Latest update says our roommate isn’t coming out. They’re going to be shipping him straight to another institution, down in the states. Likelyhood says we’ll have to pack his stuff for him and either some of his family will come up from Vancouver, Washington, and pick it up, or we’ll be given monies to ship it down to them.
Going upstairs the other day found a small bag full of marijuana, which we confiscated, (nurses say it could be a trigger), and an air pistol, which we are also holding for in case he comes back. The other found was writing. There’s messed up little quotes all over the walls, including the crazy persons preriquisite end-of-the-world bible quotes. The scribbles on the back of his door are creepy and mostly illegible. I’m going to take pictures, and then I suppose I’ll have to paint.
Tag: crazy people
Psych Ward
I went to visit my roomate in the psych assesment unit last night. It was a bad ending to a long day. A film crew had been set up at my mothers house – some sure-to-be-awful sitcom about a man taking care of his family after death. I liked the streetlamps they put up on the street, and we did get some candy, but still. Effectively locked in a hhouse from 2 in the afternoon till eight:thirty with four hyperactive, badly behaived shriek monkeys is not my idea of being worth twenty dollars and some free candy.
The hospital was empty and creepy. I suppose they always sort of are when there’s no-one in the hallways. Long off-white corridors full of closed doors. Mysterious signs full of abbreviations and odd lettter combinations.
The security gave me directions and escorted me partway there. I’m not sure if he was worried if I would be lost or if I was there to wander. Either option I find amusing, but neither terribly interesting. The nurses at the desk were surprised to see me. I assume visitora are rare at night and never enter with purple tophats.
I was slightly frisked, told to not give anyone my housekeys and led to an alcove with a couch and a TV blaring a war movie. Marshall was sitting absorbed by the men in green jeeps, he started when I spoke.
“Rots your brain you know”
He seemed overwhelmed to see me, but I couldn’t say if he was more stable than he was when he went in. Obsessed with leaving, he was indirect and refused, obliquely, to answer my questions. He could not have spent the past few days in as much ignorance as he professed.
“It was like, until I was strapped down to a bed, I couldn’t hear my voice in my head”
Hand movements accompany everything, and a nurse watches from down the hall. If I’m to find anything out, I’m going to need a medical release, and I have couched my explanation of this to Marshall in the most flattering terms possible. I have lied by omittance, but only just. I need this information, I need to know what’s happening and asking point-blank will get me nowhere.
We walk to the front desk, where his desire to leave flames stronger. Never asking directly, he sidles up to the idea, as if he can trick the nurse into giving him a release. I put on record that we will allow him back into our home and I prompt Marshall to give us confidentiality. To my relief, that is also put in the book.
A man wanders by and brushes his afro, using a wall as if it’s a mirror. Afterwards, as we sit and talk over a game of memory, the same man comes by and tries the same trick on my hat. The fact that Marshall introduces me to his, ‘friend’, does not make me feel any more comfortable. I think that I am lucky that nonchalant is one of my skills.
Today, I called the nurse, and she told me more than anyone else so far. Though they’re giving him Olanzapine, (my detectiving, not hers), they have not diagnosed him with schizophrenia. In fact, they haven’t a diagnosis at all yet. The theory cutrrently running seems to be a mental breakdown relating from malnutrition and stress, though they are uncertain, and still doing tests.
All of this has me worried. His grandmother has phoned, and his aunt. I’m to call them later today, after the doctor has seen him. He is not coming home until I say so. I don’t want this responsibility. I don’t want to be worried about who I live with. This is not my friend, this is not an important person. This is not what I want to be thinking about.
Roomate Update
I was caught in a thought last night, unable to sleep. Awake and aware hours past I should have. Three thirty came bringing the police to the door. I came flying, askew, ina bundle to the door. Bill was sparked out of sleep. “Do you know Marshall White?” I nod and tell her to come around back, as our front door is broken.
By the time she wends her way past the brushpile, through the back, (lucky police carry flashlights), M’love and I have convened at the back door. “what is happening” “the police have marshall” “excuse the hour, but do you two know if marshall takes drugs?”
He had frightened the battlehardened store clerks at the 7-11 to calling the police. The bluesuited help arrived and called an ambulance. We were not informed what his behaviour had been. Enough, apparently, that they were concerned for his health. These, the clerks that told the man arguing with his prostitute to pay the woman and leave. With a stick.
We discussed some recent oddities, and agreed that people had been asking questions..
In the morning, a doctor called. Bill answered from in bed and I listened while curled to his chest. “No medication that I know of” I felt odd, wanting to drift into sleep, yet curious and wondering. “He asked us yesterday where to find ‘the good acid’ then asked us if that was where love and happiness came from”
Apparently he’d not said a word to them all night. He’s staying under observation in the Psychiatric Assesment Unit. I was sent upstairs and returned with a packet with his granna’s phone and contact information. She called later, with worries and doubt.
The doctors aren’t sure if it’s drugs or schizophrenia and the possibility of taking away all personal responsibilty has been mentioned.
Coffee & Cream
I actually have to leave the house today. I’m feeling sort of nervous about it. I have to collect my keys, and the money – and leave. Walk outside. Step from the house into the open air.
The day before yesterday, I was walking home through the dark alley that runs parallel to Victoria, and two bicycle police stopped me to ask, “Have you seen a rather large man with a fire axe?” . He had robbed the gas station down the road about 30 minutes earlier, and was presumed still in the neighborhood.
I have to leave the house?? A strange man tried to kidnap me this month! I’m being asked about psychotics with FIRE AXES! Fire axes are serious frightening things!
I dearly hope there’s someone available to spend time today.