Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness

by Thomson, MaryJane

  “Really? Are you feeling all right?”

  “I feel fine, just no appetite for food. I’ll grab a couple of slices of bread and go chill in my room.”

  Fiona looks a bit down that I’m leaving.

  “I’ll see you before I go,” I say, “show you my hair.”

  I grab bread and coffee and leave the dining room. I feel relieved not to be in a room with so many people. In my room I sit on the sheet on the ground and put down some bread, my offering of the day for God. My pain has completely gone; it looks like the codeine worked.

  The voice starts speaking to me. “Go and get your phone.”

  “Look, I’m feeling nice at the moment. I’m not in any pain. I don’t need to text you, Rose.”

  The voice starts sounding stern. Every item in my room begins to look angry and harsh. “I need to come and see you. You’re bleeding and in pain.”

  I don’t like the tone Rose is using. I look at the orange and say, “I want to speak to my mother.”

  “Well, you are speaking to me.” The voice moves through my mouth, very slowly and definitively. I start to wonder whether it’s been sent to my head and I am mind-reading. I don’t understand what’s going on. I scramble around for my Vivid pen but don’t find it.

  “You need to get your phone.”

  I decide I need to get out of my room. Even my bag is making a grimacing scary face; the sheets on my bed look coarse and the folds look sharp.

  I go to the nurses’ station looking for Waris. She’s in the TV room.

  “Oh, darling,” she says, “I think it’s time you took the dye out.”

  I decide to ask for the phone later.

  “How is your pain?”

  “It is much better. I’d better get this dye out. Can I have a hair dryer?”

  Waris jumps up. “Of course you can.”

  I get a towel and shampoo from my room. I get into the shower and reluctantly use the shampoo. When I am unwell, both shampoo and soap are the devil because the voice tells me I am African and ‘they’ put bleach in them so my skin stays white.

  I get in and out very quickly. I don’t look in the mirror in case I see something scary. I go into my room and try not to look too hard at anything as I feel God is angry with me and everything will look scary and threatening. I get dressed and look in the bathroom mirror. I’m shocked by what I see. My hair is no longer purple and there is no hint of blonde. I’m not overly pleased. I dry it, and then I get my blue hat, my red hat and my scarves. I decide the blue hat and green scarf go the best with my hair.

  I go and look for Fiona. She is at the table where we were sitting in the morning. “Wow, look at your hair. I really like it. It suits you more than purple.”

  I feel happy to have her approval. “I don’t think I’m quite used to it yet.”

  The flasher guy comes over and says, “You dyed your hair. Think I liked it better purple.” He walks away and Fiona says, “Don’t listen to him. What would he know? Would you take advice from somebody who likes to flash?”

  I laugh. “Nah, probably not.”

  Fiona has her phone out and is texting. This reminds me that I was meant to get mine, but I still don’t want to text that person. “Just texting my husband,” Fiona says. “He says the kids miss me but they want me better. You know, I’m fine. Just frustrates me that people are telling me there’s something wrong with me. I just want to go home.”

  She starts to cry. I put my arm around her, although I feel somewhat removed from what she’s telling me. I say, “Well, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you. You’re the sanest person here.” I mean what I am saying but I feel helpless to stop her tears.

  “And those bastard doctors are never here,” she says. “I still haven’t spoken to Dr Aso. He’s probably playing golf. Why doesn’t he actually come in and help people who need it? I hate being stuck in here. How do you stay so happy?” She reaches for another smoke.

  “That’s why I do my pictures and play guitar: it stops me going crazy. I try and liberate my mind, stop it being infected. It’s not the best environment.”

  Fiona turns and faces the wilting flowers in the dried-up soil. “I mean, look at the garden,” she says. “There are hardly any flowers, cigarette butts everywhere, bird shit smeared all over the ground and windows. And round the back, I hear that’s where they burn bodies. It’s horrible and it’s summer.”

  I look up at the sky and just then a gust of wind scatters some of the dirt. “Yeah, it’s some summer all right. Whenever I end up in here I try to be grateful for the small, simple things, like my sight or my body, otherwise you can end up very depressed.”

