'Life walked around me': the story of a girl from New York who decided to go to a mental hospital

Bellevue is the oldest public hospital in the United States, located in New York. It comes to mind whenever it comes to "gruesome crimes like being pushed off a platform under a train." 20-year-old Stacy Torres, who decided to go to the hospital for treatment on her own, shared her story. The edition writes about it "InoSMI".

"Life has gone over me"

The decision to go to Bellevue Hospital was preceded by a series of tragic events that occurred in the life of 20-year-old student Stacy Torres from New York. Among them - the death of the mother, the inappropriate behavior of the father and younger sisters, whom she now had to look after. “Life went over me: my mother died when I was 16, and I was responsible for raising three younger sisters and for my father, whose behavior deteriorated dramatically in the weeks before I went to the emergency room. Over the course of four months, verbal abuse and death threats were repeated more and more often, and I could not manage to get through to the social assistance service, ”said Stacey.

She added, "If my life had turned out differently, I would never have gone to Bellevue because I thought there were really crazy people going there."

Poverty in early childhood

Stacey knew need from childhood. Every three months, she traveled to Bellevue with her mother and three sisters to fill out paperwork that allowed her to receive free food. “For example, milk, cereal, peanut butter and tuna,” she said. “We made this trip through the whole city for 5 years, while the age of the youngest sister still allowed us to participate in the program.”

To this place “as if saturated with despair”, many mothers came with their children to receive help. “The procession of mothers dragging the whimpering children passed us, and because of this, it seemed that chaos and order reigned in the crowded corridors at the same time,” she said.

Nearly 15 later, when Stacey was 20, she was registered with the psychiatric ward of Roosevelt Hospital. This hospital was a block from her college and from Columbus Circle, one of the most famous squares in Manhattan, where the girl's mother worked in the now demolished New York Coliseum many years ago. “She was a secretary at an insurance company specializing in life insurance. As a child, I went to this hospital to treat scratches and bruises, ”the girl recalls.

Hospitalization in Bellevue

The day Stacey was hospitalized, she had a colleague with her, a sociology professor named Liz. The emergency room was empty that morning. “I imagined him full of sickness, but instead I found row after row of empty seats. Even at 9:20 am, there were more medical staff than the patients themselves, ”recalls Stacey.

Before going to the hospital, Liz called there to find out all the details. It turned out that Stacey could go to the hospital under the WFP program, which stands for a comprehensive psychological assistance program. But when Liz and Stacy arrived in Bellevue in person, they could not find who to contact: on the phone, a girl named Wanda said that first you need to contact the WFP office, but the hospital employee strongly recommended contacting the registry.

After a while, a man came out of the office - also an employee of the hospital. Liz turned to him, but the answer was "a completely blank look." “I did not understand the reason for this confusion. Why hesitate? Then a thought flashed through. I remembered how Liz half-jokingly told our colleague a week ago that I would not be admitted to the hospital until I started opening my veins right in front of them. I clenched my teeth and slowly took a deep breath. Want action? Well, they'll get it. After a couple of seconds, tears rolled down my cheeks, I didn't even bother to wipe them off. The man was embarrassed, raised an eyebrow and let us into the room from which he had just left. "

Entering the office and closing the door, the man explained that he must be sure that "the case is really serious."

"I didn't trust myself anymore"

The girl remembered "a very strange murder," which she read about in The New York Times. “A 13-year-old boy in Toms River, New Jersey stabbed his father with a XNUMX-centimeter knife in the heat of an argument over a lost container of chocolate icing. After the boy realized that the frosting was gone, his father put him in front of him in the garage and offered to stab himself with a knife, "since he hates him so much." The son succumbed to the provocation, and it all ended in murder, - said the girl. - The story did not go out of my head. I realized that something like this could really happen, and soon began to come up with my own headlines for such news: "Bloody scene played out after an argument during family dinner", "College student accused of murder provoked by his father", "Father kills three people, having found dirty dishes in the sink. And that morning at the front desk, every time I began to doubt the correctness of what I was doing, I thought about this article over and over again. "

Stacey decided that she had to tell the doctors about her suicidal thoughts, otherwise she would not be hospitalized. “Yes, I had similar thoughts, but I would not call it a plan. Until I got to this. I was not going to lay hands on myself that day. But, like a chess player, I thought about everything a couple of moves ahead, and if I got worse, I could not guarantee that I would not do something terrible in a few months. I didn't trust myself anymore, ”admitted Stacey.

