“Oh, good, you’re here,” she says, as if I just got home. She puts the clipboard down. “You can finish the rest of this. I’ve been filling out paperwork for two hours.”
I can’t believe how Susan is acting. She looks relaxed.
I appear calm, but it is taking all my effort not to run back into the facility and save Janni. It’s been years, but I still remember looking down from the window of my room in the psych ward, watching my father’s car drive away. I cried myself to sleep that night.
“Where is she?”
“She’s back on the kids’ unit,” Susan replies, gesturing deeper into the building. “We’ll be able to go back and see her in a few minutes. It’s almost visiting hours. Which are six to seven, by the way.”
There are visiting hours? I think to myself. This is my child and I can only see her for one hour a day? Forget this. I am not going to let someone tell me when I can or cannot see my child.
“Is she here under a voluntary or does she have a hold?” I ask, remembering the terminology from my own experience. A “hold” means that you can’t leave, that a doctor has determined you are a danger to yourself or others. “Voluntary” means you or your parents, if you are a minor, checked you in. I was a voluntary, in the loosest sense of the word, as I was a minor and my father had checked me in.
“It’s voluntary, I think,” Susan replies, then thinks for a moment. “I had to sign a document giving them permission to treat her. They weren’t going to take her at first. The receptionist kept saying there were no beds available, but I told them I wasn’t leaving. Eventually, some guy from admissions came out and he started telling me the same thing, that they have no beds. So I just said ‘January’ to her and of course she blew up and started screaming and hitting me. The admissions guy looked shocked. I kept calling her ‘January’ and she kept hitting me until the admissions guy took her back. So much for not having any beds, huh?”
I stare at Susan, feeling my anger escalating.
“So you provoked her to get her in here,” I say, an edge in my voice.
“I had no choice. Even Dr. Howe says she needs to be here so they can observe her and figure out what is going on. It wasn’t easy for me, either. I didn’t know if I was making the right choice until we went onto the unit. There’s an eight- or nine-year-old boy back there and he told me, ‘She has what I have.’ That made me feel much better.”
It doesn’t make me feel any better at all.
When six o’clock rolls around, we head down a long corridor. Susan is pushing Bodhi’s stroller. I want to see my daughter. The corridor ends at a door, and I reach for the handle and pull. Nothing happens, so I start yanking on the door like it is stuck.
“We have to wait for the receptionist to open it,” Susan tells me.
Of course, I realize, feeling stupid. The door has an electronic lock that must be disengaged from a remote station.
I pull on the door again. Still nothing. I am locked out from my little girl. I would rather deal with the violence and constant fear of her hurting Bodhi. This is much worse. I had the situation under control. All I had to do was keep Janni and Bodhi separated. Now I have no control at all.
“It’s still locked,” I snap at Susan. “Go tell the receptionist we are locked out.”
“You can call on that phone right there,” Susan replies, pointing to a phone next to the door.
Once the door finally opens, I find myself in a cafeteria. It looks decent enough, like a cafeteria in any hospital. I see several patients, all adults, eating with family members. I can tell the patients right away, even if I can’t see the plastic wristband on their arms that identifies them as such. The patients are all in pajamas, bathrobes, or sweats. Their hair is unkempt, like they haven’t bothered to wash it.
I follow Susan as she turns left and exits the cafeteria into a courtyard. We follow a stone path. It looks pleasant enough until we turn another corner and I see a handful of adults sitting outside a building. They are all smoking. I smoke and Janni sees me smoke, but for some reason I don’t want Janni exposed to these people. Janni has never been impressionable in her life, has never been able to be influenced, but suddenly I am terrified she will start to identify with these people. What really bothers me is the blank expressions on their faces. I don’t know if it is the drugs they’re on, or if they’ve just been beaten down by life, but either way I don’t want Janni to start thinking they are what her future will be. Janni is brilliant. Janni is going to go to college as early as she wants to. Janni is going to do something incredible for the human race, like cure cancer. Janni is going to win the Nobel Prize. Janni is not going to bounce in and out of places like this for the rest of her life. I have to get her out of here.
