed
out and who doesnt. This particular encounter revolves around the fact that no patients are
allowed out after 10:30pm, which means that most of the smokers go out for a final cigarette
around 10:20, just before the doors close for the night. One evening, when its 10:15 by the
hallway clock, the attendant arbitrarily decides that its too late and refuses to buzz me out. I feel
anger welling up at this petty gesture, but know that theres no use arguing the pointthat would
just entrench the attendants position. Still, determined to have my cigarette, I walk down to the
common room at the far end of the hallway, sit down at a table, and light one up.
I dont think about the consequences; I simply enjoy the luxury of lighting up. Three
drags in, I hear voices approaching; four drags and Im met by my night nurse and two security
guards. I take one more drag before handing over the cigarette, not caring about the fact that Ill
have my privileges taken away; this particular nurse (the same one who collects the electronics)
is by the book. Instead, however, they lead me down the hall, escort me into the ICU unit, and
take away my clothes. Could have set the place on fire, mutters the nurse as she turns and
walks away. Never mind that people regularly sneak cigarettes in the bathroom. Never mind that
when they get caught, they receive only a warning and have their cigarettes taken away. In my
obvious indifference, however, it seems that I have violated some kind of agreementone
wherein I, the patient, attempt to hide my infractions from them, the staff. Not doing so could

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indicate an unacceptable level of defiance, or a psychotic inability to recognize The Rules and
when Im violating them. Still, her reaction lacks a sense of proportion, suggests that she
possesses no instinct for the job.
Predictably, the first thing my doctor does when he comes in the next morning is to move
me back to the regular ward. After a brief and futile attempt to uncover my motivations, he lets
the issue drop, but the transfer to ICU has left me a little more alienated, a little less socialized. I
stop reaching out toward the ones who care about me, and when they visit my eyes pass over the
worry etched on their faces. I forget how Im supposed to be, become immune even to the pull of
my children when Kathleen brings them to visit. They, too, seem far away, cant compete with
my growing preoccupation with my own predicament. And so my two lives peel away from one
another and Im drawn further into the immediacy of hospital life. For her part, Kathleen seems
less and less inclined to bring the kids up to the ward, wants to meet me outside on the grass
beside the parking lot.
My friends comment that I seem different, but no one seems able to put their finger on
the nature of that difference. As for me, I dont see it; I still feel confident that, at least while
people from the outside are visiting, I can arrange myself into someone who interacts according
to the usual conventions. I dont notice that I speak only about the hospital, about the people who
populate it and the small dramas that they play out. I dont notice that I neglect to ask people
how they are, what theyve been up to, whats going on in the world. Sometimes, although its
nice to sit chatting in the sun at one of the picnic tables, I find myself impatient to get back onto
the unit so I can hang out with the other patients, with people whose own preoccupations feel
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As I continue to draw further and further into my hospital self, a new patient arrives on
the ward. Hypomanic and compelling, Portia seems somehow able to collect people into orbit
around her, and the effect is profound. What had before been a collection of loosely related
individuals solidifies into a group, bound by Portias gravitational pull. Something about her
makes you want to be around her, to be acknowledged by her, to be part of something that she
creates without effort or design. I find myself wanting to hang out with Portia, to take cigarette
breaks with her, to borrow a hairbrush or offer her dessert. Everything Portia does seems so
natural; she dominates the space without self-consciousness, skirts around the staff and the rules
with ease and flair. Portia isnt supposed to leave the ward, but shes taken her red wristband and
turned it inside out so that it shows white. Remarkably, none of the staff calls her on it, and she
comes and goes as she pleases. This innovation, which Portia pulls off without the least bit of
anxiety or hesitation, only increases my admiration for her.
One day, as were all sitting together having lunch, Portia looks around the table and
says, I love you guys. At that moment I feel suffused with warmth for all of the others around
the table, feel the power of a hive mind that leaves no one on the outside, even those most
detached from reality. Someone else at the table says, We love you too, Portia, and I wish that
I had been the one to say it, that I had been the one to acknowledge Portias specialness. It occurs
to me that Portia would make an excellent cult leader, although she lacks entirely the kind of
megalomania that tends to define such characters. It would be more accurate to say that Portia
moderates what has begun to feel more like a coming together than a confinement. If she mostly
does what the nurses ask her to, it seems more a case of her indulging their wishes than bowing
to them. And if she engages in what might be called classically inappropriate manic behavior

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having sex with three different men over the course of two days, for exampleit only makes her
seem more alive; it only adds further color to her already intense personality.
And then shes gone, and the effect is no less profound than her arrival. The group
splinters, breaks up into ones and twos; suddenly there are people to avoid, people I find I dislike
or have no interest in. In the midst of this loss, my doctor begins to pressure me to leave. Ive
already had several weekend passes without incident, but I find that I dont want to leave; even
with the loss of Portia, I feel more connected to these people than to anyone on the outside. I
know, however, that to admit this will only make my doctor more inclined to discharge me, and
so I affect a positive yet slightly tentative attitude toward my discharge. I ask for time to prepare
myself, and in doing so gain a meager three days that pass all to quickly. On the morning of the
fourth day I quietly gather my clothes and retrieve my laptop from under the bed. I take a last
look around the room, smooth the sheets on my rumpled bed, and go out to find Leah.
Now, dont get into any funny stuff, ok? Leah says.
Nono funny stuff, I reply, avoiding her eyes.
I mean it, Leah says, moving over slightly and tilting her head so that she can meet my
gaze.
I know, I say, looking away again.
I take a last tour around the unit, mostly so that I can find Sean and say goodbye. Hes
lying on his bed with his eyes closed, though, and so I walk back up the hall and stand in front of
the door, waiting to be buzzed out. No one is at the nursing station, and the attendant is nowhere
in sight, so I wait until the door is opened from the other side by two social workers, and then
slip out before the door closes. One of the social workers hesitates, asks me if Im allowed out.
Im going home, I say, holding my bare wrist up in the air. Without waiting for an answer, I

