Samanthas Hospital Diary Part 1 of Infinity
Diary Extracts from Hollywood Private Hospital. Not in any particular order.
I'm home from hospital for the weekend if it goes well I will be home sometime early next week. I miss you all.
- Samantha
Roughly 17 pages after the cut
My parents, fucking hell.
I look at their faces through the eyes of the boy I never wanted to be.
Those coloured eyes that nobody has a colour for.
So they call them Hazel.
As if that means a thing.
My parents smiling faces.
We love you.
Thats what they say.
We want what’s best for you.
Notice the ‘We’?
Thats because I’m not allowed to have an opinion on my own life.
My girlfriend says they say that :
I lie.
I manipulate.
Never tell a single truth.
Because thats what I do.
It’s not her fault she is a liar.
She has aspergers.
Aspergers. Like its an explanation for my whole life.
A psychiatric label to stop me having an opinion.
To stop me knowing who I am.
Thats what they say.
Those smiling faces of my parents.
My mother, all thick makeup and hair that changes style twice a day.
She is never in the same outfit my mother.
And she is never on time.
Always at the gym, the hairdresser, the grocery store, with her friends or making sure that all of us remember what a good job she did as a mother.
Just in case we forgot.
Or that we lied and told people that she didn’t.
Everything is fine.
She smiles that smile of a woman you just know has had a facelift.
That smile that says ‘my life is perfect’.
The term is Stepford Wife.
The term is liar.
So she just smiles about everything. But her eyes don’t come along for the ride. They are still stuck in the back of her old childhood house, her father standing over them with a belt.
Who’s the liar now.
I turn to look to my father for advice, for comfort.
He smiles like a CEO who’s company just made the fortune 500.
My father is an ad-man.
He says everything is about presentation , about the sell.
How everything in life comes down to how to advertise.
How everything in life is about how to convince people they need something.
How everything in life is about my mother.
His brown hair so obviously dyed, most of it so obviously transplanted.
The style un-changed from the short floppy schoolboy cut he was born with.
Boyhood looks still intact, everything about him much to perfect.
Accent is from north London, enunciation honed by years at Cambridge, Oxford or wherever.
Rectangular glasses with a thin metal rim frame a face much younger than a man of 58.
Much like my mother his eyes aren’t there, those blue boyish eyes frozen in time 30 years earlier.
The moment they saw his younger brother electrocuted to death.
Presentation is everything, I think when I look up at those two smiling faces.
Two beautiful people who don’t need help.
With three beautiful children who also, don’t need help.
Those smiles say that I shouldn’t talk about any of this.
That its not appropriate.
Especially not around the dinner table.
At my mothers 50th birthday party.
In front of everyone.
-
My parents watch a movie with this girl in it.
Later on it turns out this girl used to be a guy.
Smiling once again, my parents mention that they would be totally okay with it.
That they would be so accepting, and don’t understand why anyone would treat her differently.
So a few years later the night I took my parents out to see the Shakespearean play ‘twelfth night’ , they once again said something similar.
So obviously when I told my parents later that night that I was a woman inside.
No really. I am. I’ve known for years.
They they said I was wrong.
That I wasn’t sure. That its a phase.
That obviously it is a cry for attention.
One day I will wake up and realise I’ve made a mistake.
And that kids with aspergers syndrome can’t be transsexuals.
Because things like this only happen in fiction.
_
All my life I have has a quest for knowledge and learning.
I could tell you in simple terms about your heart valves.
How the security system on your credit card works.
Everything you want to know about every tiny thing you never think about.
Those messages your husband sent to your best friend over the internet on the night before you got married.
How he planned to shag her behind the church before he said his vows.
How do I know all this? its easy when your best friend is studying bio-medicine, engineering and cultural studies.
Most of all when every night you go home, sit at your computer.
And learn.
Did you know that you can use a pair of headphones as a microphone?
Just one of those little things you can pickup from wikipedia.
Did you know that every time you go online you send out little bits of information that could be unravelled by a five year old with the right training.
And people think nerds are harmless.
-
My nametage reads Davies, Samantha Ms 23 (F)
Atleast I have that courtesy I need this break this period of contemplatin.
23 years of pain and suffering.
How much can one woman take.
I can’t believe that last night I tried to stab my girlfriend.
I tried to put my hands around her neck.
Here my mind screams for me to shut up. to not commit this tale to ink.
There is no pride in domestic violence.
Thats what those cheery pamphlets say.
Back in Hollywood. How many times is it now? 3? 4?
Christ I lose track.
Where is happy?
Am I just malaised?
Freud would like that, I’m sure.
The old people here freak me out and I’m unable to cope.
There is the 60 year old with bipolar and the old war veterans.
And dont get me started on the eating disorder folks.
Sitting at their table looking disgusted as they push food are their plates. Just eat your fucking carrot it wont kill you.
And then there is me, All fading red dye and blonde streaks.
The scars on the inner side of my left wrist and my name tag on the right read out my details to the world.
Books piled up by my bed.
Emma, Whipping Girl, Haunted.