“They have a pool here.” Susan points out a fenced-in pool, filled with leaves and sticks, dirty and uninviting. “At least she can go swimming.”
I look at Susan like she’s nuts. This is not a fucking summer camp. It’s a psych ward.
The kids’ unit is in the back of the hospital. There’s another gate with a phone. Susan tells me I have to pick up the phone and it will automatically ring the nurses’ station. As I do, I look up at the twelve-foot-high chain-link fence covering the patio. A giant avocado tree hangs over it. The avocados are rotting, with some having already fallen. I can’t take my eyes off the chain-link covering. Why is that even there? Who the hell could climb twelve feet of steel bars? And even if someone could, there is nowhere to go once they got out.
An orderly comes out and unlocks the gate for us. He leads us across the patio and opens the door to the building, gesturing for us to go inside. The first thing that greets me is the cacophony of noise. Above me a TV is blaring Toy Story. There are about half a dozen boys sitting in chairs, but none of them are watching the movie. Most of them have shaved heads and matching tan baggy shorts with white T-shirts. In the few seconds it takes us to cross this room, I hear the words “fuck,” “shit,” and “faggot” several times as they play at beating the crap out of one another, which is what passes for fun in certain neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I can’t tell exactly how old any of them are, but all of them seem far older than Janni. I spot one boy, sitting off by himself, hugging his knees and staring straight ahead like he’s trying to pretend he is somewhere else. I don’t blame him. I would be, too. This is not a psych ward. This is juvenile hall.
“That’s the boy who said he knows what Janni has,” Susan says, seeing my gaze.
“The girls are through here,” the orderly says, inserting his key into the wall next to a set of double doors.
“You keep the boys and girls separate?” I ask, massively relieved.
“During the day,” the orderly answers. “At night some of the younger boys come in here to sleep.”
They let some of the boys sleep on the same wing as the girls? I think to myself, looking back at the boys. That’s it. I am taking Janni out of this place. This is not a hospital. These boys are not here because they have psychological or psychiatric problems. They’re probably here because they beat the shit out of someone and are just too young for juvie.
The orderly opens the door and there is Janni. In the middle of the hall, surrounded by girls, none of whom look younger than fifteen.
But she is laughing and clapping her hands excitedly. The girls move as a group for the community room, and Janni goes with them, right in the middle of the pack. Only then does she see me.
“Daddy!” She runs to me, not in fear, but instead like she’s having a good time at a sleepover and I have just arrived to pick her up.
“Hey, sweetie.” I go down on my knees and take her in my arms, wanting to hold her, wanting to reassure her that Daddy is here now. Daddy is here to save her.
She wriggles free from me.
“Did you bring me Pizza Kitchen?” she asks, smiling, rolling her wrists like she does when she is excited. “Mommy said you were bringing Pizza Kitchen.”
I am still trying to take in eve
rything that is happening. Where is the fear?
“Ah, I wanted to get here as quick as I could. Del Taco was on my way, so I got that instead.”
Janni frowns and hits me.
“I don’t want Del Taco! I want Pizza Kitchen!”
I stare at Janni, not understanding. Who cares about food? Do you realize you’re locked up?
“Can you tell me how you are doing?” I ask her, still searching for any signs of fear. Just say the word, Janni, and I will take you out of here.
She ignores my question, retrieving the bag of Del Taco from beneath Bodhi’s stroller. She goes over to a table, pulls out the French fries, and starts eating.
“Janni, how are you doing?” I ask again. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” she answers, her mouth full. “Just hungry.”
This can’t be right. “Janni, do you know where you are?” I ask.
“A hospital,” she answers as if I’d just asked what two plus two is.
“Do you know why you are here?”
“Because I want to hit Bodhi.”
