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Diagnosis: Psychosis
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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Diagnosis: Psychosis The locked ward is not full of Full-of-life movie stars playing Wiser than you or I wisenheimers à la Sean Connery or Jason Robards or the entire Cuckoo’s Nest ward, Full of righteous indignation the world killing their spirits In a conspiracy against the truly sane who are These people who choose not to “conform”; who “take recreational drugs”; who “fight the power”; who want to have more fun; who must break under the thumb of bureaucratic thumbs—those underpaid nurses and distracted docs who need to see these sufferers suffer more—as if they would care that much. I cross the threshold into The locked ward: full of the sick, full of illness; the life force Drugged and not very lively—even in the completely out-of-control Shrieking person I happen to be visiting. She is Full of words which don’t make sense and I know by now She will not teach me anything about my spirit that I have not learned Inadvertently from her already, nothing that I do not know. The two burly men who have been hired For their biceps and triceps Keep her from running out the door which has opened because I have entered. The locked ward is where you go after you’ve tried to off yourself Where you wake up instead of having died —and I agree, she has nothing much to live for— and this is the sad thing.There is no one who cares much besides compulsory compassion like the kind I bring along with a bag of toiletries. (Though I cried with pity watching the way her starved and skinny body ate chocolate ice cream a week or so before the suicidal gesture that brought out the ambulance.) Do you want 23 A visitor or not? the burly man asks her. She thinks I have come to liberate her. I always betray her. The nurses at the nurses’ station shake their heads in unison-disgust At this difficult patient, my relation, Blanche Dubois. The burly man checks the drugstore bag for glass and razor blades. —This is a nice hospital. —It’s not a nice hospital. —You can rest here and get better. —I’m not staying here.There’s nothing wrong with me. —I brought you shampoo and things you need until the hearing on Monday. —You should have brought me clothes. When it’s time to leave, one burly man escorts me to the threshold And one holds onto the arms of my relation Who finds herself in such an unbelievable situation —I have a bunch of appointments I need to go to! she calls to me And she will miss them. She is a victim— Of relations like me, and of the System, And eventually all victims find themselves like this: locked up, not free. 24 ...