this is a thank you note, though it won’t appear like one. 

when i entered your sliding doors (the second, first, or third time, it doesn’t really matter) i was in desperate need of your help. i was in such pain, such agony (sort of) and the people i loved begged for you to help me. 

the first time, you refused to help. i hope you remember that. i tried to keep you from forgetting, because i was moaning and groaning in your chairs with too much wood and not enough cushion and you chose to ignore me. i don’t blame your nurses (yes i do) because you are the broken one. 

the second time, i came in the back entrance. i came in a big colorful red truck with flashing lights caked in power that forced the world to accommodate for my pain, which i guess was the only thing i wanted in the first place. 

you stripped me of my clothes, you took my belongings and never gave them back, you forced me into the trenches, into a little room with two white walls, one blue wall and a curtain that did nothing to quiet the screams coming from the rooms adjacent. 

i asked for lorna dunes to stay sane. i broke them into pieces and laid the crumbs on my bed, i tore apart my clothes and blankets to make different outfits, i put a blanket over my head and ran for the emergency exit because i was in crisis and i needed to escape. 

it was an emergency.

couldn’t you hear me scream? did i not make it clear enough that i needed help? haven’t all of us down there, down here, made it obvious to you that when you try to help you destroy perfectly good, kind people?

i did everything i could to get your attention. i couldn’t sleep (can you blame me) and when you gave me medication i took it without hesitation. the ambulance drivers played my favorite songs and i sang gleefully as they swept me away from you. 

funny i found my way back to you only a month later. 

in your emergency room again but this time i was less magic but more aware. i was quiet, i was not cooperative, i felt serene, i had a plan. 

i thought i knew how things would end. 

i walked into the basement like i owned the place (and i felt like i did). i knew where to go. i was put in almost the same room (it was one over). this one didn’t have a view of the clock or other people. all i could see were blank walls. 

no wonder i wrote all over those walls, in chalk, toothpaste, soap and whatever else i could find. no wonder i snuck toilet paper out of the bathroom in my pants and decorated the room with it. no wonder i grabbed magazines and made paper airplanes and asked for more food and tried desperately to connect with every nurse that pulled that curtain (the one i could move with my mind) aside. 

what would you have done, reader? can you judge me? can you blame me?

odds are you haven’t been to d-pod. i pray you never will be. 

i was given my rights on my first night on a piece of paper and i identified all those that had been violated. there were numerous. i flushed those rights down the toilet because i didn’t want my nurse to get into trouble when my lawsuit was successful and trust me it was going to be. 

metaphorically, a nurse took away my rights when i asked for them again. on day 2, i wasn’t allowed to have paper.

the nurses and security guards worked separately but together. the security guards worked for the nurses and did what they said because the nurses were supposed to know better than the security guards what was good for patients. 

everyone is terrified down there, staff and patient alike. nurses were always accompanied by a guard. sometimes nurses would enter my room trembling, as if i might attack them at any moment. over and over again, the nurses thought i was trying to kill them. 

i repeated, over and over again, that i had never wanted to harm anyone in my life. but it’s hard to believe people on the wrong side of the curtain.

eventually, they decided i was trying to escape. i was breaking the place. nobody knew what to do with me. i was wreaking havoc on purpose, and every single one of my rights was ripped away in the process. i created chaos and then cleaned up after myself over and over again, to get attention, to get help, to get some human interaction, to occupy a mind that was cracking under the lack of pressure. 

eventually i was moved into the ‘lounge.’ everything about the lounge was a lie, it was made up by the nurses because they determined, perhaps wisely, that i needed to be watched more carefully by the security guards. this room was larger and even more empty than the first. it had a stretcher in the middle and the light switch was outside. a security guard sat at its entrance all the time because the nurses were so terrified i would escape. for good reason, i almost did so last time. 

ironically, the lounge was right in front of the emergency exit. it would have been the easiest thing in the world to run out of that door. i would have been successful, this time because the security guards loved me. they seemed to trust me more than they did the nurses, they couldn’t see how i was 

dangerous

how foolish. 

but i may have been the most dangerous patient in the hopsital. 

i was never agressive, not once. i repeated, over and over again, that i didn’t want to hurt anyone. i was pleasant, i smiled often, i was kind to every staff member. i knew the names of every nurse and guard and used them regularly. i was cooperative. i did exactly what every one of them told me to do when they told me to do it. i was a star patient. 

this is the truth. 

so, riddle me this. why was i the first patient in the history of the hospital to be moved to the ‘lounge’ so that he could be watched more closely? why was i deprived of everything, and i mean everything, because eventually my blankets, sheets, and pillow was taken and i had nothing but the paper scrubs that covered the naked body they had forced me to show them earlier? why was i hated, feared, manipulated, played with, laughed at?

why did nurses tell me they loved me?

why did they tell each other they hated me?

why did the security guards love speaking to me?

why did they risk their jobs, over and over again, to talk to me because they were prohibited from doing so?

the answers lie in the subtely, maybe. or maybe the answers lie not within me, not within the mania, but within you, rhode island hospital. 

i did have a plan. and not everything goes according to plan, ever, but a few things were consistent throughout my pleasant little stay with you

1. my brain was remarkable
2. i got exactly what i wanted
3. i wanted every reason to sue
4. i wanted to go home, desperately
5. i never told anyone where home was
6. i was deprived of every single patient right, again and again, even though i did nothing to harm or even imply that i was going to harm myself, another patient, or a member of the staff

how can all of these things be true, reader?

call me crazy. i am. 

in many ways, looking back, we can think of my 3-4 days in d-pod as an experiment. i was manipulating every human on purpose to escape. the pod was like a puzzle to me, a giant escape room. i was given supplies, sometimes. toilet paper. toothpaste. soap. cookies. styrofoam cups. 

i had to get creative about how i used these materials, because each of them were helpful. i wrote messages for the doctors to see. i was careful about what information i shared, and when. i put on an act, a different one for each person, and each of them loved me 

but was terrified of me

at the same time. 

somehow i was the dumbest, most patient, smartest, best, worst, most chaotic, most peaceful, happiest, most memorable

patient

the pod had ever seen. 

this is not my own extrapalation. these are all things i was called by different people while i was with you, rhode island hospital. you should remember all of them. i know you do. 

as for you, reader, you choose what you want to believe. 

and i’ll continue writing the truth

line

by

line.