by John Tan
‘What is bad humor, Mr. Alvarez?’ I found myself asking.
‘Bad humor, eh?’ said the intern judiciously, rubbing his chin with his thin, spatulate fingers, ‘Let me answer your question by illustrating this point. Better to have the wrong hair, the wrong skin, the wrong physiognomy, the wrong stuff, like your trappings and bank account, rather than the wrong air. You have to cultivate the right, unhumorous air, and that is the constant and vigilant effort to keep your mind in check, because the right air is the mind in its proper working order moving you forward to your goal! Catch all scurrilous and insidious humor you must! Peel away all the evil humor and at bottom is an insult against somebody or against God, for a stable mind is a mind in the state of equilibrium.’
‘Should I use my intellect or my heart to claw my way back to complete sanity, Mr. Alvarez?’ I said, looking at him coolly, as he tilted his head back and replied after a moment’s hesitation:
‘A man because he is built by nature to use his reason above his feelings, to counter that tendency to over-intellectualize, he should cultivate his emotions; he should be more and more heart, that is, he should feel more intensely rather than feel less. That much is clear so far, I will warrant. For a woman, because nature has given her heart, and a woman’s heart is the thing—she should use her head more, so that her reasoning powers are stirred up and sustained in a relationship; for a man and woman it is different, don’t you see? Such a man and such a woman would no doubt meet somewhere in this mind-heart dichotomy in this rough and tumble world; and of course, get along swimmingly after that: and everything achieved and nothing more, of course, need to be said after that. Have you taken a walk about the three-acre secluded grounds in this lush and pleasant countryside, of which the sky is often pleasantly azure during the summer, simply delicious—and today being October the 17th, and well, I hope the anxiety of arriving at a new place won’t get you down excessively. I am having a meeting with the senior social worker and the consulting psychologist this morning,--about you if I may add,--and if there is anything, say, you would like me to convey a message, let me know. I hope you find this place fine enough and to put you at your complete ease, let me assure you we will do all we can to make your stay here a productive and an enjoyable one.’
I was perhaps a trifle too noncommittal, and this mood communicated itself to him; and so he added, ‘Let me shake your hand, Miss, here,’ and he followed this up with, ‘Oh, these chambers are not so secretive and the rooms not so gloomy, as if it was totally real that some private sorrows, some secret agonies were ever and anon being played out--for more than a hundred and fifty years, where catatonics and schizophrenics and phobics and obsessive-compulsives and those struck down by depressions and multiple personalities to name a few of these diseases that blighted humankind,--horrors galore, that haunt the living and the deceased inmates day and night and forever.’ Such was the singular comment he made, which, I thought, was nevertheless stranger than my singular nocturnal adventure of the previous night-time.
4
I stand corrected with regard to what Liam Alvarez, the intern had; it was not chicken pox and not small pox. Also, I had started out by saying that this was September but in reality it turned out that I had made a slip again and got hold of the wrong month. This was well into the middle of October, and my thinking fixedly and lapses in my following the march of hours, days and weeks had resulted in my falling one month or so behind by my own capricious calculations which were no proper computation indeed, to say the least.
All this I told to Doctor Cranston afterwards—that the whole of my being after the breakdown seemed desirous to sleep mountains of sleep, without getting out of bed for a week or month and my singular existence seemed just like one long day forever harking back to the one moment, stuck in my mind when I found myself going over the deep end. The fact that I had cracked never did let me by without being reminded by some malicious imp with my own voice, within the circuits of my brain that I had cracked and psychic material had leaked out from that perfectly wholesome egg that was my former ego. Like the people who lived in the land of deep shadows, will a light shine on me, borne out of the therapeutic encounters and relationships with the staff and inmates of this place?
Suddenly, in perfect mimicry of a young lady’s voice Doctor Cranston was intoning, ‘Doctor, it’s always back to square one in my mind, and I fear I am not making any progress—because aw, my God, you are a shrink, and I am to undergo an ongoing head-shrinking process and my head will be smaller by the time you get through, and what will happen to me! Is that what you are thinking? Do you sometimes have these thoughts? Ninety-five percent of my patients admitted to having some kind or version of these thoughts six months after they had had a breakdown, their crisis, and I feel if I might joke here a little—they all felt like they are Humpty-Dumpty after he had fallen off the narrow wall, and all the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty-Dumpty back again. Do you, my dear, have in some measure this kind of fantasy, though in not so many words?’
