The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness (20 page)

A sound came out of my mouth that I'd never heard before.
Half-groan, half-scream, barely human, and pure terror. Then the
sound came again, forced from somewhere deep inside my belly and
scraping my throat raw. "Noooooo," I shouted. "Stop this, don't do this
to me!" I glanced up to see a face watching the entire scene through
the window in the steel door. Why was she watching me? Who was
she? I was an exhibit, a specimen, a bug impaled on a pin and helpless
to escape. "Please," I begged. "Please, this is like something from the

Middle Ages. Please, no!" Somewhere in the midst of the chaos, a
single thought occurred to me: If Mrs. Jones were here, this would not
be happening. She would never have allowed such a thing. With Mrs.
Jones, the tools we worked with were words, not straps. She never
would have stood by while someone hurt me, terrified me, or made me
feel helpless and alone.

"I want you to count backwards by sevens, starting from one
hundred," intoned The Doctor. I looked at him as though he were
nuts. Count? For
him
? Do
anything
for him? I had come to the
hospital frightened, confused, and paranoid. Nothing he'd done so far
had improved the situation. And look, there it was again, the face on
the other side of the window. Had someone paid admission to see the
crazy woman?

A nurse came into the room with a tray, and a tiny little paper cup
on the tray. "Please drink this," she said.

"No," I answered. "You drink it."

"If you don't drink it, I'll have to inject it instead," she said, her
face impassive. Bound hand and foot, I had no choice. Choking and
gagging, I tried to lock my teeth against the liquid, but could not. It
was my first dose of an antipsychotic drug.

Terrified that I was disappearing, I struggled against my
restraints, needing to convince myself that I was still there.
I'm
shrinking, I'm shrinking.
Being restrained hurt, a lot. But at least the
pain meant I hadn't vaporized yet.

The Doctor was as understanding and insightful as ever; he made
one of those school-teacher tsk-tsk clucking sounds and rolled his
eyes in disapproval. I wondered why he'd gone into psychiatry. "You
are acting like you want to be in the hospital," he said, "so we are going
to find you a hospital bed."

So, then—it was all a matter of simply behaving myself? He spoke
as though the most I had to fear was being sent to bed without milk
and cookies. "No, thanks," I replied. "And can you please remove these
restraints? They hurt. And they're degrading."

"No," he said. "I want you to admit yourself into the psychiatric
hospital."

"Are you
nuts?"
I shot back. "You're the one who belongs in the
hospital. I'm fine. And I'd like to go home now. I have work to do. Let
me out of these things."

The Doctor said that he was about to write out a "Physician's

Emergency Certificate," which allowed the hospital to hold me fifteen
days. I would later learn that on that certificate he called me
"dangerous to herself and others"; he also described me as "gravely
disabled." His reason? I was not able to do my law school homework.
After the fifteen days had passed, I would be entitled to a commitment
hearing, if I wanted one.

Of course, I didn't learn about the ins and outs of all this until
later. All I knew at that moment was that I was going into a hospital.
No matter what.

However, it turned out that there was no room for me at the
psychiatric unit in Yale-New Haven Hospital, so they were shipping
me across town—to Yale Psychiatric Institute. YPI. "You'll be safe
there," said The Doctor.

"I'd be just as safe at home. Safe from you, anyway," I said.

When the EMTs came in to take me to the ambulance, I was struck
by how handsome one of them was. "Are you a movie star?" I asked.
"I'm quite sure you're a movie star. Your name's on the tip of my
tongue, I just can't think of it right now."

My relief when they undid the bed restraints lasted about ten
seconds; they immediately strapped me down on the ambulance
gurney.

"Why?" I asked the young and handsome EMT. "Why do you have
to do it like this?"

He looked a little embarrassed, and turned away from my gaze.
"It's the rules. I'm sorry."

The rules. New rules. I would have to learn so many new rules.
"Can you put a blanket over my face before we go out there?" I
pleaded. "I don't want anyone to see me like this."

