Ascent from Madness
By: Nairi Eirian Jaden
I don't know how I ended in that room, at the time I don't think I knew who I was or where I was or what I had done to get into that room or for how long I was in there. All I knew was that it was just me in that small room and a bed, nothing else; I don't even know if I was clothed or not. If I was I wouldn't have remembered, nor of the faces that I saw come and go through the only way out: a door that looked just out of proportion as I felt out of place. I must have been too far out of touch with reality to understand where I was until what it seemed like only days later before I finally broke out of that haze and started to look around for the first time.
Not long after I woke from my hazy slumber did someone come into the room through the door, holding two paper cups: one was filled with water, the other held what might be pills of some sort. It was a man, with blue eyes that widened in surprise to find me as alert as I was, and his beaded chin and mouth worked with silent words to understand how I was looking as though I had just woken from a deep sleep. He stood there for only a minute or two before he backed up to the door, opened it, and dashed out; why was he running away like that? Had I grown another head during my hazy memory? Or was I not supposed to be up and about like I was? I didn't know and those questions scared me more then angered.
I couldn't tell who was on the other side of the door or if I was in a room at the end of a long hallway, there were no windows on the door and nothing else to look out of. It didn't take me long to figure out that I was in some sort of asylum, like the kind I had seen in movies but never thought they had existed. That had been my first real thought after the man left, then I started to panic as I couldn't remember the reason why I was a padded cell with no means of escape outside of the locked door. During my soon to be brief alone time from when that man left and another man came in, I had tried oh so many times to try and open the door, banged on it and screamed in hopes that someone, anyone, would hear me so I could leave. Leave and not return, not look back, and push this ordeal out of my memory forever.
It seemed like an eternity before the second man unlocked the door and entered, his face looked kinder and more grandfatherly then the first man had despite him looking no older than I. His shaved head shone on the dull light that enveloped my cell, his green eyes shone like stars, and his manner of dress was a far cry from the doctors that the asylums in the movies portray. He looked out of place, just as I felt, with his brightly colored blue shirt, his khaki pants, and long white coat; stitched on the coat was his name, Dr. C. Winston, and he had a peace sign patched ironed on underneath. I was weary of someone that looked out of character like he was, I sat on the floor and put my back against the wall across from the bed the good doctor sat down on.
"You are awake," was the first words out of Dr. Winston's mouth. It was an odd statement, one that resembled how I now felt yet I didn't respond to him. Merely I gave him a 'no kidding' glare and folded my arms across my lap, I was still in a form of shock to find myself in a place like this. He seemed to understand that I had no understanding of my situation, where I was, or why I was there; his face lost all of it's cheerfulness and but those eyes, those beautiful green orbs, still held a certain warmth in them. "What do you remember?"
I opened my mouth to respond, to say of the last moment I can clearly remember, but even as I close my mouth my memory fails me. It is not that I can't remember walking my dog through the park one warm morning or the conversation I had with my neighbor on the return home, or even the smell of breakfast filling the kitchen as I came home. It is that I don't know if those memories are real or if they were put there by someone else, a false trail to lead me to believe that a perfectly normal, human being that had no distinct shock to her system came to be in a padded room. I stare at the floor as tears sting my eyes, and I shake my head, I don't want to know the reason why I have been alone in darkness. I want to remember these false memories instead, that maybe something between coming home to breakfast and waking up only moments ago had caused my mind to shut down and not remember.
"I don't know if they are real," I hear myself say, my eyes widening at how hoarse my voice sounded. I suppose I had no reason to talk since I had only myself for company, Dr. Winston looked concerned, and I don't know if he really was or his job had forced him to fake empathy so quickly. "I remember walking my dog and coming home to breakfast, after that....."
My voice trailed off after that as I looked up at the man with tears streaming down my face, I don't know what I was looking for. Maybe some sort of nod or shake of head to say that I was right or wrong would help me, instead he rubbed his face with both of his hands and looked at me with some sort of hope in his deep, forgiving eyes that I know he couldn't fake.
"Your family brought you here because something triggered a panic episode so bad that you blacked out. No one knows what caused you to panic, maybe a word or a noise, but we were told you were fine when you left for your morning walk with your puppy and when you came back...." Now it was the doctor's turn to trail off as he watched me tuck my legs underneath me. The words washed over me like water, cementing the reality that I had walked the dog in that memory but something or someone had triggered a horrible panic attack that caused me to be admitted into a mental institution.
"Why? Why would I have a breakdown so bad that caused me to be put into a place like this?" I asked, staring at him. My mind was a whirlwind in trying to understand why panic had overtaken me like that, what triggers I had, and why I just hadn't been sat down to calm myself. There had been no sudden changes to my life that I was aware of, nothing that would shut my entire mind down, and I had no history of panic attacks that left me unable to go about my daily life. On the contrary, I vividly remember being excited about a new job that I was to set to start; now that I had been stuck in an asylum for a period of time I was sure that door was long since shut.