“If you stop trying to hurt Bodhi, you can come home,” I remind her.
“I can’t stop,” she answers.
I am getting increasingly scared. “Do you understand, then, that you are going to have to stay here?”
Janni nods.
“Do you understand that you will be staying here without Mommy or Daddy?” I ask her, convinced she doesn’t yet grasp the full extent of what has happened.
She nods again. “I like it here,” she says through a mouthful of fries.
No, this is not possible. I wanted to go home. I didn’t want to be in a psych ward.
“It’s fun,” Janni continues.
She seems content. Relaxed.
In a psych ward.
She looks up at me. “Tomorrow can you bring me Pizza Kitchen?”
IT’S FULLY DARK as I drive home. I have the window down, letting the windblast in, so I can chain-smoke, tossing one butt out the window and lighting another immediately after.
Ahead of me I see the taillights of our other car, the one I drove to Alhambra. Susan is driving. Bodhi is asleep in the back.
I can’t bear to look at the passenger seat next to me, because it is empty. I left her there. For the first time since Janni came home from the hospital nearly six years ago, she will be going to sleep in a place we are not.
As we were leaving, Susan kept telling me Janni was happy there, like she was trying to reassure herself. “We always wanted to find friends who get her imagination,” she said, “and now we have.” She paused and started to tear up. “I just never thought we’d find them in a psych ward.”
What hurts so much is that I know Susan is right. And that is why I hate her so much right now. Janni was having the time of her life, happier than I can remember her being in years. I wanted her to find happiness, but not in a psych ward.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
March 13, 2008
I slept late the morning after we left her at Alhambra, so the first thing I did when I woke up was check my cell phone, expecting there to be a message from a doctor there. But there wasn’t. All through that second day, I waited, but a call never came.
We know Janni is all right, because we visit every day. Janni always seems happy. She loves the other girls and they love her. It’s like she suddenly has a dozen older sisters. Janni likes the staff, too, because they call her “Miss Tuesday” or whatever day it is.
Susan keeps telling her, “This is just like living in a dorm, Janni. Like when I went away to college.”
But it’s not. I know Susan is saying that as much for herself, to ease her own pain, as for my benefit, but you go away to college at seventeen or eighteen, not five. If this really were a college dorm, then I could learn to accept it, but she is here because Alhambra is supposed to be helping her. Except nothing is happening. They aren’t treating Janni. She’s still on the same medications she was on going in. They’re just holding her, and with each passing day it feels like this is becoming our future. I want a doctor. I want several doctors. I want them studying Janni, consulting with each other, and coming up with a plan. I want to know that this incarceration will end.
But the only person who ever meets with us is a social worker. And there is only one doctor here for the entire hospital, Dr. Allen Wingfield. It takes me four days of leaving him messages before he finally calls me back.
“This is Dr. Wingfield. I heard you wanted to speak to me.”
“We brought our daughter in about a week ago, so what’s the plan?”
“We’re still observing her behavior,” he replies curtly.
Janni’s hospitalization is not turning out how I thought it would. I keep thinking somebody has to recognize what is going on with her. I’m used to doctors having at least some answers. I’ve always trusted them, because I’ve never had a reason not to. I got sick, went to the doctor, got a prescription, and got better. Now I am in a world where nobody seems to know anything. This guy is a psychiatrist. He has an MD and years of experience. How can he not have an answer?
“Do you think it is bipolar? That’s what Dr. Howe believes now. Have you spoken with her?”
“I have not,” he answers simply.
“Don’t you think it would be good to talk to her?” I suggest as gently as my emotions will allow. “She’s been seeing Janni for three months.”
“To be honest, we don’t find much benefit talking to the outpatient caregiver,” Wingfield replies. “We go by what we see here.”
“But that’s the problem. You’re not seeing it. The hospital is not the real world. She doesn’t have to deal with Bodhi.”
