Day 2- Breakfast

I'm going to forego gormet criticism and talk about breakfast in terms of the people I've met this morning.

Janie- Janie looks about my age. She is well dressed in lacey bellbottoms and there are traces of smudged eye makeup around her face. She has the kind of wiry curly hair that every girl without it wants, but every girl who has it hates. Janie only speaks when you ask her a question, and then you're lucky to get two words out of her. Mostly she'll sit and stare at her milk carton, but periodically she'll burst into laughter at whatever is going on in her head. I'd like to learn more about her.

Nick- Nick, though also about my age, obviously has a developmental disorder. He carries around a stuffed fish he calls "Billy Bass" and is not at all happy about being here: "The doctor doesn't have a reason! I'm ready, I told you 1,000 times! I'm never going home because my fucking mother dumped me here! I wanna go home, and go back to work and see my friends..." there's more arguing. Nick tries to call his parents and starts getting rowdy. He refuses to give the phone back, so the staff just disconnects the line. Nick goes back and forth between yelling, throwing things, and crying. He can't be older than twenty, and he loves his gameboy and Sega genesis. He is dressed in sweatpants, which most of the time sag halfway down his rear end. He parades Billy Bass around the room, regaling everyone with dirty jokes that sound like a grade school student snickering during recess. He wanders over to our table, mouth caked with eggs and milk, and asks us "Do you like Ludacris?" Janie just laughs at her milk carton. Nick wanders off, singing "Baby Got Back", then exclaims "That's Sir Mix-A-Lot...it's my favorite song". A nurse finally tells him to pull up his pants up, and he complies, exclaiming "Say no to crack!" I got to see two very different sides of him in a very short period of time.

After writing about these two, I can't help but wonder how I appear; unshowered, tired, always wearing my coat (christ, it's freezing in here). I examine the main room more carefully than the night before...the calendar on the wall is one of those big bright deals with cheerful pictures suns and clouds that let you know what the weather is like. The kind of thing that's really more patronizing than anything else. I mean, we may be nuts, but we're not asinine.

Day 2- Morning

Got "woken up" at seven. The quotes are there to represent the fact that waking me up was entirely unneccessary; as sleep was a luxury I didn't get and I was essentially awake anyways. The intruder was a young nurse who I soon learned was only there to steal my blood. Now, all mental instability aside, I hate needles. I've always harbored an inexplicable terror at being punctured by anything sharp, and needles are the worst. And one would think that 'waking up' to a needle would aggravate those kinds of feelings, yet it was one of the least difficult experiences I've had getting poked. Over the next 45 minutes, I almost succeded in falling asleep, only to be awoken again; this time by a different nurse who came to take our "vitals". Taking our vitals consisted of checking our temperatures and blood pressure, while asking us questions about our current mental state. These questions usually were something along the lines of "are you having any suicidal thoughts?" and "are you hearing any voices today?" and are asked with the disattached cheerfulness of a bank teller asking if you'd like your change in tens or twenties. My roommate was first, and this was my first opportunity to hear her speak. The first she said when roused was "Can somebody call Jamie?" She then began crying, sobbing "They told me they wouldn't leave me here, but they did". She asked nervously if she was going to have to go to court. After clarifying that this "Jaime" was a social worker, the nurse assured her that everything was going to be fine and she didn't break any laws. Meanwhile, I could hear a commotion coming from the main room. It was a woman who checked in a half an hour after I had. Aparently, she'd driven her husband to work, dropped her baby off with her sister, then drove herself to the hospital. As my roommate was sobbing, I could hear the woman with the baby yell "Son of a Bitch!", and what sounded like something slamming on a table...immediately followed by a much more timid "I'm sorry, I'm sorry...it's just I can't go home...". This provided a fitting background to the nurse in my room telling my poor roommate about "finding the right mix of medications to make you better so you can go home".

Mental Institutions are not the whimsical getaways that Terry Gilliam films would have you believe.

Night One- 10-15

yeah, so jigsaw puzzles are boring. At least I don't feel so terrified of having to stay here anymore...but I think the only thing really to do at this point is to try and sleep. I have to admit that despite everything the beds are pretty damn fun. But now I'm starting to wonder...all kinds of things. Who is the person in the bed next to mine? Why is she here, and does that bag of adult diapers belong to her? Does anyone beside my roommate and parents know that I'm here? Do I have messages on my phone or computer?

But for once, wondering about messages isn't driving me crazy. I don't feel such a violent need to know if the outside world has something to say to me like I usually do...and frankly, that's a relief. It's kind of nice to be away from everything/everyone I'm used to. It's like I"m in a competely different part of the world, away from everything I have to worry about. I relax...I breathe deeply. I feel better already. Now if only I can carry some of that relief back to the real world...

Night One- 8:30 P.M.

I'm in a dimly lit main room, with rows of bedrooms on three of the four walls...the TV is playing football, and the only person paying any attention to it is a young looking man. he barely moves except to adjust his gown. The only other patient I can see is an older man who sits at the table across from mine; and though he appears to be staring at me, the vacant nature of his gaze suggests that he is actually staring right through me. I think I'm the youngest person here...and I don't want to sound insensitive, but suddenly I've never felt so sane.

At least there are jigsaw puzzles.

Hello there. My name is Amy, and this is a project documenting my recent stay in one of the pyschiatric wards in Bryan LGH hospital in Lincoln, Nebraska. My purpose for doing this is not to attract attention to myself, nor to gain any kind of sympathy, but rather to show to the best of my ability what an experience like mine is like, and most importantly to show the very human side of a population deemed "insane". Most of my writings come from the daily journal I kept for those five days, and names will be changed to protect the privacy of those I write about.

Hopefully, I'll be able to accomplish this with a better lack of run-on sentences. And now that I feel I've given adequate introduction...