delirium By Kelly Klages
I
’m not an expert in the field of mental health problems. Most people who experience a sudden attack of the things I’ve listed probably aren’t, either. All I know is that one day, I was a sane, lucid, intelligent person—and then, all of a sudden, reality turned upside down on me. My senses went topsy-turvy. My world was filled with confusion, distrust, and Fear with a capital “F.”
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We talk all the time about that nagging, accusing voice of Satan, or our consciences being hammered and terrified with the Law. But what if you actually heard those voices—spelling out all your faults—out loud? In my case, it was brought on by childbirth complications. After an emergency C-section, I hemorrhaged... and didn’t stop. No one understood what was happening. They gave me oxygen and lots of transfusions. I gasped for air and felt myself dying. My doctor didn’t think I would make it. But then, after an airlift to the city hospital and a LOT of work from about a zillion doctors, the miraculous happened. I was a physical wreck, but I was stabilized. Two days after they brought me in, I woke up in the ICU. That’s when I started hearing the nurses’ conversations.
It started when a nurse, hidden behind one of the ICU partitions, found something I’d written. I didn’t know how she’d found it; in fact, I didn’t recognize anything she was reading. But it made her upset. And angry. She hated me. She showed the other hospital staff. They agreed that I was, in fact, a terrible, ignorant, hateful person. They spread what I’d written to the whole hospital staff. They told everyone that I was uncooperative, lazy and evil. But I only seemed to hear these conversations coming from behind partitions, walls, and doors. After a few days, I was moved from the ICU into the cardio ward—I had a form of congestive heart failure and needed monitoring. The conversations I heard followed me. It got worse. The staff was constantly talking about me behind my back. They were cussing me out
