MERCY Read online

He drops that bit of knowledge like a bomb, and at first, I’m relieved he didn’t just use the word cancer, but then the fallout rains down, and I realize what he is saying.

  He’s leaving me.

  I’ve been around catatonics before, but this is the first time I have understood what they might be experiencing. I haven’t moved. Haven’t even blinked, but the world around me is somehow swirling about at a breakneck speed. I hear everything he is saying as though it’s shouted in my face, but nonetheless, it sounds like it’s coming from underwater. Now my limbs have swollen to the point they can’t bend, and my vision blurs enough that I can’t make out Sig’s face anymore. Suddenly, he is an inch from my nose, but I can’t see him. The only thing I’m aware of is a horrible screeching sound in my head. Or, maybe the sound is coming from my mouth.

  ***

  “Why am I talking sooo slooow? And why are my hands floating?” I ask out loud. It’s the first coherent thought I’ve had in an age. This must be a side effect of my new meds. Instead of answering me, Colleen, one of the nurses, asks her own question.

  “How do you feel, Sugar?”

  “Like my mooouth has rusted shuuut. What’s wroong with me?” I ask. I’m puzzled by my current status and feel like my body has been filled with foam.

  “Not a darn thing is wrong with you, Mercy. You are perfect, just the way God intended. You’ve been asleep for a bit, that’s all. I imagine you are probably thirsty, right?”

  I nod and then sit up to take the offered cup of water. As I chug, I present my arm for the blood pressure cuff that’s already headed my way. They do that a lot here. They are always checking people’s vitals as if our problems lived outside of our heads.

  “Go back to sleep, Mercy. I’ll see you at breakfast in the morning,” Nurse Colleen says. It takes her a minute to get to her feet because of her sore knees, but at least she isn’t wondering if it’s the middle of the night right now.

  I look over at my roommate, Lyla. She is lost to a benzodiazepine slumber and most likely has not so much as rolled over since committing herself to the act of sleeping.

  What the heck day is it?

  Chapter 3

  This morning is fairly tranquil, and for once, I feel rested. It’s not until I’m hovering over my oatmeal that I remember that Sig is leaving me. When the realization hits, I scoot my chair back and dry heave into my lap for a few shaky, damp minutes.

  I feel Lyla’s hand rubbing my back, and ironically, it’s her physical contact that garners the attention of the staff, instead of my questionable mental state.

  “Lyla!” it’s delivered like the crack of a whip, and I feel Lyla’s instantaneous reaction. If I could get a deep breath, I would have an issue with her being talked to like that. She tried to kill herself a short while ago, she needs to be nurtured and fortified—not scolded for trying to comfort someone.

  I’m able to sit back up, but mostly so my diaphragm is no longer restricted to a compressed little bundle. As breakfast wears on, I’m able to nod when I think people are talking to me, but I’m mostly in my own head. It’s an inhospitable place, full of dread and anxiety, but it’s familiar.

  After breakfast, of course, is group therapy. You can’t walk five feet in this place without tripping over some kind of group. We have community group, process group, coping skills group, wellness and nutrition group, goals and reflections group, communications group, behavioral therapy group, and a zillion expressive therapy groups. Those are my favorites because they involve some type of art or music or writing, and they are much less soul-baring.

  If you want to look, the schedule is posted on the unit, but I never care enough to check. Mainly because at this point, I could send all the counselors, therapists, social workers, and nurses home, and I could run each one by myself. I’ve heard the same song for years upon years. Always among different faces, but the tune is the same. I’ve absorbed it all and wrung it out so many times I’m dizzy from it.

  However, there are some people here that could stand to attend the same group, not just multiple times, but exclusively. I’m talking about the psycho-educational groups that teach a skill, say, anger management, for example. In fact, a decent amount of the men here could benefit from never being released from that haggard circle of chairs.

