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It is one long hallway of doors. Each door has a square window you can use to peer into what is inside. The first door I went into led to an empty room with one square piece of furniture that, in the outside world, you would maybe refer to as an ottoman, but in here it is where you will sit and surrender all your belongings, even the clothes you are wearing.
I watched as Dora documented all of my things: my purse, wallet, makeup bag, a half-empty glass tube of $9 Jennifer Aniston roll-on perfume that I had purchased at CVS and then scratched off the “Aniston” part so the perfume looked like it was just called Jennifer. My phone. And one tiny ceramic angel that I had brought from home, not realizing that everything would be taken away from me.
“Is there any cash in the wallet?” Dora asked, peeking into the pockets of my leather wallet.
The wallet reeked of tobacco. It was where I would stash cigarettes when I could sneak a break at work. When my boss was at lunch, I would dash outside clutching the wallet to my chest and sit on a stoop down the street and watch all the happenings on the streets of Downtown LA, everything I was missing while sitting in my windowless office staring at a computer screen and blank white wall.
“No,” I told her, eyeing the one camera in the corner of the room.
She was talking and I did not know what she was saying until a new nurse, a small round Black woman with frosted buzzed hair, came in and Dora left.
She introduced herself, but I did not register it. She had to tell me again.
UK.
UK.
She looked at the camera.
“I will have to do a body scan. We can go into the bathroom for privacy.”
Body scan? Like in prison?
“I am looking for any wounds that might need attention or care,” she said, as if reading my mind.
It was not until I was naked in the room, UK scanning a wand that looked like what TSA agents use when you are boarding a flight, that I realized I might as well have blindly boarded a plane with no clue where it was going to take me.
And I started to cry in shame.
UK put a gown on me, buttoning up the back, and whisked me back into the empty room.
“Listen to me,” she said, looking at me with huge loving brown eyes. “You did the right thing. You advocated for yourself. You did not give up. You are here. And it will all be okay.”
She looked at my bare feet, studying all the cuts on my heels and toes.
“From wearing heels,” I explained sadly, as if I were saying, “From the shackles my masters force me to wear.”
“Ah,” she said, and her face brightened. “I only wear wedges for that very reason.”
And she smiled.
I noticed her scrubs, just a beautiful artistic swirl of complementary colors, and then realized Dora had on solid-colored purple scrubs. No one was wearing scrubs with smiling avocados and clouds on them, or Snoopy dancing in a sea of hearts like in the maternity ward.
And for some weird reason, that made me feel respected.
Because when I was pregnant, seeing those smiling bears and toasters on my nurses and doctors scrubs made me want to murder someone.
“Okay, it says you were on Prozac for postpartum depression?”
“Paxil,” I corrected her.
“Okay, and how long have you been on that? Were you on it before having your son?”
She paused, looking at me, seeing me.
“What is his name?” she asked.
“Noah,” I said, and it was the first time my voice was not shaky or soft.
His name catapulted out of my mouth with strength and conviction.
“Noah,” she repeated in the same cadence I had spoken his name.
She put her clipboard down and looked me in the eye.
“This is a brave choice. Walking through this door is strength. Stop the shame I see in your eyes. You did the right thing.”
Her words floated around the empty room, hanging in the air like when I let Noah blow bubbles in the house. Only these bubbles had nothing else to land on but me.
“I have been on Paxil for a long time. My doctors thought I had PMDD, but I do not think it is related to hormones. The depression,” I clarified.
“Okay,” she said, scribbling on her clipboard. “We are going to wash your clothes. You will have them back tomorrow. You will not have to wear this gown the whole time.”
I was slumped in the gown, trying to use it to hide myself, looking at my bare feet and cringing, feeling completely naked.
“I will take you to your room.”
She motioned for me to follow her.
We were back in the hallway full of doors-only this time one of the doors was mine. There were two cots, a nightstand and a large window that looked out onto a courtyard of trees and plants. “You don’t have a roommate yet, I’ll let you get settled. Dinner is at 5, we will let you know. Let me get you some socks.”€ She disappeared, leaving me standing in the room alone. There was a bathroom, but it had a soft door that shut with two Velcro strips. From the window I could see the clouds, and because I had nothing, and there was nothing else in the room, I could stare at them long enough to watch them slowly move.
