Power - The SMHAFF International Writing Competition 2014 by SMHAFF

THE SMHAFF INTERNATIONAL WRITING COMPETITION 2014

Foreword Bipolar Scotland is delighted to have worked with the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival on the 2014 International Writing Competition. The high standard of the entries that poured in made selecting the winners quite a task. We decided that the theme for the competition should be Power to reflect the theme of the 2014 Festival. Writers were invited to interpret that in any way they liked â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and there was a tremendous amount of imagination and variation shown. Over 130 entries came in across the various categories of short stories, poems, newspaper articles, diary or blog entries and letters. The judges read and considered every one of them very carefully. Some were entertaining or funny, others challenging or thought provoking. And, with many people using their own experiences of mental illness as inspiration, there was a lot of emotion and pain on show as well as some inspiring tales of recovery. Once the judges had each picked out our individual favourites we met as a group. This was, as you might expect, a very lengthy session! We discussed every entry individually and a long list of possible winners emerged. From that selection we then debated and deliberated until we had agreed on our top ten. The most difficult task was then to agree the overall winners â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but we got there after a debate that was passionate without ever becoming heated! Everyone who entered the competition gave us something to think about. Each entry reflected the thought and care that had been used by its author to craft a submission. And all of the shortlisted entrants deserve real praise for standing out amongst such a high quality field. My sincere thanks go to everyone who entered the competition, to the judges for their dedication and careful consideration of the submissions and to the staff of both Bipolar Scotland and SMHAFF who administered and supported the process. I commend the ten shortlisted entries to you and hope that you enjoy reading them as much as the judges did. Gordon Johnston Chairperson, Bipolar Scotland

Let go By Aileen Paterson Don’t be afraid of solitude. Don’t bow your head, there’s no shame in failing. You could not make the rose bloom in winter, nor stop the tide from coming in. You could not make the birds sing in the dead of night, try as you might. You could not pin down the stars, you could not harness the moon, nor take it from its orbit. You should not try, nor wonder why the sky does not love you. The clouds do not need you to shed their tears. The sea does not need you to drown your many sorrows. Let go of worrying, of breaking your tired heart upon the rocks. Put out the flame of your misery. You can find your way again. Rest. You will learn to be yourself once more. 2

Crowning glory by Kris Holt It’s Saturday night, half past nine, and the lights are out again. I get the front door closed with a kick and drag the carrier bags into the lounge where they finally split completely, dumping the groceries all over the floor. I wasn’t sure if he’d be here. Sometimes in the evenings, he goes to the pub or to visit his friends, but not tonight. Instead Michael sits at the table, reading one of his scraggy paperbacks by candlelight. His fingertips protrude from his gloves as he picks at the pages. He doesn’t look up to greet me. ‘You were ages.’ ‘I stopped off in the library,’ I say. ‘More research for my project.’ ‘What did you get at the shop?’ ‘I bought bread.’ ‘Anything to put in it?’ Michael isn’t the kind of man to bother with small talk. None of this ‘how was your day, how are you feeling’ nonsense. He ignores me as I grope around in the shadows, searching for apples that I remember running through the checkout. ‘It’s cold in here,’ I tell him. ‘So put on a jumper.’ ‘You could help,’ I say, fishing under the sofa for a can of tuna. ‘I could,’ he replies, turning a page. Even doing something so simple, Michael’s movements are nimble. Perhaps it’s because he’s so thin. It makes his limbs and his fingers seem longer than other people’s. By rights, he should feel the cold more than me, but it never seems to work that way. He has a large polo-neck sweater that he wears pretty much straight through the winter, though it’s not a nice one like you see sometimes in magazines. This is proper army surplus, complete with patches on the elbows. His trainers are so old that his feet practically poke out the front of them. His hair is sandy, thick for the most part, though sometimes, when I run my fingers through it, I can feel it thinning at the crown. He doesn’t like it if I mention his thinning hair. It reminds him of his age, of his mortality. Or maybe it’s a man thing, his vanity. In his mind, Michael still wants to believe he’s twenty, though I know for a fact he’s double that and more. When it suits him, he can ignore the twinges in his joints and still act like a young man. It lets him pretend that his potential is still resting just under the surface, waiting to be tapped. ‘So, anyway,’ he says. ‘There’s jam,’ I reply. ‘Strawberry?’ ‘I think so.’ 3

He takes the jar from my hand, scrutinises it under the wavering candlelight. ‘This is raspberry.’ ‘Is that a problem?’ ‘No, I just prefer strawberry.’ It’s one implied criticism too much. I’ve worked twelve hours today, and I ache. I checked my till at the end of the day and I was so tired I nearly fell asleep while doing it. ‘If it’s not good enough,’ I say, ‘maybe you should buy your own jam.’ Instantly, he’s on the defensive. He turns one of those long, wiry shoulders to me and sulks behind his book. ‘I didn’t say it wasn’t good enough.’ ‘You didn’t have to.’ It’s not the money that bothers me really, though there are days when I wish that handsome millionaires weren’t in such short supply in Gowrie. It’s that I’m never the first thought he has. There’s always a baccy tin that needs topping up, or a mobile short of credit. A while ago, I thought that I’d like to get a dog. It would have been nice, a chance to go for walks together, rediscover ourselves a bit. Just now, I don’t think we’d cope with the expense, much less the rediscovery.

Michael lights one of his reed-thin roll-ups, eyes me warily. I sense that he knew this was coming, has probably been rehearsing the argument in his head while he was waiting for me to get home. ‘I’m a bit short of cash at the moment,’ he says. ‘Aye, I bet,’ I say. I don’t have any reason to say it, except that he never has cash, and I’m fed up with coming home to find the meter empty and the house in darkness. ‘What does that mean?’ 4