  Besides the psycho-educational therapy, the other group that adds a distinct value to this floor is the dialectical behavioral therapy group. Distress tolerance and emotion regulation are both hot topics in a mental health unit. That group is particularly useful for the folks with mood disorders and suicide ideation—of which, there are many in here. Some are even learning to shift negative behavioral patterns like cutting or abusing drugs, so the groups are important…just tedious as hell for me, having memorized the information years ago.

  I’ve been in and out of this hospital for so many years, I feel like I’ve run the gamut as far as my group participation goes. For years, I dove in and absorbed every single word. I participated enough that other people must have thought I just liked the sound of my own voice. I gave my mental health everything I had.

  Over the years, I became cynical and then downright jaded. I used to think if I could just get better, someone would keep me. Christmas mornings would be more than empty words and sterile hallways. Family outings would be commonplace. Goodnight hugs and sweet endearments would become my new routine.

  I begged and prayed to a God I didn’t understand for nearly a decade to make me normal. To take away the horror between my ears and grant me some type of peace. My pleading was met by blank stares and deaf ears. So, pretty soon, my prayers faded to nothing more than a tickle behind my eyelids and a dampness on my state-issued pillow.

  Following each return to the unit, each searing disappointment, I let go of a little more hope. Every time I was sent back, I returned without another piece of myself. Then, once I was all hollowed out, I understood that no one was going to save me. All my silly hopes of rescue were futile and dusty. I knew God wasn’t going to intercede on my behalf, and there was no one left to save me.

  It was after that particular realization that my participation in life was affected. And, more specifically, my participation in group. As long as I was physically present and potentially still absorbing the discussions and information, the staff had been directed by Sig to go easy on my fragile state.

  In time, my engagement dulled to what it is now—which is limited to nodding my head, maintaining brief eye contact, and rattling off a few sentences of profound insight at the beginning of group, before flying under the radar for the remainder of it.

  I have been cautious where I lay my pearls, so to speak, and for the most part, I’ve maintained a comfortable emotional distance with the ever-evolving list of patients. My group of friends is small but mighty—and only allowed to the table because it’s finally safe for me to make friends. In the past, with no end in sight, forget it. Having friends was like a gut wound, you know how it ends long before you actually bleed out. There has been some repetition over the years, but most people get the help they need and then can assimilate back into their outside lives using the tools they learned here.

  Psych wards, overall, are healing places. The dark and seedy institutions depicted in books are not an accurate representation of real life. The demented people chained to beds and rocking back and forth while digging at their scabs, in reality, are people like me. People who eat oatmeal and then go to group counseling before working on an art project.

  Some of us have fits of terrifying psychosis and were thought by our parents to be possessed by the devil. Some count everything and rely on ritualistic behavior to temper their anxiety. Some sing every-God-damned-thing that comes out of their mouths. However, the lion’s share of patients are here for major depressive disorder, and a fair amount of them landed here after a suicide attempt.

  Sorry to disappoint, but the various illnesses here are well managed with medication and therapy, so even here at the state hospital, the fictional dr
ama you may be expecting is rather rare. No straitjackets. No lobotomies. No crazy science experiments. The melodrama is fairly limited to new intakes.

  I may have to modify that last statement because the only open chair in group this morning is next to Simon, and he is a little out there. He suffers from paranoid schizophrenia just like me, but whereas I have hallucinations and see and hear things that aren’t there, he has paranoid delusions which result in some pretty wacky beliefs.

  I sit down next to Simon but don’t look him in the eyes when I acknowledge him. To do so would start one of those dramatic episodes that I just stated were rare.

  You see, Simon believes he is being monitored by aliens who are able to track him and read his thoughts through his pupils. Anyone he encounters who happens to look him in the eyes is assumed to have been sent here to keep tabs on him. To prevent this bothersome tracking, he wears blacked-out glasses that are seven times too big for his petite, almost feminine face.

  Unfortunately, a patient or two have found it humorous to pretend they really were sent by aliens and claimed to be reading his thoughts and tracking his whereabouts. Nowadays, with his trust effectively broken, we are all just along for the ride.

