Well ,there I was up on the sixth floor. dressed in hospital provided blue paper pajamas and slipper socks. Locked in an observation room, wishing I'd died instead of having to endure this bull shit.
This was my first time in a "psych . ward", and I knew I wasn't going to like it. After being kept in " the quiet room",(which is what they call the solitary confinement room), overnight, they let me out to mingle with all the other patients. It's normal practice to put new wackos, I mean patients in the quiet room for the first day or overnight,so they can observe your behavior,and see how dangerous you are. "Lucky me", I thought to myself, "I can hang out with a bunch of real lunatics now!"
I realize now, that I was being judgmental. Most of the patients in places like that,(about 80- 90 %), are just like me. Otherwise, "normal" people who are suffering from severe depression, or manic- depression ,and most have tried to commit suicide like myself.
The rest , may be schizophrenics or more seriously mentally ill people. People that are unable to function in the general population. Some don't have any concept of reality, or may be delusional . Some of these people can be unintentionally entertaining or even humorous for a depressed person like me. Especially someone like me ,with a warped sense of humor.
This one guy, whom I'll call "Baby Huey", because I don't remember his name,and he reminded me of the cartoon character, "Baby Huey", who was a huge ,Duffie baby duck,who didn't know his own strength, and said "duh" a lot. Baby Huey here, had a talent for blurting out the most inappropriate comments, which made me laugh out loud at the most inappropriate times, like in a group therapy session.
This one time ,while in a group therapy session , he blurted out " pussy",for no reason. I lost it! I was laughing so hard,my eyes were tearing. The therapist just shot a look at me, like what he said was my fault!
There was this young blonde woman,I guessed to be in her early 20s, sitting next to me, who also laughed, but not as hard as me. For the rest of my stay at "the Loony Hilton", whenever she was sitting near me, she'd lean toward me and whisper "pussy"! Getting me to laugh every time.
That was when I realized that some of the more severely mentally ill people can be amusing ,if not down right funny. I also realized that laughter was therapeutic , at least it was for me. I think Blondie got the laughter thing,too.
After I was there for 72 hours, I found out that I could sign myself out of there .They legally couldn't keep me there, unless they could prove that I was a danger to myself ,or others. I'm sure they probably could have proved that ,and forced me to stay,if they'd really wanted to, but I guess they wanted to get rid of me,because they just let me sign myself out. Maybe ,I wasn't their ideal kind of nut or something. Or maybe it was because I had no insurance. When my wife found out,she was not happy about it, but she reluctantly came and took me home. I thought after we got home, the chill would slowly thaw. It didn't.