‘I do. Poor old me!’
‘Poor old you, eh? Let me tell poor old you, then, something of the reality of the thing they called a breakdown. No doubt a line that nobody should cross has been crossed and dire consequences follows just as swiftly as a crow flies, because the person has put all his eggs or her eggs in one basket and tempts fate, trying to force the situation in order to change his or her external circumstance. He or she finds that he or she has leaned too far out of the balcony,--and in fifteen minutes or half an hour’s time, injures himself or herself seriously, irrevocably in that he or she allows his or her mind to snap in two. He or she then finds the four grey walls of a mental and emotional prison had risen up to enclose him or her in, which the person lacks the strength to break out of, and on top of this, the person suffers a fit and finds himself or herself in a mad stupor or lying down in an acute state of disorientation. He or she might see visions during this time or grasp insights known to no mortal man or woman but this is locked inside the person’s brain and here is a sign of a new and diseased orientation—which the person will hang on to for dear life for: till his or her days on God’s ephemeral green earth is over; unless through a doctor’s intervention and counseling he or she trustingly follows the advice and the explanation given to him or her, and gives up his or her false vision. There is a consensus that it would be difficult to predict the course of the disease after its onset but a few patients from time to time are thought to have been able to rise above their self-induced spell and returned to live a life of normalcy—but the normal adage applied to mental patients is once a mental patient always a mental patient: though we of the hospital staff do our level best to alleviate human misery and suffering, as you might be well aware.’
This thus was Doctor Cranston’s illuminating little speech, and as he was often paired with the intern, Alvarez, this person in white overalls hung a little behind his back while he spoke—an understanding and mutual sympathy between the older and younger man was that which I was able to see,--and now, Cranston intoned in a low tone but curt and familiar to the junior man, ‘Anything to add, intern?’
‘Well, there are a few things but I don’t think it is necessary to go into all of them now. Only, two or three things will suffice at this juncture. Firstly, I would like the patient—I mean, inmate—to keep written notes in her diary which will be provided to her by the housekeeping clerk. Give her several reams of paper, too, and more than a few pens, as many as they could find, and a large bottle of ink. I am instructing her to jot down her thoughts and sundry feelings and ideas that pop into her head at any given time—those that rose spontaneously to mind, especially,—every day, because she is to make this a habit that she is to cultivate while her stay is with us here, for her to make sense of herself to herself through the simple but effective exercise of putting words to paper—in the form of circumspect entries, assisted by a modicum of creativity and ingenuity—and thus, she may t
urn her breakdown into a treasured resource in which she can grow from the maturity gained from insights received—all in all, a blessedly therapeutic undertaking. Didn’t I say, receive? because—she is to look over her scribbling and jottings when she is in a receptive mood—and this is when she is ready to receive from natural phenomena, as to the value and truthfulness of these jottings. It lies in the ability to discern well, that’s all. Here’s how—according to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, she is to do it. If you are trying to make a decision whether a thing is good or bad, how do you know you have made the right decision, Miss?’
I shook my head and pursed my lips sheepishly, indicating I didn’t rightly know the answer.