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brush past them and continue down the stairs and out into the parking lot, and then around
toward the front of the hospital where I can catch the Lawrence bus to the subway. I pull out my
earbuds, plug them into my phone, and put on Love and Death by The Stills, singing the
chorus under my breath as I get on the bus. I sit staring out of the window, feeling all wrong,
wondering how Im going to step back into my home life. I envy those people who wait
impatiently for the day theyll be discharged, who have a normal response to leaving behind the
fettered hospital life. I always seems to get so entangled, so caught up in my hospital self; my
discharge always feels like ripping off a bandage, the revoking of membership rather than the
granting of freedom. As I approach home, the perversity of my attitude makes me feel guilty.
Am I not supposed to look forward to being with my family, seeing my friends on my own
schedule, riding my bike and hanging out in cafs? Why, then, do I feel heavy and nostalgic;
why does each mile closer to home just increase my dread?
I exit the subway at Ossington Station and begin the ten minute walk south to Dewson
Street, unbalanced by the chaos of cars passing, children shouting in the school ground, dogs
barking. I long for the quiet of the hospital, the relative predictability of itmeals at 7:30, 12:00,
and 5:00, limitations that now seem less like constraints and more like protection from an unruly
world. Looming responsibility begins to knot in my neck and shoulders, and I tilt my head first
to one side and then the other in an effort to loosen them. I arrive at the house to find the door
locked, and have a sudden moment of panic as I wonder where Ive put my keys. I shrug off my
knapsack and bend over to look through it, but just then the door opens and there stands Ella, my
six year old, a shy smile on her face. I bend down to hug her and receive a stiff hug in return. Am
I foreign to her now? I wonder. Does she, maybe in self-defense, see my presence here as
temporary, conditional? I stand up to see Maeve, my other daughter, bounding down the stairs.

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Maeve runs over to me and jumps up, turning her head and shouting Moms home! I bury my
head in Maeves hair and breathe in the smell of shampoo and summer. No shyness from Maeve
who, at three, still lives mostly in the moment. Whatever she may remember of the hospital
visits, it wont take her long to act as though Ive never been gone. Ella, though, older and
always more cautiousI will have to make a point of re-connecting with her.
I walk up the stairs and into the living room, where Kathleen sits on the couch. She gets
up and gives me a brisk hug. Welcome home, she says. The gesture feels like a formality, and
my sense of belonging elsewhere expands. The knot in my neck and shoulders begins to spread
out across my back.
Ive ordered Indian, Kathleen says.
Greatthats great, I reply, placing my knapsack on the floor beside the couch. My fave, I
add, as if Kathleen might have forgotten. I lower myself carefully onto the couch, unable to think
of anything to say. I am not a part of this, I think.
Hows work? I ask.
Good. Busy.
I wait for the usual work-related tales of interpersonal woe or administrative hijinks, but
Kathleen remains silent. I stand up. Im just going to get a snack. Im starved. Im not
hungryfeel a little nauseous, actuallybut anything is better than this oppressive silence.
Mmm-hmm. Kathleen says.
I look over at Ella, whos sitting with her legs curled up underneath her looking at Kathleen and
me. Watching. Maeve sits on Kathleens lap, examining a round, smooth stone that shes found.
Maeve the collectorrocks, sticks, tabs from soft drinks, pieces of styrofoamall potential

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treasures in her mind. These talismans, I wonder, do they settle her in some way, tether her to the
world?
Ella and Maeve, do you want anything to eat? I ask.
Theyve eaten, Kathleen says curtly.
Oh. Ok then. Well, Ill just. my voice trails off, and I turn to walk into the kitchen. The girls
follow me.
So Ella, hows school, I ask.
Ella looks at me. Mom, its summer. Its Monday, July 14 . Always so precise. Perhaps that
th

precision, the exactitude that she insists on, is her own way of ordering the world around her.
Right, of course. Has it been that long? Ive been so caught up in hospital time that outside
time has passed me by.
Well then, hows summer? Do you miss school? I know that, at least, is bound to get a
response.
No way! Grade one is too hard. You have to sit in desks all of the time, and you never get time
to play except at recess.
When am I going to school? Maeve asks.
Soon enough, Maevey. I think for a moment. Just one more year. I lean down and kiss her
on the head.
Are you home now, or are you going back to the hospital? Maeve asks. I like the hospital,
she adds. We get to pick up MacDonalds and eat it outside. Its like a picnic.
I look over and see Kathleen standing at the edge of the dining room watching us. She
frowns at Maeves last comment, and then walks into the kitchen and starts putting the clean
dishes away. I should have done that, I think. Useless. I feel useless and irrelevant. Worse, I feel

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as though the girls have to be protected from me. NoI feel as though Kathleen believes that the
girls have to be protected from me. I try not to think about the way I was in the hospital. Try to
banish that person from the room, but she remains, reflected Kathleens pursed lips and rigid
posture. Kathleen seems annoyed and distant, appears to wince every time I interact with the
kids. I feel as though shes gotten used to taking care of the kids by herself, has developed habits
and routines around them into which I now fit only imperfectly, awkwardly. What I dont know,
and will only find out later, is just how much Kathleen has taken ownership over a life without
me around.
By dinner time, the girls are in full chatter mode, which at least distracts from the breach
that separates me from Kathleen. I have no idea how to span that breach. I wants to apologize
for being away, for neglecting our home, for turning out crazy. But I suspect that these are not
things Kathleen wants to hear, that to speak them would only make matters worse. The frost
barely thaws after dinner, or the next day, or the next. I meet with friends, but while, unlike
Kathleen, theyre warm and supportive, I remain somewhere else, my thoughts caught up again
in distant dramas. I find I cant sit still, my leg bounces up and down uncontrollably, my hands
shake and my gaze wanders. I feel agitated and depressed at the same time, a ruthless but
familiar combination that denies me even the stillness of lethargy that accompanies the purer sort
of depression. Its unbearable and, perhaps out of deadly habit, a failure of the imagination, my
thoughts stray towards the only kind of peace I seem able to envisionthe peace of putting an
end to it all, of total escape. Unwelcome thoughts of suicide intrude constantlywhen Im alone,
when Im talking to others, when I swim or try to work at a caf. During meditation, I find I can
only hold my attention on my breath for moments before these thoughts push their way into my

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consciousness. Instead of counting mindfully up to ten and back down again, I find sometimes
that Ive counted to twenty or more before I realize that Im off track.
Hard as it is to acknowledge that these thoughts are defeating me, I have to admit to
myself, and to my psychiatrist, that Ive lost control again. My psychiatrist is loathe these days to
send me to the hospital, given how much the care has degenerated; nevertheless, after one
particularly dark session, she decides that Im too at risk to send home, and tells me to go to the
emergency. Sunnybrook is the closest hospital, and so I make my way back to the emergency
entrance and tell the triage nurse that Im having thoughts of suicide. After a brief time in the
waiting room, someone leads me to the back and tells me to take my clothes off and get into a
gown. This is unusual in these circumstances, and I balk at the idea of giving up my street
clothes, refuse to get changed. A battle with the nurse ensues until we reach a compromise; I can
keep my pants and shirt on, but I have to wear a gown over them.
After a time, a doctor comes to speak with me. He says little as I trot out the usual
history, asking only the odd question before he puts down my chart and leaves. More time
passes, and then a social worker appears, identifying herself as Janet. She informs me that there
are no beds on the unit, that in fact there are no psych beds anywhere in the city, so Im going to
have to stay in ER for the time being. She tells me that part of the situation has been created by
the fact that, in the summer months, people bring in their aged, Alzheimers-afflicted parents
because they dont want the burden of caring for them when they go on holiday or up to their
cottages. Sometimes, the nurse adds, they simply leave them in the waiting room and take off. A
lot of these patients end up in psych wards because the city doesnt have anywhere else to put
them, and its jamming up the system. Theres that, and the fact that the city keeps closing down
psychiatric unitsfirst Wellesley, then Womens College. Then the womens floor at CAMH,

