The Girl in the Treehouse

by Jennifer Asbenson

  The first two weeks went by fast. This kind of life was surreal because I had no voice. I was medicated so much that I never knew what day it was. All I lived for was food, showers, sleep, and medication.

  While I slept, someone checked on me every hour. Sometimes when they checked on me, they would take the shoe off my back. This angered me because I had it there to pretend someone loved me. I imagined a kind friend or a loving family member had tucked me in, cuddled next to me, and put their hand on my back.

  I always knew when a nurse came into my room because I slept lightly. When they entered, I pretended to be asleep. They would remove the shoe, and I would have to wait for them to leave. Then I had to start my nightly routine all over again. Although I was frustrated when they removed the shoe, I began to expect the intrusion.

  BECAUSE I SLEPT UPSIDE DOWN, the orderlies probably thought I had lost my marbles. It made sense to me, though. I did not sleep upside down like a bat; that would be bizarre. I slept on my stomach with my head on the opposite end of the bed.

  In the outside world, I no longer slept in beds. But in the mental hospitals, I was told that if I didn’t sleep in the bed, they would strap me to it. So I decided to sleep upside down instead. That way, if someone crept into my room and tried to murder me, they would stab at my legs instead of my heart. Brilliant safety ideas always came natural to me.

  I MADE FRIENDS WITH A woman in the institution. Her name was Kristy. She was sweet, like me. She had bruises, scratches, and crusty blood on her body because she had leapt out of a moving car. Intrigued by her guts and courage, I instantly bonded with her. Only a truly ballsy person would do that, I thought. I couldn’t understand why she made that choice because she seemed so reasonable.

  Soon I realized she wasn’t that normal. Every time I used the restroom after her, it would be decorated in toilet paper. Sometimes I became upset because she used it all. Her hands had touched the decorative toilet paper, so I refused to wipe my butt with it. I’d pop my head out the cracked door with my pants around my ankles and cry out until someone brought me a new roll. Kristy always denied it was her and acted completely sane, but I knew she was the guilty one. In a strange way, it made me like her more, even if she was an oddball.

  It blows my mind as I sit here—with my candles glowing and my favorite song on repeat—and think about how long I spent in the hospitals. My life would have been a lot easier if the doctors had just offered me marijuana instead of medication. The medication made me lose track of time, and the years began to blend together.

  For about four years, I lived in and out of mental institutions. I was a regular. Every time I visited, I’d be diagnosed with a new disorder. Once, the psychologists said I had obsessive-compulsive disorder. Simple things would drive me nuts. My unruly mind made me touch door handles over and over; I also frequently rechecked the sink nozzles to assure there were no drips.

  One time, I called my mom repeatedly, like I was about to win a prize from the radio station. When she answered, I thought it was a new day, so I repeated the information I had told her during the previous phone call. At first, she laughed, but then she said I was psychotic and delusional, and if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be at the funny farm. So I hung up, added her new diagnoses to my list of ailments, and never called her again.

  My friends and family did not visit me. It was probably hard enough for them to watch me go crazy. On visitation days, I pretended to get excited like everyone else.

  Once, I heard that many writers are also drinkers. This makes sense to me because the emotional pain of revisiting the past is sometimes unbearable. The lipstick stain on my wine glass reminds me of the time I lied to the girls at the desk behind the thick glass window and told them I had a visitor so that they would use their makeup on me. Red lipstick made me look irresistible, and I paraded around for hours before visitation ended.

  One time, Mr. Pee-Pee Pants’s family came to visit him, and they brought a baby along. As I sat with my combed wet hair and blinding red lipstick, I stared at the baby. I wondered why I wasn’t born into a loving family. Envious of the large-eyed and blond-haired girl, I examined her every move. When the family stood up to leave at the end of the night, I saw the baby’s bottle on its side behind a chair. My mouth began to open to alert them, but I quickly decided against the idea. It was my prize. When they left, I hid the bottle under my sweatshirt and brought the little treasure to my room. After I filled it up with water, I nursed myself to sleep. This made me feel warmth and love, just as a baby would. When I awoke in the morning, the baby bottle was gone and the shoe had been removed from my back. If I never noticed them enter, I must have slept well, I thought.

