Post #47 – Women’s Memoirs, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
by Bettyann Schmidt
“It is What it is”
Above quote origin from “The Monist,” Vol. 29, Edward C. Hegler.
Those were the first words I wrote in my journal on Day One in the hospital. I used the quote because it explained my circumstances at that moment. You can walk all around the issue, grieve, try to figure it out, but in the end, it is what it is.
After Debbie left that day, my husband Gary, older son Eric, and youngest son Jeff came because Debbie had called them. We were in a waiting room alone together, and none of us knew what to say. It was an awkward moment. They hugged me and left.
A large nurse with an African accent escorted me into an elevator to the third floor, and we entered through a glass door into a spacious square room, what I considered a common area, containing in the middle a row of recliner chairs and a few regular, straight-back chairs, facing a large-screen TV. All of the seated patients turned toward me, and as I would later discover, the admittance of a new patient is more interesting to watch than any television show.
My nurse instructed me to dump the contents of my totes and purse onto a small wooden desk. She sat on a clinical-looking office chair and went through all of my items. Most of my belongings I was not allowed to keep. Of course, my clothes were fine, none of which had a removable belt. I was allowed one pen to write with, plus my books and journal. No hair dryer. I suppose patients could hang themselves on the cord. No cell phone.
A short hall off the common area led to my room, where a wall phone hung outside the door. Next to the phone, was a linen room with shelves of sheets, towels, pillowcases, faded gold bedspreads and blankets, very few blankets. I found later the blankets were hoarded.
Inside my room were two older, cot-sized hospital beds. Mine was at the far end next to a window and a freestanding wardrobe/closet with a drawer on the bottom. The bathroom was immediately inside the door to the left, next to my roommate’s bed. My bed held a bare, dark blue plastic mattress. The nurse cited the routine. You made your own bed and replaced the linens when you chose. She introduced me to Maryann, my roommate, a thin girl with red hair done up in two small ponytails atop her head, who smiled shyly at me every time I met her eyes. She sat atop her well-made bed with dancing sparks of exitement in her eyes, no doubt from gaining a new roommate.
The remaider of the routine was: 7 am into the common room for vitals and meds. 8 am line up at the glass door where a nurse would unlock the door and escort us down to the first-floor cafeteria for breakfast, and again at noon for lunch. Dinner in the conference room, where group sessions were held every day. I was told it was best to follow these rules.
So much for my lazy, being-catered-to vision of the hospital.
After I made my bed and organized my belongings, I sat on my bed and noted in my journal:
My roommate is having a conversation with herself. Maybe that is what everyone here starts doing.
Good Girl
As I write this now, over a year later, I’m reading a book, Denial: A Memoir of Terror by Jessica Stern, and she repeats the sentence throughout, “I am a good girl.” By this, she means she always tried to do the right thing.
While I hated the “routine” explained to me, I knew I had to be a good girl. Just like in Catholic school. Good girls get the rewards. Feeling rebellious inside, I followed the rules on the outside.
The second day, I got out of bed and presented for vitals and got into line at the glass door for breakfast. The man in front of me, tall, stout, white buzz-cut hair and glasses, whispered, “They herd us up like cattle.”
I lamented all of my misery in my journal throughout my hospital stay, and later that day wrote about what I wanted to do most:
…never looking back, start the end of my life anew—if that makes sense.
Therapies
I was assigned to a physician, Dr. Jack, whom I liked. He explained the changes he was making in my medicine, which primarily involved stopping the anti-depressant I’d taken for 10 years and starting two new drugs. They’d already begun, on day one, blood draws several times a day for levels .
Memories of the farm came at night in my dreams. The big farmhouse I’d lived in for 15 years materialized into the house in the inner city that my mother hated until she died there. When I awoke, I realized I had been miserable for 15 years, since the day we’d left the smaller ranch-type house up the road. All of those years, I saw myself in the same house my mother wanted to move away from but was never able to convince my father how much it mattered.
For 15 precious years I’d tried to ignore my unhappiness, 15 years I could never regain. I blamed this on my husband, just as Mom blamed my father.
Insight. I had never thought of that before. Are the meds already working?
My fourth day on the unit, a journal entry reads:
David [my highly intelligent friend and pastor] called this morning and said not to think about making plans just now, dwelling on neither the situation nor my past. What else is there for me to think about? Wish there was a way to wake up and not remember anything, like I’d just been born.
I disliked sitting with the others around the TV, doing nothing, though the staff wanted to “socialize” us. One of the nurses the night before had been unusually bossy with some of the patients. I thought how we were treated as prisoners. Are we guilty of depression? The tall man who’s always in front of me in the line by the glass door, whom I call “Dude,” whispered the third morning, “It’s dehumanizing.” And I wonder, is this part of the treatment? Like military basic training?
Then I remember, still, it’s a lot better than being home.
I feel I’m at the crux now—finally after all of these years. Dude and I ate lunch together, and he tells me this is how he feels too, saying. “I’m trying to decide where I’m at now at this stage of my life.”
“At this stage of my life.” I write this in my journal.
All of my past bad decisions have led to this stage.