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once a general ward, is turned into a boutique unit for women suffering from PTSD.
Unfortunately, the number of afflicted people has not decreased correspondingly. If anything, its
increased, and clearly the situation is becoming untenable.
The nurse guides me to a bed across the room, and I settle down to wait. A casually
dressed heavy woman appears and takes a seat in a chair at the foot of my bed. I move to draw
the curtain, but the woman tells me that I cant do that, that she has to be able to see me. The
woman doesnt appear to be a nurse; her function seems only to watch my every move. I learn
that the woman is called a sitter, and then notice that these sitters are dotted all over the
emergency room. It turns out that there are seven or eight psych patients in emergency; as a
group, we outnumber all of the other patients put together. At first I had imagined waiting up to
six or eight hours for a bed to open up; never had I imagined that I would be living here. But I
dofor three long, difficult days. Living in emerg is unpleasant, to say the least. The noise and
bustle never cease, nor do the lights ever dim. Theres nowhere to go, except the fifteen feet to
the bathroom, and even then Im accompanied by my sitter. Privacy is an impossible luxury, and
any sleep I manage to get is fitful and uneven. I try putting my earbuds in at bedtime and
listening to classical music, but to drown out the background noise Im forced to turn the volume
up so high that it proves just as intrusive.
One particularly unruly psych patient near me, a young man with a close-shaved head
and tattoos snaking down his neck (he would look tough, if it werent for the hospital gown that
exposes his thin, white legs), continuously and loudly protests his confinement.
I shouldnt be here, he says to any nurse who passes by. I need to go home.
Each time, he is met with the same even response. You were standing on the edge of
your friends ninth floor apartment balcony, they say. You were threatening to jump.

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I wouldnt have done it, he responds. I was drunk and I didnt mean it.
When his family members visit, they repeat the same mantra as the nurses. When he
begins to protest the fact that Ive been allowed to keep my pants, I start to wish that they would
just let him go and leave him to his fate.
In the evening of my second day, and with no end in sight, I ask Janet what I would need
to do to be discharged.
Well, We would need to see that you have some kind of plan to keep yourself safe,
Janet responds. What youll do when you have thoughts about hurting yourself, and a schedule
that you intend to follow.
I can do that, I think, recalling all of the times that Ive generated just such plans with my
psychiatrist.
Do you have a pen and paper? I ask.
Janet looks pleased. Of course, she says. She returns a moment later with a piece of
lined paper and a pen.
I take up the pen and search around for something flat to write on. I pull out the book Im
readingThe Heart of the Buddhas Teaching by Thich Nhat Hanhand place the paper on it.
At the top, I write, The Plan. I think for a moment and then begin.
When I have thoughts of suicide I will:
1. Contact a friend, family, or my psychiatrist.
2. Find a diversionexercise, reading, etc.
3. Call a suicide hotlineGerstein Centre, etc.
4. Meditate.

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This last strategy is particularly fraught, given what happened before, but I remind myself
that they likely dont know this. I turn the paper over and write The Schedule at the top.
1. Breakfast
2. Exercise
3. Work.
4. Lunch
5. Errands (grocery shop, etc.).
6. Meet a friend.
7. Dinner
8. Read.
9. Go to bed.
In the morning, I show the list to Janet. It seems lame and insincere to me, but shes almost giddy
with delight.
This looks very good, Jennifer, she says. Do you mind if I take a photocopy for our
records?
Yes, I reply. I mean, sure, go ahead.
After a moment she returns, along with the nurse on duty.
Good job, the nurse says. As long as you feel that you can keep to the plan youve
outlined, we see no reason to keep you any longer. The two of them beam at the prospect of
discharging me and opening up a bed.
Sure, I say. I can do that.
Fine. Great, Janet replies. Well get the paperwork ready and then youre free to go.

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The whole exercise seems bogus, but if it will get me out of this place, then Im prepared
to play along. I stand up, put the book back into my knapsack, stuff the plan/schedule in my back
pocket, and throw the gown on the bed. The nurse returns.
Ok Jennifer, youre all done. she says. We wish you the best of luck, she adds.
Thanks. I put on my backpack, squeeze past my sitter, and start towards the door.
Before I can exit, however, a security guard standing by the nursing station says,
Excuse me, Miss, but you cant leave.
Im allowed to go home, I say, feeling annoyed at this one last hoop. You can ask the
social worker. He walks over to Janet, says something, and I see her nod. He comes back over.
Ok, he says. Everything seems to be in order.
Right. See you later, then.
I walk out the door into the main foyer, and then out onto the street. The whole
experience has left me feeling jaded and cynical. Its true that I havent been honest with them,
that I cared only about getting a ticket out. And while its true that they havent the power to read
my mind, I also feel as though no one there had really given much thought to the matter of my
discharge. If beds werent so scarce, if the system wasnt so broken, Im pretty sure they would
have taken more time to investigate, that they would have been a bit more cautious about letting
me leave. I dont feel any better than I did when I came in, except for a sweeping relief at having
escaped from such hellish circumstances.
Unfortunately, my relief is short-lived. Increasingly restless and persistently unable to
connect to those around me, I begin to spend more and more time wandering around the city,
covering miles and miles of ground without any notion of purpose or direction. I get blisters, my
feet hurt all the time, but I seem never to tire. Its during these walks that the old obsession