I open the kitchen cupboard and am assaulted by the twin smells of damp and mould. I stack the baked beans next to a tin of pressed ham. There’s a v-shaped dent in the top of the tin that I’m sure wasn’t there when I picked it out. ‘Nothing.’ ‘Nothing is something.’ I’m annoyed then, just wanting the right to be irritated without having to list the reasons. I lean around the doorway. ‘I told you. It’s nothing.’ He turns another page, avoids my eye. The candlelight flickers. ‘Jess, you know your problem has always been that you bottle up your feelings.’ There it is, the charge he has laid at my door for four of the five years we’ve been together. I ferment the anger inside me, immediately proving him right. I feel like a port barrel, my insides burning with the whiskey touch. For four long years, I’ve been uptight. If I told him what I really think, he tells me, I’d feel better. Twelve hundred days and more spent searching for the words. In the beginning, my mind whirled with the search while he just cupped my breasts and fucked me so hard that my eyes watered. ‘I have a job coming up,’ he says. ‘Really?’ I’m surprised, and my voice betrays me. ‘Don’t sound so shocked.’ For a moment, I’m contrite, and I want to say something nice, tell him I’m pleased for him. But the feeling is coming back into my hands from where I was carrying the bags, and the knotted plastic has left painful red marks around my wrists. ‘Does it pay?’ I say. I imagine his frown. ‘It’s an exhibition. It’ll be good publicity and it might lead to other things. But I’m never going to be Damian bloody Hirst, right? This isn’t London. I can’t cut cows in half or sell our dirty bedsheets to some wealthy twat. I’m never going to be rich. You need to accept that and move on.’ Michael is a poet and performance artist. He mostly does readings at festivals and occasionally shows photographs that he takes around the city. A few years ago, he was commissioned by the tourist board to write about the new village of Scone. He wrote about kings and the weight of their crowns, intending it as satire, but they missed the point and published it anyway. It’s the most successful thing he’s ever done, and to this day he’s still sore about it. I finish stacking tins and try to let the anger go. It isn’t easy. My insides are twisted and tearing at me like the handles of the carrier bags. I feel more relaxed when there’s a wall between us, when I can’t see Michael’s lips narrowed in that way they get when he argues – or worse still, when he demonstrates his superiority by refusing to argue. The kitchen window is small and thin, and the band of light that seeps into my space is granite grey. ‘Will you make me something?’ he calls. My mind is halfway to telling him to take a running jump out of the large lounge window, but I’m already next to the worktop and I don’t have the energy left to argue. I pull at the bread bag, tearing it open, and grab the cleanest looking knife from the grimy drawer 5

under the sink. For a moment, I test its weight it in my hand. ‘I don’t want the jam,’ he says. ‘Did you get beans? You could make beans on toast. You’re good at that.’ Even when he compliments me, Michael has a way of turning the words, exposing their edges. We can’t make toast without topping up the meter, and he knows it. I reach out with my empty hand and stroke the spot on the wall where the ashen light falls. For a moment, I watch the shadows dancing like puppets. It’s the smallest thing but for a moment, I’m just pleased that there’s something I can actually control. ‘I know it’s a pain now but it won’t be like this forever,’ he says. ‘I’ll make it up to you when I have some money.’ I bite back every sarcastic reply that I think of and take a deep breath. I just want something from him, some acknowledgement. It was his work that inspired me to study local history, but he’s long since lost interest himself. I wonder if I worked harder, would he notice me then? If I was smarter, if I could match his quick wits, would he respect me? If it wasn’t always easier to go along with what he asked, if I said ‘no’ from time-to-time, where might we be now? ‘Jess? Are you listening?’ His voice, so sulky, petulant. ‘The shop closes in a few minutes.’ I want to see him then, this slender man I loved once. When I step through the doorway he is studying his wristwatch in the candlelight. The flame burnishes the links, making them glow, golden brilliance reflected in his eyes. I stare at him as he stares at them, each of us locked into our movements as though everything set out before us is pre-ordained. I turn back to my stone-coloured shadow in the kitchen and imagine a crown atop its head. Michael thinks only of men-made-kings, but I’m interested in the women who became queens at Scone. They’re my project. I’m studying them, learning about their pains and the indignities they suffered. I know that expectation weighs more than any band of gold. I am the epitome of calm as I take the ten pound note out of my pocket, unfold it, and place it down in front of Michael. He looks embarrassed then, his skinny shoulders hunching down inside his rancid jumper. ‘Do you mind going? I’ve been getting the aches in my knees again today. I wouldn’t make it there before it closes.’ There’s a strange pressure in my head, as though something is trying to escape but can’t find a way out. I should feel bitter or resentful, but I think of those queens and their steely resolve. I channel their regal serenity as I take the electric card and the ten pounds, pausing only to think about how strange these simple items suddenly feel in my calloused palm. A minute later, I am walking down the dingy stairwell, out of the front door and across the street. A hundred yards past the shop, I reach Smeaton’s Bridge. The river below me runs thick and fast, like arterial blood. I watch it for a few moments, and then I take the card out of my pocket and drop it over the side. It bobs momentarily, a shrill square of white in the darkness, and then it rushes away forever.

Let’s play superheroes By Fiona Stirling Christopher flew above the West end of Glasgow, gazing down at the night crawlers of Byres Road. The creepy nocturnal hunchbacks had been officially employed by the council a few years back as ‘Midnight Refuse Collection and Facilitation Associates’. Bin men, with a fancy name but no salary to match. Still, it gave them something to do while the rest of the city slept. Everyone except him it seemed. He let himself veer side to side, deliberately dodging in and out of strict no flying zones. He was feeling reckless. Sighing loudly, he changed course by tilting his shoulder back; flying upwards, higher above the city. He pushed himself forward with a lazy kick, slowing his breathing to compensate for the low oxygen levels at this altitude. All too soon the buildings below were black shapeless blobs and the crawlers, well, they vaguely registered as ant type creatures. How funny it would be to stay up here forever, thought Christopher. He began to make swim-like motions through the air, jerking his legs and spinning his arms in a poor version of a front crawl, easing himself through heavy, grey, joyless clouds. Before he could fly Christopher thought that clouds would be deliciously sweet, like colourless candyfloss that melted in your mouth. His first mouthful of cloud had left him disappointed. There was no melting of anything, just a dull, sticky paste that lingered on the roof of your mouth. At best, he would describe clouds as bitter. Those light fluffy ones you see on sunny days, they would float whispers of themselves into your mouth, leaving the taste of a very vague and boring lemon. The worst were angry storm clouds, which sat plump on the palette, as if you’d just sucked on a damp cloth covered in pepper. When he thought more about it, about his life, Christopher realised that flying had left him disappointed in many ways. But he had almost never flown at all. Just like his parents, he was born powerless. Of course they could have paid to have him powered up prenatally, but it simply wasn’t something they could afford. They never flat out said he had been an accident but nobody planned to raise a child in a one bedroom flat in the Gorbals. Nobody sober anyway. But they loved him, fed him, clothed him. And they made sure every year that his name was on the transplant lottery ballot. This was a system designed by the Government to help young people from disadvantaged backgrounds improve their chances in life through ‘the gift of transplant’. Powers made for bigger pay checks after all. Eligibility for the scheme ends precisely on the day of your 21st birthday. Christopher wasn’t sure what changed so much on one day that meant you were worthy of a chance or not. This was a question he had considered all too often as his own 21st approached. He remembered counting down the days to his birthday, crying quietly when nobody was around, cursing his genes at the thought of forever being a powerless freak. At that stage he would have taken any power - heightened smell, fist spikes, even acid urine. So when the phone call came offering him flight he couldn’t believe his luck. It was one of the most coveted abilities available! His parents had called everyone they knew, dragged him round the neighbours to boast about the success he was about to become. The day of the operation, his father had slipped a delicate gold brooch shaped like a pair of wings into Christopher’s palm, and gently patted his fingers closed around it. It had cost him a month’s wages. He promised himself he would always wear them. What they hadn’t realised however, was that the power of flight was also one of the most common, making employment terribly competitive, and with no formal flying qualifications Christopher soon found himself scraping a living as a parcel delivery 7

