Psycho-Analysis: The Beginning

by Nuza, Catherine;

  We would have countless arguments about Len, especially that Christmas, the one that still made my blood boil. She had been invited to the house by Sally, yet again. I thought she would have been a bit less cocky as her boyfriend Jackson had dumped her after ten years. Hearing this made me feel like she was getting back all that she had dished out to me over the years. Sally had made cupcakes and called her into the kitchen. Sue had run after her Aunt Len. After a few moments of Sally and Len talking about me so obviously in the kitchen, Sue ran out. She had a big smile on her face as she run towards me to bring me a cupcake. She had gotten so excited that she tripped and as she fell she banged her elbow and knee on the floor. Sue started to cry. I had quickly picked her up and comforted her in my arms. Len had walked in circles around me as if I was being assessed.

  “You can’t even look after your little girl, what’s wrong with you?” she asked. I had covered Sue’s ears as she clung with her small head against my chest. I had told Len to leave that night and she did, but not before she said “I find it really hard to believe sometimes that’s you are her father.”

  I slammed the door in her face. I could have killed her for disrespecting me so vilely in my home. As far as I was concerned she was not wanted and I wished and begged Sally not to invite her again, she refused to even listen to me and seemed annoyed that I had slammed the door in her face after telling her to get out. Over the years I had grown a hatred for Len she was a heroin addict and alcoholic and I didn’t like her being an influence in my baby girl’s life.

  I used to be a computer programmer, not a surgeon like I’d dreamed of being. When I met Sally we were at university and both of us were studying to become doctors. I had planned to go into cardiology as my fascination with the heart drew me there so strongly. Sally had no interest in a speciality and wanted nothing more than to be a general surgeon. Soon after we had completed our internship, she fell pregnant. I thought she might have asked me to carry on with my career and that she would be a stay at home mum for at least a couple of years until Sue was older. Sally had a completely different plan in mind. She asked me to be a stay at home father. My passion for operating was a pure vocation but nothing could make me happier than being a dad to my little girl, so I agreed.

  Time moved on and Sally became very materialistic. She wanted the best house, the best car and her wage was good enough to provide our family with a comfortable life, but she didn’t care, she always wanted more. She forced me into becoming a computer programmer so I could work at home. I looked after Sue, cooked, cleaned and ran all her errands. I was a glorified slave, not a husband and father. There was no partnership or equality, only her controlling, demanding behaviour that was without mercy. She was my relentlessly demanding master and she thought she owned me and could dictate my life to me. Now look where I am! I’m sad, mad and completely alone in this white hell. I hated that I’d ever met Sally as she took my heart, twisted and squeezed it, hurting me any way she could with it, just to make herself feel bigger and better. Her self-importance knew no boundaries.

  There was a small garden off the back door of our psycho hospital. The edges of the garden are covered in a variety of colourful flowers and the grounds are made up of grass and gravel paths for wheelchair access.

  Being outside in the open air made it easier to forget why we were here in this isolated place, and if only for a while, we felt normal. Just as if we were in our back garden at home, resting in the sunshine. This was where many would rather be than indoors, but staff only allowed us to enjoy the garden in the sunny summer months, so we were mainly stuck inside in this white hell for most of the year.

  Dominoes, cards, chatting or old films were basically the only ways to distract our already messed up minds in this prison. This sick, twisted, happy hell.

  The films were mostly old westerns and mainly consisted of shrieking or gunshot noises. Every time a group would sit down to watch one, only three, maybe four would be awake at the end; painfully boring. It should probably be recognized as a type of sadistic event, as it was either sleep or a coma you fell into by the end of it.

  After a while less and less people bothered to watch the films and they filled in their time with things like reading a ‘good’ book, or having a tantrum complaining that they were sane and being kept here against their will. The best escape from the monotony in my eyes was to get up to no good and anger the life out of a member of staff; it was in fact an option very dear to my heart. Brenda and I had decided one day that she would fall to the ground pretending she was having a fit. I was the lookout, swiping the keys from the nurse as they got on the ground beside her to make sure she was still alive. I didn’t get very far though as Cosmos tripped me up while I was running to the exit. Brenda then snatched the keys out of my hand and rammed them into her piss soaked nappy. She smiled like she had just had the best bowel movement in the world. I couldn’t contain myself. Floods of tears came out of my glazed eyes in disbelief. Then came the cuffs as Brenda tried to get up close and personal with the male nurse asking him if he wanted to play a game called ‘find the keys.’ He went pale and ran to the toilets where he threw up violently, when he returned his face was all shades of green, poor guy. The nurses thought it was all under control when they saw Mr Cosmos pissing in the corner on all the gloves, needless to say it was a bonding experience for all, tragically funny as hell.

  I usually kept to myself and most of the time lived more in my thoughts than in reality. I was, and I am, always thinking, always trying to remember my past … ‘Past,’ is such a lifeless word to say but every person’s past is what defines them, as well as what makes them who they are today.