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begins to bloom inside my head. The one about the perfect suicide. Im not possessed by a death
wish; in fact, the idea that death and suicide go together no longer registers for me. My mind has
neatly severed the two; suicide has become a goal without consequences. I think about pills, I
think about knives, I think about alcohol and the combination of all three. At first the new plan
that begins to take form remains hypothetical, a habitual diversion into which I escape. At first it
competes with other thoughts of home and friends and wanting to be a good mother. But within a
couple of weeks the plan has become a fierce reality that has captured my imagination;
everything else recedes into distractions, and I find myself feeling most alive when I walk around
by myself formulating the details. By the third week the plan is no longer an undefined desire,
and I begin to think about looking for a knife. For some reason the quality of knife has become
importantas if Im done with shoddy box cutters and need to move onto something with more
elegance and heft.
The second day after my third week out of emerg, I put a bottle of Seroquel into my
backpack and walk across town toward Kitchen Stuff Plus on Yonge street. On the way, I stop at
Bloor and Ossington and buy a bottle of vodka. Ive never liked vodka, am not really a liquor
person, but I reason that itll be the most tasteless and thus the easiest to get down without any
mix. I stash it in my backpack and continue east.
When I arrive at the Kitchen store, I walk straight to the back where the most expensive
knives are displayed behind glass, and stand with my arms crossed, evaluating the offerings.
A young woman walks over to me. Can I help you? she says.
Yes, I reply. Im looking for a top notch paring knife. Something really sharp. I feel
as though my intention is obvious, present somewhere in the way I hold myself, in the way I
avoid the saleswomans eyes. As though buying the knife is a crime that Im going to have to

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pull off, like an underage kid buying beer. But the woman merely opens the cabinet and begins
to describe the knives.
The best ones we have are porcelain, she says. Theyre very sharp, and they never
dull. They go for one thirty. The knife she points to is all wrong, thougha too large luxury
item that doesnt fit with the compact simplicity that I seek. Besides, its hardly as if Ill need a
knife that never dullsIm only going to use it once. But then again, I think, why not get
something that will last; why waste a good knife when I can re-use it after all this is over?
I stand mulling it over for a moment. What about that one? I point to a smaller knife
with a brushed metal handle. The womans enthusiasm dampens.
Well, its not of the same caliber as the porcelain ones, but its a solid knife, she says.
European, she adds, as if the knife is in possession of a certain cultural cach not expressed in
the North American variety. Sixty-five dollars.
Can I hold it? I ask.
Of course, the woman responds, taking the knife carefully out of its resting place. She
hands it to me, handle first.
I feel a kind of vertigo as I stare at the knife in my hand. This is the moment where the
possible becomes the probable, and I feel momentarily lightheaded at the thought. Its not long,
though, before I feel a calm purpose return. Ill take it, I say flatly, handing the knife back to
the woman.
She rings it through, and I drop it into my backpack.
Youll want to be careful with that, the woman says. You might cut yourself.
Ya, I say. Ill be careful.
Do you want me to wrap it? she offers.

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No. Everythings fine, thanks, I reply.
Having collected everything that I need, I get on the Yonge line and take it north to
Lawrence Park, a sprawling expanse of green that Ive always liked. At the northeast corner,
theres a short path leading to a dense area of foliage. The path doesnt really go anywhere and is
somewhat overgrown, so few people follow it. I walk into the densest area, and sit down to pull
out my supplies, mindful of the womans warning about cutting myself. I open the bottle of
vodka and take a sip. It tastes horrid, and burns unpleasantly on the way down. I force myself to
take another sip, and then another. The vodka sits uneasily in my stomach, and each sip becomes
harder than the last. Already this is beginning to feel a lot more difficult than Id imagined it
would. Having drunk far less that Id intended, I pick up the bottle of pills and pour a bunch into
my hand. I toss the pills into my mouth, steel myself, and take another gulp of vodka. More pills,
and then another gulp. After that I sit for what feels like an eternity, unable to act. My frustration
grows, coupled with the fear that Im not going to be able to see this through. Woozy from the
pills and alcohol, I will myself to pick up the knife, position it, and draw it unevenly along one
wrist and then the other.
Sitting there, having realized each part of the plan, I feel something shift in my mind.
This is all wrong, this is not how it was supposed to be. I dont feel any sense of
accomplishment, just sick and afraid and alone. I need to talk to my psychiatrist; I need to
identify the weak link in my plan. And so I get up, knife still dangling from my hand, and throw
my backpack over my shoulder with the other hand. I walk back along the path and out into the
open part of the park. Sunbathers are scattered across the grass, eyes closed, and no one takes
any notice of me or the blood running down my hands. With considerable effort I climb the stairs
to the street and begin to cross Lawrence Avenue. Its a very busy street, but somehow the cars

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avoid me, and I find myself standing in the middle of the gas station lot just north of my
therapists office. The vodka and pills are really messing with me now, and I drop to my knees,
the knife still dangling from my left hand. From far away I hear someone yell, Dont do it! I
continue to kneel there, swaying, until I hear the distant sound of a siren. As the sound gets
louder, the realization that that all Ive done is fucked things up again begins to take shape. I
drop the knife and hang my head in humiliation.
After a couple of minutes I hear voices beside me, and, with my head still hanging down,
I watch as someones foot kicks the knife and sends it skidding across the asphalt. Shit, I think.
Now Ill never get it back. Im picked up and placed onto a gurney, a strap is secured around my
waist, and Im pushed into the ambulance. A voice speaks to me, asking me where I live, what I
do for a living. Do I have any family? What are their names? I hear my own voice, thick and
slurred, trying to answer the questions. I wish only that they would stop talking and let me sleep.
The voice drones on, tells me to keep my eyes open, but I no longer make any effort to answer or
fight the heaviness. Someone pinches the tendon just above my left shoulder, hard, and I
experience a moment of irritation before I feel myself floating away again.
When I wake up, Im in a large, dimly lit room, and I sense the presence of other patients
around me. I turn my head to the right and see a nursing station situated in the middle of what
appears to be a round room. Turning my head to the left, I can just make out a figure sitting in a
chair near the end of my bed. Another sitter. There are no curtains around me, nothing to block
the view from the nursing station. I have leads on my chest attached to a machine, and an IV drip
inserted in my left hand. I wonder vaguely if this is what the medical ICU looks like, and then
drift off again. The next time I wake up, I begin to feel restless, but sleep eludes me.
Excuse me, I say to the woman at the foot of my bed. The woman looks up.

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Can I get some clonazapam, please? Im having trouble relaxing.
The woman gets up from her chair and walks over to the nursing station, says something
that I cant hear.
Are you kidding? says a loud voice from the station. Shes just overdosed on pills!
Jesus. The voice is angry, and I feel bad for getting the woman in trouble, although I suspect
that the response, loud as it was, was meant for my ears. The sitter returns and tells me that I
cant have anything, and then sits back down heavily in her chair. I pass the rest of the night
uneasily, awakened regularly by a nurse who keeps turning me from my side onto my back,
muttering something about how it messes up my heart rate. Or maybe its the recording of my
heart rate. Im not certain which one she means, although the distinction seems vaguely
important.
I wake up in the morning, bleary and hungover, and prepare to wait. If nothing else, the
countless emergency rooms Ive inhabited have taught me patience. Hours in the waiting room
(if you dont come by ambulance), waiting to be seen by a doctor, waiting for a bed or a transfer,
waiting for food, waiting to be picked up. Lying there, staring at the pinpricked ceiling tiles,
listening to the moans and various expressions of discomfort or frustration from the patients
around me.
Im surprised, then, that not half an hour after I wake, a man arrives and identifies
himself as the medical doctor for the psychiatric unit. He sits down next to my bed, and looks at
me.
Jennifer, he says, Id like to get a sense of what was going on in your mind when you
did this to yourself, he says. His bearing is clinical, and his interest appears more intellectual
than anything else. Hes curious; he wants to parse out my motivation.