  MEDICATIONS MADE ME FEEL LIKE a carefree zombie. As I dragged my squeaky tennis shoes over the shiny white floor, my fingers skimmed along the endless walls. Sometimes I’d do this so much my fingertips would become sore. If I complained about the pain, I would receive pain pills. Once one of the freaks got mad at me because my shoes were too noisy. From then on, my daily wall obsession was a barefoot expedition.

  AFTER THE COLLAPSE AT MY apartment, and in between mental hospital visits, I moved back in with my parents. At night, I only felt safe if I slept on the roof, like I did with Tyler as a kid, or under my bed. My family thought I was crazy, but in case my story was indeed real, I didn’t want the madman to find me and kill me as I slept.

  About two months after being in and out of the hospitals, I returned to work. My dad gave me a pearlescent white Mazda RX-7. The car was beautiful. He did the body work on it himself. He had always planned to give all of us kids a car. Mine was a bit late but respectfully appreciated.

  My boss suggested I work during the day for some reason, perhaps due to my newfound fear of the dark. On my first day back, I was confronted by a new employee who questioned me.

  “So, you’ve worked here awhile?” she asked.

  “Yes, about two years. I just took my vacation.”

  “Oh my gosh! So, did you hear about the girl who was kidnapped?”

  My unblinking eyes stuck to the first distraction I could find. “A girl was kidnapped?”

  “Yes, and raped.”

  My head moved as if weighted by an external force and began to sink into nonexistent soft sand. I spoke with heavy hesitation, “I think that was me.”

  She laughed. “You think?” She saw my unstable expression. “Wait. What? For real? That was you?”

  No communication was left in me, so I walked away.

  The girls were delighted to see me, but I wasn’t as thrilled in return. I pondered why God would make them the way they were. As I looked at the precious girls’ faces, I wondered why any of them were born.

  While I bathed baby Violet, I pierced her eyes with mine. Her remarkable soul fled through her blinded eyes, but I could see she was trapped. As her tiny feet splashed the water, my mind began to drift. Unspeakable thoughts intruded my mind, but I was aware of the difference between right and wrong. What would happen if I just let her go? Would she sink? Would she float? She was blind, deaf, and disabled. She couldn’t do anything. Why was she alive? What was the purpose?

  My thoughts began to upset me. Why did I process the world so differently? Before the time of my sanity issues, I had focused on how I could make Violet’s reality livable. Now I questioned why she even existed. As I ran clear water over her precious baby hair, my heart broke.

  To avoid interaction with the girls, I demanded my night shift back. The late shift shouldn’t scare me if what I said happened was indeed made up, I thought. The idea of the man coming back to finish the job—to finally kill me—sometimes crossed my mind, but I’d quickly remind myself that I might be nuts. With my new medications, I could try to get my life back on track. Never had I prayed so desperately to return to myself.

  “Distant Soul”

  When the self seems gone,

  The soul cannot sing,

  The heart cannot love.

  Misery is king.

&
nbsp; From the darkness you cry,

  From the eyes that can’t see,

  From the depths of the doom,

  You shall rise from defeat.

  Cling on to the hope of the light you will see.

  And that hope, one day,

  Will indeed set you free.

  Gone was the “ghost girl” who had romped after the girls in fresh, warm, white sheets. Absent were the joyrides and sweet treats of whipped cream. Deceased was the fire that fueled my desire to gleam.

  Somber, I sat and stared at a large plain wall in the now woeful house. Memories of who I had been and the smiles I once created began to flood my mind. The costumes and masks, the bubbles and tricks were absent. No more were the times when the girls would dance as they helped me mop and vacuum. I no longer strove for the excellence frequently displayed before my vacation—like the time there was an earthquake. I was deemed a hero because I quickly arranged all of the girls on a bed and rolled them to the driveway to safety. Or the time Violet signed “eat” because I wouldn’t give up on teaching her sign language, even though she was blind, deaf, and mentally fractured. Gone were those days.