  Even though I couldn’t justify some of my previous actions, I would assume, if going back to a point in my life I wished to change and having the same thoughts I had then, my actions would be exactly the same.

  I started to think about Sue, my daughter; she always made me feel loved and happy. If only I could see her again. I think she must be about eight years old now, but then again I don’t really know exactly how long I’ve been in here. Could it be three or four years? I cursed the drugs they give you, they seem to muddle up your memories. When you think about it, that’s probably exactly what they want. If everyone could remember every day clearly they would be even madder. It would be Wonderland on repeat twenty-four seven and I’d be the Mad Hatter.

  What is madness? What’s the true definition of that state, the state of mind?

  I always thought some of the staff seemed to have more psychological problems than the patients, at least in my mind, with their unnatural, freaky, forced smiles. I could imagine bleached teeth and a face lift to maintain a constant smile was just standard employee criteria.

  Mad is when you are different to the ‘norm’ or an outcast, an individual thinker, not someone who follows the herd of society without question ‘like a sheep.’ How sad they are, normal people. I have never followed or have fallen victim to the ‘norm.’ I am me; that’s all I have now, me.

  People are afraid of something unknown to them. They see other types as illogical, impractical and different to them and their ‘normal’ ways, so they label them ‘mad.’

  As I looked up I saw a man standing in my doorway. He was really short, rough looking, with small dirty green eyes and wearing an obvious toupee which seemed to be off centre. He was scared to come any closer.

  “What do you want?” I asked the stranger curiously.

  He opened the briefcase he had been holding in his right hand and revealed a chunky brown envelope. His small hairy hands looked like ones of a monkey, they indented the envelope causing the brown paper to get crumpled up and this irritated me.

  “Here you go sir,” the little, pathetic example of a man replied. He reluctantly walked to the foot of my bed and placed the envelope down slowly by my feet. He wore a yellowish tanned trench coat and carried a long, dark, wooden walking stick in his left hand, as well as a gold ring on his index finger with some k
ind of black stone that gleamed in the light.

  “Good day sir,” he quickly muttered as he turned and walked briskly out of my room. Strange man I thought, well maybe I will see him in here soon as a patient; obviously he had some ‘normality’ issues.

  I glanced at the foot of the bed and grabbed the envelope; what could it be? I examined the front and back searching for the sender’s address to see who had sent it but there was none. I never got any mail here, so it intrigued me. My lawyers took care of all the payments for my house, which I somehow still possessed and they paid all my debts out of my inheritance account. For all I knew they had probably gone on a cruise at my expense. I wouldn’t put it past them; they all looked dodgy and one or two had suspiciously nice tans.

  As I looked closer at the envelope I saw a very faint stamp of a goat’s head within a five-pointed star surrounded by a circle, how strange. I won’t open it now, I thought, it seems interesting but I’ll open it when all prying eyes are sleeping. I placed the envelope inside the white pillowcase and I rested back in my bed.

  My mind started to drift off into my past in this place, I had seen countless shocking things. I remembered the many ways people had tried to escape from this hellhole but only a few stood out from the overdone ones. There was the time Mr Cosmos severed his little finger by unscrewing the shower head and using its sharp edges as a blade. He bled for ten minutes before he told a member of staff just to be sure he would get at least one day in the general hospital. Any place was good to be at, as long as it was far away from here.

  Another patient was Agnes. Agnes had a talent for creating sharp objects from blunt ones. She had somehow created a wooden needle from a sliver of wood she had broken off from one of the tables in the recreation room. She pulled several threads from her nightdress and used them to sow her lips together; a truly sickening sight. The stitches were all erratically and unevenly placed around her mouth, blood had dripped all over her night dress and yet it was the happiest I had ever seen her. The nurse who woke her up that morning fainted and had to lie down for a while to recover from the shocking sight.

  Agnes came back from hospital a few days later beaming with pride, her wrinkled lips stretched into a sinister smile and sporting loads of little scabs dotted around her lips.

  I had never thought of doing anything like that. I purely and simply wanted to be released so I could get on with the little bit of life I had left.

  Chapter 4

  The Monkey Man

  Squeak… squeak…

  “Come on Khedlar time to mix and mingle,” Jake said overenthusiastically. There he stood, this oversized smiling baboon with blonde hair and a simple mind. He was slightly barge looking, wearing an ill-fitting white uniform and standing behind a wheelchair.

  The wheelchair looked as if it had come out of a horror story that had been featured in a very old film. The black leather base of the chair was worse for wear. All the edges were frayed, faded and ripped up to reveal the yellow foam padding underneath. I’m sure some demented imbecile had previously pissed on it as it had a pungent odour of stale urine. The armrests didn’t look inviting in the least as the bars were coated in red rust that formed squiggly lines down the sides.

  The squeaking was unbearable; it seemed to me like the sound a bird would make if someone was squeezing it to death and it was screaming for its life.