  Fiona laughs. “I know what you mean. Thanks for cheering me up.”

  I look out into the car park. People are lining up for the van ride. “I’d better go,” I say. “I’ll bring you back a cold drink, seeing as it’s summer.”

  I walk through to the day hospital. Rachel and Alicia are there, also Jo, Virginia, Mark, Louis and Anton. Guess the others are either late or not coming.

  Just as we walk out the door Nola runs up. “I’m coming too.”

  “Yes, okay,” Rachel says, looking a little annoyed.

  We pile into the van. I get the window seat and am not happy when Milo Mark sits down beside me. He still has last night’s dinner on his T-shirt, today’s lunch on his chin and breakfast on his nose. I sit as close to the window as possible and open it so I don’t have to smell him.

  As we drive down Taranaki Street I look out the window and read the billboards. The voice leads my head to the letters, telling me to text Rose. It then touches my liver and I feel a pain. I often have hallucinations like this. I feel sensations in my head and pains in certain body parts, such as my liver and heart, which I take to symbolise what my voice is telling me. If the voice is mentioning love, I may feel my liver being touched. If the voice wants me to call somebody, I may feel something in my calf. If my ankle gets touched, I take this to mean it’s an angel touching me. It’s a great comfort to know that the voice, possibly God, and everything it is telling me are real. It’s a fantasy come true, as opposed to my being alone. That’s what I fear most, being alone. If you’re always talking to something, how can you be alone?

  The voice touches my eye, which I take as being God’s way of saying “I love you.” We head on to the motorway and out to Plimmerton. When we get there we get out of the van and go and stand on the beach. It’s not warm and there is a gusty wind blowing. I can see waves in the sea spraying water.

  Virginia paces up and down the beach while the others walk barefoot along the sand. I notice how slowly they all move. I look around the beach for signs of things that will give me clues as to what is to come. In the early days of my mental illness, before the voice surfaced, I used to comb the streets of Wellington looking for signs. I would trawl for remnants in the rubbish for hours on end. I thought a person had left me the rubbish and following the trail would eventually lead me to them.

  As I search the beach Nola comes up and says, “You looking for something?”

  “No, what makes you say that?”

  “Oh, it just looks like you’re looking for something. Why don’t you take your boots off and feel the sand on your feet.”

  I don’t want to take off my boots: you don’t get a sense of freedom feeling sand under your feet while being watched and observed by nurses.

  Nola puts her feet in the water and says, “It’s really nice,” as if trying to convince me.

  I half yell back, “I’m sure it is.”

  Jo and Rachel stand by the steps. I wonder what they are talking about, probably Jo having a problem. She always seems to be having problems. Alicia comes over and says, “We’re going up to get a drink soon. You don’t like the beach?”

  “No, I love the beach, just don’t want to get my boots wet,” I say. I wonder to myself why it has to be such a big deal.

  I find a piece of paua, pick it up and put it in my pocket. We pile
back into the van and drive to a café one street back from the beach. Everyone else orders coffee but I get a Coke. I ask for two but Alicia says no.

  “It’s for Fiona.”

  “Fiona can’t have one because she didn’t come,” Alicia says.

  When I get my Coke I think twice about drinking it, but I am pretty thirsty so I decide I can get Fiona one later when Waris takes me out. I hate breaking promises.

  I sit on a chair at a table by myself, staring at a painting on the wall. I don’t much care for conversation with the others: with no hearing aids in I can’t hear very well in a noisy room. I just sit and sip my drink and stare at the picture and the other people, drinking their hot coffees on a hot day.

  As we head back to Wellington I scour the streets looking for signs of my family, my real family, but I can’t see any Africans. I see a mark coming up on my leg and I figure it must be a lesion. When we get back to Wellington, the letters on the billboards start jumping out at me again. I look at the advertisements as if they have been made for me. I see an Air New Zealand one and think I am meant to fly away somewhere, if only I could escape.