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I dont know, I reply, embarrassed now at the thought of recounting my pursuit of the
perfect suicide. Im at once ashamed by the plan, and by my failure to execute it. The
contradiction is lost on me.
The doctor shifts to one side and leans on the armrest. Im looking for the what lies at
the heart of itthe melody, if you will. I appreciate the elegance of the metaphor, but am no
more inclined to answer.
I dont know. I just did it. I dont know why.
The doctor presses on. There must have been a reason. Did something happen? Have
there been any upsetting events since your discharge?
No. Nothing.
He pauses, as if weighing the prospect of pushing further, then leans back and puts his
hands on his knees.
At any rate, he says, it seems that the problems with your heart have resolved
themselves, so theres no need for you to stay in ICU. Well be transferring you to a medical
floor shortly, until a bed opens up in the psych unit.
Heart? I think. There was a problem with my heart? Suddenly the potential consequences
of what Ive done crash through the barrier Id erected between action and consequence, and I
experience a moment of retroactive alarm. I never meant to hurt myself; I only meant to achieve
something meaningful, to see something through to the end. I was pursuing success, not selfharm.
The doctor gets up and disappears around the corner. After another hour-long wait, an
orderly shows up with a wheelchair to take me up the medical unit. The sitter moves to follow
me, and the three of us ascend in the elevator. Im wheeled into the far bed of a double room,

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where the sitter takes up her station at the end of my bed. It feels odd, to be joining the general
hospital population, to be entering a medical ward as a psychiatric patient. I experience the same
sense of dislocation that was such a prominent feature of my time on the outside, combined now
with self-consciousness at being the only patient on the floor with a babysitter. I feel marked, set
apart from the other patients on the floor. I have no idea how long Im going to be here, but at
least Im not in the emergency room, with the endless noise and relentless bright lights.
In the end, I spend almost three days on the medical floor, with brief and relatively
unproductive visits from the medical psychiatrist each day. He decides to lower my antidepressant and add lithium, a drug that I have scrupulously avoided after the two weeks of
overwhelming nausea that I endured the last time I was on it, years ago. On the second day of my
stay, Sarah visits. Im self-conscious about the gown that I have to wear, about the bandages on
my wrists that Sarah neither stares at nor avoids.
I was thinking, Sarah says, that, you know, instead of waiting for the worst, maybe it
would be a good idea for you to be with someone--if they discharge you. I thought maybe we
could arrange some kind of schedule and people could take shiftsjust until youre feeling more
stable. Kind of a safety net. I emailed Kathleen about it, but she said that she didnt like the idea;
she didnt seem to want to talk about it at all, actually. I got the feeling that she felt I was
overstepping my bounds.
No surprise there, I think. Kathleen would hate this idea. She knows Ill get better
eventually, and she wouldnt want to drag a bunch of other people into our affairs. Kathleen is a
very private person.
Ya, well, I think itll be ok, I reply, having no idea whether it will or wont.

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Sarah stays for a while, talking about my situation, about things going on in her own life.
I appreciate the respitefrom the monotony of lying in the bed, broken up only occasionally
when a sitter agrees to walk with me in circles around the floor. Even more, I appreciate the
break from the constant patter of my current sitter. After seven hours of unrelenting chatter, I
know more about this womans life than I do about many of my closer acquaintanceswhere
she comes from, what her plans are, what she used to do before she got a job as a sitter, and how
she feels about all of it. The only relief from this womans endless marathon of self-reflection
comes when I pretend to be asleep.
On the third day, while my friend Sue is visiting, Im informed that someone is coming
up to move me down to psych. I immediately jump up and start to put on my street clothes
theres no way I want to make my entrance onto the floor in a hospital gown. Theres something
so disempowering about these gowns; they make me feel vulnerable and sickly. Too much like a
patient and too little like a person. Even arriving in a wheelchair is still embarrassing, although
theres no way around thateveryone gets moved by wheelchair, no matter how able-bodied.
When the wheelchair arrives to my room, I say a relieved goodbye to my sitter, and ask Sue if
she can come along with me down to the psych floor. Im nervous about the possibility of being
greeted by Leah, worried about her reaction to my return and the reasons for it, and I want
someone there as a buffer.
As it turns out, Leah is standing right by the nursing station when I enter the floor, and
she watches me as Im wheeled down the hall. When I reach her, she puts a hand on my
shoulder.
Id say that its good to see you, says Leah, but. Her words trail off, and I look
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Yes, well, anyway, here I am, I say, standing up.
Ok, well, follow me, Leah says, and leads me back into the same room Id had before.
Weve kept your bed for you. I look around the rest of the room, which appears to be
fully occupied. The only person present is a woman sitting next to the wall on my side of the
room, unmoving, staring at nothing. Shes attached to an IV, and has a wasted look about her, as
if shes been there for a long time. I set down my backpack and sit on the edge of the bed.
I think for now well give you a blue bracelet for now, Leah says. Just until we see
how things go. She leaves and returns a moment later with the band. I hate the idea of not
having a white band, of depending on visits from friends if I want to leave the floor, but I cant
deny the appropriateness of her decision. Sue and I go out for a smoke before she leaves, and I
note a few other psych patients lounge around the door, also smoking. I scan their faces but dont
recognize anyone. After Sue leaves, I return to the floor and drop onto my bed. Theres still no
sign of my other roommates, except for the woman sitting by the window, still as a mannequin. I
find myself staring at her, waiting to catch her in the act of shifting her weight, moving her gaze,
but she remains motionless, the rise and fall of her chest barely discernible. Her body sags, and
her thin, pale arms rest listlessly on the armrests, hands hanging down over the edge. Ive never
seen someone who has sunk into such an utterly unresponsive depression. She fascinates me, at
the same time that I want to look away. Theres something horribly exposed about her, the fact
that she is unable to defend herself even from my naked curiosity. I wonder if shes aware that
Im looking at her, if she feels discomfort. I wonder if she feels anything at all.
Dinner is called, and as I make by way to the dining table, I wonder if anyone I know is
still here. As I pick up my tray and look around, I see Peter sitting over in the corner, and Sean
across from him and a little down. I feel a moment of pleasurable anticipation at seeing Peter;