  The sheets were now folded and put away. The wheelchair was kept in the garage. Safety replaced fun. If you observed from the outside in, I would have looked like a very responsible employee.

  Security lights and alarms were installed. The doors were locked at night. The house never felt safe enough. My frenzied mind made me double- and even triple-check them.

  One night, as I mopped I heard a strange noise. With the mop as my weapon, I crept around the corner to find Christina with a huge smile on her face and her hand on the knob of the back door. My heart sunk.

  “No! Christina! Christina, no. Do not open the door.”

  As I walked toward her, I spoke slowly. She began to wildly laugh and prance in place. She never spoke because she didn’t know how. My voice changed to a mild tone.

  “Christina. Come on, honey. Away from the door. Let’s go back to night-night,” I said.

  She looked confused and took her hand off the knob. “Good girl, honey.”

  My eyes widened. “No!”

  She flipped the lock and opened the door. She took off into the backyard.

  Alarms wailed throughout the house. “No!” I yelled.

  The thought of the dark yard attempted to cripple me, but I would let no harm come to these girls. I ran after her with the mop in hand. In rebellion, she laughed and danced while she covered her ears. Finally, I wrangled her in.

  The phone began to ring. My thoughts ran rampant.

  The two girls who could hear and walk flew out of their rooms in hysterics. One whimpered, and the other pet me roughly with her soaked fingers. The symphony of noise terrified them, as it did me.

  The phone stopped ringing. After I pressed random numbers into the alarm box, I forced myself to breathe and remember the correct code. The alarm fell silent.

  The phone began to ring again, and I informed the attendant on the other end that it was false. After I hung up, I dropped to the floor with the girls and cried. The doors were never opened again.

  I sometimes imagined a lunatic was on the loose and he knew where I worked. No one at the house ever questioned me about the incident again, which I appreciated, since I wasn’t even sure it had happened.

  While experimenting with different medications, I began to feel like my life could go back to normal. At the same time, the drugs made me feel numb. I was in and out of various forms of reality. No matter how much I tried to escape the scary story, it would always try and prove itself to be real.

  One morning before work, I enjoyed a hot shower. As I shampooed my hair, a message began to appear on the large bathroom window. The more the steam bellowed through the room, the brighter the message appeared. The words had been written with a finger.

  Once I was able to read it clearly, I began to shake. With soap all over me, I grabbed a towel and ran out of the bathroom, screeching.

  My mom looked at the window to see if what I told her was true. She saw the words as clear as day. A large handprint was beneath the three dreadful words “I WAS HERE.”

  He had been inside my home. I was not safe. No one was safe.

  Mental hospital gowns were so comfortable that I often wore them at home

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Beauty of Blood

  Blood is beautiful when you examine it closely. A sense of calm falls upon you as you wait for it to appear; it’s strange.

  Before I would slit my wrists, I’d wash them. Sweet melancholy music played to ease my mind as I held the razor close to my eyes and examined it. The proof on my wrists was easily found. The seven bracelet-shaped scars, left from the twine, were the only evidence that kept my story alive.

  The first time I cut, I was nervous. But soon, I fell in love. Never had I focused so intently or felt such a sense of control.

  Like an artist with a thin brush, I gently swept the razor over my nearly healed scars. With my lips slightly separated and my pupils dilated, I peered closely as the blood began to seep to the surface. Somehow, the arrival of the blood caused the emptiness inside my body to vanish.

  My eyebrows rose with childlike curiosity. The particular redness of the blood was so clean and beautiful. The crimson plasma stimulated my dreary mind. After I created one gash, I grew excited to inflict the next.

  Nervous delight filled my stomach as I continued the spiritually satisfying ritual. The emotion I developed was comparable to waiting for a blind date to arrive. An excitable edginess elicited exactly what my mind needed.