Thinking over the different ways of suicide - from carbon monoxide poisoning to a pistol shot - Stacey decided to "pay more attention to the thought of jumping out of the window." “Years later, I learned that jumping off the roof of a building is the most common method of suicide in New York,” she said. "But I doubted that I would have had the courage to do this, and a jump from the height of the third floor could just leave me paralyzed for life."

Stacey had scheduled a visit to the clinic for the time of the day when her sisters were definitely at school. She did not say anything to her father. “I told the sisters to run away if he starts to pester me while I’m not at home: to Liz or to the clinic - anywhere, just not to stay at home. And I decided to hope for the best - that, having come to the clinic, I will receive the necessary help in order to better take care of them, ”she said.

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Now, having got to the doctor's appointment, she was finally able to share everything that worried her lately. Stacey complained that she was desperate and constantly crying. “The last few weeks have been very bad. A couple of months ago I could come to the university and get distracted from what was happening. But I can't do that anymore. I feel extreme despair. I often think ... about hurting myself. Commit suicide, ”the girl told the doctor.

After listening to the story, the doctor asked Stacey to leave the office to talk face to face with Liz. “Muffled voices came to me from behind the closed door. The scraps of words that I could make out gave hope for a productive dialogue. But today I did not want to guess the meaning of the sounds that reached me. I didn't need to. I already knew that there, in the office, Liz - or Dr. Scott, as she asked to call her in the presence of other doctors - sat opposite the specialist on duty and explained to her that if I did not receive professional help, I could harm myself. " - recalls Stacy.

And she added: “While I was waiting for the decision on hospitalization, I was covered with the realization of the irony of my plan. It is likely that I am the only person in the world who really wants to go to a mental hospital. "

"We are hospitalizing you"

15 minutes later, Liz and the receiving doctor left the office. “We're hospitalizing you,” the doctor announced to me, and Liz squeezed my hand lightly, as if to say, “We did the right thing today, baby. Everything will be all right soon. " At least I hoped that was what she meant. It seemed that soon I would finally be able to talk to a person who would be able to deal with my problems. I squeezed out a hesitant smile, believing that it’s still too early to smile full of my mouth. So far, I've only taken the first step. I managed to achieve that I was taken seriously, but I understood perfectly well that I should not flatter myself, ”said Stacy.

The doctor then took Stacey and Liz into the room. Half of the room was occupied by a double bed, with a ceramic sink in the corner opposite it. “The sight of the room, even by hospital standards, made me uneasy,” Stacey admitted. - Almost two decades later, I realized what was missing: cotton balls, gauze, plasters, any other hospital paraphernalia. Diffuse sunlight streamed through the canvas curtains. Light barely warmed the empty space. Compared to my room, it seems that they tried to decorate the waiting room, but it seemed impersonal, like a dentist's office. There were two framed watercolors on the wall: a standard impressionist landscape and pastel flowers in a vase. Although the feigned atmosphere of calm outside made me cringe, I was not ready for the official gloom of my chamber. Looking around the room from top to bottom, I realized that I had never seen so many shades of gray in my life. "

Then a dark-skinned man of about 50 entered the room, pulling a heavy faux leather chair. He explained that he needed the chair to keep an eye on Stacey, and then handed her a pajama set.

“In the restroom, which the nurse pointed out to me, I changed clothes, exchanging a thick chunky sweater and jeans for the clothes I was given. My body hasn't had time to get used to short clothes, which I have not worn since late summer, since evening walks along the Coney Island waterfront and shopping sales in Brighton Beach. When I returned, Liz was already waiting for me in the room. It was cool in the room and my teeth began to chatter. Compared to the silence that reigned in the ward, this sound seemed louder than the noise of a jackhammer used to break the asphalt on the streets. I tried to stop, although no one seemed to notice the rumble echoing in my head, ”recalls Stacy.

She admitted that she "did not want to see herself in the full outfit of a schizo." Yet now she "finally had proof of how low I had fallen."