Gary and Jeff come at noon and bring me a new book for review that came in today’s mail. The Noticer. I begin to read.
Whatever you focus upon increases
Is this what David was saying to me on the phone? I have to concentrate on getting my focus onto something positive, maybe just simply getting well?
My fifth day, Dr. Jack says he is increasing one of my meds, and I might go home in four days. That seems far away, but I realize I need more time here. A lot of my anxiety has gone.
My sixth day, I write:
Bad dreams last night. I was back home, trying to clean the kitchen floor, water gushing all over from under the sink, and I ran out the door and tried to find my way back here—to the hospital. I couldn’t figure out how to get back. I was out roaming the streets, lighted city streets, not country roads, and somehow I found the way back, here in this bed by the window.
I woke up in a cold sweat, wringing wet hair and soaked pajamas. I felt terrible, really depressed. I didn’t want to get up when they called us out of our rooms at 7 am, but I had to. I had to be a good girl or it would delay my release.
My vitals showed blood pressure 80/39 that morning. What was wrong with me? My doctor was called. He instructed the staff to retake my vitals after short periods of rest and report back. The BP finally returned to normal. Next came an irritable bowel flare. Begged off lunch. Tried to do “wellness,” (walking laps in the gym) but stomach cramps came back.
Journal, Day Six:
Proof of hope is an overlooked law of the universe. Even during what you may consider the worst time in your life, is proof of hope…If you are breathing, you are still alive. If you are alive, then you are still here, physically on this planet…then the most important part of your life has not yet been lived. – The Noticer by Andy Andrews
That is my proof of hope. I am still alive.
The visits with Gary were getting better. I always welcomed the hugs and cuddles with Jeff. Gary was helping me make plans and agreed it best for me to stay at Debbie’s until…until what? We weren’t sure yet.
Perspective
In desperate times, much more than anything else, folks need perspective. For perspective brings calm. Calm leads to clear thinking. Clear thinking yields new ideas. And ideas produce the bloom…of an answer. Keep your head and heart clear. Ibid.
Maryann had gone home with a hug from me and one of my books, a mystery she’d become interested in. I wished she stayed well. It was my last night, and a new roommate was brought into my room, replacing sweet Maryann. It was dark, but I could tell by the hall light that she was drenched, her long, dark hair soaked and dripping. She was wrapped in a quilt. Did she try to drown herself? Two men lay her on the bed and leave. She sleeps but wakes up shortly yelling for the nurses. They do not come. I’m afraid to act like I’m awake. I don’t think she even realizes I’m in the room.
On day nine, after lunch I will leave the hospital. It’s been a safety net for me. I’ve followed a routine every day. The drugs have fully kicked in, and I am at peace after so long. I’m afraid of relapse, however, once I leave. I make myself commit to focusing on perspective.
Last hospital journal entry:
Gary admitted last night he wants me home. I was shocked to hear him say that. Even more shocking, he said that if I’d actually taken my life, he would have to do the same thing. This from my emotionally bereft husband.
I think I want the same thing, but we both agree some more time with Debbie is good. I celebrate that I am finally healing.
What is Normal?
I spent a week at Debbie’s before I ventured home, when I felt safe at last. Gary and I talked by phone every day and met once for a library event in our home county. He hugged me a little longer, looked at me a little longer. Searching my eyes to see perhaps visible evidence of healing. He told me sometime later, after I was home, that he wanted to see the “girl” he’d first met. Though both of us on the inside edge of mid-forties back then, in 1986, he would always see me as his “girl,” never woman. I so want to be that person again and vow to myself I will try. I will really try.
When I returned to the farm, Gary was working on the house up the road, getting it ready for me, and that afternoon I walked through the large family/dining room he’d painted “Morning Sun.” I drew some refreshing, deep breaths while gazing at the beauty of those walls, realizing that was proof of his love. He is a practical man, this husband of mine. Not controlled by emotion as by “doing.”
We left the new-old home and hand-in-hand walked down to the big white house where we would decide what furniture to move the next morning. His gigantic, hard-worked hand covered mine, and I felt his protection at last. The sun was setting that night as we walked down the old road where my husband was raised, and I told him, “I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much at peace in my whole life.” I wondered if it was how normal people felt every day. Because my life had never been normal. I still wonder how normal people feel, or if there is a “normal.”
My meds had to be adjusted several times over the next few months, and I’ve gotten sick, stomach-wise, a few times with new doses, but my mental state has remained good. Even in the worst of circumstances, and there will always be those times with the children and grandchildren, I’ve remained calm and clear headed. Our family ties are strengthened.
I do not like taking the drugs, and I research natural, organic cures to this day. But I am so frightened of going back. I love this feeling too much. I never want to go back.
I have lost a lot of the energy I once had only a year ago, going into my late sixties because of the meds, but I consider it a trade-off most days. It’s the only way I can look at it. Do I want the high energy, or do I want to feel calm and at peace? I’ve chosen the latter.
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If you missed Parts 1 through 3, here’s the link.
Bettyann Schmidt
http://journey2f.blogspot.com
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