The lights were bright. Too bright. I could barely open my eyes. The crust over them. I'd slept only two hours before they woke me. The intensity of the beams in the room showered into my head. It was almost as if the light was bending and hurting my head. Medtime. I take my medicine. All four pills. I lay back down. Okay, you can lie down for thirty more minutes, but then it's time to get up. It's almost six a.m. Thirty minutes? My fucking ass. It had to have been five, I swear. “Breakfast.” I heard it in an off-putting voice. It had to have been the night crew ready to go home, because they were so grumpy. But the voice came from the lighted room, its fluorescent lights shining directly into my eyes as I lay there. For a moment, I forgot where I was. I fell back asleep. I realize where I'm at. Feel defeat swallow me. All my fight to be here… again. “Breakfast time.” They shrieked again, and I got up… I thought. Get up. Shit. I fell back asleep. I said back, “I don't like breakfast.” “Get up right now.” Shit. Again, I open my eyes to the moving room. I'm so disoriented. I can feel the heavy weight of the sedation. Seroquel. Quetiapine, if you like. Quillville is what I call it. I get up against my will. My ass is hanging out. I look down at my hospital gown. Great. Another grippy sock vacation. Another one. I walk out of my room, and there's a courtyard. So I walk out there. The sun is shining. Everything is new. I go directly to the courtyard, sit next to a picnic table, and bask in the sun for a moment. That moment was so warm. It takes me to a peaceful place. I'm interrupted in my thoughts by a second voice, a voice seconds after I sat down. “Ma'am, you cannot be out here.” Still feeling the ringing effects of disorientation, I walk inside. I go to my bed, grab my blanket, and sit at the table. I wrap myself in the blanket, cold from the cold of the room. I'm freezing. “You cannot have that blanket,” I am told as soon as I sit back at the table. At that moment, I start to realize I'm no longer a human being in the eyes of these people. I am an animal. A problem. A danger to society. A danger to myself. I should have remembered that. That's how it is here. I knew that. So I go. I put my blanket away. And in my dose of disoriented, exhausted state, I go back and sit at the table under the fluorescent lights, next to all the other patients who have regular clothes on. And feel miles apart. And like I'm singled out. And I'm the craziest in the crazy home at this point. I begin to cry. When you’ve been stripped of all your humanity, simple pleasures become all the more interesting. It’s less about mental health and more about proving that you’re finally “cured,” that you’re normal.. whatever that is, and hearing someone, anyone, say that your feelings are valid, just to be assure
