Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness

by Thomson, MaryJane

  Living in the ward you learn not to be shocked, so when Lester takes out his headphones and starts projecting his voice loudly into them as if they were a microphone I jump up and start rapidly gesturing with my arms, as if performing martial arts on speed.

  I haven’t yet been informed of my diagnosis and am in a state of denial. I feel sensations, as though something were touching my ankle or thigh or arms. Sometimes I feel something massaging my head. I also feel as though my body is being propelled forward, and I have sensations in my fingers and under my feet. I refuse to think these things come about because I’m sick. I believe I have special powers.

  For all that is said about people thinking they are Jesus or the true Messiah, when you have a mental illness you can’t fathom it’s an illness in your head, not God giving you special powers. As well as voices, you get movements and sensations in your body that convince you that you are a special being, sent to Earth on a mission. Because what you believe is so unbelievable you start covering it up. For years I have denied to the doctors that I can hear voices and I am certainly not about to tell them I can feel things.

  I have trails of dialogue running through my head so I’m not really following Lester, but I hear him yelling into his headphones, “You’re all bastards. Why don’t you come over here? You couldn’t handle it in here.” Although he is speaking to no one in particular, I have to say I agree with him: psych wards, particularly public ones, aren’t for the faint-hearted.

  While all this is going on, I’m faux-rapping all the dialogue going through my head, putting on voices. Lester tells me to get down so I do. I climb into the bookshelf, which has no books. Lester leans in and says to me very quickly, and in a way that indicates what he is about to say is very important, “So, do you have any speed?” This sounds like an archaic term, something said twenty years ago—everyone these days does meth.

  “No,” I say.

  Lester is obviously quite keen. He says, “We should get some oil.”

  I’m starting to feel all my Christmases have come at once with the possibility of cannabis oil.

  “They have my eftpos card in the safe,” I say.

  I think back to my tiny cold damp room with broken floorboards in my old flat, where I had sworn I would be happy on a sickness benefit, having minimal contact with people except the drug dealer, and staying in my room forever. All I needed were drugs, paper and Vivids, and a guitar. I didn’t need ambition or a direction, despite what the world said. Nothing wrong with being a nobody, going nowhere, literally seeing the world through a distorted lens. Yet everything you think seems to make sense to you. I was just going to play music and fill my room with my pictures and look at them all day, and the person who found me when I eventually died (I wasn’t going to live long) could do what they liked with them.

  “Who needs to go anywhere, be somebody or do anything?” I murmur.

  “What?” I think he’s deaf too.

  “Oh, nothing.”

  I don’t feel comfortable talking about my intimate thoughts so I just say, “I’m not that ambitious.”

  I don’t feel I need to fulfill my life with an outstanding career or a successful marriage. I’m quite happy to go beneath the radar and escape. When I’m on a high, my mood is elevated and nothing is a problem. It’s when I am low that the chaos happens. Of course it would help if someone could explain to me why I get so low. It’s because of this that illicit drugs are a necessity. Who wants to stay low?

  2

  Lester and I are still trying to track down some drugs.

  “Do you have your phone?”

  “No, it’s in the nurses’ station,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say, getting excited, feeling almost greedy or hungry. I swear my head has just cleared. “Let’s get the phone.”

  Lester goes to the nurses’ station. “They’re bringing it out, babe.”

  We sit for ten minutes, two cigarettes smoked, one coffee drunk.

  “I’ll go ask again.” He comes back. “They’re bringing it out in a minute.”

  Twenty minutes, three cigarettes, a cup of tea.

  “Okay, I’ll ask again.”

  I decide to use the bathroom. I go in. There’s blood on the seat and urine in the bin. I opt for the men’s bathroom, which is through the double doors in the men’s wing. I use the cubicle, in and out, sleeve on the handle to avoid germs. I might not be wholly right but I do have some sense of hygiene. I am scared of the bright white soap bars but don’t mind the pink soap in pumps against the wall, even though it’s really drying.