  I stared at him through my partially closed eyes, observing him. Where do they get the staff from? They obviously mustn’t have a lot to choose from! This one seemed as if they’d taken him from the monkey cage at the zoo.

  I pretended not to hear him as I knew it would probably make him nervous.

  “Come on man time to go,” he quickly spat out all in one breath, his forehead was gleaming with salty sweat that I could smell even though I was a couple of metres away. I could tell it must have been his first day as all the old staff with experience would take no lip and get you into that wheelchair by will or by force.

  Although smiles were spread about like sickening confetti their bedside manners left little to be desired. They were rough, unemotional and just plain rude. They treated everyone as a mental disease and didn’t think for one second that we had feelings.

  A couple of days ago I had heard one of the senior staff explaining medication to a rookie. I heard in disbelief as she said, ‘Well you have in room 7D Miss Schizophrenia, so give her two of these pills three times a day and in 3W Mr Delusional, he takes these red pills four times a day.’ It was revolting; I had wondered what they had chosen to call me, Mr Murderer? That’s when he began to talk to me.

  “Look-my-name-is-Jake-and …”

  Oh my God! It knows how to talk, now don’t strain yourself, take it slow I thought.

  “I… want to learn, how to look after people… who are mentally sick,” he stammered childishly.

  “Ha, ah ha!” I laughed uncontrollably at this idiot before me. I couldn’t help it, it was a real joke. It wasn’t what he’d said but it was him in general, standing there with one hand on his head and the other on his mouth; completely clueless.

  “Look mate,” I counselled, “stop, please stop talking and don’t embarrass yourself. Just give me a hand, my leg has been acting up all week.”

  “That’s it, nice and gently,” he said, as if he were repeating out loud what they had surprisingly managed to teach him. As I placed my feet down on the foot supports he had carefully unfolded, he quickly stood up straight and pushed me directly towards the recreation room.

  He reminded me of my father Richard, trying to act all knowledgeable, when in reality people generally confused him. He always had his head in the clouds and was too intelligent for his own good. He could rattle off complex theories in biology that only a Professor could understand but was lost in the real world. He would come home and look at us without realizing he had created us and our world of misery.

  He was devoid of emotions and rarely smiled and I don’t think I ever saw him cry. The only time he showed any semblance of humanity was towards mother. He was hopelessly in love with her and would come alive when he was around her. I felt invisible to him most of the time and when he did notice me I wished he hadn’t. Words would come out of his mouth that I had no idea of what he meant or could understand. He rarely showed me he cared and I could count the number of times he paid me proper parental attention on one hand.

  He seemed harmless but he was far from it. His ignorance was blissful to him but hurt us more than he would ever know. He neglected us completely leaving mother to her brutal ways with no limits to her abuse. He couldn’t see her as the monster we knew her to be. He only saw his beautiful wife who could do no wrong in his eyes. In father’s eyes we served a purpose in his warped mind and that was to fulfil mother’s desire to have children. He had no need for us and barely registered that we existed.

  He travelled a lot, lecturing at different universities and was somewhat of a celebrity in his general field. He was reclusive when he would be studying for never ending exams that he did and would bring home strange projects that we weren’t allowed to go near. He was a biology Professor and was into all sorts of weird stuff like growing ears on the back of mice and stem cell research. Nothing was too strange for him and he wanted to push biology to its limits. His study was full of academic achievement awards that he had stuffed in a drawer and meant nothing to him.

  He was self-absorbed and detached from the real world most of the time. At dinner we developed strong stomachs as father would talk about the most disgusting topics. I remember him graphically describing how he’d dissected a monkey that had died suddenly in the lab and they wanted to know what had killed her. They had sawn off the skull cap to get at the brains which they had taken apart one sliver at a time. Every inch of the beast had been examined under a microscope and he delighted in describing how dead matter was full of living bacteria and worms. He had kept samples of the monkey in the fridge at home and mother nearly cooked the brains for dinner one night afte
r too much vodka as she mistook it for mincemeat.

  Yes I think monkey man suits this poor deluded fool and his bumbling incompetence. He communicated just as well as father had but he lacked his intelligence. It was all pure nonsense and a colossal waste of time.

  Along the way I could smell lunch being prepared in the kitchen; the smell of bread, tomato soup, and chicken entered my senses and provoked my hunger. The food was one of the things I never really had any complaints about, good, fresh, home-made food. It’s a shame that the health care was so antiquated but at least we weren’t going to starve in the process.

  A memory of my mother slowly entered my mind at this point. Her name was Ann, a slender looking woman with goggle eyes and a permanent red nose from the vodka. Mother loved to cook and would make the most amazing meals that were of a better quality than any restaurant I have ever been to. She always smelled of summer and treated my twin and me equally, although to me it was obvious I was the favourite one. Her special dish was home-made roast chicken, stuffed with sage and onions, accompanied with perfectly roasted potatoes, peas and carrots, drenched in her home made gravy. It was just incredible.