I was thinking today about a short story I wrote years ago about an open ward in a Mental Hospital. I doubt these facilities are available any longer, but at the time, I interviewed a number of patients to discover why they had committed themselves and the reasons were sometimes very surprising.
An open ward in a mental hospital could be a substitute for a holiday hotel, a cheap substitute for a 'health farm' or a refuge from an abusive spouse or lover as much as it was a place for the mentally ill or confused. Many of the patients I interviewed were regular inmates who used the facilities for their own purposes. They had as little in common with the 'real' inmates as with a pet goldfish.
One woman who weighed about three hundred pounds used the ward as a place to lose weight. She would commit herself as often as her insurance would pay for the privilege. I am not certain how much weight she ever lost but she confined herself to a liquid diet while staying at the mental institute.
Another woman was a 'suicide addict' who used the ward as a place from which to fire threats at her father, to convince him that she was tottering on the edge of the abyss. In fact, she had a right jolly time seducing all the male nurses and aides. Her regular attempts at suicide were coldly calculated never to cause any permanent physical damage or to place her actually at risk of meeting her maker.
A third committed herself to escape a husband who beat her regularly. He was an alcoholic who had been in the war and suffered what now is called traumatic stress syndrome. He should have been committed but of course had no intentions of changing any of his destructive and negative behaviour patterns. She committed herself instead and he visited her daily, bringing gifts of flowers and books, appearing to all the world as an ideal spouse and loving companion.
There were real mental cases there as well but I could not interview them easily as most of them were rather anxious, even distraught. There was a young man who paced up and down the corridor counting every step, back and forth, back and forth, throughout the day without any breaks in his routine. The staff said that he did not remember even his name and that his only link with reality was his ability to count his paces.
About Me
- Valkyrie Hawk
- My name is Eugenia-Maria Martino de Conde. Freyashawk is the name under which I write game guides and play many games. I specialise in Northern mythology but my original academic background is in History and British Law. Mine is the view of an exile, a Swan-Maiden rather than a god. Not an exile from heaven (that would be arrogant), but an exile nonetheless. I have lived in La Jolla, Nepal, London, Southampton, Manhattan, Roma, Pennsylvania et alia but spiritually belong to no land. Thus the affiliation with the air, hawk and swan. A Valkyrie chooses heroes from the slain. Walking among the dead is disconcerting. My greatest loves are my daughter and my Puttikins, my Himalayan cat clan. As Freyashawk, I write strategy guides for games. Time to write another novel for a writer can be a Valkyrie, creating warriors from her imagination that inspire people in the eternal battle between good and evil. Therein is the power I desire.