UK returned with a pair of light blue cozy socks. Once I had them on, I somehow felt better. Before UK left she looked at me. “Listen to me,”€ she said, this was the preface to all her sage wisdom, said in such a way that I was afraid to not listen to her- I hung on her every word. “You go to group,”€she told me. “You better go.”€ UK had what only can be described as grace. A gift not a lot of people have, a gentle empathy combined with a strength, power, wisdom. Like she had figured out the secret. She knew what you needed, how to care for you in just minutes after meeting you. And she wasn’t afraid to care for you. I’ve realized that frightens most people. To just care for another, for everyone.
I think she was an angel.
At least she would be one of mine while I was here and actually forever. I will always think of UK when I feel hopeless or weak, she’s imprinted on my heart forever. I realized I didn’t need the little ceramic angel figurine I had brought afterall.
Dinner was an introduction to everyone else hidden behind the doors in the hallway. The first I met being Lydia, a slightly hunchbacked, round Asian girl. Her hair was in a messy ponytail that reminded me of little girls hair. When they go out to play, perfectly styled by their mothers, only to return covered in dirt, their hair falling out of its rubber band, their shoelaces untied.
I was sitting next to her and she was engrossed in her tray. “Hi,”€ I said meekly. “I’m Jennifer.”€ Slowly, so slowly, painfully slow, she raised her head to me, revealing two wide unblinking eyes. Absolutely expressionless. She said nothing. We stared at each other until I became afraid and looked down at my tray.
In the hallway there is one pay phone. Taped next to it is the number of the nurses station in case we want to relay it to people, so they know how to contact us if needed. To make a call you’d just have to go and pick it up and dial, old timey like. I liked the pay phone. It was like a relic of all the old movies I love, a time I felt nostalgic for.
However, Lydia was the keeper of the pay phone. She would roam up and down the halls if someone was on it. Slowly eyeing them in a very uncomfortable way. I was using it once when she got right up next to me, her eyes leveling mine. “Why don’t you go get a boyfriend so you can get out of here,”€ she said, not meanly, just flatly, matter of factly. “Who is that?!”€ my mom shrieked on the other end of the phone. “I have to go,”€ I told her. In my imagination, I was in prison, about to throw down over absolutely nothing, just a release of unbridled rage. Instead, Lydia and I stood there looking at one another until I retreated back to my room, turning around to peek out.
I saw Lydia pick up the phone and dial a number. I could just barley make out what she was saying but it went something like this:
“You fuckin bitches. You whores. You don’t know anything about me. Let me out. Bitch.”€
Suddenly the door to the nurses station opened and an athletic, shiny nurse appeared. “Lydiaaaaa, what have we told you about calling the nurses station?” Lydia stood there glaring at her, phone still cradled in her hand. I put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t laugh. When I closed the door to my room I sat on my bed. She’s calling the nurses and just talking shit to them.
And I laughed. It was the first time I laughed in there. I’ll forever be thankful to Lydia for that.
Lydia would roam the halls often. I started to roam the halls my last couple of days too. There are many hours that fill up a day and when you’re not allowed outside, you just naturally start to roam. Pace back and forth. Shuffling around in your socks.
There was a TV in the dining room and a couch, but it was unappealing because the couch came with a pot bellied white girl with wild messy unbrushed hair- the couch was her throne. She would live there all day, watching old western movies and commenting on everything
“Everyone was drunk, that’s why it was called the Willllld Wild West!!! A hoooo hahahahahaha”€
Silence.
A commercial for constipation medication plays.
“Woooow,”€ Francis says under her breath. And then whispers, “imagine the possibilities.”
A dad mows the lawn in a Home Depot commercial.
“That’s not the right way to use a lawn mower.”€ Scowls. Then, with side eyes, “idiot.”€
The only person that ever joined Francis was Lydia and by joined, I mean Lydia would stand very close to the screen and just stare. My reflex was to say, “Noah not too close! Sit down!”€ “She’s doing it again!”€Francis would holler, “she’s blocking the TV! She’s BLOCKING THE TV!”€ Lydia wasn’t afraid of Francis, she just held her ground, blocking the TV and giving absolutely zero fucks.