  “Good morning, everyone. Welcome to process group. As many of you already know, this is where we talk about, and work through challenges, and learn to process change. Who would like to start?” Jana is leading group today. She is really great—but damn, does she need a haircut. Her hair is so long she can almost sit on it. She is a decent social worker, but I find her hair to be mildly distracting.

  I don’t know why, but every single person in the room looks over at me—even Simon, with his vulnerable pupils. Actually, it’s possible they all saw my breakfast breakdown, served with a side of apple juice. Move along, folks, show’s over.

  I open my mouth to deny having any challenges for the group to work through, but nothing comes out. Mostly because of the universal expressions of pity, and the solemnly nodding head of too-long hair.

  I freeze, with nothing to say. Usually, this is where I smile and nod to encourage someone else to share. So much for staying off the radar.

  Michael, who is on my left, leans in and whispers under his breath, “Last night at reflection group, we all discussed Dr. Sig leaving and how we can support you.” Michael is one of the patients I say hello to, but little else. He’s a short-timer and will be gone soon, so there is little point in investing in him.

  All I can do right now is stare at my hands in my lap. I’ve always preferred to swallow my pain deep down, and never acknowledge it because that limits how much it can hurt me. I prefer not to revel in it. Plus, if I never dignify the anguish, is it really there?

  “Someone needs to just fucking say it. Dr. Sigmund got shit-canned for being an ineffectual doctor and mismanaging his patients and their meds.” This, from another short-timer. I’d like to slam his head in a car door a few times and see if it has an impact on his volume button. Bastard is always talking loudly and acting aggressively. If you ask me, he should make another run through AA and anger management classes because until he gets a handle on his addiction to alcohol, he will forever be angry when he’s not drinking.

  For a few seconds, you can almost hear crickets chirping because the room is so still. Everyone with an ounce of compassion is afraid to speak, so Jana, group leader that she is, takes the helm.

  “Ok, let’s start with that. But I’m going to need for everyone here to conduct themselves with some basic human respect, and if you can find it in yourself, perhaps a tiny bit of empathy. Being able to put yourselves in someone else’s shoes to try and understand how they might be feeling is an important life skill. Some of you may have no feelings one way or another about Dr. Sigmund stepping down, but others are experiencing some incredibly strong feelings of loss. Now, let’s talk about some strategies we can use when we experience these types of feelings.”

  ***

  After process group is over and everyone has scattered like mice, Jana comes over and sits in the vacated chair to my right. There is a familiar ringing in my ears that I have grown used to, but at the moment it’s more intrusive than usual.

  “Mercy, I’m so proud of how you conducted yourself in group, you are an inspiration to so many of us.” Then she breaks a hard and fast rule about touching, and she takes my hand gently between both of hers. It feels shockingly foreign, human touch. If the racket in my head weren’t so distracting, I might have flinched at the contact.

  “I need you to know something, Mercy. You are a warrior, and I have no doubt that you will get through this, but we are all here to help you, ok? Whatever it takes.” Her smile is kind, but I have a hard time looking her in the eyes because behind that gaze is a mountain of pity.

  “Thank you, Jana. You don’t have to worry about me, I will be fine.” I always am, is the part I don’t say out loud. I take a deep, cleansing breath and purposely make eye contact with her. I have to fight looking away by imagining that I can track her thoughts through her pupils. Simon might be on to something because if I can focus on her thoughts, then I don’t need to concern myself with my own.

  “Sig is waiting for you in his office.” She waits a few seconds before continuing, possibly to gauge my reaction to the news. “I want you to use some of the strategies we just talked about, ok?”

  “Jana, I’ve got this. I’m fine.” Shit, if I was half as fragile as everyone thinks I am, I never would have made it this far. I would have, long ago, shriveled up and blown away on the nearest breeze.