Very gently, he covered my head with a white sheet, and the gurney
left the ER and rolled toward the ambulance.
Maybe this is what it
feels like to be dead.

chapter eleven

O
NCE WE'D ARRIVED
at YPI, the EMTs took me by stretcher
upstairs, where nurses and attendants were waiting. The hallways
were narrow and dingy, classic institutional interior decorating. The
people here are all crazy, so who cares if it's ugly?

I was taken to the "seclusion room"—empty except for a lone bed.
Observing the surroundings, I only barely reacted to them, since it was
long past midnight, and I was woozy with the effects of the drug. All I
wanted to do was go to sleep; this bed looked as good as any.

The psychiatrist on call that night, Dr. Griffith, was a young
woman with light brown hair, and an attitude light-years removed
from The Doctor's. A gentle smile, a reassuring manner. That is, until I
actually heard what she was saying. "We'd like you to put yourself in
restraints, Elyn." Dr. Griffith motioned toward the bed.

No. I can't.
"Please, it's not necessary," I begged them—a group of
strangers, in a strange place, in the middle of this strange night.

A rather large man, who I would later find out was a divinity
student, sort of loomed over me and grumbled, "Either put yourself in
restraints or we'll put you in them. It's up to you."

I may have been psychotic, but my antennae for where danger lay
were still pretty good. "Are you the heavy here?" I muttered.

"OK, OK," Dr. Griffith said, motioning for the enforcer to step
back. "Just lie down then, and we can talk. No restraints."

A wave of relief came over me, and I sagged back on the bed,
thinking only of getting my head on that pillow—at which point
everyone in this room did exactly as the others had done in the
hospital emergency room. In seconds, my arms and legs were
grabbed, pinned, and bound to the bed by leather straps.

I screamed at the top of my lungs and struggled against the group
of hands pinning me down, but I was no match for them, and soon the
bands were fastened tight. Then it got worse, since apparently binding
my arms and legs wasn't enough. They arranged a net over me—an
actual
net—
from the top at my neck to the bottom at my ankles,
covering my legs, my torso, my chest. And then they pulled it snug at
the four corners. I couldn't move at all, and felt like all the breath was
leaving my body.

"I can't breathe, I can't breathe!" I cried.

"Yes, you can," said the voices in unison. They were standing over
me, watching. I continued to gasp and beg, and eventually they
loosened the net somewhat, and I could actually inhale. (I later
learned that a hundred or so people die each year in the U.S. while
being put or kept in restraints.)

After I was secure—"made safe," as The Doctor might have
phrased it—people left, even Dr. Griffith. The divinity student stayed,
sitting sentry outside the open door to my room.

Nothing at the Warneford had horrified me as much as this did.
No single hallucination, no threat of demonic forces or impulses I
couldn't control had ever held me hostage like this. No one I knew, no
one who loved me, knew that I was here, tied to a bed with a net over
my body. I was alone in the night, with evil coming at me both from
within myself and from without. It was unimaginable to me at that
point that the ancient meaning of the word "hospital" is "shelter."
Refuge. Comfort. Care.
No.

As frightened as I was, I was equally angry, and frantic to find a
way to show defiance—not an easy task, when you're in four-point
restraints and pinned under a tuna net. I was bound...but not gagged!
So I inhaled as deeply as I could, and started belting out some beloved
Beethoven. Not, for obvious reasons, "Ode to Joy," but rather
Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. BABABA
BA!
BABABA
BA!
Look, there,
see how he created such power out of those four simple notes! It
echoed nicely down the halls, so I did it again.

For hours, I sang it and shouted it and hollered it with all the
power remaining inside me. I fought off the beings who were attacking
me, I yanked against the restraints, and I sang my heart out. Every
once in a while, a nurse came by with another little demitasse of
antipsychotic liquid. I swallowed it passively, then fought to swim
above the fog it created. BABABA
BA!

Finally, exhausted, I slept, sweaty and fitful and sore. I may have
slept an hour or so when Dr. Griffith returned with her supervisor, Dr.
Green. He looked surprisingly young to me, for someone who clearly
had power over what happened next. "How are you feeling now?" he

asked.