agent. For hours each day he flew between office blocks delivering notes, letters, official documents and anything else his employer cared to hand him. But Christopher didn’t mind having such a tedious job because he could fly. He could just step out his front door and launch himself into the air. No need for a car or public transport, and no need to rely on anyone else. And the money from the job was enough to cover his rent and his air tax, even leaving a little left over for beer. Then he met Lola. She was a shape shifter, so technically he couldn’t claim love at first sight; she had been in the shape of a man. But Christopher was drawn to her immediately. He had been delivering his final package of the shift and daydreaming about what to have for his evening meal – Tennent’s or Stella - when he flew directly into her. Well, him. Christopher had apologised profusely to the man, and as he did he felt a strange tingling in his stomach. The guy was not particularly attractive, and Christopher had never thought he was that way inclined, but he could not deny the attraction he was feeling. His heart sped up beneath his shirt, pounding against the gold wings he kept on a chain around his neck. He had been about to try and speak when quite suddenly the man’s face dissolved like jelly, collapsing into the collar of his shirt. Shocked, Christopher took a step back and prepared to lift off but in the small time it took him to do that, dozens of worm-like fleshly tendrils had coiled up from the man’s empty collar and merged themselves together like wet plasticine to create the most beautiful woman’s face he had ever seen. Lola. That was two years ago. Now they shared a flat, which was small and cramped, not quite in the Gorbals, but near enough to walk comfortably to his parents’ house. Lola thinks it’s a shithole. Christopher thinks it’s cosy. Lola is unhappy and Christopher knows it. That’s what’s keeping him awake, what’s driven him to fly to the edge of the stratosphere at 3am on a Tuesday night. He tilts himself upright in the sky, faces an invisible opponent. He punches his fists out; one two, one two, one two. Quick, shadowboxing hits that connect with empty air. When his arms begin to ache he gives up and stares at the moon. Cheese. He licked his lips without thinking. No doubt though that it would be as disappointing as clouds had been. As disappointing as I’ve been for Lola, he thought out loud. The words misted in the cold and crept slowly away from him, out into the world. It wasn’t just the flat situation, the real tension came from the fact she was a Gene and he was a Transplant. She would never admit it, but he’d seen the way she paused when people asked if her boyfriend came from a family of flyers. Her eyes would flicker, a hesitation on her lips. He’s a Transplant actually, she would say. And they would nod and say that was great, they loved Transplants. And Lola would sigh. If she saw Christopher watching she would pin on a smile, his cue to make her laugh so she really would smile. But both felt the hollow little space the secret game was carving out beneath their stomachs. A hole getting bigger every day. Christopher worried that soon, really soon, one of them would simply snap in half at the waist. The top half would topple off the bottom, leaving insides strewn carelessly across the ground. Excuse me, they would say, how careless of me. And they would pour their organs back into their chest and plaster themselves back together with masking tape and staple guns. It would be too late by then though, once the insides are out it’s too late. He considered crying, shrugged it off, and continued to bob above the cities below. He wondered what it would be like to fall. Falling. That was something he couldn’t do anymore - the flight thing, it was like a reflex. If he missed a step going down the flat stairwell at night, no problem. Flight kicks in faster than a light going on and he’s floating, 8

injury free, down the remaining pissy, concrete steps. It seemed ideal but really, he missed it. It felt good to fall. To feel the heaviness of his being pulling him off balance in one direction or another. Plummet. Oh, it would be good to plummet. His eyes drifted to the moon once more. A buzzing wave began to lap at his feet, making its way up his legs as it grew braver. He wasn’t sure what it was but he didn’t try to stop it. Quite quickly it was at his chest. It was filling everything, every crack and crease. It felt good to be whole. The waves were neither hot nor cold. There was no temperature to them at all actually, just a general swishing sensation. The tide was reaching his heart and he held his breath, sure it would hurt. But as it overwhelmed the pumping organ there was no pain at all. He let out the air he was holding, the waves hugging him tightly within. With a final push they burst over his head, rushing to the last recesses of his brain. It gave him a sudden clarity that made him gasp, then smile. Everything slowed as he clicked his heels together determinedly and began to push up further than he had ever flown before. If he looked down he would see Glasgow had disappeared now, as had Scotland, and the rest of the UK. It was fullblown continents below him now, twinkling with electric smiles. But he only looked up. It was hard to breathe, and his lungs clenched demandingly. He sucked as hard as he could through mouth and nose, but all he got was remnants of O2, like straining on a straw in an empty glass. He didn’t panic, just kept pushing, even as the air ran out entirely. He was on the edge of the world. The edge of consciousness. He closed his eyes and let the edge come closer. Then quite suddenly there was nothing, and his body was falling faster than a body should. He spun, head, over heels, over head. A human in a giant centrifuge. Plummeting. He was getting his wish but he wasn’t even awake to feel it. As he sped towards the cold, stone slabs of ground it was clear he 9

was going to die. The impact would obliterate him; send pieces of him for miles around. Really, it was amazing the Earth’s forces hadn’t already wrenched him apart during the fall. Then, mere yards away from his concrete demise, a pillow of pink gunge leapt from the ground and enveloped him entirely. As he collided with the pavement moments later, his cocooned body simply bounced repeatedly, then rolled to a stop at a nearby high rise. The goo clung to him a few moments longer, then slipped into a puddle on the floor. Seconds later the liquid was standing tall. Lola. Breathing heavily, looking down on Christopher with sad eyes. She watched him a little longer then held both arms out to her sides. Centipedes pulsed up and down, collecting on her muscles and bulking her up to ridiculous, Schwarzenegger proportions. Satisfied, she knelt and lifted Christopher from the ground as if he weighed little more than a multi-pack of crisps. Balancing him in one horrendous arm, she squeezed two huge fingers into her front jeans pocket, and pulled out the gold wings she had found abandoned on the bedside table a few hours before. She placed them on his slow rising chest. He never went anywhere without them. “You forgot your wings baby,” she said. Then she kissed his forehead and began the long walk home.