All the while tinny laptop speakers pump out my sound track by Amanda Palmer.
Yesterday was hard trying to stay strong in the face of my own habits being reflected in Heather.
It is hard for me to watch or deal with when I’m trying to get better.
I hope so badly she is okay.
Because I Know what these behaviours mean, because I do them too. Please baby not now.
The air-conditioning hums.
It is the life of this place. Keeps out the heat while giving us something to focus on.
They have shut down the smokers courtyard since I was last here.
Who will I bum ciggs off now.
What are your goals for being here the nice nurse named whatever asks.
Find my way back to happy.
To rid myself of that haunted feeling.
Stubbs Terrance
Christchurch
Tom Sharpe.
These are just words.
Right?
They tell me that it is okay to feel this way.
That everything will be okay.
And to the bipolar 60 year old.
No, I don’t have an American accent.
The wind blows in the trees and my face is warmed by the sun.
For a second that’s enough.
The air-conditioner is loud and my hands are cold.
The air out here smells of cigarettes.
Which always beings memories.
Everything here is soft, humble and unthreatening.
Soft creams and light beige dappled on the walls.
Even the chairs are happy.
yet oh so sterile, an environment of peace.
But underneath it all the slow beat of hearts in pain.
We are all here for a reason.
What that is I cannot say.
This little island away from the world outside.
You can forget it is even there.
Safe, Comfort.
A place to run to and start anew.
To find some balance and being again.
Life here is circular.
A Managed Existence.
The beautiful girls name is Jane and she stalks the corridor between her room and the nurses station.
They say she has social phobia.
Must be a killer.
She wears thick black glasses behind which eyes sparkle with intelligence.
Tom says my taste in women is even worse than my taste in movies.
That isn’t a compliment he ads, smoke drifting from between us.
I play at distance because it is easy to maintain than actually getting involved.
I really do enjoy playing wallflower.
All day hot water is poured in drips.
Depressives powered by coffee.
People who are trying to relax smoke so much you’d think it was oxygen.
She sees right through me.
Her name is Rhiannon.
18 years old and surprisingly with it for a woman who tried to kill her own baby.
She tells me to relax.
I tell her I can’t save her.
Dipping my finger in my green tear,
Its hot and sweet.
That little jolt, when you cant you miss it.
And I never did like burning.
Little plastic Styrofoam cups.
Nothing here can hurt you.
At least not by yourself.
Back in time I remember smiling faces and ‘buffy’ DVDs.
Tom and I, that other lesbian.
I’m just reading your file now the nurse says.
I tell people I’m fine.
But its hard to lie with scars on your arms.
I am not a pin cushion.
I am a human being.
Why does it feel so good when it hurts.
Don’t answer that one. I’ve been told a thousand times.
This place may end up driving me more crazy than I already am.
Played computer games today because it’s easier than feeling or dealing.
Should never have brought my laptop.
Had a dream last night, I had a boyfriend and he was a really nice guy.
A nerd.
I think he was Tom.
But I was also in high-school.
I was being called a tranny and a fagot.
All because I’m pre-op.
Was scary being back there again.
They took my sharps away again today even took my fucking belt buckles and my laptop charger.
Fucking metal plugs.
Shits me off.
Deal with this is hard but I will fix it.
Be fine as long as they don’t take my pen away.
Everytime i see hard edges I want to dash myself against them.
I’m thinking about it a little too much.
Patients doors slam and it shocks me from my reverie.
The tea soothes somewhat.
Why am I so hyper tonight, probably the smokes.
So skittish tonight which to be quiet honest is alot like me.
When I am around Tom, the spirit of the stairway always applies.
The shallow girls from the eating disorder table crowd around channel Ten, judging boys that they call men.
I can’t help but laugh.
I ask them where are the dating shows for the other ten percent.
Nobody ever talks to me.
So what if my aura says don’t touch.
I’m always the outcast.
And nearly always by choice.
There is another girl here who is a patient, glasses and gaunt face. hard eyes, means business.
I say hello.
No reply.
Mysteries are my heroin.
In the spirit of Mr Palahanuick, I have named my wardmates.
Mrs Chlorine. Tube in her noes keeps her alive.
The Prom Queen. she wears her leavers jumper from two years ago and bitches about others behind their backs.
Churchill sits and plays rummy with the other old men. He is ancient but has an imposing glare.
A general out of time.
Should be fighting the Hun I think.
The Battler. A kind old man with a face that fails to hide the fact he doesn’t want to be here. He respects women and is deeply ashamed of something.
His heart mourns for a youth long lost.
Ever since they took my sharps away I’ve been missing them.
I know its not stimming but it is comfort.
Cuts make the pain real.
The emotional suddenly physical.
I’m sick of dealing with this shit I never asked for any of it.
Swinging between anger and malaise faster than I can keep track of.
Wish i could blame it on PMS.
Thank gods for my journal, without it I’d be screaming at walls by now.
The 60 year old complains about her diet again.
The doctors can’t change it.
Jesus her whining makes me angry.
No wonder she’s been here for 8 weeks.