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hes many things, but hes never boring. My feelings about Sean are a little more complicated, so
I merely smile and say hello to him, touch his shoulder lightly as I walk by, then take the empty
seat beside Peter. Peter is all nervous energy and anticipation. Throughout the course of dinner I
find out that much of his time has been spent trying to convince his ex-wife to reconcile with
him. Hes also working on some sort of device that hes very excited about; he shows me a series
of detailed drawings, but even with his explanation, I remain unclear about its purpose. He also
tells me that hes in the process of arranging to sue his doctor.
After dinner, I catch up with Sean in the hallway and ask him how things are going. He
furrows his brow slightly and looks down.
Well, Im not so sure about all that money stuff anymore, he says. I think maybe I was
imagining it. He pauses and looks past me down the hall. Anyway, Im leaving tomorrow
going back to my moms. I look at his downcast expression, and feel a moment of sympathy
that hes lost the ecstasy of his delusion. Reality sucks, especially when you fall into it from such
great heights. Its a bit of an awkward moment, actually, given the extent to which Id supported
the delusion, and I limit my response to a nod. What can I offer him now?
Hey, listen, Sean, I say. Why dont I give you my phone number and maybe we can
get together after I get out. Have a coffee or something.
Sure, thatd been nice, he says, perking up a little. Hell be fine, I tell myself. He just
needs to get over the coming down.
When I return to my room, I pick up my bookThe Astonishing Life of Octavio Nothing
by M.T. Anderson--and spend the evening reading. I get off of my bed only to take my meds and
brush my teeth, and then go back to reading until Im too sleepy to continue. I regret not having a
chance to talk to Leah, although part of me dreads having to give an account of my actions. The

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good thing about Leah, though, is that she mostly deals in the immediate; she wont spend much
time trying to discover the melody behind what I did.
The next day Jackie is my nurse. After lunch, Jackie invites me into the interview room.
You know, Jennifer, Jackie says, We really dont know what to do with you anymore.
You dont seem to be getting any better, and one of the only options seems to be sending you to
Whitby.
I stare at the table. Whitby? Thats serious. Whitby is for lifers. Whitby has a floor for the
criminally insane. I cant possibly be that far gone. I remember the young Chinese boy who was
here, and who was found one night standing in his pajamas on the railing of a bridge that spans a
small creek near the park. He got shipped to Whitby.
I dont. I dont think thats. my voice cracks. I dont want to go to Whitby.
Maybe theyre just trying to scare me straight, I think.
Im not saying were going to send you there, Jackie says, her voice steady and calm.
Its just that were not seeing any progress.
Progress, I say. Ok, progress. Just exercise some restraint this time, I tell myself.
What I dont feel, perhaps I can at least perform. Maybe I can present them with another plan.
Jackie looks at me for a long time before she gets up from the chair. Ok, Jennifer, she says
finally. Well talk tomorrow. In the meantime, well keep the blue band on for a while longer.
I walk back to my room, feeling dejected, and slump onto the bed. I vow to myself not to spend
any time down in the ravine, which now seems menacing, alive with danger and temptation.
The first time Im able to go out, thanks to a visit from Diane, I note with some relief that
the gap under the fence has been repaired. I wonderdid someone seen me swinging underneath
the fence, and report it? Or is it just a coincidence? I choose to think that its just a coincidence,

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partly to alleviate my self-consciousness about the possibility that I had been watched, partly
because I cant imagine that my actions could have that kind of effect in the world. Whatever the
reason, Im gratified to know that one of my well-worn paths to self-harm has been blocked.
I spend much of the next few days in my room, laying low, although the isolation does at
times drive me out in the hall. Its during one of these forays that I meet Grace, a homemaker
from a small town in Southern Ontario. Grace is plump, with a pleasant, broad face and a
distracted air. The distracted air, it turns out, is perfectly understandableGrace believes that
she has a King Rat living in her head that is controlling her movements. Dispossessed, in her
own mind, of any independent agency, Grace walks around doing what she understands to be the
rats bidding, which turns out to be not very much different than what everyone else is doing
eating their meals, doing laundry, taking showers and going out for cigarettes. Ever ready to
indulge anothers delusion, I take to asking Grace, whenever I see her, how the Rat is. Often the
Rat is angry, always the rat is imperious, willful. I find nothing creepy about the Rat; what I do
find creepy is the fact that Grace always has a smile on her face when she describes it.
One day when I ask Grace about the Rat, she informs me that its gone.
Oh, thats great, I say.
Well, not really, she says. Now I have bees behind my eyes.
That cant be pleasant, I observe, and for a moment Graces smile wavers.
No, its not, Grace says. Theyre always stinging me behind my eyes. Its very
painful.
Well, I say, the rat went away, so maybe the bees will too. Grace looks unconvinced,
but the smile returns.

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One night when theyre handing out meds, I discover a potential reason for Graces
perpetual smile, which seems to defy her obvious suffering. When she receives her meds, she
mentions to the nurse that her Oxycontin isnt there. Oh, sorry, murmurs the nurse, and she
hands Grace another pill. After this, I begin to notice that an inordinate number of patients are
either taking Oxycontin or wearing fentanyl patches. They walk around, semi-blissed out,
whatever pathology theyre suffering from blanketed by a haze of opiates. I mention this to Leah
who, without looking up from what shes doing, replies, I dont make these decisions. Her tone
suggests that she disapproves. I allow as how I might benefit from some oxy, but she just smiles
and says nothing. It is true that some of the patients are in real or imagined pain (the doctors
dont seem to make a distinction), but in my more pessimistic moments, I suspect that opiates
have replaced the old school Thorazine as the new major tranquillizer. Both produce a collection
of docile zombies, but with oxy you dont have to deal with the blanket sluggishness that makes
it difficult, for example, to get people up off their beds for meals or to do a one-on-one.
While I remain fascinated by Graces near biblical afflictions, theres another patient on
the ward whose paranoid obsessions begin to wear on me. Along with a garden variety
conviction that his apartment is being bugged by an ominous but undefined collective, Martin
believes that the sky is a large television screen through which shadowy characters surveil
everyone. In fact, Martins entire portfolio of paranoias are media-centeredtelevision screens,
computers, radiosall deployed to keep track of Martin and anyone else who might fall into his
orbit. Martin tells me that hes in the hospital because he slowly inserted a knife into his chest
until the tip was resting against his heart. Im skeptical until he shows me the large bandage on
his chest, although I continue to doubt his ability to achieve the kind of precision that he claims
for himself. How do you know when a knife is resting against your heart? Can you feel the

