Regular People

He had piercing, crystal blue eyes and tears welling in them. He wasn’t focused on anything. He had the Thousand Yard Stare.

We were outside on a porch, about twenty feet by six feet. Chairs lined the wall and faced another row of chairs backed up to a chain that ran along the outer edge. The smoking area. Always crowded with smokers socializing, smoking their own or trying to get one from someone else. Tobacco, see, is a necessary medication in a hospital like this one.

Someone in the shade from the summer sun had a radio playing. The Eagles’ “Hotel California” had just played. Robert with the blue eyes was quiet as it played. When it was over, he said, “I used to wonder what that song meant. I never figured it out til I got here. It’s about a mental hospital.”

I’d never thought of it like that. It made sense. Some guy can’t continue on his own anymore, checks into the “hotel”, and finds himself surrounded by nightmares that make him tear a path to the door. The night time guy at the door says, “Relax, we are here to take in those who have earned it. You can check out if you want, but you will never leave here.”

Robert had himself a very astute observation. While most hospitalized patients are released as quickly as possible, some never are. They can’t be. They just…can’t.

Robert…was one of them. The song is not about a mental hospital. It’s kind of loosely based on a real place. A hotel, that is. Part of the beauty of the song was always its ambiguity; listeners can make of it what they will. And it will always be special to them for that reason.

Robert’s eyes got very wet as he stared at something in another county. And his soft voice uttered one of the most heartbreaking sentences I’ve ever heard: “I don’t think I’ll ever be a regular person again.”

***

He’s probably still there. Only acute cases get to stay. Under Reagan, the third mental health care reform of modern times had been enacted. In the name of civility, he’d “reformed” institutions. Draconian practices were outlawed. But that was a lie; what he actually did was cut federal funds to states and force hospitals across the land to shut down completely or to cap the number of beds that could be occupied. Hundreds, thousands of chronically mentally ill people, most of whom could never hold the simplest of jobs, or who were institutionalized and therefore dependant, were put out. Back then, and yet still, there was nothing in place to help them. A few programs, but never enough. They gravitated to larger towns and cities where they could panhandle and occasionally get a bed at a homeless shelter. By 1985 they were all over the town I lived in. You couldn’t help but notice them. Same clothes every day. Walking nowhere. Talking to people who weren’t there. I knew some guys, pigs, actually, who took advantage of a girl. She was a blonde who would have looked awesome had she anywhere to go and anyone to help. But she wore rags and had a rash I guessed indicated syphilis, and word got around that she tricked. These god-damned guys at a tire store on Robert Crain Highway gave her a twenty dollar bill and got her to orally copulate a dog. They took pictures.

By then, also, a term had come into use for old women who carried their possessions in green garbage bags, usually pushed around in a shopping cart. The horrible term was “bag lady”. God bless America, you know?

People today still utter Reagan’s name in reverence. Forget Iran-Contra. Forget high taxes. He was an orator who filled one’s heart with pride to be a citizen of the United States of America.

Except, for all I know, he never made it to Heaven. He had the blood of innocents on his hands, enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool with. Because by the winter of 1986-7, I never saw another one walking around. Not one. And most of them were dead. Illness, exposure, dehydration, starvation and predators all had a go at them. One guy sleeping under an overpass was stabbed to death. Probably by some “regular” person. For kicks.

***

At Springfield Hospital, and in the private Sheppard Pratt system, I had met and had plenty of time to talk with a lot of people. Some were predators. They weren’t going anywhere. Some were so out of touch that, like Robert, their lucid moments, when they realized who they were and the hopelessness of their situation, were few and fleeting. I liked him. Wasn’t a mean bone in his body. I wondered if he ever was a “regular person”, if there is such a thing. And if he was, what had the poor bastard been through that could hide his beautiful soul from his own mind?

Because that’s what mental illness is: being betrayed by your own mind. That’s it, no frills or fancy accessories. Whatever the cause, no matter the cause, it is simply a betrayal.

***

When I was between three suicide attempts in a two-month span, I visited so many hospitals I can’t remember them all. They’re all different. Even different facilities in the same system, like Sheppard Pratt, were as different as night and day.

One of their places was the old rehabilitation center for drug addiction and alcoholics in Howard County.

I think I was still so unstable from my overdose that when I got there all I did was sleep. I wasn’t allowed clothes. A gown. I wasn’t allowed to have a bed. Suicide Watch, you know. I had to sleep in the day room. It was shared by both men and women. So if I got an erection while sleeping, it was like I pitched a fucking tent for everyone to see. Humiliation does not deter nurses who suck their thumbs and steal shit out of your locker. As I stabilized and realized where I was, I was horrified.

The place was dark. So dark that I dare to this day to say that any degree of recovery is not possible there. And that even stabilization is an iffy deal. Artwork adorned the walls. Patients had rendered them. God damn they were ghastly. One oil painting in a prominent place depicted a dance outside during the so-called pilgrim era. People in the background watched as a couple danced. The man was best described as a predator. The woman bore the expression of one who was being forced. I hated it. The nurses loved it. Make sense outta that, regular people.

Nurses sucked their thumbs. Night shift mostly. The doctor had no clue what to do with my meds. I was getting worse with every passing day. I wanted just to die and have it all be over. I was in hell. My depression grew.

In the dining facility, I spotted something I thought was pretty cool. A potted, grafted tree. Tree grafting is a part of the citrus farming industry. Outside of that, it’s a lost art, and I thought, you know, wow.

Then I was told it was artificial. In Maryland, if you see artificial trees, there’s a good chance you have entered the mental healthcare system. I knew this. But an artificial grafted tree? How fucking mental is that?

The fact is, I met some of the bravest, kindest, noblest and wisest people of my life while in the hospital. We all get a tough way to go, not merely with stigma from “regular people”, but also uneven health care from doctors and nurses who hate us like all other “regular people” do. To them, we are nothing but a paycheck.

We go through some really awful shit. Literally. One day I had the runs. Three stalls on our ward is all we had. While two users were legit, one wasn’t. How he got his hands on skin mags I don’t know. But he spent hours in a stall. Someone spied on him and said the guy was beating off at least a dozen times a day.

Then there are your “friends” who are regular people. Call them from the hospital. Go ahead. They’ll never answer another call from you again. Even family will fuck with you: you’re making them look bad. You’re faking it. You’re only sick because you “want to be”. A brother who went through the abuse too told me these words when I was in the hospital after my first suicide attempt. I told him to leave.

One thing I know, after being both mental and an asshole for all these years is this: regular people suck.