Why do I feel like this most of the time, the smallet slight makes me want to hurt people and the worst part is I love the rush.
But I hate the ensuing spiral into depression.
IS WHAT I’M WRITING OBSERVATION OR MERLEY MARKET RESEARCH.
My fathers words in my mouth.
Damn it Mr Sharpe.
You never tell me how you truly feel.
I want to know if you are okay.
I’m sick of running from life, from everything.
I will face my demons.
I hate my father.
I am terrified of my own dad.
His voice cuts me harder than I can,
I hate my father.
I hate my father.
IHATEMYFATHER.
I HATE MY FATHER.
The nurse asked me today if Tom is my brother. haha.
We do look similar, but no.
Defiantly not brother and sister.
I hate my penis.
It is worse when I forget about it.
And my might fall in my lap.
It is a horrible delicate thing my depression.
More like a creeping vine than anything else.
It slowly builds with every little thing.
The smell of ink is repulsive.
I hate it.
Maybe it is the high-school associations.
Or maybe its the fact you cannot truly describe what ballpoint ink smells like.
Is it acrid or sickly sweet?
Whatever it is, it sure is familiar.
I’m not crazy, just a little damaged.
I wish people would stop looking at me like that.
Poor little Samantha hiding in a book again, what a fucking surprise.
My memories of my life are a jumble of mismatched puzzle pieces mostly out of order but sometimes when I crook my head just I can see them clearly.
Unfortunatley its always just another sailboat.
Wish the pieces would stop turning to smoke when I go to pick them up
They have names for everything in psych wards.
Chocolate Moose is called Bavarian Cheesecake
Chocolate pudding and Cream of Chocolat.
Sanity is called something you don’t have.
Do I make people stay away.
Talk to me I’m not a bad person.
Smoked heavily today and has a big girl crush on me.
I may be strange but I’m certainly not oblivious.
I am not your social experiment lady.
You talk about men a lot for somebody who hates them so much.
My dad called tonight and I’ll admit I over-reacted somewhat he annoys the crap out of me.
Yes I know you love me. And I know you care. Yes I know mum was fantastic for admitting me. But it doesn’t make it any easier to talk to you.
I can’t tell whether you rang because you care or because mother asked you to.
For years I’ve been saying ‘yes I’m fine’, because whenever I tell you I’m not you keep trying to fix me.
I am 23 years old.
A big girl.
And its time I fixed myself and it will take however long it requires and I’m not leaving till I’m sane.
And this time.
I MEAN IT.
The past hurts don’t think about it facing it is hard I’m still unsure how.
When you don’t know what is wrong with somebody or who she is its fun to invent things.
The girl in the room next to me I’ve named anna.
She sits at the eating disorder table and can’t remember the sound of her mothers voice.
She dreams of being in the Russian ballet.
Her father hits her.
This isn’t real and isn’t who she is.
I have never even met this woman
Or talked to her.
But she still looks like she should dance in the Russian ballet.
I wonder who she is, what her dreams are.
My imagination is so vivid it makes reality so mundane.
My hormones still aren’t here, will they ever come?
3 Temazepam and I still can’t sleep. Later I discover it will take 6.
Eventually they give me something harder.
I woke up at midnight just got up because I needed food.
The pills help keep my mind quiet. Slows my thinking.
Visually it wont shut up and I try to ignore it.
And my impulses.
I see a plastic fork and Want to jab it into my arm.
I love the ward in the early morning it is one of the few times it is totally quiet here. I enjoy the dark. Small dark places have always been comfortable.
The nurses whisper in the staff room.
Part of me knows they aren’t talking about me.
But I still wonder.
The sadness hurts and I should see if sleep will come.
Please don’t turn me into a zombie.
Heather bought me a pen today from pride it has a rainbow on it.
Makes me sad that she went to all that effort and we still fought over going out.
I dug a pen into my arm to stop myself from getting stressed.
That’s when heather took me home. (Talking about the psych ward after a visit to the outside. I still can’t believe I said it was home).
There is that ink smell again bitter yet sweet.
Reminds me of high-school, of times before gender.
I hate my penis I wish it would just drop off.
Tom came this afternoon said he would return on Tuesday.
That man really cares about me.
And I’m so glad he came.
He listens well and we know how to laugh.
There is much to say anymore between us except those words I long to say.
Oh Thomas I love you. Can I be your girlfriend?
I’ll abandon my dykey ways just to be with you. But we all know we cant.
Some things are best left unsaid.
I woke up this morning to the sound of the rain.
Stepping outside to see winter giving me its last breath. A chilly September morning, everything wet with dew. Drips of water fall off everything and the grass is wet between my fingers.
It’s beautiful.
My revire is broken by the sound of the water boiling in the kettle behind me.
I haven’t had tea this morning.
A strange occurrence.
This mornings therapy is the women’s only group.
I’m glad to be allowed to attend.
Art therapy will be a good start to the day.
There are many men here, mainly veterans.
They are loud and sweat misogyny.
I get scared in their presence, a constant remind of my previous life.
They smell like my grandfather.
