The Quiet Room

by Lori Schiller

  At the door, a two-step routine: A dose of sodium amytal, a big-time tranquilizer, to calm my agitation. Then staffers took everything away from me—jewelry, shoes, anything in my pockets. Thus stripped, no matter how desperate I was to hurt myself, there was very little I could do about it.

  Once inside there was nothing to do at all. When I was really agitated, I paced. Eight paces forward. Eight paces back. Sometimes when I was calmer, I lay on the mattress and thought. Sometimes I lay on the mattress and slept.

  The worst part of the Quiet Room was how lonely it was. Two patients were not allowed in the Quiet Room at the same time, and staffers usually only entered to bring medication or to check vital signs. If the Quiet Room was successful in stripping me, for the time being, of my Voices, then the silence itself became overpowering. If not, then there I was, all alone with my tormentors.

  The idea was to lower my stimulation, to calm me down when I became too hyper. I'd stay there for a while and when I was finally deescalated and back in control, I'd be allowed to return to my room.

  But I thought of the Quiet Room as the Punishment Room. And so did my Voices. They taunted me, and teased me, and threw my confinement in my face. No sooner had I quieted down enough to leave, they would begin to torture me again. I wanted to put an end to their torment, so I lashed out again. And back I'd go to the Quiet Room again.

  It was as if I was stuck and unable to break myself from the chain of commands of the Voices. Within several hours, the pattern repeated. Sometimes even on my way from the Quiet Room back to my own room I would fall apart and have to turn right around and go back. Over and over the cycle repeated.

  I began getting more and more sodium amytal, sometimes several doses a day. Soon, the oral doses were no longer working fast enough and I had to receive the drug by injection.

  My Quiet Room visits stretched longer and longer. After a while I lost track of time. I could see through the screened window if it was night or day outside, but sometimes even those distinctions blurred. The Quiet Room had to be kept lit even at night, so the staffer on the stool could see inside. I could count the meals brought to me on plastic trays, but usually I was too agitated to keep track. It seemed as if I were captive in there for weeks at a time, left alone to face the Voices that were rising up to consume me like water in a sponge.

  It seemed so strange that my fellow patients could enjoy the Voices they heard in their own heads. On my unit one young man had Voices who told him he was the Messiah. Another young woman always sat by herself, laughing happily. Once I asked her what she was laughing about.

  “Hubert is telling me jokes,” she said. She called him her playmate, and often talked about how much she liked him.

  I was jealous. There was nothing about my Voices that was friendly. I had tried to make them my allies against the hateful staff. But in reality the Voices terrified me. Sometimes I told the staff they were gone, but I was lying. The Voices were with me when I awoke. They were with me when I got dressed. They were with me when I ate. They were with me when I sat around the day room, trying to think of something to do. I could not even find relief in sleep. The Voices yelled so loud they woke me up, leaving me shaking and frightened.

  The closest I ever got to a friendly Voice was that of the Narrator. He described my actions instant by instant, not leaving out even the tiniest, most insignificant thing. A hundred times a day, he commented on my movements.

  “She is now walking through the door,” the Narrator said. “She's wiping her feet, little ass. Wiping her feet on the rug in the entryway. She's going into the kitchen. Ha! Ha! You fat piece of lard, of lard. Go to hell. Ha! Ha! You look sad. You look like shit. You are shit. She's now walking into the day room. She's going to turn down the TV set. To die, asshole. Ha! Ha! Ha! ...”

  The Narrator taunted me, made fun of me, sometimes even threatened me a little. But mostly he just talked about what I was doing. And his manner was less intrusive, his Voice level less loud, and his overall demeanor less scary than the others. I didn't fear him as much as I feared the others. I just wanted his annoying banter to go away.

  Sometimes I heard one Voice laughing, a single witchlike Voice that screeched and cackled in derision. Sometimes that Voice would be joined by a second, and then a third. Sometimes they chanted the same thing over and over again, like Voices rehearsing for a play.

  “To die!” they chanted. “To die!” I must have heard that a thousand times a day.