I wanted to snap, "Hey, it's tough to feel perky when a room full of
people tie you to a bed and pour drugs down your throat." But I didn't
do that.

"I feel much better," I said, struggling for the appropriate tone of
subservience and penitence. "I'm so sorry for causing such a ruckus.
Do you think I might be able to be untied now? Because these hurt."

No. "We'd like you to stay in them a little longer," came his cryptic
reply.

At that point, I'd been restrained for six hours. My muscles ached
and my skin was chafed from struggling. I longed to stretch an arm, a
leg, anything. I couldn't even wiggle my feet. The light inside the
building seemed gray, almost as though it were leaking in from
someplace else. "What's wrong with me?" I asked.

"You were very psychotic last night," Dr. Green replied.

"But what
kind
of psychosis? Why is this happening?"

He shook his head. The institutional head shake was becoming
very familiar to me. "It's really too early to tell," he replied.

"But couldn't I please get back to my work, while we figure it out?"

I asked. "Like an outpatient thing? I've done that before. I need to get
back to school, I'm losing valuable time here."

"It's too soon," Green said. "You're still quite sick. And we need
more time to monitor how the meds are doing."

"I think they're working," I said, ever the good student. "Because
my thinking really is clearer." And, in fact, it was.

He agreed—it seemed to be the case that I was improving. The bad
news was, he thought it was time to contact my parents.

"What? Why? No, under no circumstances! It's not OK with me to
call them, do you understand? It's not OK to tell them about this! They
don't need to know this!"

I thought Green understood, I thought he agreed to respect my
wishes. But the hospital
did
call them; as it turned out, Connecticut
had a law that required it.

The two doctors asked me some more questions—about my
feelings and my history—but repeated that they weren't willing to take
me out of restraints yet; I had to demonstrate an ability to stay calm.
Then they left me alone.

      For the next three hours, I stared at the ceiling, felt my pulse
beating in my wrists and ankles where the straps held me down, and
managed to keep myself from shrieking like a banshee. I somehow
managed to control my demons as well. Any sign of weakness, there
was no telling how long the hostage situation would last.

When Dr. Griffith finally returned, it was with good news. "We're
going to release your legs from the restraints, Elyn, and see how it
goes," she said. It went, by their lights, just fine. I managed to stay
acceptably calm, and by seven that night I was finally untied
altogether. I was moved to the Intensive Care Program, a room with
staff and a small number of patients who the hospital felt needed
constant monitoring. Ever conscious of the eyes on me, I stretched
and moved my arms and legs. Freedom of movement, once it's taken
away from you and then restored, is a remarkable gift. Why didn't I
ever realize this before?

Not knowing the hospital had already called my parents, I asked if
I could call them myself. I needed to try to tell them what was going
on—or, at least, a version of events that I thought they might be able to
accept. I was allowed to go to the nearest phone on the floor and call
Florida collect. Monitoring my own language and tone of voice, I
cautiously told my mother and father that I'd had a bit of the old
trouble, much as I'd had in England, and that I was in a hospital for a
few days, being treated by competent physicians, very nice people,
really, it was all going well, and I was very confident that the situation
would right itself soon.

"No, really, it was just a small setback. Probably because of all the
pressure; it's very rigorous at the law school, you know. Maybe I just
needed a rest, a chance to get my bearings."

In response, my father was calm and logical. He asked me a few
practical questions, and seemed satisfied with my answers. But my
mother's voice wavered a bit, and I could hear the uncertainty there.

Her younger brother, my uncle Norm, had been struggling for
some time with serious psychological problems. He'd gotten his
medical degree in his thirties, but was unable to pass the boards and
never practiced. He had been diagnosed with depression. He was a
handsome, sweet man, very shy and quiet. Although I had never
discussed his illness with my mother to any great degree (it wasn't
then in either of our natures), I knew she worried a great deal about
him. Now, hearing that I'd once again been ill myself, she sounded
fragile, and frightened—at which point I became even more upbeat,
determined to comfort her and keep the anxiety from climbing any
higher. "Really, I'm feeling so much better now," I said, "I'll probably
be released in another day or two."