  I look over at Rachel and see her talking to Alicia, who is driving. I can’t hear their conversation as they have their backs to me. I’m trying to pick up a sign of some sort as to what to do about Rose. I read the number plates and try and descramble the letters and the numbers so they make sense, and when I read the personalized number plates I see them as messages to me.

  We pull up back at the ward. I wait for Mark to jump out, and feel repulsed to see stains on the back of his pants. I take my time getting out. Louis jumps out before me and says, “Thanks.” I think to myself, that was the only word he uttered all afternoon.

  Back in the ward I head to the yard for a cigarette. It’s about 4.30. Lester and Fiona are at the table. I’m excited to see some normal people. I walk over quickly and say to Fiona, “Sorry, I couldn’t get you a drink. They wouldn’t let me.” I fossick in my pocket, pull out the paua shell and give her that. I feel bad that I didn’t get Lester anything. I sit down and roll a cigarette and ask him how he’s doing. “I’m better now, babe. It was full on having that fight with Stephanie. Nearly got physical.”

  “Not cool how some people get treated in here,” Fiona says.

  I say, “Yeah, know what you mean. You have to watch certain nurses; they can get on a power trip and be Nazis when it comes to meds.”

  Suddenly I feel my pain coming on.

  “You right, babe?”

  “Nah, my pain’s come back.”

  Fiona puts her hand on my back and says, “I’ll go get the nurse.” After she leaves, I say to Lester, “What are you going to do? You can’t just let them get away with it.” I am still angry about Lester being injected.

  “There’s nothing I can do, babe. If I get before a judge, what would I tell the lawyers to say?”

  “I think you should write down exactly what happened while it’s fresh in your mind.”

  “But, babe, I don’t want to. It’ll make things worse for me. I don’t want another one of those injections.”

  I see Fiona and Waris walking towards us. “Oh my darling, you’re in pain,” Waris says. “I go get you something for it, and remember, you will see a doctor tomorrow.”

  “You’re so lucky she’s your nurse. She really cares about you. A lot of them do,” Fiona says.

  Waris has been my primary nurse the last few times I have been in the ward. She says I respond well to her, which is true. I find her easy to get on with: she is generous and kind to everyone.

  Waris comes back with some pills. “I suggest you lie down, sweetheart. I go get you a hot-water bottle.”

  I say goodbye to Lester and Fiona, and Waris walks me to my room. “I like your hair,” she says. “It’s not your beautiful blonde hair but it’s nicer than before. Still don’t think your mother will like it, but it’s your choice.”

  I lie down on my bed and Waris goes to get the hot-water bottle. I take off my boots, turn on my side and look at my pictures. I start fretting about the pain and the blood: there seems to be lots of it. I go to the bathroom and look in the mirror and the voice says I am bleeding from everywhere. I go back to my room and lie down again.

  I start to get drowsy. Waris comes in with the hot-water bottle. “Can I go buy some smokes later?” I say. I seem to be forever asking for things.

  “We’ll see how your pain is. If not, we’ll go in the morning.” I look at how much tobacco I have left and say, “It will have to be the morning, seeing as I am running low.”

  When I am in this state I smoke incessantly because it helps control my anxiety. If I don’t smoke regularly I can fall into a state of panic. I don’t know what I would do in a hospital that has smoking bans. I can smoke up to fifty a day.

  I look over at my boots and they look angry. Sometimes hallucinations like this can be so threatening they make me scream and run away. All kinds of things can appear: animals, patterns, shapes, even people. I also get happy hallucinations where I see God, or a friendly spirit sweeping through the trees. These can give me a feeling of euphoria because I am so enchanted by what I see. I never tell anyone about these hallucinations because they are something special and unique to me.

  I figure that God is angry with me and I had better ask for my cell phone. “Hey, Waris, would I be able to grab my phone off you?”

  She sits down on my bed. “What you want that for? You trying to get drugs?”

  “No, no drugs. Just want to get in touch with a friend who said they might come and visit.”