All muscle and voices that are so upbeat that they fail to hide the pain.
They have seen the worst of it all.
But they forgot how to feel long ago.
This place is layered.
Fresh laundry I forgot how nice it is.
Did all my clothes this morning.
One of life’s small pleasures.
I never realized how many kinds of beige there are.
The farmer’s husband with the scars on his neck thinks that he doesn’t belong here ‘with the crazy people’.
He looks at us with disgust.
His dead wife doesn’t miss him.
My doctor is pursuing my treatment to be medication free. Aside from my hormones, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and sleeping pills.
Debbie wears a robe of white and guards herself from anyone.
Her eyes are full of sorrow.
I tell her my name.
Samantha, you can call me Sam.
How are you?
Debbie says she’s fine and okay.
With a grin I reply.
Isn’t it interesting how everyone says that. Yet here we are.
Ignore me I tell her, I’m autistic and I observe too much and think to little.
She replies with a terse ‘everyone gets better with time’.
This new medication is actually working, feeling better and more relaxed.
Yesterday wasn’t great I freaked out and have been really worried about Heather.
The fat stupid one goes on about her family name and driving me insane. Her voice reminds me of a lonely puppy always in need of attention.
Back to Heather, she on Wednesday night.
Scared the hell out of me. I’m still really worried.
The old men sit together in threes they are gruff with the goldfields in their veins.
I wonder who they are behind closed doors, one of them goes to the show and helps herd dogs the others I’m unaware.
The beautiful girl with the social phobia is in the dining room tonight. She sits next to the over weight one. Our eyes meet and I long to say ‘you are beautiful, I long to hold you’.
Hospitals and airplaness are the same.
Single serving. (sorry chuck).
The old men still sit in threes looking sad, us young people mournful reminders of days long lost.
They talk of the football season and being stationed in Beirut, Korea or wherever.
They are monosyllabic and untrusting of women, they can’t talk about their feelings.
This place has many answers but few questions.
There is an unfinished puzzle on the lounge room table.
It makes me nervous. Everything in pieces.
It’s a photograph with everything lost.
Even when finished it will be a terrible photo.
Nothing is to be gained from the creation of nothing.
Leave me alone, I need to talk to somebody who is as intelligent as I am.
The overweight blonde one talks to much and hides her feelings. I dislike her. Her voice grabs and needs self fulfillment.
Makes a deal about her artwork and says its not important.
She smiles far too often.
When I see a room being cleaned or emptied I wonder is somebody died.
While we were on lunchor late at night in the darkness of the ward.
The anorexic who finally succumbed or the depressive who hung herself using only a laptop cord.
Simple ways to go.
I make my own fun.
Most days I sit next to the eating disorder table and stuff myself loudly so they can hear and see me. Or at least a part of me enjoys their suffering.
The chips lady, overweight and OCD. She smiles and laughs like a kindly old woman who’s husband hits her.
My food is awful.
How do people have faith in something without rational explanation?
It makes every little sense to me the christians here confuse me.
Is faith the same thing as delusion when you need something so badly that you will believe anything just to get you through?
Can I ever cure my Autism?
No. But it can be managed.
The shallow girls are discussing TV, all smiles from mouths gaunt and red.
Looking at a dating show where a woman who is so generic that you just want to stab her.
They laugh as the men to to pick her up.
Stereotyped to the max.
Dawn drinks wine and says it’s a drug.
Like a substitute for happiness, for life.
She says she hates alcohol. Her lies are easy to spot transparent and desperate.
She just wants her kids back.
Tobacco I bummed is cheap and crap the taste is stale in my mouth.
I begin to miss my Russian fags.
Their lies fascinate me patients here all are unique.
Except those fucking shallow girls at the eating disorder table.
Oh how I hate them.
Complaining about getting 6 meals a day, you know we have to eat muffins one of them says to me Indignantly.
I feel ready to go home to just Dance and hug my girl.
To see my friends and chosen family, the people I love the most.
The three day old warm lemonade is sweet in my mouth but the sugar makes me go fast.
Heather whispers my eyes are like the universe do deep and mysterious.
Her voice makes me weak, I love you babe.
Right now some good old fashioned lesbian sex would be fantastic.
Todays orgasm, was fantastic.
Part of me wished I would look good butch. Rowarr.
Three times the sedated 60 year old with bipolar has collapsed in front of me.
Today her head fell in her soup, I rushed to help and told people to get nurses.
At dinner though, I just watched as her eyelids slowly shut and she fell towards her plate inch by inch.
The real tragedy of Alzheimer’s is that young people find it so hilarious. Now that sounds like a setup for a Chuck novel.
Jade always sits in the same seat, she wouldn’t sit with me.
Sleater-kinney hammers in my ears. Makes me feel good. Empowered.
Over the phone my girl talks about my breasts. Her voice makes things fuzzy.
At this stage I’m ready to go home I’m feel more normal.
But can I tell the difference between normalcy and malaise.
Are they the same.
I guess channeling some of my dyke anger*
Patent Pending can help.
