Shocked

a difficult memory yields a need to express/release it

 Awareness came slowly.  All my feeling and thought was concentrated in an enormous pressure in my forehead.  It was pounding and continuous at the same time.  I suppose it pounded with my pulse, but I couldn’t have that thought then.

 

I became aware that my feet were dangling in space and that a hand was on my chest and another was slapping me on the back.

 

“What is your name!?”

 

Awareness washed over me.  There was the dampness of drool on my chin and a roar in my ears.  Someone was wiping Vaseline goo from my eye sockets roughly.  I tried to open my eyes and found my sense of balance was wavering. I had to squint to protect my eyes.  I almost fell forward.

 

“What is your name!?” 

 

Someone was shouting at me. 

 

I thought “Stop yelling at me!”  I opened my mouth to respond and gagged.  A white hospital pan was held before me, but it was a dry heave.  My stomach was empty and in a turmoil, and my mouth was full of acid.

 

“What is your name?” 

 

I squeeked “Ed.”

 

“What day is it?” I thought hard.  Shock treatments were on Tuesday.

 

“Tuesday.” I said

 

The nun slipped me off the side of the hospital bed and my knees were weak.  I staggered two assisted steps to a hard metal chair beside a small white porcelain topped table and set down.  She placed a Kleenex in my hand and I wiped the rest of the goo from my eyes and found the light was not as bright as I thought. 

 

“Eat a doughnut and drink some orange juice.” 

 

The reality of where I was, and why, came to me in small phrases.  My clumsy hands grasped a sticky glazed doughnut.   I thought.  “I’m lost.”  I’m alone.”  “I have no life.” “I must get out of here.”  That thought was my first step toward going back out to the world.

 

Months had passed with little awareness of my surroundings.  Feeling and awareness slowly came back, but that was not enough.  I had to show others that I felt a purpose, that I could set a goal.  In 6 months I went from totally withdrawn catatonia to wanting to get to the outside and have a life.  I didn’t want to go back to live with my parents, but had to accept that I was incapable, and afraid of anything else at the ripe age of 15.

 

Weeks later I was proclaimed healed and released from behind the locked bars and covered windows.  I walked out carrying a large bright red ceramic strawberry cookie jar that I made in crafts.  My father picked me up and very little was said on the way home.  I fought the need to withdraw again.  Fear and depression hung from me.  I studied the floor.  My veins still flowed with the most powerful psychotropic drugs available in 1962.

 

I attended a number of follow-up sessions with a psychiatrist.  I learned that I’d had 27 electric shock treatments… the maximum allowed for a minor in the state of Missouri.  I was in the institution because I had attempted suicide, had a major brain concussion, and was diagnosed as catatonic.  A hazy memory of throwing myself down a set of stairs on my head without throwing my arms out haunted me.  I don’t have a clear memory of entering the institution.  They didn’t believe the catatonia was a result of the brain concussion.

 

My life was radically changed.

 

I still don’t choose glazed donuts.

Reviews

[Amanda Crandall]

Sweet Jesus, thats amazing. wow!

[papaed]

this is from my memories of this experience.

thanks for your reviews.

[Chiquita]

Interesting write. I hope you continue to fight urges to withdraw.

I am curious, what was the vaseline goo on your eyes?

I liked the humor interwoven into the piece. I can see the cookie jar from my minds eye. I fashioned a rose myself. All of us writers are essentially crazy or have been at some time in our lives. What is up with that?

[TL Boehm]

Good LORD. This one put a huge lump in my throat....the things you went through...believing this is a memior rather than a story....
and then that humor at the end. Not liking donuts. Truly profound writing.