The ECT experience By Kerry MacIver You stir and open your eyes. You gaze unfocused at the ceiling. Already you feel fear. It’s not a normal day on the ward. Something is different. Shit. I’m getting ECT today. The sick churning feeling in your stomach grows. It’s stupid to feel like this. You know exactly what’s going to happen. That’s why you feel this way. A nurse walks in. ‘No breakfast Jane, ECT is on for this morning. We’re expecting you’ll be down around 10 o’ clock.’ Oh God, that makes it seem even more real. Panic is beginning to mount. Do others feel this way before it? I glance at my watch. 9:10 am. Not that long to go. I suppose I’d better get up. Instead, I think about ECT. Electroconvulsive Therapy. I can’t believe they’re still doing this sort of thing. It’s out of the stone age! Discovered in an abattoir in the 1930s to stun animals before they were slaughtered. That says it all really. I guess I have a morbid fascination for the whole thing. I’d love to see one, but doubt I ever will. Does the doctor administering it get some sadistic thrill out of it? Exerting power over people? What a conversation stopper at parties! I wonder if they’re forced to give it but secretly disagree with the practice. Time is going on Jane, you’d better get up. After I numbly get myself ready, I wander out to the seating area trying to appear normal. You know you only sit there because you can hear the office telephone ringing when it’s your turn. It makes the wait longer though. It’s 9:45. The phone rings. Your heart lurches. Is that me? No sign of any staff. No, not me. My hands are getting clammy and I can’t stop fidgeting. I feel sick with nerves, but in a small way I’m looking forward to it. The staff down there are so nice. You get made such a fuss of and they make you feel special. Not like the ward, where you’re lucky if you see your named nurse for 10 minutes a day. Despite the unpleasantness of it all, you know you’re going to be jolted out of the unbearable mental and emotional pain for a few hours. But it never lasts. Like all the times before, I hope I am the one in 20,000 that dies during the procedure. Just to make sure, I ate at 7am this morning having sneaked food in to my room last night. They would never suspect, the anorexic that I am. They say you have to fast from midnight. I’m hoping I’ll choke on my own vomit. Please don’t let me go back to this torture of blackness and mental hell. I just want it all to be over. The office phone brings me back to the reality outside my head. I glance at the clock. 10am. My heart suddenly accelerates and I can feel it beating in my throat. Deep breath, Jane. Calm down, calm down. I start to tremble as a nurse approaches me. ‘Right Jane, it’s time, I’ll be taking you down this morning. They’re ready for you.’ Wow! They’re actually on time for a change. I take a deep breath. Here goes. I know I’m really going to regret this afterwards. On the way down to the suite I feel as if I’m on an important journey. I can feel the adrenaline pumping. Everything seems surreal. 11

‘Are you ok?’ the nurse asks. ‘Just a bit nervous,’ I reply. I feel that everyone in the corridors knows where I’m going. I feel ashamed. A freak. A lost cause. They’ve tried everything else. Nothing worked. The ECT suite is one of the ﬁrst things you encounter when you go through the front doors of the hospital, but it’s not on the map of the building. It’s almost as if they don’t want to admit that this thing still happens. You don’t want to project that sort of image to the ignorant world outside. I’m here. We sit in the small waiting room. I’m ﬁdgeting again and my hands are cold. This part is different from the rest of the hospital. It smells clinical. You look through the frosted glass of the door to where that room is. You can make out the shapes of the ECT staff moving back and forth. What are they doing? Hurry up! They said they were ready!

After what seems agonisingly long, the door finally opens. Fuck…fuck…fuck. I know that when I wake up, all of this will be gone and I will have the headache from hell that no hangover can match. ‘Hi Jane, will you come on through?’ The ECT nurse is one of the loveliest persons I have ever met. She is so warm and genuine. How can she do a job like this? In stark contrast to the informality of the rest of the hospital, she is wearing a uniform. I walk into the room to be confronted by a number of people. They’re all a blur. I lay down on the bed. They don’t need to tell me. I know what to do by now. What is it now? Seven courses? Eight courses? Nearly a hundred shocks anyway. Everybody swoops into action. I hear a chirpy voice. ‘Hello Jane, here again? No breakfast?’ I smile. It’s an old joke. The voice belongs to the lovely Irish anaesthetist. I joke back in an Irish accent. ‘No breakfast.’ My accent is crap and we both laugh. I feel guilty in lying to him. He’s so nice. The last time I begged him to give me an overdose of anaesthetic to kill me. I was crying when I pleaded with him. But he didn’t. He said he would lose his job and go to prison. My shoes are taken off and a blood pressure cuff strapped to my arm. Somebody else puts heart monitor patches on my body. Everything goes hazy as they’re bustling around me. I look at the doctor who is going to do this to me. I am terrified of him. He has the power to inflict so much pain and devastation at the flick of a switch. He’s quite handsome but I hate him. I want to vomit on his posh expensive suit. That would wipe the smug expression off his face, the Bastard. I turn my head to look at the box on the table beside me. I’m horribly fascinated by it. It looks ancient. It has two dials on it and you can see amps/volts written next to them. One time I woke up and felt absolutely fine. It turned out that the thing had broken down. I got quite a laugh out of that one. Beside the ECT machine are two electrodes sitting in a bowl of gel. You would’ve thought those would be hidden. They are going to be put on my temples, then an electric current passed through my brain. How barbaric. I can’t believe he does this day in, day out. It must get so boring after a while. I look back to the counter where the doctor is. There’s a student doctor present. How cringeworthy. They never know where to look, almost as if they’re embarrassed to be there. I hope it’s not the student who’s going to administer the shock. I guess they have to learn somehow. Do they talk about this in the pub afterwards with their classmates? I hope not. I look away in shame. Everything is ready. The Irish anaesthetist puts the needle in a vein on the back of my hand. It’s still bruised from the last time. He’s always so surprised it doesn’t hurt me. ‘Ready Jane?’ I nod. My fear from before has lessened slightly. I see the anaesthetic disappear slowly into my vein. It’s always so stingy. I can feel the cold liquid travelling up my arm. He’s done. ‘You’ll be out like a light any time soon’… I try to fight it... but here it comes... the most gorgeous feeling in the world. I think I could get addicted to this. Maybe this is why I’ve signed the papers so often... the bliss of this feeling. It’s beautiful. I want it to last forever. It’s indescribable! Woozy... drowsy... safe. I don’t want to wake up. Just before my eyes give in to heaviness I am vaguely aware of an oxygen mask on my 13