"I thundered into a psychiatric hospital"

“Perhaps the last few months I have come across as a person who is doing great at everything: I did not drop out of college and received almost one A. I could still form words into intelligible sentences and find the strength to get out of bed. I have not yet been beaten to bruises or raped, I have not become addicted to drugs or started drinking. I washed my hair and brushed my teeth. I did not have HIV (every social service I turned to was in a hurry to find out if I had AIDS). Even considering the hospitalization, I did not fit into any of the clearly defined categories of people who needed help, but now if someone told me that my condition did not deserve their attention, I would have strong evidence: I thundered into a psychiatric hospital "- summed up Stacy.

Then a new doctor came into Stacy's room - a tall, athletic blonde with a "too serious look." “I wanted the old doctor to return. Each word uttered by the new doctor sounded like a punch on the table, and the metallic notes in her voice turned innocent questions into accusations, ”said the girl.

The doctor asked her if Stacey always talked “so fast,” to which she admitted she didn't know. After that, the doctor prescribed the first drug - Zoloft. “For starters, 75 mg,” she said. Without giving me anything but “Okay,” she pulled out a tablet and scrawled something on a yellow recipe sheet and walked out, her heels banging. For the first time in the whole day, I felt a little scared, ”the girl admitted.

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She hoped that after taking the medication, she would feel better. “Up to this point, everything I have experienced resembled Sisyphean labor, but the decision to start taking antidepressants was surprisingly easy. I didn't know how I should feel: relief or horror that the whole process took less than two minutes, - said Stacy. - And what about the social worker promised me? If I just throw pills like some candy, it won't solve my problems, I thought, shaking my leg.

The girl expressed disappointment at how the doctor took her decision to go to the hospital on her own. “I wanted someone to believe that I didn’t just spontaneously decide to go to the hospital because I could not cope with some routine problems. That I was different from the woman I saw recently, croaking at people passing by. Instead, I was prescribed Zoloft, ”she said. - I had more and more doubts. What if I had just answered her question earlier, what if I hadn't thought about it so hard, what if I had just talked more slowly? The feeling of completeness that I had a few minutes ago disappeared without a trace. I again remembered the last few months of my life and tried to determine the very day, hour or minute when I turned into a chattering girl with eyes reddened from constant tears, who had just told the doctors that she would commit suicide if her life did not change by to the best. "

I don't belong here?

In the past few months, Liz has taken care of Stacy in every possible way - talking to her, treating her to sweets, recommending books for reading, and even giving her money. And once, when a girl experienced a panic attack, Liz taught her to cope with such attacks with the help of proper breathing. “When things get out of hand, breathing is the only process we can control,” Liz said.

“In the hospital, I tried to follow Liz's advice: I sat down on a pillow that was folded in half and put my hand on the cold metal bed frame. For some reason, I thought about the "Twilight Zone". Identity or Identity Not Established has never been my favorite episode, but now I remembered it and thought that I now better understand its meaning. In this episode, the protagonist discovers that he does not exist. His wife, friends, work colleagues, even his mother - no one recognized him, and he tried to collect at least some information confirming his existence throughout the series, '' explained Stacy. - Now I also wanted to yell: "My name is Stacy Torres, and to be honest, I don't belong here."

She, Stacey, is not a nutcase, but a brilliant student. “My teacher can attest. I spend a lot of time in the library, rarely share my emotions and take care of my family. But in the hospital I turned into another person who suffers (or not) from a mental disorder, ”the girl explained.

Then in the hallway she saw a guy who caught her attention. “The newcomer was a Latino in his thirties, he looked very fragile in a spacious hospital gown, which was about five too large for him. His short haircut accentuated his thin nose and sharp features. What if he is the same discharged patient, whose place in the department should I take? The man followed one of the nurses, shuffling his feet as if he were not walking but swimming across the pool. The man muttered something inaudible to the nurse on duty, ”recalls Stacey.

The nurse gave the guy a subway ticket and explained how to get to Columbus Circle station. “But the patient’s brown eyes remained empty, as if he did not understand a single word of her. He often nodded and stared silently at the badge the nurse held out to him, ”Stacey said. “As I watched the two men walk towards the exit from the hospital, I hoped that when I checked out, I would leave the hospital with something more valuable than a travel card.”