Often, when I came home after the day’s work, people would ask me – So, how does it feel to work with these “lunatics”? [break] For those who hadn’t seen, or ever met and never known these people, they were creatures of another world – the world of abnormality and insanity.
But for me, they were humans, very much like myself, with families, jobs, hopes, desires, dreams, feelings, and a future that was on hold for years past and years to come.
Then there were patients whose families were unlike our own, families that we take for granted. There were fathers and mothers who raped their own children, there were fears and threats imposed on them daily, there was jeering and cacophonous laughter at their failings that had demolished their sense of integrity and self-esteem.
Each case had a horrendous history. Each page painted a reality that these people had actually lived through but which we can only imagine. At best, perhaps, we could see images of their mutilated lives through flimsy portrayals in high gloss movies with glamorous stars.
So, when asked how it feels to work with these “lunatics”, my answer would invariably be, “It feels so real.”
I won’t deny that it made me feel so much more fortunate, and for the first time, truly thankful for what I had – family, friends, relatives (even those who gossip discreetly), and a future brimming with hopes and possibilities. Working with them, particularly with adolescents, had its joys and a fair share of challenges.
A funny sort of challenge was that being of small stature, it was often difficult for me to maintain the air of authority required of my position, especially when all the patients were giants in front of me. But that was what brought me closer to them – they found this lack of physical intimidation welcoming, and I was allowed glimpses into their lives that were rarely open for public display.
Chris (all names in this story are altered for confidentiality), at 17, was recently admitted to the borderline personality disorder unit. He was a big guy at 6 feet 4 inches, with curly hair and a boyish face with signs of burgeoning good looks. When he wasn’t violent, his smile was the most exquisite one anyone ever saw, with cute dimples on both cheeks.
But I didn’t see this perfect smile until a few weeks after his admittance into the hospital. He came into the unit as an unruly teenager with venom and violence in his voice. The psychiatrists had warned everyone not to go near him. He was often led by strong men to the isolation room, strapped down on a stretcher with a thick piece of cloth stuffed into his mouth to keep him from screaming.
A week after his arrival, I was allowed to accompany his treatment team on its daily rounds. Chris was often ill disposed, in bed under covers, and rude to the staff. He refused to come out of his room and socialize. Two weeks passed by with Chris alone in his room, sleeping (or pretending to sleep).
One afternoon, I was making my clinical rounds, alone. Chris’ door was ajar and I knocked before entering. He lowered the bed sheet that covered his face, and I saw his beautiful blue eyes looking at me, first with anger, then with recognition.
“What do you want?” he said.
“I need to check on you, Chris. How are you doing today?” I ruffled through his file, my pen poised to jot down my observations.
“Check on me? For what?”
“It’s the rule here.”
“F**k the rules. I’m sick of it. I wanna go to sleep. Get outta my room.” He covered his face.
I stood there, scribbling my notes. He removed the sheets again.
“Hey, aren’t you the little lady who wears flower-patterned dresses?” he said without any inflections in his tone.
“Yes, I wear dresses with flower patterns. It’s summer, you know.” I kept writing.
He sniggered at me. “Yeah, I noticed you when you come with Dr. X in the mornings. You like flowers or what?” His face seemed to soften.
“Yeah, flowers are nice. There are lots of them in the garden. Have you looked out your window?”
“Nah, I dun wanna get up. I wish to sleep forever.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“What d’ya mean why I wanna sleep all the time? Cuz that’s what I want. Now just leave me alone.”
“Well, why don’t you tell me why you wanna sleep all the time? Don’t you wanna come out and hang out with the other people in the living room?”
“Nah, I just wanna sleep,” he said, resting his head on his arms and staring at the ceiling.
I was quiet for a moment, still busy writing my notes.
“You know, when I sleep, I can dream of all the good things. I can do what I want. If I go outside, then I have to do what those f**kers say. I ain’t my own boss. And I hate that.”
“So you always dream of good things when you sleep?”
“Yeah.” He then looked at me, fumbling a bit. “Well, not always. Sometimes I have bad dreams, like nightmares, you know. Then I can’t sleep.”
I looked at him and smiled. “Well, then perhaps you should come outside and hang out with the others.”
He looked at me blankly.
The next morning, when I entered the unit, I found Chris sitting on the sofa in the living room, sour-faced and somber. The resident nurse called me to her office and said, “Chris has been asking for the little lady with flower-patterned dress. I think he meant you.” She smiled and continued, “I think he’ll open up with you soon enough. Keep a report on his progress for the team.”
It was the first time I saw that bewitching smile on Chris’ face – happy with a tint of embarrassment, but full of his boyish charm.
“Hey little lady with the flower dress! Come here.”
I was happy to see Chris finally out of his black hole of a room. And so was the team. I watched a bit of Forrest Gump with him and the others. I could see how much Chris was enjoying his human company of people who had suffered, differently yet not unlike himself, in more ways than one.
Then there was Louis who had ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and was a fidgety young fellow of fifteen. He was also HIV+, due to mother-to-child transmission. He loved basketball, though he was a dwarfish character with loads of hyperactive genes.
And we had Melvina whose mother had “raped” her by sodomizing her. She was also HIV+ in the same way that Louis was. Except that she loved to cut herself and leave her blood on cotton balls so that others could get the virus from her. Melvina had become a threat to others and was constantly trying to hurt herself. She was also bipolar – suffered depressive lows and manic highs in her moods that often left her completely incapacitated, just like a village ravaged by a tornado.
She called me into her room one day.
“Hey Shorty, come to my room. I need to talk to ya,” she said. At 13 she was 5 feet 8 inches high and considerably taller than I was, and of a much bigger build. She loved to hug me, often stifling me, and refusing to let me go. She said I was very “snuggly” just the way my little sister says about me. Yet, for some inexplicable reasons, I wasn’t afraid of her violent hugs.
“Yes, Melvina? What did you want to speak to me about?”
“Close the door, will ya?”
“You know that’s not allowed. You can’t close the door when someone else is in your room, Melvina.”
“Why? Cuz they think I’m gonna rape you or something?”
“It’s the rules.”
“You think that’s how you get raped? If you wanna know about rape, ask my mother. That bitch. She gave me this ugly disease. No one wants to be my friend cuz they say I got AIDS. No one wants to touch me.”
There were heavy tears in her eyes. She was in the throes of her depression, and I could see that.
“Well, I been thinkin’. I been askin’ God what wrong I did to get this rotten life. I’m glad I got AIDS. It means I ain’t gonna live long.”
“I think you’re very sweet.” I tried to smile as I said it.
“Ya, right. I don’t want no lies no more. If I was sweet, I would’ve been ....luckier.”
She came toward me for a hug. It smothered me and hurt me, but I knew how important that hug was for her.
Touch is the alpha and the omega of love, I had once heard. And both in my undergrad and graduate studies in psychology, I’ve come across several studies confirming how touch can have healing effects on ailing minds and bodies. But reading about something is far from actually living it.
Melvina wasn’t asking much. It was just a hug, and her long suffering body and mind at the tender age of 13 found some respite in it.
Months later, when she left the unit for a foster home, she was put on a stretcher, with her arms strapped down because she had recently tried to slit her wrists.
“Shorty,” she called out to me. “I just wanted to tell you before leaving that I had a crush on you.” And then she smiled.
I returned her smile and said, “Thank you,” as I waved her goodbye.
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