  WHEN THE POLICE WERE UNABLE to lift prints from the fogged-up window, I retreated to cutting. Of course, I sometimes imagined prodding deep enough to end my life. With my new mental ailments and my mind set, it took more courage to carry on in the world than it would have to off myself.

  My post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) told me that when he finally caught me, I would be stabbed to death. The torturous visions flooded my mind all day. The act of cutting desensitized me to the sight of blood. It was no longer gore—the red fluid was beauty. If I saw it enough, I wouldn’t panic when I was stabbed.

  Normally, I’d only cut the seven scars that needed attention, but this time, I went overboard. The infliction of physical pain relieved my internal pain significantly.

  On the left arm, I began to cut from my wrist to where my arm bent. On the right, I’d only cut the wrist. It was hard to cut the right arm because I am right-handed, and my left hand trembled when I tried to perform precise tasks with it.

  To cover my fresh wounds, I cut the feet out of socks and pulled the tubes over my hands and up my arms to my elbows, like arm warmers. As I walked near my mom in the house, I hid my special secret. Similar to caring for a hurt, helpless creature, the comfort derived from nurturing the wounds was intoxicating.

  When you commit an act of harm to yourself without anger in your heart, it is a strangely beautiful experience, perhaps like the drip of hot wax onto the flesh. There is a thrill, a high associated with it. When you feel like you have lost control of everything else, any control is welcomed, and I had control when I cut.

  One evening, a cut-induced high was interrupted by a friend who barged into the bathroom. I ended up back in the looney bin on another 5150. Apparently I was suicidal, although my cutting was not intended to be lethal. Quite simply, it was the only thing in the world that had the ability to make me feel again. When I was seemingly numb to emotional pain, I discovered physical pain.

  The razor became my best friend because I was lonely. Being misunderstood made me feel so isolated and withdrawn that when I cut, I felt alive.

  Me at nineteen, trying to look like a movie star

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Fascinating Freaks

  After about six months in and out of mental hospitals, the institutions began to feel like home. The familiar faces gave me a sense of security. Somehow, I gained the ability to tell myself
that I was okay in there. When I closed my eyes, I could imagine I was in a fancy hotel on the beach or in a treehouse. As a child, I always wanted a treehouse because it signified “normalcy.”

  The dull white walls became a fresh canvas for the imagination. I often sprawled out on my bed and imagined beautiful things. Christmas lights and the smell of warm apple pie always made me feel cozy. I dreamt up the smell of sugary pastries. Since sugar was banned in the hospitals, I could only get the sweet stuff with my mind. I was a daydreamer. Sometimes I’d even notice the sides of my lips tighten and raise into a smile because of the wonderful emotions I created with my make-believe thoughts.

  The crazy people who had scared me at first somehow became beautiful to me, perhaps because I related to them. They were real. They never masked their feelings or emotions, and they didn’t care what others thought of them. They had stories like mine, hidden close to their hearts where no one could get to them.

  The lady who decorated the bathroom in toilet paper was an “artist.” She turned an otherwise unimaginative washroom into a fantastic place of mystery. Instead of cutting, like me, she strung toilet tissue. It was then I realized why a caged bird will sing. After a tragedy, you should be able to indulge in whatever sets your heart on fire. Whatever makes you feel happy should be all you ever do.

  The girl who sang awfully also provided entertainment. Even though her voice sounded like a wounded cat, there was a beauty about her passion. There is always a beauty about passion.

  While I was in and out of the hospitals, I continued to work at the house with the girls. I usually timed my admittance around my workdays. It felt like I was going “home” for the weekend. Sure, it was a madhouse, but I understood chaos, and I functioned best in it.

  Once I accepted that the hospitals were where I belonged, I started to fit in. Nobody was judged in the institutions; it was acceptable to act and feel however you wanted. For example, my wall obsession was not due to mere boredom. While I dragged my hand along the textured paint in the halls, I’d lose myself. It was possible to transport from the hospital to wherever I wanted through the simple touch of my fingertips to the wall. This was an adventure, and when I did it, I felt like a kid again.