face. My eyes close. Nothing. It feels like hours later, but in reality minutes. I’m suddenly thrown back into my own body again. What the hell has happened? I can’t open my eyes, but... my head... it’s so sore. It feels as if my brain has been thrashing around in my skull. I feel sick. I slowly open my eyes. The light hurts. There is a strange person standing over me talking. ‘Hi Jane, do you know where you are? You’ve just had ECT... how are you feeling?’ What? Who is this person? Who’s Jane? Where am I? Who am I? What’s happened? My head... I’m going to be sick. I close my eyes. I want to curl up and fall asleep forever. ‘Come on Jane, wake up, let’s get you to sit up.’ I try to sit up but realise I’ve pulled all the muscles in my back and legs. What did they do to me? I somehow manage to struggle up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. ‘How do you feel?’ That person again. Who is she? My mouth is dry and I try to lick my lips but my tongue is weird, like sandpaper. It feels like I’ve bitten my tongue. It’s swollen. My bottom lip is burst. I thought the mouth guard was supposed to prevent that. ‘You’ve just had ECT, let’s get you a nice cup of tea in the other room. Try standing up now.’ I feel dizzy and disorientated but manage to get to my feet. Aided by the nurse, stumbling along the way, shaking, I make it to the tea room. I sit down heavily in a daze and stare into space. After a while things gradually begin to become clearer. There is normality here. It’s reassuring. A kettle is on the boil and there are biscuits on the table. I turn to the nurse. I recognise her now. I’m in hospital. The room after ECT. My head feels savaged. I am offered paracetamol for the pain. Yeah, like that’s going to work! Then reality asserts itself. I woke up. I didn’t choke on the table. I didn’t die. The enormity of this hits me. I can’t even do this right. I start to cry. I can’t even fucking commit suicide properly. What a bloody failure. You are useless. I hated eating that forbidden food this morning, and all those extra calories...? For nothing. ‘Time to go back to the ward now.’ With great difﬁculty I get myself out of the chair and stand unsteadily. Luckily the ward is just up the corridor. We go up in the lift. The nurse leads me to a room. She says it’s mine but I don’t believe her. This is not my stuff. She’s got the wrong room. I try to protest but she tells me to lie down. ‘You’ll feel better in a while.’ I lay down in the foetal position. It’s strange being in someone else’s bed. I hope they don’t come back and ﬁnd me in it. Suddenly I recognise my journal amongst these strange objects. Has this person been reading it? My mind is numb and I lay in a stunned stupor. My head aches. Feeling empty and alone I fall asleep for the rest of the day. As I drift away, I feel despair with the knowledge that all this is going to happen again in a couple of days... Maybe next time I won’t wake up...

The clinic By Greta McGough ‘Let’s talk about your memories.” the Doctor said. “Tell me about your life.” He seemed nice. Carol glanced at the notice behind him, and wondered about it. ‘Memory Clinic - Benefits for All.’ Carol began to talk. ‘Um. Happy childhood. No real teenage problems. Married my high school sweetheart… Good times. Until Gary became ill. Then it was a struggle. No money coming in, needing to care for him. Endless bills. And watching him die.’ She brushed away a tear. The Doctor said nothing. ‘Now I’m broke. I’m not young any more. I don’t know what to do.’ He tapped a finger on the desk. ‘Money is a big problem?’ ‘Yes. Can you - help me?’ ‘Perhaps. We’re partly a research organisation, and we do pay our volunteers. In fact, sometimes a situation arises where we can pay a considerable amount of money to an individual… Would that help?’ Carol looked hopeful. ‘Really? I just feel so - powerless, you know. I’m sure that if I could clear the bills... Get a bit of control back into my life...’ Power. Control. Who didn’t need a sense of that? He sighed. This was the tricky bit. But if she hated what he suggested, simple hypnosis would remove all memory of the conversation. ‘We have developed an unusual technology,’ he explained, ‘which takes memories from one person, and gives them to another.’ ‘You mean – you could take away my memory of those difficult years?’ ‘We could, yes.’ ‘And you would pay me? I don’t understand.’ ‘It’s research. We could also borrow a small memory of yours – just one – and give it to someone else. As it happens, a lady approached me recently who has a lot of money, but who has had a very unhappy life. Abusive parents, uncaring husband. She would pay a great deal for just one of your happy memories. It would be a life-line for her.’ ‘But – I would have lost that memory?’ ‘Oh, it’s only one. Taking more than one would always be counter-productive. You have so many happy memories. You would not miss one. And I’m sure you would not begrudge someone else a little of your good fortune.’ 15

Carol was silent for a while. ‘Of course,’ the Doctor continued, ‘we would also remove unhappy memories for you, if you wish, as well as paying you enough money to start over. Tell me, Carol, what would you do, if you had money?’ Control. Start to feel good about life again. ‘I don’t know. Buy a little shop, perhaps. Or study something. I’m not sure.’ ‘Well, we like to offer our volunteers any support and guidance that we can. Think about it. There’s no pressure. This is the amount you could expect, in exchange for just one of your memories.’ He pushed a piece of paper across the desk, and Carol’s eyes widened. This would more than cover her debts. It could start her on her way to a new life… ‘Call me in a week or so, when you’ve had time to think about it.’ ‘I think I know already.’ He waited. ‘I’m – I’m going to say yes.’

Within ten days, Carol woke up in a fresh, clean, private room, ate a good breakfast, and went for a stroll in the grounds. The Doctor was waiting when she came back. ‘So how are things, Carol?’ ‘Great. Like a weight’s been lifted.’ ‘I’m glad. And you have performed a wonderful service for a lady who has never been half as happy as you were.’ ‘That’s good to know.’ ‘So all that remains is your final check-up, and then you can leave us to start you new life. Come back in three months, for a follow-up, and to see if there is any help or guidance we can offer.’ ‘I’ll be there.’