The day of my first group therapy session, I was curled up in a ball on my cot, staring up at the blue sky through the window. “Group is starting!”€ chirped a nurse into my room. No thank you, I thought and then suddenly there was UK, standing over me. “I told you, remember I told you- get up!”€
As I wandered into the day room€where we eat, color, read, watch Francis watch TV, and now participate in group therapy, I realized it was just me and this beautiful young black girl at the table. I remembered her from my first night here. At dinner she sat alone, looking at her one wrist with a hospital band on it and then the other naked wrist. She kept bouncing back between the two, and I understood why for some reason. Even though I can’t explain it, even now.
As I sat down, a sweet and kind social worker began. “Today’s prompt is to write a letter to yourself.”€ I perked up. Creative writing! It reminded me of college, when I was the only senior to voluntarily take ENG- 424 Intro to Memoir writing€that was held at 9 am on a Friday and whose other students consisted of middle aged or old people taking the course for fun. I also never missed it. “Sorry I can’t go to that party tonight, I have memoir class tomorrow morning!”€My friends were repulsed by me.
We wrote our letters and then shared them to each other. Kiara was her name. And she had survived an overdose. “I made onnnne mistake,”€she said sadly, and her shame was my shame, and it was ok. “Has anyone told you they are happy you are still here?”€the social worker asked her. “No,”€she said softly, so softly it wasn’t even a whisper. I had talked to the social worker at length before group and after Kiara spoke, she looked at me. “Jennifer, I’m wondering if you might want to share€your experiences with Kiara? If it’s ok and you want to?”
I understood.
I looked at her, she had naturally beautiful long lashes I would kill for. “My aunt took her life,€¦and shortly after, my cousin died of an overdose. Whatever he took was laced with fentanyl. And he died.”€
I was suddenly transported back to Eric’s funeral, or celebration of life, or whatever it was called. My uncle, Eric’s dad, holding me so tight and sobbing uncontrollably. And for so long. Leaving the shoulders of both our shirts wet from tears. When he finally pulled away from me, he said in the saddest voice I’ve ever heard,
“What do we do now?”€
I looked at Kiara and through tears told her, “I am so so glad that you are here now. And I know, I promise from the bottom of my heart everyone who knows you is too.”€
I thought of my Aunt Dorothy falling asleep while getting two enormous tattoos in Eric’s honor- her heart completely shattered. Of Kristina, his sister, who cried uncontrollably as she read aloud the most beautiful tribute she had written to Eric. “I need you,”€I remember her pleading, almost like when you’re in complete and utter shock, this can’t be true. And all of us listening to her, pleading with her. Eric, we need you to come back. Shannon, his other sister, happy go lucky goofy Shannon, slumped down through the whole thing with her head in her hands. I remember there was a video tribute and across the screen flashed little me, my hair in a French braid, kissing little Eric, who was wearing a backwards baseball hat, on the cheek while making s’mores during a family vacation.
And I remember telling my Uncle, “I don’t know.”€
“You were meant to be here,”€I told Kiara and I hoped that even though I was a stranger, she would believe me. “I know my family would give anything,”€ my voice broke, “to have Eric and Aunt Donna back.”€Kiara reached out and held my hand. Now, we weren’t strangers. And we were forever bonded the rest of the time we were in there. We would eat together, read, color, we attended all the groups as well. And when we were discharged we exchanged numbers.
Thank you UK.
After that first group, they gave us notebooks, but we couldn’t write with pens. We had to use crayon. As someone who needs to put a lot of words down, crayon poses a huge inconvenience. My social worker snuck me a pen and I ran to my room and wrote and wrote. For hours. I can’t concentrate on a Netflix show, or anything I’m tasked with throughout the day at work- mindless admin tasks, but to write? I go into my own world. Hours can slip by like minutes.
Before I went to sleep, UK came in to take my blood pressure. “We can get fined for letting you use that pen,” she told me, as the number on the screen raced higher. “Oh! I- I’m so sorry.”€ UK recorded my numbers and looked at me. “No,” she said. “I saw you were writing. Just don’t tell anyone. And return it to us at the end of the day,”€she said, holding out her hand as I gave her back my pen. Before she closed my door she paused in the doorway, pointing the pen at me, “don’t stop writing. And go to group!”€
The next group was larger. “Do we want to play a game or get deep today?”€ The social worker asked us. Francis, who had been on her throne, sinking into that couch, suddenly rose and joined all of us at the table. “I’d like to get deep,”€she chortled. The social worker and I shared the same expression, one that was a little bit afraid to get deep with Francis.