“I am sure that is true, which is what makes me doubt that she is bipolar or schizophrenic. If she was, I would expect to see a continuation of her symptoms here.” Wingfield’s tone changes. “By the way, that reminds me. She’s been telling the staff and the USC intern who sees her every day that she has schizophrenia. That’s not a word your average five-year-old would know,” he continues. “Where did she learn that word?”
“She’s very smart,” I answer. “She has a 146 IQ.”
“I get that, but someone had to teach her that word. I asked her what schizophrenia is and she told me it was when you see and hear things other people don’t.”
“Which is true,” I answer.
“Yes, but it is very spot-on for a young child. Have you or your wife told her she has schizophrenia?” he asks pointedly.
“We’ve been dealing with this for months. One moment she is sweet and the next she is violent and then back to sweet again like nothing happened. So we’ve been trying to figure out what is going on.”
“That doesn’t explain how she knows about schizophrenia.”
I know where he is going with this. Without a clear answer from doctors, I spend much of my nights on WebMD.com. A year ago I was resistant to Asperger’s or autism, but now I look over the symptoms again, trying to find Janni in there. But she isn’t. The symptoms don’t match. I keep coming back to the page on schizophrenia: “almost complete lack of interest in social relationships, restricted range of emotions or no emotion at all (flat affect).” I think back to Janni saying she “hates” Violet with no passion. “Bizarre behavior, making the person seem ‘odd’ or ‘eccentric’ because of unusual mannerisms.” I think of Janni becoming enraged when others dismiss her rats as imaginary. But it is the violence I desperately need to explain. “In active stages of schizophrenia, a person may react with uncontrolled anger or violence to a perceived threat, regardless of how illogical that threat might seem.”
So yes, she’s heard us talking about it. What the hell are we supposed to do? This consumes our lives. But if I tell Wingfield this, he will think we are “leading” Janni. We’ve never “led” Janni anywhere in her life. We’ve just been trying to keep up.
“It’s in our families,” I answer instead, which is true.
Wingfield is silent for a mo
ment. Then, “Well, we’ll keep observing her.”
This is not what I want. I want a plan.
“We just need to control the violence. That’s all we need. She’s been in for a week and there haven’t been any medication changes.”
“Because we aren’t sure what she might need. She clearly has some issues with controlling her anger. I don’t deny that.”
“What about Lexapro?”
“What about it?”
“I …” I hesitate, wondering how to proceed. “I used to have problems controlling my anger. I would blow up over little insignificant stuff, similar to how she screams and hits when her brother starts crying. I could feel it coming, but I could never stop it.”
“Did she ever see any of this?” Wingfield asks.
“Sometimes. Very rarely, but I finally went to a psychiatrist who put me on Lexapro. It does take the edge off for me. I’ve talked to Dr. Howe about trying it, but she refuses because of the increased risk of suicide.”
Wingfield is silent for a moment. “She’s right. Antidepressants can increase the risk of suicidal ideation,” he finally says.
I’ve been diagnosed as having chronic depression, but the manifestation of my depression was anger. Maybe it is the same for Janni. Maybe my miracle drug is her miracle drug, too. I’m not really worried about suicide. She’s only five, after all.
“But,” he continues, “if it works for you, then maybe it will work for her. Let’s try it and see if it helps her anger issues.”
I feel an immense sense of relief. This may just be the answer. If Janni is just like me and if Lexapro saved me, then it can save her as well.
• • •
THE NEXT DAY, the sixth day since Janni went in, we arrive but I don’t see Janni waiting for us in the hallway like she usually is, waiting for the food we bring since she hardly eats anything from Alhambra’s cafeteria.
“Janni?” I call out.
One of the female “technicians,” as I have learned they are called, a woman covered in tattoos, approaches us. She looks like she just got out of prison, but she is nice. “She’s sleeping in the quiet room.” She points to our left.
January First: A Child's Descent Into Madness and Her Father's Struggle to Save Her Page 8