It was reassuring to sit in the pleasant office, three months later. Carol gazed at the notice on the wall, and wondered about it. She had heard - somewhere - that volunteers could make serious money, here. Her little shop could use a cash boost. ‘Let’s talk about your memories, Carol,’ the Doctor said, after he had introduced himself. ‘Tell me about your life.’ He seemed nice. Carol began to talk.

Legacy By Laura-Jo Gartside Dear Patients of the Willard Asylum, We found your suitcases. You know, the ones you brought with you when you were admitted? They had all your things in, and when the first of you died, it seems that some nurse couldn’t bring themselves to throw your stuff out. So they put it in the attic. Then someone else died, and I’m guessing two cases in the attic wasn’t so different from one. Then two cases turned into three, three turned into ‘it’s just how we do things here’ and maybe for once that wasn’t such a bad thing. They found 429 suitcases in that attic. That was back in 1995, and now they are being photographed one by one, I am writing to tell you how immensely powerful they have made you. I don’t know if you’d believe me. I imagine you felt powerless on admission. I don’t know what series of events conspired to land you at Willard’s gates and I don’t know how your illness – if you even had one – was affecting your world, but I do know it can’t have been nice. Or is that just another assumption by just another nurse? For all I know you may have been looking forward to a period of care and respite. And anyway, who were you at all? What did you want from life? What had you achieved? What did you think of your admission? The photographs give no clear answers, but none suggest resignation to a bleak existence before dying within the walls. We are told nothing. It’s what makes it so magical. For without the filter of medical notes to read through, without the preface of diagnosis, or the running commentary of colleagues, we are free to ‘meet’ the 429 personalities that peep out from the photographs on www.willardsuitcases.com all by ourselves. And what personalities! Ausborne H; a tiny vice and mechanical pencil sharpener? Anna B; I am endlessly jealous of your skill in fine embroidery. Elizabeth H; why did your suitcase only contain four safety pins? Shot glasses, Mary H? Ok, perhaps we know some things. A couple of you made it into a museum exhibition once. And one book has already been written. I might even read it one day. But not yet. Not while I can look at your things and make my own speculations about who you were. As interactions go, well... I grant you it’s not ideal. It’s very one-sided. But at least it’s not one-sided and twice removed. Right? I know it is not what any of you intended, you know, have your identity reduced to the contents of one bag. And that you were all so much more than this, even those of you carrying medals and certificates. But please, take heart: For many, it will be suitcases containing the most mundane objects that wield the most power over our hearts. And whatever you packed, you are now all forcing the world to meet you as you saw yourselves in a particular time and place. You demand we stop and wonder who you were. You insist we remember that there is always a person behind an admission, and prompt us to wonder if there is someone right here right now – in our families, our workplaces or on the wards in which we work – that we haven’t got to know. Who we 18

maybe could. You choices of what went into your suitcase remind us of both our right to individuality and our right to hope. It makes your status as psychiatric patients a footnote. Your true message is one of personhood. Do you see what I mean about power now? Oh you’re more than remembered. 50100 years after your death you’re still making us wonder. You’re making us ask. Your photographs are making us challenge our preconceptions, maybe each other, and I like to think we’ll learn something from that. What? Yeah, well, that would be another thing I don’t know. Still, here’s one thing that isn’t an assumption: Images of your hope, of your personal identity and your aspiration of a life beyond diagnosis are now being shared across the world, and it has created a remarkable legacy. Not just the triumph of personality over prescription, (and I would hope inspiration to all those packing bags tonight), but an enduring question mark, and with it the reminder to always ask. There is nothing more powerful than that. Much love Laura xx

Blossom By Anais Durand In a week, I die. Those are the first words that appear in my mind as the automatic doors of the hospital close behind me in their robotic and impeccably noiseless motion. In the street, the blurred silhouettes of passers-by defile in front of my eyes, hurrying someplace, busy with the anticipation of life. I hear the rattle of front doors, the roar of cars driving past, a dog barking, a hint of a laugh, surreal sounds that echo in my ears without carrying any meaning. As I walk past shop windows, I catch my distorted reflection in the dirty glass and stare back at it for a few minutes. My appearance is heavy with the weight of the shock I have just received. I walk home, my footsteps slow and uncertain. I hit a major low when entering my studio apartment. Its oppressive atmosphere engulfs me, and for the first time I realise what a dreary place it is. The room reeks of lonely. That’s probably why I got used to the constant migraines so quickly. It’s a feeling that belongs to the place. I lie awake on my bed, my mind blank, my head throbbing, and let emptiness consume me slowly. On the second day when I wake, I reach for the telephone and call my boss. ‘Hi, this is --. I quit.’ I say briefly before hanging up. I sit on the carpet and decide to go through my stuff. Under a pile of old college books, I find my photo album. Its pages attack me with the fragmentary remains of my past. Pictures travel in front of my eyes like a vast sea of memories that demand to be relived. I won’t relive them. No one goes back in time. We can only go forward. Lighting up a cigarette, my eyes clouded with the incommensurable agony of regret for the things I never had the courage to do, I find myself yearning for a past I never had. Longing for some other life. Remembering a future I will never have. I start to think about futile things like how I will never go skinny dipping or get married or see the world or dye my hair or have a real fight or know who my father is or give birth or hear the crunch of fresh snow under my feet ever again. How I will never see the world. The ashes from my cigarette end flick on the carpet, I watch them fall one by one, and they each remind me that my failing brain is crumbling under illness and that I am slowly disintegrating into a swarm of multiplying black cells that only want to swallow me alive and swallow me dead. I know I ought to call Mum. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. By the time night falls, I have fallen asleep, lying sideways on my mattress, enraptured by the thickness of the night. On day three, I make a short list of the things I want to do, purely because I want to, not to satisfy anybody else but me. I decide it’s up to us what choices we make, what we spend our breaths on, what things are important and what things are not. I think about how limited we are within this strict parameter of time that only gets smaller as each second, each minute ticks by. I go out without even bothering to lock my front door. First, I go to one of those creepy toy stores that no one ever notices and buy the prettiest doll I find. Its golden ringlets and blue ribbons remind me of childhood and cotton candy and merry-go-rounds, and that makes me happy. Have a baby, check. Next, the tattoo parlour. Then the hairdresser’s. When darkness falls, I look around me, at the pavement, the street lights, the neon signs flashing in the night, and I feel dread at the idea that one 20