One of the days, I was in the day room writing in my notebook when Francis got a visitor. “Your mom is here,”€Sandy the nurse told her. “Now Francis, it could be a good day or bad day. Just, if you want her to leave tell me.”€Francis sat herself down at a table, the chairs connected to the table, causing her bare gut to be smooshed between the two. I guess they were connected to prevent us koo koos from using them on each other like we were in the WWE. Which, honestly, we might have- put some respect on all our names.
Francis’s mother! I thought, eyeing Francis as she sat with her eyes closed, preparing herself. She must be- I was trying to imagine. Large for sure, wearing flannels like Francis, maybe even a butterfly tattoo above her buttcrack- a reminder of her youth. But to my shock, instead, a very small, a Polly pocket sized version of a human walked in holding a bag. She was Asian and she sat across from Francis without embracing her.
“Did you bring me my underwear?”€Francis said flatly. The tiny Asian woman opened up the bag and placed two brand new unopened packages of underwear in front of her.
It did not even occur to me that you could ask someone to bring you more clothes. I had been just wearing the same mesh, disposable undies the hospital provides and the same clothes I had been wearing when I was admitted, it had been a few days at that point. They wash your clothes when you first get there, but it never occurred to me that oh maybe I should ask someone to bring me clothes? I had come in wearing a light blue Sonoma State sweatshirt and black leggings. When they gave me socks, I realized the socks were the exact same color as my sweatshirt.
Francis eyed the packages and then opened one, holding up a pair of big lady briefs. She grunted in disgust. “This isn’t what I asked for,” she said, her words dripping in disdain. “You neverrr listen to me. You never do!”€Suddenly the big lady briefs were thrown back into the mom’s face and Francis got up and left, hollering to the nurses “get her out!”€
Her mom and I were left alone in the room and I could see her eyes brim with tears. She sat for a while, before collecting the boxes of underwear and leaving. My mind was having a hard time comprehending any of this. Is it the Valium? Am I hallucinating?
So when sitting across Francis at group, I was captivated. Okay Francis, what’s deep in there? What out of this world thing is swirling around in you, causing you to be mean to everyone and everything?
And then I thought, am I mean to people I love like how Francis is? I know there are times I certainly have been. Maybe that tiny woman has kept Francis locked away in a basement for 15 years. I don’t know. And I certainly wasn’t going to judge.
I thought of the phone calls I had had with Silvio while here. He seemed unable to digest anything or have any intuitive connection with me regarding any of this, which wasn’t surprising. I have felt completely out of sync with him for years. So I don’t know why I’m constantly still surprised at how he does or doesn’t show up for me. Silvio had witnessed me, after Noah was born, pull four teeth out of my mouth. I would spend weeks wiggling them, loosening them, and enduring the pain until I pulled the whole tooth out, root and all. The doctors told me pulling out teeth is the same type of self harm as cutting yourself. He was the only one who knew, and only because he lived with me. How do you brush that off with “I’ll make you a therapy appointment if you want?”€ What I needed him to say is “tell me. What’s going on in there. I’m here to listen and I understand you. I’m with you in this.”€ But one look in his eyes and I knew he didn’t and he wasn’t ever going to and that the only person who could save me from depression was me. It had gotten to the point that I had given up trying to express anything, because it always fell on deaf ears.
The doctors had told me I could be discharged Saturday, but I needed someone to pick me up, I couldn’t leave alone like how I had entered alone. I called Silvio. “What time?”€he asked. “I’m not sure yet, there’s paperwork and things that have to happen.”€œ”I have a work event that night. It’s a big client from Korea we are trying to land. Tyson is going to watch Noah. I could pick you up on Sunday.”€ I was ready to hang up. Oh okay, I’ll just spend another day here, no problem, let me work my mental psychosis around your work schedule, sorry to be a burden. I was quiet and then the rage unleashed. “Okay, well I won’t call you again, sorry.”€”Maybe Bryant can pick you up?”€He suggested. I was silent, knowing very well that yes, if I called our friend Bryant, he would come pick me up, he wouldn’t even hesitate. He’d be there at 4 am if he had to. I was quiet and then said sadly,€”you always put work, everything going on with you, over me.” “I never do that! How can you possibly say that! It hurts me deeply that you would say that! I always prioritize you!” he shot back. I felt gaslit. Um, hellllooooo? Did you not just experience what just happened less than 30 seconds ago? Am I truly mental? If so I’ll just stay here forever.