I miss my girlfriend her voice, touch, the smooth skin on her sides. Those little peaks of breast. Nipples taut between my fingers.
I love her. I want to be her wife.
I sometimes rely on a culture for support when I feel so personally disenfranchised.
Billboards say you must be pretty, small, thin, the coolest, smartest and that you too can be the next big thing in Paris. Stereotypes shot at my head I wonder where I fit. Movies other women and even books tell me I should like boys. I get so sick of it. Mainly though because I’m sick of trying to fit in where I’m not wanted.
One of the girls from the eating disorder table told me just now that I have the perfect figure.
I’ve always thought the total opposite, I guess its nice to have an opposing viewpoint sometimes.
I still don’t feel like I believe it.
Dear anon, thanks for making me feel pretty.
Grunge tears out of my laptop speakers, telling me how I should feel.
Kill this love. Kill this love.
Darkpop makes me feel empowered.
I'm home from hospital for the weekend if it goes well I will be home sometime early next week. I miss you all.
- Samantha
Roughly 17 pages after the cut
My parents, fucking hell.
I look at their faces through the eyes of the boy I never wanted to be.
Those coloured eyes that nobody has a colour for.
So they call them Hazel.
As if that means a thing.
My parents smiling faces.
We love you.
Thats what they say.
We want what’s best for you.
Notice the ‘We’?
Thats because I’m not allowed to have an opinion on my own life.
My girlfriend says they say that :
I lie.
I manipulate.
Never tell a single truth.
Because thats what I do.
It’s not her fault she is a liar.
She has aspergers.
Aspergers. Like its an explanation for my whole life.
A psychiatric label to stop me having an opinion.
To stop me knowing who I am.
Thats what they say.
Those smiling faces of my parents.
My mother, all thick makeup and hair that changes style twice a day.
She is never in the same outfit my mother.
And she is never on time.
Always at the gym, the hairdresser, the grocery store, with her friends or making sure that all of us remember what a good job she did as a mother.
Just in case we forgot.
Or that we lied and told people that she didn’t.
Everything is fine.
She smiles that smile of a woman you just know has had a facelift.
That smile that says ‘my life is perfect’.
The term is Stepford Wife.
The term is liar.
So she just smiles about everything. But her eyes don’t come along for the ride. They are still stuck in the back of her old childhood house, her father standing over them with a belt.
Who’s the liar now.
I turn to look to my father for advice, for comfort.
He smiles like a CEO who’s company just made the fortune 500.
My father is an ad-man.
He says everything is about presentation , about the sell.
How everything in life comes down to how to advertise.
How everything in life is about how to convince people they need something.
How everything in life is about my mother.
His brown hair so obviously dyed, most of it so obviously transplanted.
The style un-changed from the short floppy schoolboy cut he was born with.
Boyhood looks still intact, everything about him much to perfect.
Accent is from north London, enunciation honed by years at Cambridge, Oxford or wherever.
Rectangular glasses with a thin metal rim frame a face much younger than a man of 58.
Much like my mother his eyes aren’t there, those blue boyish eyes frozen in time 30 years earlier.
The moment they saw his younger brother electrocuted to death.
Presentation is everything, I think when I look up at those two smiling faces.
Two beautiful people who don’t need help.
With three beautiful children who also, don’t need help.
Those smiles say that I shouldn’t talk about any of this.
That its not appropriate.
Especially not around the dinner table.
At my mothers 50th birthday party.
In front of everyone.
-
My parents watch a movie with this girl in it.
Later on it turns out this girl used to be a guy.
Smiling once again, my parents mention that they would be totally okay with it.
That they would be so accepting, and don’t understand why anyone would treat her differently.
So a few years later the night I took my parents out to see the Shakespearean play ‘twelfth night’ , they once again said something similar.
So obviously when I told my parents later that night that I was a woman inside.
No really. I am. I’ve known for years.
They they said I was wrong.
That I wasn’t sure. That its a phase.
That obviously it is a cry for attention.
One day I will wake up and realise I’ve made a mistake.
And that kids with aspergers syndrome can’t be transsexuals.
Because things like this only happen in fiction.
_
All my life I have has a quest for knowledge and learning.
I could tell you in simple terms about your heart valves.
How the security system on your credit card works.
Everything you want to know about every tiny thing you never think about.
Those messages your husband sent to your best friend over the internet on the night before you got married.
How he planned to shag her behind the church before he said his vows.
How do I know all this? its easy when your best friend is studying bio-medicine, engineering and cultural studies.
Most of all when every night you go home, sit at your computer.
And learn.
Did you know that you can use a pair of headphones as a microphone?
Just one of those little things you can pickup from wikipedia.
Did you know that every time you go online you send out little bits of information that could be unravelled by a five year old with the right training.
And people think nerds are harmless.
-
My nametage reads Davies, Samantha Ms 23 (F)
Atleast I have that courtesy I need this break this period of contemplatin.
23 years of pain and suffering.
How much can one woman take.
I can’t believe that last night I tried to stab my girlfriend.
I tried to put my hands around her neck.
Here my mind screams for me to shut up. to not commit this tale to ink.