day people will struggle to remember my name, that I will only be a vague memory in the history of the world. I smile at every passer-by that crosses my path. They have looks of distant suspicion on their faces, but it doesn’t hurt me. Clusters of people move on the street, I feel like bumping into them and making myself heard, sharing their jokes. I am drawn to them by an invisible force, a desire to share and connect and affect. I probably won’t call Mum, though. I catch my reflection in a car window and I laugh maniacally at the mane of bleached hair that falls on my shoulders. Some bystanders join me in my laughter, although I am unsure whether they are laughing with me in the contagious ecstasy of the moment or at me, the doll-cradling peroxide freak laughing at her own reflection. I spend all night wandering aimlessly on the street, and on the fourth day I refuse to go back to my apartment. All my life I have lived secluded, a recluse trapped in the confinement of four blank walls. I feel fear at the fact that I haven’t really accomplished anything. Some old man on the street is playing a song I know on his banjo and I sit on the pavement next to him and sing over his melody for what seems to be hours, waving my doll around. The old busker first gives me a look of distrust, but then explodes in a roar of laughter when I start making up words to the song. Some onlookers drop a few coins at my feet, tutting to themselves at my desolate appearance no doubt, and I sit there mesmerized, laughing at the madness of life. It’s true that the best moments are the shared ones. I get up and walk towards the imposing fountain that stands in the middle of the plaza. I feel the sudden urge to jump in it. Skinny dipping, check. When I emerge from the water I feel distinctively different, like I am reborn as someone whom I have wanted to be all my life. I feel so powerful in this moment, with my clothes drenched, my newly blonde hair cascading in front of my eyes, and that stupid doll in my right hand... I feel so unconditionally alive. I sit on a bench until the early hours of the morning, shivering quietly, the wet doll sat on my knees. When the sun rises I get a bus back to my studio and stare out of the window, observing people living, people being people, people being oblivious of the hundreds of lives that are ceasing to exist around them as they go to work, sip a drink, share a laugh. I wonder if they realise the fragility of it all. Probably not. That is the great illusion of life. We are all invincible until we’re not. The bus stops in front of a modest-sized house and my eyes are drawn to the lone spring cherry tree that stands on the front lawn. I find beauty in the weeping blossoms that swing from its branches, the way its pale pink petals depart unrestrained, flying to a new horizon. I swear I can hear its oval leaves whisper as they dance in the wind. As the bus starts to move again, my eyes remain fixated on the house that is getting smaller and smaller and disappears as the bus turns the corner of the road. I bring my hands to my face and rub my temples before letting out a long sigh. That was Mum’s house. On the sixth day I decide to go out. I go through the usual pre-party rituals with mild excitement: put on an overly thick coat of mascara, spray an intoxicating cloud of cheap perfume on my neck, paint my nails a violent red colour, admire them for a while then bite them until they are sore, the taste of polish bitter on my tongue. 21

When I enter the club my nostrils flare with the dank smell of the room, a mixture of inebriation and sweat. I feel so infinite with the music pounding in my ears I start to weep, in silence at first, I try to hide my tears behind my glass, pretend the stains on my teeshirt are from spilled whisky coke and not from the overflowing well of salty water that is building up inside my eyes. The electronic music drowns my sobs anyway, so I succumb and cry and cry and cry.

When my eyes reopen, the spectacle is magnificent. I see the room through stagnant teardrops that refuse to leave the balcony of my eyes, explosive flashes of bright orange, light blue, neon green, strobe lights are shining like stars, the disco ball orbs like a translucent moon. I am in total corporal exhilaration, insatiable, alive with the dancing crowd. Someone has crept up behind me. I sense the personâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hands hugging my waist, delicate and timid hands encircling me, before I feel their moist breath behind my left ear, their 22

lips tracing my neck and depositing a tender kiss on my collar bone. I turn around. It’s a girl. Her mouth stretches into a playful smile and I feel compelled, under the spell. I smile back. What the hell. On my last day when I try to get up, I feel a wave of nausea which I repress immediately. I lie on the carpet, my muscles aching, my limbs feeling raw and exposed, exhausted with the effort of life. I realise that I am living my last ever tomorrow. On the bedside table sits the box of pills I will be ingesting later tonight. My death will be clean, there will be no spurts of blood, no gaping wound, no atrocity. In the bathroom, I am hit by a sudden epiphany. I want to tell people that to survive in this world we have to rearrange our perspective, align our perception in order to be fully present in the moment, I want to speak of the brevity of time. I want to describe the overwhelming feeling of omniscience that I experienced at the fountain, that all that we ever need is all that we have, all that is right under our eyes and that has been there all along. I want to speak out all those things, but the only person present is my reflection stubbornly staring back at me and blinking at me in the cracked bathroom mirror. Later that night, I pick up the phone and dial Mum’s number. It rings three times before she picks up, her voice husky with sleep. ‘Darling is everything okay? It is nearly midnight.’ It is right then that I realise that I knew the words to say all along, I was just lacking courage. ‘Hi Mum,’ I say. ‘Everything is good, just wanted to hear your voice.’ ‘Are you sure everything is fine?’ ‘Yes, I love you. I love you so much, Mum.’ I hang up, a faint smile hovering on my lips. Bye Mum. I bid you farewell in life, we shall say hello again in death, in the beyond. When the doctor calls Mum, he will tell her the diagnosis. He will try to explain to her the incurable abomination that was growing inside my brain. He will use exactly the same words he did with me, trying to sound empathetic, his eyes focused on some distant point behind her left ear. Then Mum will go home and cry for days, weeks, months maybe. But one day, perhaps in a year, or two, or more, she will open her front window and see the big cherry tree in her front garden, and all the pastel petals swirling freely in the warm spring air, and she will understand. How I refused to be terminal for the rest of my life. How I decided to make my own decisions. How I claimed my power back.