  Sometimes more and more Voices chimed in, until all the Voices joined into a horrendous crowd, an appalling cheering section that had suddenly turned into a riot. These crowds of Voices were loud, painfully loud. When I heard them coming, I would run for my Walkman. But often it was no use. They would scream and shout over even a rock tape turned up to 10.

  But even more than the Narrator and the crowds, the Voices I feared the most were the men who talked to me of hell.

  I don't remember thinking much about hell when I was growing up. Jews don't really have a hell, and in any case, my family wasn't religious. My brothers were bar mitzvahed, and I was confirmed. But other than that, my family was what was jokingly known as “twice-a year Jews.” That meant we appeared in temple only on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. No one ever taught me to fear punishment or eternal damnation.

  No one before the Voices that is. The Voices taught me about a hell that was beyond all religious beliefs. It was worse than the worst horror movie I had ever seen, worse than my worst nightmare. It was beyond all imagining, beyond all human hope.

  And it was completely and totally real. The Voices told me so. And the Voices told me they would take me there.

  As I sat in the Quiet Room, the Voice that spoke to me was as clear and real as any other voice around me. In fact, he was more real, because he was both inside me and outside me. He spoke directly to me, in low, gravely tones, hoarse and husky, a true demon from hell.

  “Come to me,” he crooned. “Come to hell with me.”

  I didn't want to listen. I didn't want to hear. But I had no choice. Where could I go? How could I escape? He seemed to know that. He began to sneer.

  “Come to hell, cunt. You whore. You bitch. You asshole. To hell! To hell! ”

  Beyond him I could feel the hell of his imagining yawning up to swallow me. There were red and orange devils and smoke and fire everywhere. There were only two kinds of people in his hell, the tortured and the torturers. Everywhere, almost as if on an assembly line, men were having their balls cut off and hung onto wooden poles. Women were being raped by piles of disgusting men at a time. The sounds of that inferno filled my ears, filled my head, began to consume my whole body. There were shrieking, shrilling, squealing sounds of victims in pain, and the hysterical laughter from their tormentors. This was to be my fate. This was my destiny. The infinite pit of hell was reaching out to claim me. And then it got worse.

  This Voice was joined by another, and the two began to argue. They shouted angrily at each other, struggling over my fate. I was at the mercy of these Voices. Whatever they commanded would happen. I was totally helpless before their wrath. Their quarreling surrounded me:

  VOICE No. 1: She must go to hell.

  VOICE No. 2: She will be punished.

  VOICE No. 1: She must be punished.

  VOICE No. 2: She will be punished, that fucking whore.

  VOICE No. 1: She must be punished in hell.

  VOICE No. 2: Ha! Ha! Ha! To hell! To hell! To hell, that bitch. No!

  VOICE No. 1: Don't cry, little bitch. Hell will come.

  VOICE No. 2: Hell will not come.

  VOICE No. 1: Hell will come.

  VOICE No. 2: There's worse than hell. There's hell's hell, and she will take us there.

  VOICE No. 1: She must DIE and we will take that pussy to hell with us. That trash!

  VOICE No. 2: Why so soon? Needs to suffer more. Needs to swallow our presence.

  VOICE No. 1: Needs to die! Ha! Ha!
Ha! VOICE No.2: To hell!

  VOICE No. 1: To hell now! Come to me. Come, you fucking bitch.

  VOICE No. 2: Ha! Ha! Ha! You whore. You will be punished and you will go to hell …

  I tried to escape. Tried to flee. Tried to punch them, wrestle with them, strangle them. Too late I tried to leave their world, tried to return to the other world, the world of patients, the world of the hospital, and nurses and dinner. I shouted for the Voices to leave me.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” I screamed at them. “Shut up! Shut up!” “Ha! Ha! Ha!” they taunted me. “Take the pussy to hell!” one said.

  “Not now. No, later. No, later. No, later,” said the other.

  “To hell! To hell! To hell! ”

  I screamed and writhed and fought with them. I covered my hands with my ears to block out their taunting. It didn't help.

