I know it was their job. I know it was because I wasn’t taking my medication. But they didn’t have to enjoy it.
While in the hospital, having been in seclusion for several months, I wasn’t taking my medication because I thought the doctors were trying to poison me. I thought they were evil monsters out to get me. Some of them were. I wasn’t in my right mind. I couldn’t be held responsible for not complying, even if they were trying to help me. It was not my fault that I wouldn’t take my medication. It was the result of Berman’s (my mental illness) hold over my mind and body. I could not escape him. He filled me up and I was drowning.
I don’t think that anyone could ever really understand—no matter how I try to explain it—the pain and fear I experienced while being held captive; of being alone in such a fragile state. The magnitude of memories lost forever. The inability to comprehend the concept of food; the purpose of a plastic fork. The most frightening thing about starvation is that I was unaware of how close I was to death.
More devastating than almost dying is not recognizing your parents. A lifetime of memories wiped from my brain by a mixture of psychosis and electro convulsive therapy. I would wake up in my hospital bed with a headache so horrible it felt I had undergone brain surgery. Maybe that was another reason not to trust the doctors involved.
The worst thing about those doctors is that they played along with my delusion. They never told me that everything was fine. The world was not ending. My family was safe. I was not really the antichrist. They pretended to believe me. So I was more afraid.
Because I didn’t take my medication, I was injected with doses of tranquilizing anti-psychotics. It was painful. It was never a gentle, friendly nurse administering the shots. The large men came into that tiny room with smiles on their faces. One horrible, grinning fat man sat on my back, crushing me to the point that I couldn’t breathe while another struggled to keep me still long enough to give me the shot. It seemed like they looked forward to it. Like I was being punished and they had won a battle. Because I won more battles than they did.
They had to double team to put me down. I was a force to be reckoned with. They didn’t just lock that door behind them. They would head for the door without turning their backs to me and try to close the door quickly enough that I could not escape. They locked that door, planted themselves in front of it, and hoped I wouldn’t break it down. They were afraid of me. I’m sure they enjoyed every moment that I was trapped underneath them, gasping for air.
I won. I escaped. Finally. After several months, I was free to go. Not because I was healed, but because the hospital decided I would heal better at home than I would if I stayed in the hospital. After a while, they were right. But I still feel violated by monsters. I will never forget that. I will never forget their smiling faces. I will never forget being overpowered by two large smug devils. But I will also never forget that now, I can shut the door on them. Because I learned to swim.
—SJB
*When someone is suffering with delusions, it is of utmost importance not to play along and feed the illness. Make sure that person feels loved and safe. Tell them they are loved and safe. There is really not a way to calm a person’s delusions other than to wait them out or to tranquilize them. Many people take medications to avoid delusions. I do. So I know that someone having a delusion believes the delusions wholeheartedly; that something is real when it isn’t. It really is almost impossible for another person to talk them out of what they believe to their core. But it is important that you try to make them feel like they are in a safe place and that you are there for them. Do not pretend that the delusions are real and that the person having them is in their right mind. It is scary to be in that position. Terrifying.