Humor and Sanity

Back during sophomore year of college, I was involuntarily committed to a psyche ward. They weren't especially nice about it. The calm, maddeningly dispassionate lady at student health "recommended" that I check in "of my own accord." When I told her that I didn't want to, she strongly recommended it, and I strongly restated that I was disposed otherwise. She broke the awkward silence that followed by tenatively asking what I was thinking. Since I have the unfortunate defense mechanism of naive honesty, I told her I was wondering what would happen if I tried to leave. I had blinked first, and she excused herself from the room, leaving me alone with the increasingly disturbed Calm-Lady-in-Training, who, with wide eyes, made small talk with me as I tried to remember what floor I was on and how I might make it to the front door.

My defense honesty and genuine curiosity broke through again: I asked her if it was standard practice to bring a new recruit into such an unconventional "counseling session". She said that it wasn't, but only said a few words of explanation before realizing her mistake and clamming up. Apparently my "case" was informative enough for a neophyte to cut her teeth on. I laughed at this, since it wasn't the first time my internal idiosyncrasies had been put on display. Before I got my tonsils out I used to get strep throat or some other bacterial infestation of the ENT area once every few months or so since I was very young. My tonsils were got so ravaged, and my lymph nodes swell up to such abnormal sizes, that doctors would often call in their peers and students to check out just how bloated a face can get. One time, with a fever of around 103, I had to sit on the cold, adjustable bed for an extra half-hour while my doctor rounded up three med students from UNC and gave them all a lesson on neck palpation.

Anyway, it turns out that "we strongly recommend" really means "we're calling the cops," and they were on their way. As the Calm-Lady-in-Training got more and more visibly excited, I began to shut down. They were locking me up, against my will, and there was nothing short of physical flight that I could do about it. They even brought in a big burly dude to stand behind me with one hand on my shoulder so that I wouldn't cause any trouble. But I had accepted my fate. I was forced to make the most surreal phone call of my life. "Hey mom. Yep, I'm crazy I guess. Yep, been like that for a while. Nope, never told anyone. No I'm not going to hurt anybody." They had actually told my parents that I might be a danger to other people. What?

The cops showed up and very politely asked me if I needed to be handcuffed. My brain actually slipped out of gear for a few seconds. There are some questions that feel so bizarre that your brain doesn't really know how to go about processing them. What if I said yes? Would that make them think I was more crazy, or less? Would a sane person be more or less likely to tell a cop they needed to be handcuffed? My brain did kick in, though, as I saw the handcuffs come out, and said no if I actually had a choice I did not prefer to be psychically restrained. So instead of a cop car in handcuffs, I got a ride to the hospital strapped down to a gurney in an ambulance. The ambulance technician was actually great. "Shit, you look fine to me. What do you get to lie down on a soft bed for?" I know! Tell them that! It was the last time someone treated me like a normal person and not some fragile, glass doll for a long time.

They took me to the suicide ward, which is the worst. They take all your stuff from you, including your shoe laces, and leave you to floppy-footedly stumble around a cell with only three walls and no place to hide from the disapproving, large black nurse who gives you annoyed glances every five minutes. I guess it's to make sure your sorry ass isn't trying to smother yourself by shoving your shirt down your throat, or however people manage to kill themselves in such uninspiring circumstances. The worst part is that it's freaking cold and you have no blanket. You don't really have anything at all, so there is nothing to distract you from everything that has just happened... and everything that might happen. All there is to do is lie down, shivering, and do battle with all the malicious thoughts that have set out to wreck your brain.

I did have a nurse, though, come and patch me up. As she applied the disinfectant, she worriedly warned me, "this may hurt a bit," and I flinched. I flinched at the thought that the liquid meant to treat my self-inflicted wounds might sting a little bit. Dumbass. But the worst part, the thing that made me realize how far gone I actually was: I didn't laugh. I didn't laugh at one of the most unintentionally hilarious thing that had ever been said to me. I always laugh. But I didn't.

The next stop was the pysch ward, which was straight out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. My two roommates were a guy who would go back to our room at least thrice an hour to make sure the FBI hadn't bugged it while he was drinking his apple juice, and a fellow student who had experienced a "prolonged psychotic break from reality". A few doors down from me from a lady who had an entire room to herself, kept dark. She was always strapped down to her bed, and screamed horrible things at the top of her lungs every moment she was awake. It was mostly incoherent shouting, but when I could make out words, it was usually about how she didn't belong there and how she wanted to call her lawyer, and that she demanded to be released right that moment. But... that's how I felt. If she couldn't tell how crazy she was, or at least how crazy she was acting, how I could I? It was that woman's incessant, mind-fracturing howls that convinced me that I was, in fact, crazy; that I was, in fact, broken; and that I did need to be locked away. Why else would I be there, with all those other crazy people?