After I got discharged (to everyone’s convenience on Sunday) Silvio would notice, as I got in the car, that I had painted my nails. First thing he observed or asked me about. “You never have your nails done!”€he said, shocked. Looking at my groomed nails. While admitted to inpatient care, they carve out a time during the day where a really nice woman comes around with nail polish, hair brushes, lotion, tweezers. And you can just paint your nails, or do something nice for yourself. It’s teaching you to give yourself the compassion you give others. To take care of yourself like you take care of others. Something yes, I haven’t done since Noah was born. And what I’m learning now, even before Noah.
“So you must have just been relaxing, calming down, had a nice time?”€he said to me smiling. I sighed so loud I’m sure the whole world heard it. I’m sure it jangled wind chimes on a porch out in South Carolina. “I didn’t go to a spa,”€ I replied. Needing to get away from him. Desperate to get away from him.
The day I had asked him if he could pick me up, I had returned to my room and a nurse took my blood pressure. “Woah, this is high! What just happened?”€
“I spoke to Silvio,”€I told her with no emotion. And then out of nowhere recalled:
“When I was living in Hawaii, my dad suddenly got sick. I had been there three months and I had to go home asap. I called Ryan, who I had been dating before leaving for Hawaii. When I told him I needed to come home and could he maybe pick me up from the airport, he just said yes. He didn’t ask when? What time? Why? He just said yes.”€
The nurse squeezed my hand. “That’s the way it should be,”€she said. And then, “let me get you a Valium.”€
I love Valium. Never have I taken it except those six days in the psych ward. I understand now why people crave it. All the bad thoughts float away. Marvelous! I could marry anyone if I was just constantly on Valium. I now understand 1960’s housewives.
On my last night a woman arrived, fresh off of skid row. LAPD was escorting her, she was restrained, she was screaming profanities. The next morning she was awake at 4 am, screaming up and down the halls, aggressive, angry, unpredictable. I had woken up and seized the moment to exchange my crayon for a real pen (she wants to kill you all, I just want a pen..pleaaase) and was writing hidden away in the intake room with the camera in it (the nurses pass down to one another- keep an eye on that camera in case she decides to stab herself in the jugular). I was listening to the angry new woman and not really phased too much because this was no different to the behavior I witness out on my stoop in DTLA when I’m taking a smoke break.
But others were lining up at the nurses station.
“I feel anxious”€
Pill!
“I’m nervous”€
Pill
“I’m alive, breathing and freaking out”€
Pilllllll!!!!
Round of Valium for everyone on us!!!! The nurses exclaim, hoping we take it and then knock out, or sit silently, mindlessly coloring in a coloring book.
When I exited the intake room, surrendering my pen to a purple crayon to take back to my room, the new angry girl fell in step with me. “Walk with me,”€she said, like we were on a political TV drama show. She had a bath towel draped over her head like a nun.
As we walked down the hall together, security at both doors watching us closely, we chit chatted. As you do.
“Is this your first time here?”€she asked, calmly. Cooly. Collected. “Yes,”€ I told her. She sighed. Then looked at me hard. “Are you freaked out?”€ I nodded. “Yes,” I admitted. “Don’t be, it gets easier.”€She dropped me off at my room and then carried on screaming down the hallway. I witnessed this alcove of peace with her, of shared feelings, of sanity. And I’m going to choose to remember her that way. The person who told me not to freak out. That it would get better.
I would love to know everything those hallways have seen. Heard. Witnessed.
On one of my first days there, I was in my room, when I heard someone singing “Hallelujah.”€ The voice would get loud, then soft, and I realized whoever it was, was walking up and down the hall. The voice was beautiful. It was a God given type of gift. It brought me to tears.
I think a way you can tell what your purpose on earth is, is by the reaction you get from others while doing something that seems so normal or comes so naturally to you. What it evokes in other people who bear witness. I peeked out my door to see who was singing, and my heart soared.
It was Lydia.
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