My second week at therapy revealed the cause and effect of human alienation and self-inflicted harm in a microcosm. Emotional reveal appeared in the form of civil unrest—quite the scene at the madhouse.
Week two kick started my own emotional journey at the mental health charity through the metamorphosis of the other patients. Consider them a blob of insanity. Enlightenment was experienced through social despair. The mental health charity showcased a bunch of troubled people losing their shit because they were unable to think rationally for long enough to realise things were not what they seemed. Stick a bunch of mentally unsound people in a confined space for long enough and eventually it’s going to kick off, big time.
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Patients were invited to enjoy social time in the name of celebration. Tea and cookies would be served in a waiting room because it was a volunteer receptionist’s thirtieth birthday and she had baked thirty cookies for us to enjoy. More than enough for a group of people who lacked meat on the bone and often appeared to be nodding off as they waited in an uncomfortable chair to be seen. Before leaving my place, I had to spend twenty minutes breathing into a Tesco’s bag to calm a panic attack brought on by drug and alcohol misuse. I turned up at the celebration later than planned which upset me as I am normally timely. By the time I got to the charity cookies were being passed round on trays by smiling receptionists dressed in aprons to a mob of jittery, middle-aged and elderly humans with ill-fitting clothes, and enough emotional scars to start a war. The fact I was late made me feel like a failure. This meant I didn’t speak to anyone on arrival. Instead, I slinked through a crowd of muttering people and sat in a corner with my back against a wall. Then I began to consider why aprons were being worn if the cookies had already been baked.
The situation appeared British orderly: a thank you given for service, apologies for nothing, socially acceptable distance afforded to all. Patients occupied the waiting room as though we were expecting a bus to appear until silence fell over us like nightfall. Then a patient got paranoid about social order and suggested the cookies had been spiked with drugs. Memories of K-holes flashed in my mind, I don’t know why. A few voices began to mutter something about betrayal. Accusations were made by a toothless patient with button shaped eyes and blood red cheeks. Pointing a finger in the air as though spotting an incoming comet, the toothless woman declared foul play.
‘They’re trying to drug us all, those cookies are infected!’
This vague accusation was all it took to set people off.
An elderly man with a Freddie Mercury moustache gasped at the suggestion of foul play. His boomerang shaped spine straightened as he stood. Taking a cookie from the tray he broke it into infinite pieces, inspected crumbs like they were tea leaves in the palm of his hand.
‘There’s something glowing in this one, plutonium!’
His mouth fell open like a trapdoor.
Inspect the cookies! Another patient yelled.
I was convinced the old man’s rheumy eyes would pop like balloons at any moment—brain matter everywhere, Pulp Fiction levels of clean up duties. Wiping crumbs from his hands, he took a small black notebook and pencil from his top pocket, pressed a fingertip against his tongue and began taking notes. Once finished, he put the notebook and pencil in his pocket, adjusted the collars of his suit jacket, and left the mental health charity.
Watching the old man with moustache leave reminded me of when I was sixteen and my twin brother and I came home from football practice covered in mud and sweat. Our dad was stood by his Mercedes Benz at the top of the driveway. The car was full of boxes and household objects: a picture of James Dean’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams, a green reading lamp, photo albums and a suitcase bulging at the seams. Anyway, a couple of other patients kicked off and this brought me back before I had time to consider how it felt to watch the old man leave years earlier. Paper plates were chucked on a worn carpet like we were at a Greek wedding—and stomped on for good measure. Several cookies met walls. Fist shakes, flailing limbs, cries for help.
They’re trying to drug us!
Ma mooth tastes wrong!
Get ta fuck!
Dinna swallow, they want us deed!
Shit was getting out of hand, quickly. Receptionists approached patients with open palms as though they were checking in for a therapy session.
Smiling bastards think it’s funny!
We need apples to counter the ketamine!
What’s happening here’s isnae right!
Adrenaline surged through my body and made my neck pulse. I crossed one leg over the other as though getting ready to read a book, remained still as receptionists tried to calm tempers.
Would anyone like a glass of water to wash down these natural cookies?
It’s okay, sugar can play tricks on us all from time to time
We have personal spaces
The promise from staff that everything was fine got lost in the meltdown. Delusional fears we had all been drugged felt human. Even when cups of tea became weapons and got slung across the room, smearing white brick brown, the patients were being their true selves.
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