There is no pride in domestic violence.
Thats what those cheery pamphlets say.
Back in Hollywood. How many times is it now? 3? 4?
Christ I lose track.
Where is happy?
Am I just malaised?
Freud would like that, I’m sure.
The old people here freak me out and I’m unable to cope.
There is the 60 year old with bipolar and the old war veterans.
And dont get me started on the eating disorder folks.
Sitting at their table looking disgusted as they push food are their plates. Just eat your fucking carrot it wont kill you.
And then there is me, All fading red dye and blonde streaks.
The scars on the inner side of my left wrist and my name tag on the right read out my details to the world.
Books piled up by my bed.
Emma, Whipping Girl, Haunted.
All the while tinny laptop speakers pump out my sound track by Amanda Palmer.
Yesterday was hard trying to stay strong in the face of my own habits being reflected in Heather.
It is hard for me to watch or deal with when I’m trying to get better.
I hope so badly she is okay.
Because I Know what these behaviours mean, because I do them too. Please baby not now.
The air-conditioning hums.
It is the life of this place. Keeps out the heat while giving us something to focus on.
They have shut down the smokers courtyard since I was last here.
Who will I bum ciggs off now.
What are your goals for being here the nice nurse named whatever asks.
Find my way back to happy.
To rid myself of that haunted feeling.
Stubbs Terrance
Christchurch
Tom Sharpe.
These are just words.
Right?
They tell me that it is okay to feel this way.
That everything will be okay.
And to the bipolar 60 year old.
No, I don’t have an American accent.
The wind blows in the trees and my face is warmed by the sun.
For a second that’s enough.
The air-conditioner is loud and my hands are cold.
The air out here smells of cigarettes.
Which always beings memories.
Everything here is soft, humble and unthreatening.
Soft creams and light beige dappled on the walls.
Even the chairs are happy.
yet oh so sterile, an environment of peace.
But underneath it all the slow beat of hearts in pain.
We are all here for a reason.
What that is I cannot say.
This little island away from the world outside.
You can forget it is even there.
Safe, Comfort.
A place to run to and start anew.
To find some balance and being again.
Life here is circular.
A Managed Existence.
The beautiful girls name is Jane and she stalks the corridor between her room and the nurses station.
They say she has social phobia.
Must be a killer.
She wears thick black glasses behind which eyes sparkle with intelligence.
Tom says my taste in women is even worse than my taste in movies.
That isn’t a compliment he ads, smoke drifting from between us.
I play at distance because it is easy to maintain than actually getting involved.
I really do enjoy playing wallflower.
All day hot water is poured in drips.
Depressives powered by coffee.
People who are trying to relax smoke so much you’d think it was oxygen.
She sees right through me.
Her name is Rhiannon.
18 years old and surprisingly with it for a woman who tried to kill her own baby.
She tells me to relax.
I tell her I can’t save her.
Dipping my finger in my green tear,
Its hot and sweet.
That little jolt, when you cant you miss it.
And I never did like burning.
Little plastic Styrofoam cups.
Nothing here can hurt you.
At least not by yourself.
Back in time I remember smiling faces and ‘buffy’ DVDs.
Tom and I, that other lesbian.
I’m just reading your file now the nurse says.
I tell people I’m fine.
But its hard to lie with scars on your arms.
I am not a pin cushion.
I am a human being.
Why does it feel so good when it hurts.
Don’t answer that one. I’ve been told a thousand times.
This place may end up driving me more crazy than I already am.
Played computer games today because it’s easier than feeling or dealing.
Should never have brought my laptop.
Had a dream last night, I had a boyfriend and he was a really nice guy.
A nerd.
I think he was Tom.
But I was also in high-school.
I was being called a tranny and a fagot.
All because I’m pre-op.
Was scary being back there again.
They took my sharps away again today even took my fucking belt buckles and my laptop charger.
Fucking metal plugs.
Shits me off.
Deal with this is hard but I will fix it.
Be fine as long as they don’t take my pen away.
Everytime i see hard edges I want to dash myself against them.
I’m thinking about it a little too much.
Patients doors slam and it shocks me from my reverie.
The tea soothes somewhat.
Why am I so hyper tonight, probably the smokes.
So skittish tonight which to be quiet honest is alot like me.
When I am around Tom, the spirit of the stairway always applies.
The shallow girls from the eating disorder table crowd around channel Ten, judging boys that they call men.
I can’t help but laugh.
I ask them where are the dating shows for the other ten percent.
Nobody ever talks to me.
So what if my aura says don’t touch.
I’m always the outcast.
And nearly always by choice.
There is another girl here who is a patient, glasses and gaunt face. hard eyes, means business.
I say hello.
No reply.
Mysteries are my heroin.
In the spirit of Mr Palahanuick, I have named my wardmates.
Mrs Chlorine. Tube in her noes keeps her alive.
The Prom Queen. she wears her leavers jumper from two years ago and bitches about others behind their backs.
Churchill sits and plays rummy with the other old men. He is ancient but has an imposing glare.
A general out of time.
Should be fighting the Hun I think.