  “Come to me … come to me ...” shouted No. 1.

  “To hell! To hell!” screamed the other.

  “No! No! No!” I screamed. I tried to run. Nowhere to run. Tried to hide. Nowhere to go. Nowhere safe. They're everywhere. A chair. A window. Must break away. Must break. Must punch. And I punched, and I kicked, and I flailed. The shrieking, the tormented, the buzzer sounding, running feet. Cries and shouts. They're coming! They're coming! I can't stop them! I can't stop them!

  I must break something. I must hurt something. I must hurt someone. I must hurt myself. Stop! Stop! Stop!

  Far from calming me down, the very emptiness of the Quiet Room became the screen on which this terrible fantasy projected itself. The Voices spoke to me through cracks and vents in the walls. The overhead light transmitted messages to me. I couldn't breathe. My skull was coming undone and the Voices became megaphoned until I was sure they would deafen me. I panicked. I had to make them stop. I had superhuman energy, superhuman strength. I literally punched a hole in the wall. I pounded my hands across the safety screen on the windows, opening my knuckles and fingers till the bones showed, and blood ran down my arms.

  I was beyond even the Quiet Room.

  From far away I could hear the buzzer's blast echoing all through the other units, as the alarm pressed at our nursing station set off lights and alarms all over the hospital. Our staff had called for reinforcements. The big men were coming running. I could hear their footfalls pounding the stairs and halls. I could hear the thumping and grunting as equipment was being dragged into place. I could hear ice cubes rattling in a cooler.

  It was going to happen again. I was going to be cold-wet-packed.

  Cold-wet-packing was a form of restraint that was only used to calm the most violent and out-of-control patients. Most people quieted down under the influence of other methods. If the Quiet Room wasn't enough to keep patients from hurting themselves, patients were sometimes given tranquilizing shots, and then temporarily put in two-point restraints with their wrists tied. There was also four-point restraints, where wrists and ankles were bound to the bed. Sometimes patients were strapped into Geri—for geriatric—chairs, which were little wheeled contraptions usually used for propping up old people. I broke three Geri chairs by struggling. From experience, the staff knew that only cold-wet-packing would do for me now.

  The idea behind cold wet packs was to chill the patient thoroughly. As the body struggled to warm itself, it would use energy. And as the person tired from the effort to get warm, he or she would calm down, ultimately relax, and, it was hoped, fall asleep.

  In order for a patient to be cold-wet-packed, a doctor's order had to be signed. As the buzzer was sounding, the staff was paging an M.D. to come to the unit to write the order as quickly as possible. I was so violent that the packing was usually well underway by the time the panting psychiatrist arrived.

  When the big men got there, they restrained me while I was being packed. The shot of sodium amytal hadn't taken effect yet. The big burly attendants looked to me just like the horrid rapists of my Voices’ hell. My terror flared. My adrenaline shot up. My strength and power intensified. I could fight off a whole Quiet Room-ful of men. They weren't going to touch me. That I knew for sure. I kicked. I flailed. I bit. Even against a roomful of big men, for a moment it seemed I was winning.

  And then they were back in control. It was just as the Voices had shown me. It was just like the rapes in hell. Big strong men held me down while unseen hands stripped off my clothing. Off came my high-tops. Off came my favorite blue sweatshirt with the green frog on it. Off came my only pair of jeans that fit. Off came my socks one after the other. How was I going to cause any problems by keeping my little socks on my little feet? And then finally off came my bra. My undies were all that stood between me and the rape that my imagination had fabricated. I was truly terrified.

  And then came the real horror. They hoisted me onto the elevated bed that had been set up for me in the kitchen, or in a special room off the short hallway, or in the hall itself, or wherever they could get set up fast before I totaled the place or hurt someone or myself. With strong hands holding me flat, others began wrapping me securely in sheets that had been soaking in ice water.

  They wrapped me tight as a mummy, arms and hands at my side. All that was left uncovered were my feet and my neck and head. And there they left me, with a single attendant by my now helpless side.