  I decide to kill some time, which is what it’s all about in here. That’s when you’re low. When you’re on a high you’re busy writing manifestos and singing about revolution to change the world because you have forged the belief that you are a supreme being.

  With revolution on my mind I stride confidently into the smokers’ room to check how Lester’s doing. He’s having a fight with Lance the flasher. Lance walks around with his fly down and likes to occasionally pull out his penis. I have taken a liking to repeatedly whispering “Kiddy fucker” whenever he’s around.

  Lester throws Lance towards the wall with a great push. This scares him off and he walks to the next room to see who else he can impress. You’d be surprised what people get confronted with in here and it doesn’t even raise their eyebrows. I say very unequivocally, “Kiddy fucker,” as Lance exits. That’s my five cents.

  Just as I’m about to ask for my phone, the nurse brings in Lester’s peach-pink ceramic one. We compose a text message, which takes a little time, and send it. “He won’t take long to respond. He’s a good friend,” Lance says. It reminds me of the times I used to sit in a friend’s place waiting to score, while his connection would have to come, get the money, go away, get the drug and come back again, and then you would have to cook it. Drugs really are a waiting game.

  My adrenaline is high, but still a caffeine hit wouldn’t go astray, so I go make Lester a tea and me a coffee. When I get back he says, “Sorted it babe, we’re in. They’re going to come in as visitors and bring it. We need money.” In my current state I haven’t really thought through the whole concept of using drugs, but then again when have I ever really thought things through carefully? I have been saving benefit money for the three months I’ve been in here. I start speaking without thinking. “I’ve got money; you can give me half later. I’ll just say I need to go to Macca’s and I will use the ATM then.”

  Lester looks relieved. “Sounds good. Perfect, sweetie.”

  “I will need that cash back off you,” I say. I might need a bond for a place to live when I finally get out of here. That’s what I’m saving for; it can’t all go on drugs.

  “Can I go out dressed like this?”

  “You need a jacket.”

  “Okay,” I say. “I will go see if Rachel will take me.”

  Rachel is an occupational therapist who works with day patients in a separate wing, but she’s often over in my part of the ward with Jo, a patient who suffers quite severe schizophrenia, and she sometimes takes me out with Jo.

  I search for Rachel and know I’ve found her when I see, through the doorway of the lounge, the three stripes down the arm of her black Adidas jacket. She is watching The Tyra Banks Show with Jo.

  “Hey, you guys up for a walk? Nearly lunch, I feel like Macca’s, what you reckon?”

  Rachel looks at Jo. Jo is quite shy. I make a joke to try and make her laugh so she is not scared of me. She hears some pretty nasty voices and often needs a lot of reassurance that her sister isn’t trying to kill her.

  Jo smiles at Rachel. Rachel says, “Okay, give me twenty minutes.”

  I go to my room and decide to clean it. It’s good to de-clutter your room before taking drugs. Even though it’s just cannabis oil, I can get forgetful when in an altered state and spend my time looking for things because they are in hard-to-find places.

  I look at my collection of Coke cans, take them off the shelf, and
then put them back. I decide I quite like them. I gather up my ironed-out Fruit Burst wrappers, which I use as pictures on my shelf. I replace my banana and my orange; they have had enough time together and it would be best if they spent some time apart.

  I decide I might be spending a bit of time on the floor so I move the pictures and get another sheet. I stick some more pictures on the wall opposite my bed and do a quick check for used polystyrene cups. I spot one on my windowsill and remove it.

  In case I start getting forgetful and unfocussed when I have the oil, I start planning what I might do, but I have an inability to concentrate hard on things so I don’t hold the thought for very long before deciding to go check on Lester and see what he’s up to. I look at the clock. Sweet, it’s 11.50.

  I go and make a coffee and look for Lester but he’s not there. I start getting panicky. I obsess for two minutes, then on impulse go and check his room. He’s not there. I check the nurses’ station. They say he’s probably in the bathroom. I panic. Maybe he has backed out or is leaving.