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vibration? That seems unlikely. Martin goes on to recount how he stayed perfectly still once the
knife was by his heart, giving himself up to the shadowy powers, waiting to see what they would
have him do. It turns out that the powers were just short of murderous, and Martin was able to
withdraw the knife.
Martin comes off as an aging hippielong hair tied at the back, loose, flowing clothes.
The most remarkable thing about Martin, however, and the part that keeps me engaged, is the
artisanal business that he pursues, which also happens to be the reason for all of the surveillance.
The second time that I speak to Martin, he pulls out some highly polished, whitish stones from
his pocket and holds them out for me to see. Nice, I say, waiting for the punch line.
Theyre made from the ashes of bodily remains, Martin tells me. Ive developed a
method of compressing them into this form. This way, people can have something beautiful to
remember their loved ones. Thats why these other people are out to get me. They want the
business for themselves, but Im not selling. They see me as a threat.
They are beautiful, I thinkalmost like opals. But at the moment Im tired of appearing
to buy into other peoples wacked-out stories, tired of Martins constant accounts of surveillance
and narrow escapes (one involved an attempt to electrocute him when he was plugging in a
lamp). Im feeling cranky and confrontational.
I forego questions concerning his methodology, and take another tack. But how do you
get the ashes? I ask. I mean, you cant just walk in and make off with peoples remains.
Of course not, he replies impatiently. Ive developed a business relation with some
funeral homes; people are really interested in what I can do for them. Im also a jeweler, so I
often set the stones. Martin shows me a lovely ring and bracelet that hes wearing and that
showcase the same type of stone.

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So, whatthe funeral homes give people your card, and they call you up?
Well, Im not quite there yet, he admits. But I will be. First I have to patent the
method, and there are people who dont want to see that happen.
Ah, ok. Well, good luck with that, I say, moving to leave.
Do you want a couple? Martin asks as I turn away. Theyre very powerful. I pause,
wondering what kind of power inheres in stones made from the ashes of humans. Is something of
the person left there, some imprint of their earthly self? If so, the idea of walking around with
one weirds me out.
Um, from whose ashes are those ones made? I ask.
Oh thesethese are animal ashes. Theyre from my experimental stage. I dont ask
how he got the ashes. Its a good story, true or not--what a great show-and-tell for my friends.
Sure, I say, Ill take a couple. I kind of wish I could have them made into jewelry, for
better effect, but that doesnt seem possible under the present circumstances.
Martin holds out his hand and I pick out a couple especially lustrous specimens.
Thanks, I say, dropping them into my pocket. With the transaction complete, Martin picks up
once again his television-sky-surveillance theme, at which point I excuse myself and return to
my room.
For the next week, I make a point of pursuing an uneventful existencereading, visiting
with friends, going out for cigarettes once I have my white band. Kathleen visits once, without
the kids, and it doesnt go well. Shes distant and disengaged, and on one walk down the road
toward the park, she floats the possibility of her having other relationships, to fulfill those
aspects of our relationship that my anti-depressant load has made it difficult to uphold. Nothing
like an anti-depressant for killing a persons libido.

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My reaction is vehement. Are you kidding? Theres no way that could work! You cant
do thatit would be the end of our relationship.
Kathleen says nothing. One would think that at this point I would start to realize that
perhaps our troubled relationship is threatened by something more global than just this acute
phase of my illness, but Im caught up in my hurt and outrage over the fact that Kathleen would
hold this threat over me. For at least the second time, I fail to appreciate the larger implications, I
fail to see Kathleens progressive disengagement from the relationship. Its a monumental lapse
that Ill come to regret deeply.
Despite Jackies words of warning, it takes only a week and a half for my doctor to
decide that Im ready to be discharged. I wait for the creeping panic, but for once I dont
experience that push-pull tension between the hospital and the outside, and instead find myself
impatient to leave. I may not be fully appreciate the extent to which my marriage has eroded, but
something tells me that its important to be home, important to be back with my family. I need to
mend, not just myself, but the frayed edges of my relationship with Kathleen. Need to be there
for my girlsmindfully and without distraction. Its not that I dont feel tentative, apprehensive,
but I also feel something like optimism for the first time in a long while. And so, for what I hope
and believe will be the last time, I say goodbye to the people on the ward, give Peter and Sean
my contact information, get buzzed out, and walk around to the bus stop. As I wait for the bus, I
practice envisioning a positive outcome for the future, reflect on the prospect of getting and
staying better. Its a rare clear day in what has been a dark and rainy summer, and I turn my head
toward the sun, feel its warmth on my skin.
Nice day, says the man standing beside me.
Ya, I reply. Ya, I guess it is.

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Epilogue
Sunnybrook came with consequences. Of course, every acute episode of my illness has
consequencesa further lowering of my baseline, lingering problems with memory and
concentrationnot to mention the painful and awkward reintegration into my work life. But
Sunnybrook was different. I engaged in dangerous and foolhardy behavior, to be surebut that
wasnt the first time. And there was the intubation, which continued to traumatize me long after
the fact. There were the mostly absent, often negligent staff members, the tyrannous attendant,
the overreaching nurse, the total lack of therapeutic activities. There was the stay in emerg,
which left me depressed about the state of the psychiatric system, and even more cynical about
the extent to which the goal of healing people has, through lack of resources and planning, been
lost. Its no doubt unfair to compare any Canadian psychiatric unit with the luxury and
attentiveness of an expensive and exclusive private hospital like the one in Chicago. Better,
perhaps to compare it to my past experiences in Torontoto something like Womens College in
1994, for example. Then, at least, therapeutic activities filled part, if not most, of the day, and the
nurses had time to spend with patients. The twenty-first century has not been good to the
inpatient system; psychiatric units, when you can get into one, have become holding tanks until
medication or time makes people just well enough to discharge. Even my psychiatrist shakes her
head at the state of the inpatient system; even she, attentive as she is to when I might need to be
in the hospital, seems almost to have given up on that option.
The greatest consequence of my illness, though, was to my relationship with Kathleen. I
believe I was right to think that my extended absence accustomed her to taking care of the kids
on her own, did make the idea of me not being around to help. Its not like things were great