My mind shut down, and I was completely numb in the brain for a good thirty-six hours as my body went through the motions of being a person. I colored... a lot... with crayons. I think I still have the drawings somewhere. I got to call my new girlfriend and tell her where I was. She actually stayed with me, but I think she regrets it now. I interacted vaguely with all the other crazies and met with doctor after doctor who tried to diagnose me. I stumped them all. I didn't quite fit anywhere. Like when your car won't stop making that funny noise, but every mechanic swears there's nothing causing it- my glassy-eyed stories didn't place me solidly into any medically established category. They recommended that I stay on for observation, though, and informed me that they could hold me for fourteen days without consent. I knew not to argue.

But then I found the thing that would make me feel human again. I laughed. It was in the "lounge" where people dully watch TV all day. I was staring out the barred, frosted glass windows at what I guessed was a tree, half-heartedly trying to figure out exactly where in the city I was, when they made the daily announcement that "All patients who wish to shave should report to the back room for supervision." I glanced around as half the clientele drowsily got to their feet and started shuffling down the hallway. I accidentally met the gaze of a woman, not much older than me, who had come in around the same time I had. We both broke off eye-contact immediately (you never know what sort of shouting fit that might set off) and watched as two of the more out-of-it patients started to loudly argue and scuffle over who got to shave first. Our eyes met again... and we laughed.

We spent time talking after that. She was a law student sent in for almost ODing on pain killers. She had some brutal scars that put anything I had to shame. We shared stories of family reactions and future worries. She had once kicked a cocaine habit cold turkey with nothing but a dark room and the series run of I Love Lucy. Wow. She was married to her cousin. Wait... what? Oh yeah, she and her cousin drunkenly made out one night at a family reunion, and the thrill compelled them to keep it going. They discovered, much to their dismay, that they were actually quite compatible and ended up getting hitched. She calls him her cousband. They keep a picture of their shared ancestors on the mantle just so people will ask who they are and they can reply with "our grandparents." That's actually how most people find out.

That story, shared with a smile, did more to help me than anything else at the center. From then on, I had someone with whom I could revel in all the little absurdities of living full time in a nut house. I told her the story of the nurse on suicide watch. The nurse had warned her too! She had heard it before, though, and had already prepared a witty retort ready. I told her how our Nurse Ratched would slightly move my schizophrenic roommate's stuff around just to bug him out because he always put up a fuss about medicine, and she told me how cliques would form among the women around mental-illness lines. Depressed against anorexics. What, a depressed anorexic? Girl, you got to pick a side.

Once, when we happened to roll the same group therapy session, we both got to hear the story of The God Lady for the first time. We called her that because she was always rambling on about the end of the world and judgement and salvation, which I figured was enough per se to get her impounded with us. But it turns out she had actually broken into and vandalized a church. I intentionally avoided catching my friend's eye. Specifically, she had set fire to a crucifix and drawn something sexually suggestive on some of the Jesus paintings. Look at the ground, just look at the ground. You can always pretend to be crying. Why did she do all that? Because God told her to. I had to tap out. I faked a sob to stifle my giggles, excused myself, and ran to my room where I broke down in laughter loud enough to drown out the screams of the woman next door. My friend followed me and we sat there gasping for breath at having found out the true nature of God Lady.

These weren't laughs of feigned superiority. I laughed at myself, often, and was ribbed by my friend for my own insecurities and bizarre tendencies. The deepest, darkest secrets you would never tell anyone become the small talk in places like that. But finding humor in it all allowed me to process and filter the things that I was feeling and experiencing in a healthy way. When I could jokingly share tips at how to hide scars (I would cut on my scalp), or talk about the crazy things I would use to inflict pain without leaving marks (keys worked well), it all helped me understand how messed up I actually was, but at the same time compartmentalized the damaged bits so that I could have another, healthy part of my brain objectively analyze and start to fix it. Laughing helped me realize that it wasn't -me- that was broken, it was just a part of me, and that there were plenty of systems still functioning.

That is, essentially, how comedy and humor kept, and keeps, me sane.