Once Alan realized how bad the hospital was, he did his best to advocate for me. He wasn’t any happier about the Trazodone than I was, and he wanted to talk to Doctor about it. At the end of one of his visits, we approached Alicia, one of the nurses.
“Is there a phone number where I can reach the doctor?” Alan said.
She didn’t even look at him.
“No.”
“Is there a number for the ward?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“May we have it, please?” asked Alan.
“I’m not on duty right now,” she said, turning her back on us.
I heard her laughing with one of the aides about it later. It wasn’t just the usual staff-laughing-at-patients stuff. I knew that she particularly disliked me, and later that day another patient warned me.
“I heard Alicia talking about you,” she said. “She told someone, ‘Tonight I’m gonna get Debra in restraints for sure.'”
I wasn’t sure whether to believe it or not. Even if I did, what could I do about it?
The call for meds that evening came while I was in the middle of a game of solitaire. I didn’t get up right away. I wanted to finish the game, and anyway there was a line snaking down the hallway. If I was going to wait 15 minutes, I’d rather be playing cards. Alicia stuck her head in the door, glared at me, and yelled that all patients who hadn’t taken their meds should do so now.
I said, “Okay, cool. I was just waiting until the line got shorter.”
She glared at me.
“Don’t smart off to me! Go get your meds and then go to the quiet room for 15 minutes.”
It was so unfair. I hadn’t been hurting anyone, and I wasn’t trying to dodge my medication. I went up to the window in the nurses’ station, took the little paper cup of pills, swallowed them all, and stuck my tongue out to prove they were gone. Then I went back to my solitaire game with no intention of going anywhere near the quiet room.
That was all the excuse Alicia needed. She nodded at someone behind me and seconds later, a couple of beefy aides dragged me from my chair by the wrists. The wound I’d had at Tinley had finally healed, but a recent cut was ripped open. Did they not know what bandages signified?
They each grabbed an upper arm and marched me to the quiet room. My feet dragged as I tried to keep up, and I was crying tears of frustration and rage. I had been set up. The quiet room had an attached bathroom, and once they’d locked me in, I went in there to blow my nose. That put me out of camera range, and almost immediately Alicia came in.
“You go sit on the bed right now,” she demanded.
Even though I knew it wouldn’t end well, I tried to assert some control over the situation.
“Okay, I will, as soon as I finish blowing my nose,” I told her.
That didn’t work for her. She immediately summoned a couple of aides to help and within a few minutes, I was stripped, put in a hospital gown, and strapped down to a gurney. They chose five-point leathers – cuffs on each ankle and wrist and a belt around the waist. It crossed my mind that a waist restraint is kind of redundant when you’re spread-eagled with your limbs immobilized. Were they afraid I’d try a hip check?
Restraints are a big deal. There are procedures for the staff to follow. Patients should be monitored closely, with water and bathroom breaks every few hours. Nurses are periodically supposed to free each limb, one at a time, and gently move it through its range of motion. None of this happened.
I was tied up around 6 P.M. Immediately afterward, someone came in to take my vitals and give me some water. At 9 P.M., someone else brought in my night meds with a few sips of water to wash them down. Neither person offered me the chance to pee or move around.
Shortly after I took the meds, my bladder started demanding to be heard. The call bell was out of reach, and I doubted that anyone would come even if I could push the button. I held the pee in for as long as I could, trying to will it back into my kidneys, but the pain became too much and finally I had to let go. I soaked my gown and part of the sheet. Now I had cold wet cloth stuck to my skin and a smell I couldn’t escape.
Not too long after, someone poked their head in and grimaced in disgust, then turned and left. No one else checked on me at all – no more water, no nourishment, no range of motion, no bathroom breaks. I wet myself twice more as I lay there under the camera, trying to think of something cheerful while the hours stretched out painfully. For once I couldn’t sleep.
I lost all track of time. How long had I been held captive? Years, I thought. Finally, someone came in, untied me, and told me to go take a shower and get some sleep. It was 3 A.M. The sheet on the bed was saturated, making the whole room stink of piss. A small puddle had formed on the floor. Good. They could clean up the mess they made.
I had pee in my hair, and as I limped back to my room it dripped off my gown, leaving a yellow snail trail behind me.
The next day I was told that I’d been secluded for throwing myself to the floor of the dayroom and threatening to bang my head. The restraints were because I’d been self-mutilating in the bathroom. What had I been mutilating myself with, toilet paper? Where were the wounds?
All good things must come to an end, and Doctor decided I was too intransigent to be treated. Disrespectful and noncompliant, I talked back. I had an advocate who kept asking uncomfortable questions. I stood up for myself, and when they’d had enough, they sent me on another ambulance ride I couldn’t afford, this time to Madden, which was a state hospital out in the suburbs.
I wanted to walk out of the unit on my own two feet, but, citing regulations, the ambulance guys brought in a stretcher. I tried to gather my belongings before getting on, but the guy who was in it for the money was not having that. He insisted that I get on the stretcher immediately and he would bring my things to me. I was not persuaded by his rhetoric and, ignoring him, turned to pick up my bag. He applied a squeeze hold, and I applied my nails, digging into his arm. He won, but I made him curse.
At Madden, they read my records, listened to my story, gave me a sack lunch, and pointed me toward the bus back to Hyde Park.