  I start speaking to myself. “He better not have left.” I am almost squealing, hoping he is going to come through for me. Not only do I have a relationship with Lester in reality, I have one going on in my head. Day-to-day relationships for someone with a mental illness, especially someone who is drug-dependent, unstable and having cravings, can be quite chaotic.

  I start praying furiously in the smokers’ room. “Lord, let there be a way Lester isn’t leaving.” Right then, as I’m staring out into the car park with tears in my eyes, I hear, “What you still doing here?”

  “Oh, you’re here!” I say. “Thought you might have left already. Everyone else does; thought you’d be next.”

  “What’s wrong?” He sounds a bit angry.

  Just as I start replying Rachel comes out. “Shall we go? You’ll need a jacket. It’s raining.”

  I look at Lester with questioning eyes. “Well, get out of here and bring me back some smokes.”

  “Sure. Anything else?” I say obediently.

  “No, sweetie, just those things.”

  I go into my room to get a jacket. I have a brown check woollen, extra-large man’s suit jacket made in Egypt. I decide to wear that over the grey shiny hoodie I bought at The Warehouse a few weeks ago, with my skull-patterned pyjama bottoms and my space boots, which are mid-calf chunky boots with no laces, and with zips at the side that I leave undone. I bought the boots two sizes too big, probably because at the time I had an inability to buy appropriate attire. I thought, fuck what the world says, why can’t we walk around in our pyjamas? I top this off with my red hat and sunglasses.

  Jo and Rachel are waiting at the nurses’ station. I notice Jo’s sky-blue beanie, which she is wearing over her newly shaved head. I say, “Nice beanie.”

  On the way to McDonald’s I get fifty dollars from the ATM and subtly put it in my chest pocket on the inside of my jacket. Knew that pocket would come in handy for something. At McDonald’s, Jo gets an ice cream, I get a Filet-O-Fish, and Rachel gets a Big Mac Combo. We sit on the round seats facing the flat-screen television that is playing Juice TV.

  I’m not feeling overly talkative as I’m focused on getting the cash back and the smokes to Lester. I am unaware of the rare gift of freedom of being out of the ward, and the freedom that walking normally makes me feel. I’m too busy focusing on what I’m doing in the next hour. I tell myself to relax and chill. The guy isn’t coming until 3.30. Just eat your Filet-O-Fish and drink your Coke.

  Jo says to me, “My sister.”

  Trying to be friendly I say, “Yeah, she’s nice.”

  Jo looks at me, scowls and starts crying. I don’t know what to do. When people cry it doesn’t usually affect me.

  Rachel puts her arm around Jo and says, “You all good, bud? Don’t worry, we leave eh.”

  Not the kind to leave her lunch half-eaten, Rachel puts what’s left in the bag and says she’ll eat it back at the ward.

  She walks along the street talking to Jo. I feel as though they are leaving me out and I’m not even present, but I have felt that sense of awkwardness my whole life, always being the third or fifth wheel, the unnoticed one. I’ve never been one to join in—unless asked, and then I’m a willing participant. I had lots of friends when I was growing up, but even then I felt like a chimer-inner, as if people would exist in my presence without being aware that I was there. Maybe this is why I used to try and over-please people—it was a way of making myself feel included.

  I say to my voice, “Clay devils.” The voice says, “They just going to concrete.”

  I start speaking to God, asking where the cocaine-laced cigarettes are. He assures me they are mid left left, which means the middle of the main street on the mid left. He touches the left of my spine, just so I’m sure.

  “Right, we’ll stop at the dairy,” I tell Rachel and Jo. I walk inside and stare at the cigarettes. I’m not entirely sure if God wants me to buy cigarettes so I start walking around the shop. I check my chest pocket just to make sure my cash and eftpos card are there. I’m led to the blue and green Eclipse Mints and then a two-litre Coke Zero. When I’m at the counter, God touches the red of my left eye, which I construe to mean I should choose Holiday Red cigarettes, mid top left. These must be the cocaine ones. Then, for myself, I get Horizon Blue 30g tobacco, which I think must contain opiates. Still feeling alienated, I use my eftpos card and don’t even bother being polite.