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even before I went all sideways, though. Kathleen was unhappily working a crappy editing job in
the evenings, unable to find a new job after her parental leave with Maeve, and justifiably
unwilling to return to her old job, where she had been treated horribly by the new director. I had
tried to be supportive, had tried to keep my concerns about money to myself, but maybe I hadnt
done enough. Both of us tired after a long dayme, from work, Kathleen, from taking care of
Maeve and looking for work. I thought that my working in the evening would be a way of
keeping Kathleen company as she worked. At least I wouldnt be sitting around watching
television. But my efforts had been in the wrong direction; I can see that now. How many times
did I do the laundry? How many times did I cook dinner? How many errands did I do, as I
jealously held onto the fact that, while my work day was more flexible than most, I still had to
put in my time.
In September of 2009one and a half months after my discharge from Sunnybrook,
Kathleen informed me that shed met with a lawyer and wanted to separate. I was devastated;
despite her obvious unhappiness, it had never occurred to me that shes actually leave. I felt she
had betrayed me, and betrayed the children, who were still only six and three. And I told her so.
For a short while I tried to change her mind, but it was clear pretty much from the start that she
was committed to the idea of going. And so Kathleen got us a couple of lawyers who practiced
co-operative law, meaning that they only saw clients who we pursuing an amicable split. We
made arrangements to divide our money evenly (by this time Kathleen had a new job), and for
each of us to have the kids for half a week. We lived and still live in a very big Victorian house
that is split into two units. Before the separation, we lived in the top two floors, and had a tenant
living in the bottom two. We decided that it would be best for the kids if Kathleen moved into
the bottom unit, so that they could visit when they wanted, or get things that they forgotten

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(while the two units have separate entrances, theres an inside, unlocked door between them that
allows passage between our two spaces). I found the first year excruciatingbeing able to hear
the kids but not see them; listening to dinners with former mutual friends. Missing Kathleen
horribly. I had loved being part of a family, and while we did our best to make the girls feel as
though we were a team, I missed the bustle of four people competing for the bathroom in the
morning, missed the family dinners and shared experiences.
Its now year four of our divorce, and the pain of the separation has receded, although
when I dont have the kids, the evenings still bring with them a yawning emptiness and I often
sit, unable to do anything, until I can reasonably call it bedtime. When Kathleen has the kids, I
miss them; when I have the kids, Im often overwhelmed by whats involved in taking caring for
themgetting homework done, planning activities, cooking dinner while trying to mediate
conflicts. I suppose that this is the primarily my reason for missing Kathleen nowto have an
ally, someone there so that one child isnt ignored while Im dealing with the other, someone to
help with those in-the-moment decisions. I think we work well together when it comes to the big
thingstheir health, how theyre doing in school, what activities well enroll them inbut for
those smaller, everyday challenges, I often feel very alone. So far, Ive remained fairly stable,
although each week brings with it good days and bad, and there have been times when I really
wonder if Im going to keep it together.
I made several friends as an inpatient, but none of them endured much past the hospital;
often that was all we had in common, and its not enough to sustain a relationship. I saw Gwen a
few times after my Chicago admission, but it didnt last. The same goes for Peter and Sean. Peter
and I had some good walks in the ravine cutting through Rosedale, and he took me to the spot
where he used to sleep, where hed created a kind of lean-to and stashed a blanket. I never quite

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understood why he did this, given that he had a home to go to; I suppose it was part of his illness,
somehow. But within a month or so of his release, Peter fell into a deep depression, became
aloof, unreachable. I saw Sean a few times after he was out, although that too petered out in a
couple of months. The one exception to this pattern is a woman whos been a close friend since
we met in Womens College in 1994. We have a lot of fun together, and while the topic
sometimes strays back to our time in the hospital, the foundations of our friendship go much
deeper now. She has been a good friend and sometimes confidante, although I feel sometimes as
though I need to protect her from those darker moments when my mind is pulled down menacing
and hazardous paths. Ive always felt like a kind of big sister to her, and she has never seemed to
know quite what to do with my distress, so now I try to keep things fairly light. Even so, our
relationship has matured and broadened over the years, and its nice occasionally to be with
someone who gets what its like, to whom one doesnt have to explain anything, the way one
sometimes does with the normals.
I never saw Martin again, and no longer know where stones he gave me are. I suspect,
with some unease, that at some point Ive allowed Maeve to add them to her collection. I did
search for them after I wrote about Martin, but if theyre still around, I can no longer separate
them out from the thirty or so other shiny stones that sit in a decorative box on a bookshelf in the
living room. Like many of the patients that Ive encountered over the years, theyve lost their
distinctiveness; my memory of their contours, the color and feel of them, has faded over time.
The people whom I depict here are simply those who made a lasting impression on me, either
because of their uniqueness, their proximity, or because they influenced the way that I saw
myself at the time. At times Ive had to stretch my memory to recall the details of our
interactions; at other times these details return fully and easily. Everything depicted here did take

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place, as did all of the conversations. If sometimes my memory has imposed on the dialogue a
word or two perhaps not present in the original, I have tried very hard to remain loyal to what
was actually said, and have eschewed misrepresentation or invention.
For reasons of economy, or to avoid an overly choppy narrative, or simply because my
memory fails me, I have not included every hospitalization that I underwent. Some of these
hospitalizations were very short, of others I remember so little that I would have to resort to
invention to give an account of them. There is no closure to this narrative because there is no
closure to my condition, and while I would like to believe that Sunnybrook bookends, not just
the narrative, but my encounters with psychiatric wards, experience has taught me that to hold
firmly to such a conviction may be unrealistic. The first draft of this book ended with Mount
Sinai (and was written well after the fact, when I believed hospitals were behind me); for the
second draft I had to add Sunnybrook. Bipolar II is devilishly hard to treatmedications stop
working, and even a good mix doesnt fully control the rapid mood cycling or consistently
prevent the onset of an acute episode. Still, I think you have to carry on as if the previous
admission were the final one, while at the same time nurturing stability and avoiding the stuff
that undermines it.
Sadly, the community resources available in Canada to people living with mental illness
are sorely lacking, and as I mentioned earlier, people often have to go on a waiting list to get on
the waiting list for programs. To get an OHIP-sponsored place at Homewood in Guelphby all
accounts an excellent inpatient facility that tailors its treatment to the individualyou have to
wait up to two years. If youre able to pay the $310 dollars per day that it costs without coverage,
then youll only have to wait four or five months. Psychiatric wardsif you can get in one--have
become little more than holding tanks, and have largely abandoned any pretense of therapeutic

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treatment. Staff spend an inordinate amount of time filling out paperwork, and staff-patient
interaction is minimal. Theyve become places to endure, not to heal. In the United States,
private hospitals are out of reach for many people, and as for public hospitals, you less endure
than you do survive them. It is my hope that, since there is more positive and supportive public
and media attention directed at mental illness (as opposed to negative, demeaning and
sensationalist attention), funding will open up and the support systemboth institutional and
communitywill evolve to meet at least the minimal needs of the population. It is everyones
right to realize their fullest potential as human beings, and while they face unique challenges and
obstacles, people living with mental illness are no less entitled to reach that potential.

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