  I stop outside Sig’s door, which strikes me as unusual. Something’s different, and it’s not just the pitch of the incessant ringing. I push the door open, and what I see stops my heart.

  Everything is gone. Well, everything except a dusty bookshelf, an empty desk, and a leather couch. The same couch I’ve sat on since I was moved to the adult unit. It’s not old and familiar though, it’s haughty and self-righteous, and instead of welcoming me, it repels.

  Sig is standing behind what was once his desk. Everything has happened in the blink of an eye. I sat in here yesterday and received the news that he is leaving. What the fuck happened to giving a few weeks of notice? To staying onboard until a suitable replacement can be found? Why is everything gone already?

  I want to shout all these questions at him, but when I slam the door shut behind me, it breaks his rigid composure. Then, he holds his arms out to me. I refuse to walk into his offered embrace. I refuse to make this abandonment easy for him. His eyes are damp, and he is struggling to control his face, but I will not allow him to hug me. That kind of gesture is reserved for someone who cares about me. Sig? Yeah, Sig can go straight to hell.

  “Don’t forget to take your candy dish with you when you go.” I spin around and leave his treachery behind me. There is lots of it back there, so he has plenty of company.

  He doesn’t even call out to me when I’m gone. No one ever has a hard time letting go of me. I’m not even sure I would know what to do with it if they did. It started with my parents, and the cycle will never end. I am doomed to repeat this horror no matter what fucking strategies I employ.

  I hold myself together until I try to go into my room and am refused entrance. It’s bad enough that everyone is looking at me like I’m a land mine about to be tripped, but this is too much.

  “Mercy, Honey, listen to me,” Margret, one of the day nurses says, as I back her into my vacant room. She knows she is playing with fire, but she deals with worse than me on a daily basis, so she is undeterred.

  “You are needed in the day room. They are painting, you love to paint.”

  “Not today, Margret. I just need some space for a little bit.” I’m able to keep my voice under control, but beneath the surface is something violent. Something that scares me.

  “I know you are upset. But let’s grab on to something, no matter how small, that makes you happy, and run with it. You can put all your feelings down on the canvas instead of keeping
them bottled up inside.”

  “Not today, Margret.” I’m clenching my teeth, so it comes out like a growl. I need to be careful, or the code team will be in here administering something that burns in my vein. I don’t want oblivion right now because I’ll still wake up in the same hell. I need my anger. It’s fuel. It’s the armor that protects my pathetic vulnerability. With it, I’m powerful and can’t be broken.

  I’m being treated like the people on suicide watch. This is bullshit. I’ve put in my time; I’ve earned the right to have a few minutes to myself. Painting wouldn’t be so bad if everyone would leave me alone, but they won’t. They will talk, talk, talk. They will insist I express my feelings and work through them. Well, if I expressed myself right now, my rage would bring the walls down around us. I don’t even want to see Lyla right now, and she is one of the best things I have left.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Margaret says conspiratorially as she glances out into the hallway. “You and I are gonna take ten minutes to try and process some crap—however you need to, and then you are going to go to expressive therapy group and paint. Deal?” I shrug. There is no use arguing with her.

  “However I need to?” I reiterate.

  “Within reason, and of course, in a safe and productive manner.”

  “If you have to crowd me right now, can you at least be quiet?” I ask. It’s the most I can hope for right at this moment.

  “Yes, Mercy, if that’s what you need from me right now, then I absolutely will be quiet.”

  I drop down onto my bed, but instead of curling up into a tight little ball and losing my shit, I sit facing her. She has adopted the same posture as she sits on Lyla’s bed, hands resting on her thighs, meeting my gaze. She isn’t challenging me; she is proving a point.

  Ten minutes will never be enough time for me to process my crap, so we simply sit—and stare at each other. I’m not sure how much time goes by before I feel a tear land on the back of my wrist. I’m not even thinking about anything, I’m just sitting here. Then another one. It’s warm, and I know it’s salty against my skin.