  When I leave the shop, Rachel and Jo are sitting on a seat outside. I didn’t buy them anything. Normally I would have. I seem to switch between overt kindness and internal nastiness, where I don’t say anything but think really negative thoughts about people and the world. I’m probably getting on a low and into a morbid state; it really is one foot after the other.

  When we arrive back at the ward, it’s one o’clock. I have missed lunch, which I’m thankful for. As I walk through I hide my Coke, then I put it on the shelf in my room, proudly displayed with the Coke logo facing forward. I put my new cigarettes in the drawer and zip my cash into my hoodie. I get my T-shirt, a polyester Nike, and put it over my hoodie to hide the pockets, just in case someone suspects I have money on me and I get into a fight. In the ward you get a lot of staunchly religious ex-gang members who don’t think twice about pulling a makeshift weapon on you and pushing you around. Little do they know I’m religious too and wouldn’t back down, no matter who they are. Despite being a woman, I would stand up for myself.

  For some reason I develop a hatred for some of the people who come in here, maybe because of the stories they tell, how they killed someone and that it was okay. Then they tell you they’re a minister in a church and it’s okay for them to kill people who have done bad things. Then later you find out that the minister is a paedophile.

  I generally pick fights with those kinds of people, can’t help it. I will generally scream at them ’til I’m black and blue. Luckily when you look insane and you’re a white skinny blonde no one takes too much notice of you. Sometimes they yell back at you, but most people find it entertaining. I don’t want to be in a gang or be at war, it’s just that I see myself taking on the world for God: that is my purpose.

  In the early days when I was getting institutionalised I never thought it was because I was mentally ill. I just thought they were trying to stop me taking drugs and the doctors represented a straight world from which I was separate. I guess I thought I was getting put away for being different. In actual fact I was being put away because I had a mental illness and they were assessing and observing me to find out what was wrong. The very fact I couldn’t see this would have made the first part of the diagnosis—psychosis—very easy. Until I could come to terms with the fact I had something wrong with me, I would always be seeing my world, the world in my mind and the outside world, in a distorted way. I would continue to feel endless pain and endless rejection, which you get when you’re sick because you go against the grain, fighting the world from your imagined world, rebel
ling against the laws that deem things illegal and legal. You don’t see the sense in institutions and rules; you just see them as an axis of oppression. I was not fighting for a just cause, like a revolutionary. I was just wanting to break free from the outside world.

  I find Lester. He’s sitting on a seat outside the smokers’ area, wearing his grey track pants. I ask him if he’s all right. He says, “Yeah, babe.” I hand him his smokes. He smiles and says, “Now we’re talking. They extra good ones, if you know what I mean,” he adds.

  I lift up my shirt and show him the money.

  “Okay,” he says. “So we just got to wait.”

  “Do you want a Coke?” I say, getting excited, my speech quickening.

  “Yeeeeaah, babe,” he says slowly. I think he must have just had meds.

  “Okay, I’ll be back.”

  I walk pass the nurses’ station, tap on the window, and wave to Waris. Then I start doing the canoe going past the window as in Austin Powers. Guess I’m in a joking mood. I get to my door and remember I need some cups, so I go to the dining room. Mark’s in there and he’s hoarded six cups, one on top of the other. He’s spilled milk all over the tray, making Milo after Milo. He is standing with milk dripping down his beard and his T-shirt. I don’t say anything. He grosses me out. Sure he’s nice but I still want to get in and out fast.

  Sometimes unwell old men remind me of the paedophiles you see on the news because of their appearance. Judgemental I know, but in a place like this you go into survival mode. I decide I’m unsure as to the state of the cups. I feel they are infected from just being in his presence.

  I decide to go and see if Waris is still around; she’s my nurse for the day. Waris often wears orange and red, and I can’t see an island of red in the nurses’ station. I look in the second smokers’ room by the little library. It is pretty much empty. This room is much smaller than the other smokers’ room. It has two couches with nice purple cushions, and is used as a meeting room so it’s kept tidy. Don’t know if the room is meant to be smoked in but it is.