Running on Remeron. And Chartwell’s.

Last night, my arrival back to the ward from this Internet café across the street where I will spend my “pass” time, as all I can fathom needing other than what’s provided for me – a shower (with a velcro curtain…I was previously unfamiliar with this creative method of attachment!), a toothbrush and toothpaste (I was at the point of not brushing my teeth before I entered the hospital, and remained so until two days ago – I brushed once in a while, but certainly not every day, I could not be bothered, it was too much effort – you know things are getting bad when you do not care enough about yourself to brush your teeth.), a bed with homey blankets – the same, and very thus familiar, hospital-issue blankets that are used across Canada; I look up at the curtains that surround my bed and I wonder if there is a village in China whose economy relies on making these blankets, with three stripes of varied thickness at each end in the stanardest of standard blues, yellows, or oranges – indeed, some may think it strange that this is probably the place that seems most like home to me aside from whatever my current address happens to be in the cities across Canada I have lived in.

Food – although it is “institution food”, also standardized, and thus familiar, provided by Sodexho who seems to have eaten up its competitor, Chartwell’s.  How reassuring, that I can expect the same dinner at any psychiatric ward, university, airport, prison (I would cross myself if I believed in Christ), or other place where one’s hopefully temporary stay is mandatory.  I haven’t eaten so well since I was attacked by my ex, since charges were place, rumours arose, nasty names were called, furniture was moved, books were left behind, addresses and provinces shifted, and shifted again.  It’s a shame that Sodexho must rid their “food” (can you identify what the items pictured on the right are?  If so, you’re much more clever than I am!    ) of nutrients by doing things like over cooking brocolli and cauliflower that would otherwise be full of vitamins and nutrients.  I am gaining weight though, and not just because of the medication-changing, but because I am hungry – hungry for PB & J sandwiches like the ones in my favourite song these days – made by yours truly, with two tiny plastic contaners of Kraft brand smooth peanut butter (of course, the kind with chunks of actual peanuts is not provided by Sodexho) and five tiny plastic containers of the same brand (I suppose the two corporations have forged a deal) strawberry jelly (of course, the kind devoid of any remains of actual strawberries).  I try not to think about how many PCBs I am consuming or how many tiny plastic containers I am throwing away, though they are promised to be recycled.  After all, I cannot do otherwise.  I must be here which means I must consume what Sodexho provides, indirectly supporting their corporation.  This fact is less appetizing than their food!

I digress.  Thus, am I becoming un-depressed?  The motivation to write all day long, if only I could, has returned.  Is this because I have recovered from the decrease of Effexor in my system?  Or, is this because of the addition of Remeron to my daily psychotropic regime?  Or, is this simply because I have had a safe, silent environment where I’ve been able to decompress and deal with the pain that really began when I started grad school at Simon Fraser University?  I still avoid thoughts of all of the sharp obstacles and shaky ladders I found, unexpectedly, placed in my path, before I may have completed the level of education labeled “Master’s” and the year of my life labeled “25″?  Subconsiously they have been unavoidable, and during my night terrors I have relived each step along the path: being accused of academic dishonesty. being raped, knowing that the man who raped me is responsible for an “F” on my transcript, listening to my father scream about me being off my rocker regarding financial issues.

Staring straight at the blank, disaffected look on his face when I recount the instances of sexual abuse I’ve endured to him.  Comparing this look to the emotion-filled expression that lights up his eyes like firecrackers and makes smoke come out of his nose when he screams about me for my lack of progress in my career, scolding me for this “lack of progress” like everyone else.

Well, maybe I don’t see it as a “lack of progress”.  Maybe I see it as part of my journey that has made me tougher, that has taught me lessons, not about sociological theory, but about the kinds of people I want to surround myself in my life.  Not about Durkheim, Weber, or Marx, but about the reality, and the strength it takes to be a graduate student living below the poverty line.  If I was not strong enough to stomach that reality, albeit the number of health-related obstacles placed in my path qualifies me as somewhat as an outlier (but aren’t we all outliers, for one reason or another?   ) – and I can stomach a fair bit, how many current Ph.D. graduates are from well-monied families compared with us “others”?

Realizing that at the end of the day, observing this reality meant nothing to a child of the civil rights movements of the 1960s if I wasn’t making enough dollars and cents to live a life pleasant enough for him to to want to participate vicariously.

Realizing that my surfaces just were not clean enough.  For my last set of roommates, and now for my family.  Realizing that I had to run away with what little I had.

And here I am!  No knew battle scars acquired.  But decisions set.  Photography at Langara.  I’m where it will be, it just has not happened yet.  I’m happy about my decision, and knowing that my father and sister would hate it makes it even more exciting than it already was.

So, last night I arrived back from my pass and Roberto* was sitting in the Dining Room painting.  His creations made from watercolour paints with the addition of elements from the kitchen that others would throw in the garbage looked fascinating and beautiful.  He started talking about how he was technically a voluntary patient, as was I, and that we had both signed contracts stating this, giving us permission to leave if we wished to.  He asked if I wanted to go.  I laughed, “Yes, but I don’t have a house!”

“Don’t worry about housing.”

“Really?  What do you mean?  Do you need a roommate?!”

I did not see that six guards in white and navy uniforms were coming up from behind.  I had stepped into the middle of a “Code White” without knowing it.  But why was Roberto going to be dragged to the cell next to the nurses’ station with nothing in it but a mattress, toilet, and camera?  I didn’t know the first part of the story, but last time I checked, painting and talking were not risks to “harming oneself or others”, and reasons for being drugged and thrown into the cell.

My reaction?  To start snapping pictures and recording what was going on.

There are some things I cannot share, as they would spell the end of the Practice of Madness.  Roberto was not present at lunch today…