The Battler. A kind old man with a face that fails to hide the fact he doesn’t want to be here. He respects women and is deeply ashamed of something.
His heart mourns for a youth long lost.
Ever since they took my sharps away I’ve been missing them.
I know its not stimming but it is comfort.
Cuts make the pain real.
The emotional suddenly physical.
I’m sick of dealing with this shit I never asked for any of it.
Swinging between anger and malaise faster than I can keep track of.
Wish i could blame it on PMS.
Thank gods for my journal, without it I’d be screaming at walls by now.
The 60 year old complains about her diet again.
The doctors can’t change it.
Jesus her whining makes me angry.
No wonder she’s been here for 8 weeks.
Why do I feel like this most of the time, the smallet slight makes me want to hurt people and the worst part is I love the rush.
But I hate the ensuing spiral into depression.
IS WHAT I’M WRITING OBSERVATION OR MERLEY MARKET RESEARCH.
My fathers words in my mouth.
Damn it Mr Sharpe.
You never tell me how you truly feel.
I want to know if you are okay.
I’m sick of running from life, from everything.
I will face my demons.
I hate my father.
I am terrified of my own dad.
His voice cuts me harder than I can,
I hate my father.
I hate my father.
IHATEMYFATHER.
I HATE MY FATHER.
The nurse asked me today if Tom is my brother. haha.
We do look similar, but no.
Defiantly not brother and sister.
I hate my penis.
It is worse when I forget about it.
And my might fall in my lap.
It is a horrible delicate thing my depression.
More like a creeping vine than anything else.
It slowly builds with every little thing.
The smell of ink is repulsive.
I hate it.
Maybe it is the high-school associations.
Or maybe its the fact you cannot truly describe what ballpoint ink smells like.
Is it acrid or sickly sweet?
Whatever it is, it sure is familiar.
I’m not crazy, just a little damaged.
I wish people would stop looking at me like that.
Poor little Samantha hiding in a book again, what a fucking surprise.
My memories of my life are a jumble of mismatched puzzle pieces mostly out of order but sometimes when I crook my head just I can see them clearly.
Unfortunatley its always just another sailboat.
Wish the pieces would stop turning to smoke when I go to pick them up
They have names for everything in psych wards.
Chocolate Moose is called Bavarian Cheesecake
Chocolate pudding and Cream of Chocolat.
Sanity is called something you don’t have.
Do I make people stay away.
Talk to me I’m not a bad person.
Smoked heavily today and has a big girl crush on me.
I may be strange but I’m certainly not oblivious.
I am not your social experiment lady.
You talk about men a lot for somebody who hates them so much.
My dad called tonight and I’ll admit I over-reacted somewhat he annoys the crap out of me.
Yes I know you love me. And I know you care. Yes I know mum was fantastic for admitting me. But it doesn’t make it any easier to talk to you.
I can’t tell whether you rang because you care or because mother asked you to.
For years I’ve been saying ‘yes I’m fine’, because whenever I tell you I’m not you keep trying to fix me.
I am 23 years old.
A big girl.
And its time I fixed myself and it will take however long it requires and I’m not leaving till I’m sane.
And this time.
I MEAN IT.
The past hurts don’t think about it facing it is hard I’m still unsure how.
When you don’t know what is wrong with somebody or who she is its fun to invent things.
The girl in the room next to me I’ve named anna.
She sits at the eating disorder table and can’t remember the sound of her mothers voice.
She dreams of being in the Russian ballet.
Her father hits her.
This isn’t real and isn’t who she is.
I have never even met this woman
Or talked to her.
But she still looks like she should dance in the Russian ballet.
I wonder who she is, what her dreams are.
My imagination is so vivid it makes reality so mundane.
My hormones still aren’t here, will they ever come?
3 Temazepam and I still can’t sleep. Later I discover it will take 6.
Eventually they give me something harder.
I woke up at midnight just got up because I needed food.
The pills help keep my mind quiet. Slows my thinking.
Visually it wont shut up and I try to ignore it.
And my impulses.
I see a plastic fork and Want to jab it into my arm.
I love the ward in the early morning it is one of the few times it is totally quiet here. I enjoy the dark. Small dark places have always been comfortable.
The nurses whisper in the staff room.
Part of me knows they aren’t talking about me.
But I still wonder.
The sadness hurts and I should see if sleep will come.
Please don’t turn me into a zombie.
Heather bought me a pen today from pride it has a rainbow on it.
Makes me sad that she went to all that effort and we still fought over going out.
I dug a pen into my arm to stop myself from getting stressed.
That’s when heather took me home. (Talking about the psych ward after a visit to the outside. I still can’t believe I said it was home).
There is that ink smell again bitter yet sweet.
Reminds me of high-school, of times before gender.
I hate my penis I wish it would just drop off.
Tom came this afternoon said he would return on Tuesday.
That man really cares about me.
And I’m so glad he came.
He listens well and we know how to laugh.
There is much to say anymore between us except those words I long to say.
Oh Thomas I love you. Can I be your girlfriend?