He went on: ‘Secondly, don’t make decisions when you are angry or upset, disturbed, worried, perplexed, fearful, moody, having mood swings, depressed, excited or troubled—in other words, I mean, other than when you are your most normal self. I mean, make decisions only when you are calm, cool and collected and that is when you are most yourself and your mood is on an even keel. Such is the time to consider the matter dispassionately and think things through, and here we are talking about your future scribbling; and something more besides. If you think there might be something in them, other people are most likely to think the same thing also and be of the same opinion as you. This is a testimony that it is good! And—this is important—don’t change your mind afterwards and think the thing lousy when your mood is depressed or when you are feeling tired or sleepless, for what you have settled in your receptive mood is the correct opinion; not when you are again troubled or dejected and your spirit is now turbulent because, as I have tried explaining, this will only lead you astray. Another subject I would like to touch on, albeit a related one is psychological fear—the fear you feel inside your head, often without outside cause. When you feel fear of this kind, the chain of thoughts or ideas spurring you to action that your fear holds out to you is a seduction, and its object unbeknownst to you; unless you can discern properly, which I am teaching you! For the seduction will lead you to experience more fear or to keep the old fear intact ad infinitum. I say, it’s a seduction, because fear, according to a spiritual law, is a sinister signpost and the fact of the matter is, that you should be its master and not let it master you by thinking the opposite thought to the one presented by fear, and doing the opposite thing pointed out to you or suggested to you by fear. This can be tested inwardly, and you can run over the scenario in your mind and heart and obtain the same results because the results will always be the same. This rule is a hundred percent reliable and it is always true. If you do follow it, and you act opposite, at some point shortly afterwards you would have realized that you have made the correct decision, because the worry and the anxiety just flow out from your face and from then on, your conviction grows by the minute, and you feel sure you can put your problem to bed and sleep soundly and have a good night’s rest. Okay, Miss?’
‘Thank you, Doctor Alvarez; thank you very much, Doctor Cranston; I feel I have gained so much just by listening to you both.’
‘You are welcome; for we are just doing our job,’ the both of them answered with beaming faces.
5
That everyone here without exception had a relationship with her bed was without a doubt true—an intimate, cozy relationship with the bed’s headboard, the soft mattress and the plump pillows and so an inmate would sprawl lazily with her arms behind her ears and luxuriate on the bedspread, or tuck herself underneath the quilt or coverlid, and of course, this was understandable.--Our beds are our very best friend; and just as a marathon runner was wont to take little sips of water now and then when he was pursuing his object which was to finish the race, we are pursuing our object to get better; or failing that, to better our coping skills, and we make little dives into the white linen ocean of our beds to prevent feeling a little odd or dizzy, from time to time, as well. Lying perpendicular was our favorite posture and past-time, and we do all sorts of things we would normally do sitting down on a chair such as reading or darning or keeping our diary up to date. We even took our bottled drinks lying down when we couldn’t help it; and polishing off our dried foods such as tidbits and our snacks, reclining on bolsters and cushions. Then, we brush the crumbs off or put the wrappers and the plastic bags in the wastepaper basket, but were glad when the cleaners came on their appointed twice-daily rounds.
I was coming back from the sunlit terrace downstairs that morning, I remember, dressed still in my pajamas and had scalded my thumb with the boiling hot milk at breakfast-time, and instead of going straight to my room to nurse my hurt, I decided to hang around the Tee-vee lounge which was at the low end of the recreation room. There were two inmates I knew by sight already there, who were from the same floor as me, and together with a stranger they were engaged in playing ‘Hearts’. The two, a plump and fair redhead and an ugly, hook-nosed sandy haired girl in her late twenties looked across the table to me, and I returned the faint gleam of acknowledgement in their eyes. They were known to the other inmates by their nicknames, and I knew one was called Ovaltine and the other was known as Milo, because they shared the same room, and were inseparable. As I walked towards them, someone gave a grunt of disgust and abruptly left the room, and it sounded very unfriendly. There were now four of us in the Tee-vee lounge: the Tee-vee was showing Pink Panther cartoons and the volume was turned way down low. But I thrilled as I hugged myself inside my pajamas--to hear Henry Mancini’s theme which gave me a considerable boost, with its upbeat mood. I sat down a little distance away on a sofa and out flew my pen and my diary and I was wondering what to write because my way of writing is more based on madness than method, and my pen was poised above the new opening page but I could not conjure any word to come to my mind! I tried to think what feelings the present moment evoked, but all I felt was a grating sensation: as of tires burning rubber, in my temples, and I hesitated, as I used to because my mind felt uncomfortably blank.
The three heads near me were bent together as they engaged each other in low conversation which went on sporadically.
‘Always happens, you say, before the school term begins in the fall…?’
‘But this year it took it’s time and was well overdue, wasn’t it…?’
‘It happened two nights ago, when the new inmate moved into our floor…’
‘Was it waiting for ‘that’…I wonder…?’