  “Not Rose again? She threatened to call the police last time you were in here. I see you now have a different person as your next of kin. You can’t contact Rose again.”

  I look at the wall and it still looks menacing. I’m trying to persuade her, so I say, “I’ll just have the phone for a bit and then I will give it back.”

  “Okay, but MaryJane, I don’t know if these people you hang around with are the kinds of people who should be coming to visit you. They make you unwell when they give you drugs.”

  “The person I’m texting doesn’t give me drugs.”

  “Well, I will be watching you. I get you your phone later. I think you should rest now until dinner.”

  “Okay, Waris.”

  My eyes start to close and my memory goes back to the last time I was in here. I sent Rose heaps of texts telling her I was Jesus, and she got in touch with the ward, telling them I had texted her. When I am ill, I text people excessively—not everyone, just certain people. I do it because the voice creates a story of a life I am leading and puts these people into the story. There is always a part of me that is in reality, and on a conscious level I know they are not going to help me but I do it anyway.

  Usually I just send messages filled with biblical language, trying to get the person to see me a certain way. I don’t understand that the messages can portray me as unwell. I don’t see myself that way. I don’t see myself any way. I just act on impulse and brace myself for the consequences.

  I am aware that texting Rose is risky behavior but I am also being told to do it quite sternly and repetitively by the voice. As I drift off to sleep the voice says it will talk to me later. The codeine relaxes me and eases my anxiety. I sleep deeply until Waris comes and wakes me for dinner. She bends down and picks up the bread off the sheet. I grab a tomato, my last one, and go and have a smoke. Lester and Fiona are not out there. I figure they’re at dinner. As usual I want to avoid the crowd so I sit and smoke about three cigarettes in the empty yard, then I lie down on the bench and watch the clouds drift over my head. For a change I don’t think of much; I just relax and enjoy the feeling.

  I must have been lying down for a while, because when I get up I’m hungry. I go to the dining room and get my tray. The menu is curried chicken and rice. I grab a slice of bread and chop the tomato on to it. I sit in the empty dining room. The cleaners are working in the kitchen. I stare out the window a
nd look at the tree. I have a sensation on my third finger, which means the voice is telling me to face the tree—my third finger means three, or tree—so I face the tree, which I understand to mean truth. I have also mapped out the minutes and hours of the day on my fingers, so when I get touched on my index finger, for example, it may mean I have to go somewhere or do something at one o’clock. These sensations on my fingers validate what the voice is saying.

  I eat a bit of rice and decide I don’t feel like it so I eat the bread and tomato. I start thinking again about the phone. I am not aware of the time but I start to get a bit stressed. I go and find Waris. She gives me the phone reluctantly and says, “I want it back.” I go into the lounge and look for the newspaper. I see it sitting on one of the couches. I sit down and pick up the crossword section.

  Sitting and looking at the crossword section is something I picked up on my last stay in hospital. All day and night I would sit and look at the crossword and the letters. I even drew my own alphabet and that was how I had a conversation with the voice, until the voice developed and I could actually hear it. I would sit in bed and ask questions as to what I should do, and my head would get led to letters, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. To an observer it would look as though I were just reading something, the same page day and night. It came as a comfort to be communicating with someone. Slowly I got better at reading the letters and hearing.

  For a brief time the communication would stop, so I don’t completely trust the voice and I want to be sure of what I am doing and whom I am talking to. I’m not completely sure the voice I’m talking to is, in fact, Rose. I look at the letters and let my eyes get led. The letters say “It’s Rose” and “You can text me.” I feel my heart rate picking up so I go and have a cigarette.

  Fiona is in the smokers’ room talking to Nola. I say, “Where’s Lester?”

  Fiona smiles. “He’s in bed.”

  Nola is drilling Fiona on her rights under the Mental Health Act. Fiona seems preoccupied so I step outside. I have the phone in my hand and I start thinking about possible texts to send. I decide I won’t send the message tonight. I will do it tomorrow when I have had time to think about it. I’m petrified Rose will get the cops on to me.