"That is what we're trying to figure out, I was hoping that you would be able to shed some light on the matter. From your short medical file it seems like the worst thing that happened to you was appendicitis." Dr. Winston cracked a half smile as I nodded absently. So even the people who went to school to figure out things like this couldn't tell me the why's or the how's, so if they couldn't how did they expect me to?
Dr. Winston babbled on for a while longer, seemingly unaware that I wasn't paying full attention to him and by the time he left I had more questions then answers. I can't remember what I ate, but whatever it was there were no utensils, no metal or glass plates or cups, or anything that I could use to harm myself or those that brought me the food and medication I took without wondering what it was or what it did to me. The man that had rushed out earlier, the one with the blue eyes, brought me both my food and the pills, watching me as I ate, drank, and took the medicine; I guess he wanted to make sure that I didn't hide anything just in case I'd stash the unknown pills for later. I could barely swallow the pills with the liquid that resembled water, how did he think I would take them without a liquid? I didn't question him, just gave him a blank stare as he walked out and locked the door behind him.
I had the same routine for the next four days: I'd have breakfast, Dr. Winston would come in between then and lunch to see if I could remember anything, then lunch before another doctor would come in between lunch and dinner to try different tactics to jog my memories. After dinner I was left alone to think about nothing and everything before I would drift off into a fitful sleep then be woken up in time for breakfast. By the fifth day I could set my internal alarm clock as to what time it was when one thing ended and another began except on that fifth day Dr. Winston didn't show up as scheduled, in fact he didn't show up at all. I became agitated and irritable, breakfast had been late as well and the man with my pills hadn't been there, either. It had been an older woman, a nurse judging by her ID badge, who only grunted when she shoved a small plate of my breakfast into my hands; I hadn't even eaten much when it was snatched away before I was left in isolation once again.
It wasn't until lunch was supposed to be there did I get my next visitor: it was the other doctor, a woman named Dr. D. Royal. She was an older woman with her hair put into a bun, plastic-framed glasses, and a no-nonsense air about her; her method of dress was a far cry from Dr. Winston but I had found on the first day that while she may look just as uncaring as the room I was in, Dr. Royal was a far cry from the bleakness I found myself in. Today I was going to ask the gnawing questions I had and the first one would be to know where Dr. Winston was, instead two big men pushed me down onto the bed and held me there, I started to scream and thrash as they held me there, Dr. Royal standing at the doorway with a look of worry as she shook her head sadly.
"I don't know why this is necessary, she has no problems that can be seen and no history of illness," Dr. Royal said to someone behind her, I couldn't see who it was nor cared to know; one of the brutes had jabbed a needle into my arm, and I began to feel sleepy. When the two were satisfied I was incapable of getting up they let me go and stood aside, as I tried to move my head to see who else was there I saw the forms of Dr. Royal and Dr. Winston hover over me like two fuzzy, distant shapes. My mind was starting to shut down again, my strength leaving my body weak and tired, and everything I thought I knew was wrong. The last thing I felt was a sense of betrayal before the whole world went black.
The blackness lasted for what seemed like an eternity before I woke up again, this time in a room with noises and people and light. Groggily I moved my head side to side to wake myself further, I heard someone call out for a doctor and a something placed over my aching wrist. I couldn't make anything out as I slipped in and out of a dream-like state, minutes seemed like hours before I fully awoke to a small light coming from my bedside. I moved my head to the left, the movement making my neck ache as the room came into focus once again, however this time I was not in a room where the only thing separating me from the rest of the world was a door. This time I was in a larger room with an IV stuck in my arm, a TV perched on the wall, a window with the curtains drawn back, and a open doorway where a nurse had just walked past. The source of light was a small lamp on a sink across the room, illuminating someone as they read in a chair and did not notice that I had awoke.
It took me a few minutes to comprehend that I was not in that padded cell again and started to move my limbs to make sure that they worked, as I moved I caught the attention of the other person in the room. They jumped up and rushed to my bedside as I slowly sat up, free to move about; outside of the IV I was not hooked up to any sort of machine nor was I being held down by any brutes the size of small cars. I looked up into the familiar face of my mother I smiled then started to cry, her arms wrapped around me in a welcoming hug. This is what I wanted, to be out of that place and where I could look out through a window and see the world.
"How long was I....?" I tried to ask once my mother let me go, not saying the name of that dreaded place. I hoped that it was just a nightmare that I had woken up from and that my memory of that cell was just a thing I could file under 'weird dreams'. The look on my mother's face begged me to continue on as I laid back down and closed my eyes as she pulled the chair towards the bed and sat into it again, cupping one of my hands with both of hers. "What happened? The last thing I remember was walking the dog."
There was a silence that followed, I assumed she was trying to find the words to tell me the truth. That I wasn't crazy outside of the nightmare that I had and the real reason why I was in the hospital, maybe the house had caught fire to explain away the holes I had in my memories. As I opened my eyes and turned my head towards her, I noticed that my mother had an odd look on her face, one that resembled confusion but also that of worry. I repeated what I had said when she failed to answer, the worry etched on her face became more apparent as she dropped my hand and began to stroke my hair. Then she asked a question that I had no answer for.
"Sweetie, what dog?"
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