‘Yeah, I have heard it myself… but I never saw anything…’
‘All I ever did see is a man’s leather belt writhing on the floor and thrashing or coiling like a serpent and the front metal part beating itself on the landing…’
‘On that stairs…?’
‘Yeah…’
‘Gave me quite a start it did…’
‘But it seemed to have disappeared or vanish after that…?’
‘Yes…’
They were not talking now and they didn’t look at me, but kept their eyes adverted on each other’s faces and mechanically toss out their unwanted hearts and one of them—the redhead, I think – was unlucky and was always gathering these up, while on the tables the piles of other cards were scattered here and there untidily; and as the idea occurred to me, so I quickly jotted down their conversation, exactly as I had heard it. At last, the strange girl I was not acquainted with adjusted her red headband, and said with a polished bell-like tone, ‘D’ you want to join us and play? Do you like to play?’
‘Oh, no,’ I quickly replied and replaced the cap of my fountain pen, ‘Thanks; but what is your name may I ask?’
‘Ellie Curzon,’ she replied, with a tremor rippling across her blushing lips, ‘May I have your fountain pen for just a second? What is your name?’
I told her my name, in an unflattering tone. Then, I gave her my pen, and looking at me with a gay smile, she wrote the words, ‘Mental illness, like a haunting, has a life of its own,’ on her left downy arm; and then she grinned and showed it to me.
‘What did you write?’
said Milo. ‘Show us, Ellie!’
‘Oh, you are loco, Ellie Curzon!’ cried Ovaltine, looking inartificially and properly shocked.
6
How could I articulate my sensations when I glanced over Ellie Curzon’s pronouncement I had written in a freakish mood in the fly-leaf of my diary, and proceed to beat the blue diary against my head. The diary clipped the corner of my head where it made contact, but I did not hit myself too hard; this was after I had just showered and some psychic experience that I will turn my pen to in these pages to describe had occurred--when I was having my shower, as the water was running down from the shower-head in sprinkling jets and washing away the soap puddles on my feet and the tiled floor. The four walls of the shower were also tiled with smooth and oily white tiles of about five square inches each. I was feeling dizzy and out of sorts, and feeling hot as if I had an attack of fever, but my state of mind must have been unusual with something indescribable stirring beyond my level of consciousness. Just this sensation of dread I felt—without knowing where it was coming from, why, or what it signified—just as--when I was afraid the walls were closing in on me; the objects and the distance before me seeming flat as if they were pictures formed by light waves on the retina which the brain interprets; as passively as if I were in a place outside time and space, or these had no objective reality! It was what someone might have called an existential moment, but only I have these moments frequently, and my whole existence seemed to be called into question by them—as if I was out on a limb, and I was disconnected from the current of life in the ordinary work-a-day world. I realized my mind had turned because of my breakdown; would it turn another corner further? I had to admit it; that because I had had a breakdown, I was now different from other people; and would be till the end of my days—but I could ameliorate, learn, try to rebuild myself not back to the original; but a transformed, different self; perhaps, richer because of my experiences and knowing that surely, I will never suffer another breakdown again, as this one inoculated me against any such terrifying upheavals in the future—if I did get that far and managed to recover myself, sufficiently. I thought of it then, and I say it now: it was a hair-raising experience. You may picture me in the shower, minding my own business and giving myself a thorough washing, as best I might; my head feeling balefully heavy, when, happening to look at the tiles on the wall that was beyond the path of the sprinkler, as I turned my head, my eye-tail caught in a moment of unenforced contemplation--some of the little droplets of water running down off the tiles; these were like silver beads and they grew a tail and they were one after the other running down the tiles with the regularity of dominoes falling, just as my eyes light on these As soon as I would look on these beads of water, they were like tadpoles swimming downwards with a kind of dread inevitability that made me sickened to my stomach; but was it some kind of telekinesis? However, I didn’t triumph at the thought I had special powers, it felt horrible and insane, because it felt that I was still experiencing declension, and afterwards, a month later, after having similar experiences in the bathroom, I asked the intern about it, and was glad to have his input which satisfied me and made me worry about it less. Liam Alvarez told me a theory of his, but you shall later know about it, in this story.