  I was laughing hysterically. But there was nothing funny about it. It was cold, freezing cold. My teeth began chattering frantically as if they were the Voices speaking. I was going to die a shivery Arctic death and the Voices were going to have the last cold icy laugh. My whole body was frozen.

  Cold-pack protocol mandated a full two hours as this freezing mummy. The attending person sitting by my side regularly checked my vital signs on my feet or on my neck. I tried to refuse to let anyone take my temperature. It was my final effort.

  As the sodium amytal began to take effect, and the shivering to wear me out, I did begin to calm down enough to complain. I had been bound with my elbow digging tightly into my side. Too bad. No one was going to unbind me before my two hours were up. I found myself thirsty. All I could have was sips of water or juice from a straw the attendant would hold to my lips. What if I had to go to the bathroom? That's tough. If I needed to go badly enough, I just had to go right where I was, and feel the warmth spreading out underneath me against the icy cold sheets.

  When two hours were up, a decision had to be made. Was I calm enough to be unpacked? If not, an order had to be signed for an additional two hours. If I was deemed calm, then female staffers had to be called. The men were there for their strength during emergencies, but it was women who had to be there when I was un-cocooned. It was one thing I was glad of. After the two hours were up, I had usually recovered enough of myself to be self-conscious about what had transpired, and modest about my nakedness.

  So two female staffers would have the honors of demummify-ing me. I'd be freezing, wet and cramped, and feeling embarrassed, degraded and demeaned by the whole process.

  But the most amazing thing was how truly calm I felt. Never again, I'd say.

  17

  Steven Schiller Baltimore, Maryland, January 1986-March 1986

  Visiting Lori in the hospital this time around had been so much easier than it had been the first time. It wasn't that she was better. If anything, she was much sicker than before. It's just that I had changed so much.

  When she was hospitalized the first time, I was not quite seventeen, an awkward, lonely teenager just growing out of my baby fat. Three and a half years later some people had a hard time recognizing me: I had spurted up so that at twenty I was six foot three and lanky. The first time she was hospitalized I was in high school. This latest time I was in college.

  When I set out for college in September of 1983, Lori had already been out of the hospital for six months. She and Dad drove me down to Baltimore. Dad and I sat in the front. She sat in the back, quiet and pensive, smoking heavily.

  We hadn't exactly been hanging out while she was living at home. But as I was leaving for college she gav
e me a piece of advice.

  “Enjoy yourself at college,” she said. “It's the best time you'll ever have. It gets a lot worse after that.”

  It made me sad to think how true that must be for her.

  When we got to Baltimore, I bounded out of the car, and leaped off to my dorm room without even much of a goodbye to my father or Lori. I wasn't really worried about what people would think of her. I was more focused on my new life and what people would think of me.

  I spent my freshman year trying to adjust, trying to make friends. It was tough. Johns Hopkins is a very serious school, very scientifically oriented. And here I was, a political economics major, thinking I would prepare myself for a law career. I began thinking I'd made a terrible mistake. I've come to the wrong school. I'm not going to be a doctor or an engineer like everyone else here. This is all wrong.

  But at the beginning of my sophomore year, everything changed. I was given a psychology professor as my adviser, and that gave me an idea: I would major in psychology. I would become a psychologist like my dad. I would learn enough to discover a cure for Lori.

  I threw myself into the psychology classes. I took organizational and industrial psychology. I took cognitive psychology, and dutifully copied into my notebooks all the maps of the brain and neural pathways. Even though I never did very well in any of the classes—and really badly in the more statistically oriented ones— I loved the work. It appealed to my sense of order. My dad always used to say that everything had a reason, that nothing ever just happened. In my psychology classes I began learning just how much we know and don't know about why things happen in people's brains. I began to learn why people do what they do. I became involved in research, studying and investigating conditions like Alzheimer's and Huntington's disease with professors and fellow students.

  In addition to studying, I also became involved in people's lives. I was trained as one of a group of peer counselors, who were taught to help identify people who were having crises. We learned to ask open-ended questions, and to find out if people were suicidal.