Tug of war By Veronique Kootstra July 2014 Dear Mum, You often ask me what I write and I tell you that I write stories, I make things up. I create characters that don’t exist outside of my stories and place them in situations that I have come up with. Suddenly that seems so much easier than writing this letter to you. This time my words have got a different purpose and meaning; they are personal, honest and are charged with emotion. They are for you. A lot has happened in the past and we have both experienced it in a different way. I saw things from a child’s perspective and you were the mother who struggled to cope with family life and manic depression. I don’t want to dive into the murky pool of the past and drag the bad memories to the surface, leaving the good ones to rot at bottom. You too need to let go of the past; there is no point in adding ‘If only...’ to the start of every sentence. You might not have always been there and visiting you at a psychiatric hospital from a very young age is not in the curriculum of an idyllic childhood, but you did not ask to be burdened with the illness either. We cannot change the things that have happened, but we can focus on the days that still lie ahead. I don’t want to say future because that seems too daunting. That would be too much pressure as we don’t know how long that future is going to last, but we do know that there are twenty-four hours in a day. Just take one day at a time. I like the idea of our joyful memories being represented by seashells. We could go to the beach, scan the sand for shells and choose ones in different sizes and colours for each happy memory. My first one would symbolise our trips to the local ice rink; I waved to you every time I skated past the wooden benches where you were sitting. A pink-shaded shell would have to represent the countless times we watched Pretty Woman on video whilst eating your homemade rice pudding with raspberry sauce. It has always been a constant power struggle between you and your manic depression; playing tug of war until one would pull in the rope whilst the other would be dragged along the floor. It was like having an extra family member who would clear a room full of people at a birthday party because everyone knew they were trouble. It seems that every time they win they take a part of you. Accepting the disease has always been a continuous battle for you and that’s partly why you’re often so against taking your medication. Please don’t let them add more wins to their scoreboard. They will never let go of the rope, but you can at least create a distance. Don’t let them get close. I want to let you know that they can never break the bond between us. I feel helpless when you tell me how lonely you are. I listen and tell you that I understand. These are just words of comfort, if only they could take away your feelings of alienation and your fractious thoughts. I know that the fact we live in different countries is difficult for you. It’s difficult for both of us, but that does not mean I have stopped caring about you or your well-being. I worry about you and wish that there was more I could do. Neither of us can make your manic 24

depression go away; if only we could get rid of it by cutting that rope, we would have done that a long time ago. But you need to show that you’re stronger than them. Some people need to take lifelong medication to treat their diabetes or heart problems and you need it to weaken our disruptive phantom family member. One last thing, what’s your favourite flower? When I sent you those flowers for your seventieth birthday last month, I realised that, shamefully, I don’t even know. My favourite is the blossom on a cherry tree. Please start searching for those shells and I will do the same. Miss you and love you no matter what.

Just talking - letter to my psychotherapist By Hazel Christie Dear Ms Campbell, Some people do psychoanalysis for pleasure. I’m not one of them. For me therapy has been a life-saver, a thin dividing line between an existence that I can tolerate and one that is too overwhelming to bear. And you have been the architect of my progress, pressuring me to ‘just talk’, trying to give me a way to tell a story about my world. You have helped me to grasp the words, to make the sentences, to find the ways of speaking that allow me to establish a relationship with myself that is less destructive, more soothing. You ask me what I’d like to talk about. I find this open-ended approach distressing. I hesitate, never sure where to land, unable to give voice to my concerns, unwilling to look you in the eye. I struggle to break the cold inward deadness of my depression. We talk about silences. I tell you that I want you to send me a rope, a lifeline to rescue me from the destructive, crushing thoughts in my head. I need you to take responsibility, to guide me, to give shape to our conversation. Sometimes our exchanges are terse, based on my anguish that ‘just talking’ doesn’t do any good. Once I swear at you, and ask you ‘what’s the point of fucking talking’. You stare me out and ask ‘why don’t you fucking talk to me and find out’. I am chastened by my outburst. I begin to depend on you. I store things up to tell you and you come into your own when the walls come crashing down around me. I have suicidal thoughts. I turn one way and then the other, unable to decide what to do, which way to go, waiting until I can see you again. You’re concerned about me. But it backfires. I have crossed one of psychotherapy’s invisible boundaries. You cannot work with me if I am suicidal. I don’t want to stop, to be cast adrift and left with no lifeline. I am terrified that I cannot cope without you. I am angry that you threaten to stop this work. I insist that I am too weak, too scared to attempt suicide. We move on and do some good work. But then there comes another day when I put our relationship on the line. I am overwhelmed by violent feelings. I get up and start bashing my head on your wall. You are outraged and restrain me. You tell me that under no circumstances do that again. I am here to talk to you about my anger, and not to act it out. You will refuse to work with me if I have another outburst. Once again I have crossed psychotherapy’s invisible boundaries. I am only welcome if I enact a version of my self that is scripted by someone else’s rules. But you do continue to see me albeit under new conditions. You move me to a room where help will be on hand if I try to hurt myself again. I couldn’t have imagined that this would mark a new beginning in our relationship. It unsettles me and provides a wake-up call to the reality of my mental illness. You have moved me to the psychiatric hospital and I sit in the waiting room alongside the more visibly distressed patients. I too am one of them. And in our new room I feel freer to ‘just talk’. It is stripped bare, pared down to the basics. There is only you and me and the gap between us. We work harder now. You are more questioning, more willing to guide me to a place where I can talk. I work with you instead of against you, and we make real progress. And now our time together is ending. We’ve come a long way, you and I, and the struggle 26

to ‘just talk’ nearly broke us apart. The chasm of thoughts and feelings between us has narrowed to the point where we have found the words, and formed the sentences, and made some meaning from them. We’ve had a prickly relationship but I could always feel you listening to me, as if you and I were on a stage, and I had control of the script. Now that we are parting I want to reach out and touch your fingers, just to be sure that you are real. But that would be forbidden. Yours sincerely, HC

White coats By Joanna McFarlane They read my psychosis as though it were a sonnet or the prelude to some operatic outburst. They tell me Take the tablets! and I do. We all agree they make me better. They slay my insane thoughts like doves on an altar. Voices of unreason scavenge the remains. The white coats without white coats confer behind glass doors, decide if I am well enough to leave the ward. They form a scrum so mysterious and compelling that I watch and listen for their every move; circumnavigate the outcome, play my part. Psychiatrists are wise as trees, upright as a Sunday stroll along the promenade; seldom careless as a door unlatched, seldom unassuming. Never wrong. They are coming to free me from my prison; shock me with their peculiar brand of truth. It goes like this: I am a patient in a psychiatric hospital and they are here to help me. Then where are the white coats, the couch, and the pendulum? Where is the dictum of reason that holds me here, will later let me go? Is it written in their superlative smiles, their shiny suits, their conveyer belt of consultations? They tell me to trust them, and I do.

Illustration & Graphic Design by Laura Donnelly.