I’ll abandon my dykey ways just to be with you. But we all know we cant.
Some things are best left unsaid.
I woke up this morning to the sound of the rain.
Stepping outside to see winter giving me its last breath. A chilly September morning, everything wet with dew. Drips of water fall off everything and the grass is wet between my fingers.
It’s beautiful.
My revire is broken by the sound of the water boiling in the kettle behind me.
I haven’t had tea this morning.
A strange occurrence.
This mornings therapy is the women’s only group.
I’m glad to be allowed to attend.
Art therapy will be a good start to the day.
There are many men here, mainly veterans.
They are loud and sweat misogyny.
I get scared in their presence, a constant remind of my previous life.
They smell like my grandfather.
All muscle and voices that are so upbeat that they fail to hide the pain.
They have seen the worst of it all.
But they forgot how to feel long ago.
This place is layered.
Fresh laundry I forgot how nice it is.
Did all my clothes this morning.
One of life’s small pleasures.
I never realized how many kinds of beige there are.
The farmer’s husband with the scars on his neck thinks that he doesn’t belong here ‘with the crazy people’.
He looks at us with disgust.
His dead wife doesn’t miss him.
My doctor is pursuing my treatment to be medication free. Aside from my hormones, anti-depressants, anti-psychotics and sleeping pills.
Debbie wears a robe of white and guards herself from anyone.
Her eyes are full of sorrow.
I tell her my name.
Samantha, you can call me Sam.
How are you?
Debbie says she’s fine and okay.
With a grin I reply.
Isn’t it interesting how everyone says that. Yet here we are.
Ignore me I tell her, I’m autistic and I observe too much and think to little.
She replies with a terse ‘everyone gets better with time’.
This new medication is actually working, feeling better and more relaxed.
Yesterday wasn’t great I freaked out and have been really worried about Heather.
The fat stupid one goes on about her family name and driving me insane. Her voice reminds me of a lonely puppy always in need of attention.
Back to Heather, she on Wednesday night.
Scared the hell out of me. I’m still really worried.
The old men sit together in threes they are gruff with the goldfields in their veins.
I wonder who they are behind closed doors, one of them goes to the show and helps herd dogs the others I’m unaware.
The beautiful girl with the social phobia is in the dining room tonight. She sits next to the over weight one. Our eyes meet and I long to say ‘you are beautiful, I long to hold you’.
Hospitals and airplaness are the same.
Single serving. (sorry chuck).
The old men still sit in threes looking sad, us young people mournful reminders of days long lost.
They talk of the football season and being stationed in Beirut, Korea or wherever.
They are monosyllabic and untrusting of women, they can’t talk about their feelings.
This place has many answers but few questions.
There is an unfinished puzzle on the lounge room table.
It makes me nervous. Everything in pieces.
It’s a photograph with everything lost.
Even when finished it will be a terrible photo.
Nothing is to be gained from the creation of nothing.
Leave me alone, I need to talk to somebody who is as intelligent as I am.
The overweight blonde one talks to much and hides her feelings. I dislike her. Her voice grabs and needs self fulfillment.
Makes a deal about her artwork and says its not important.
She smiles far too often.
When I see a room being cleaned or emptied I wonder is somebody died.
While we were on lunchor late at night in the darkness of the ward.
The anorexic who finally succumbed or the depressive who hung herself using only a laptop cord.
Simple ways to go.
I make my own fun.
Most days I sit next to the eating disorder table and stuff myself loudly so they can hear and see me. Or at least a part of me enjoys their suffering.
The chips lady, overweight and OCD. She smiles and laughs like a kindly old woman who’s husband hits her.
My food is awful.
How do people have faith in something without rational explanation?
It makes every little sense to me the christians here confuse me.
Is faith the same thing as delusion when you need something so badly that you will believe anything just to get you through?
Can I ever cure my Autism?
No. But it can be managed.
The shallow girls are discussing TV, all smiles from mouths gaunt and red.
Looking at a dating show where a woman who is so generic that you just want to stab her.
They laugh as the men to to pick her up.
Stereotyped to the max.
Dawn drinks wine and says it’s a drug.
Like a substitute for happiness, for life.
She says she hates alcohol. Her lies are easy to spot transparent and desperate.
She just wants her kids back.
Tobacco I bummed is cheap and crap the taste is stale in my mouth.
I begin to miss my Russian fags.
Their lies fascinate me patients here all are unique.
Except those fucking shallow girls at the eating disorder table.
Oh how I hate them.
Complaining about getting 6 meals a day, you know we have to eat muffins one of them says to me Indignantly.
I feel ready to go home to just Dance and hug my girl.
To see my friends and chosen family, the people I love the most.
The three day old warm lemonade is sweet in my mouth but the sugar makes me go fast.
Heather whispers my eyes are like the universe do deep and mysterious.
Her voice makes me weak, I love you babe.
Right now some good old fashioned lesbian sex would be fantastic.
Todays orgasm, was fantastic.
Part of me wished I would look good butch. Rowarr.
Three times the sedated 60 year old with bipolar has collapsed in front of me.
Today her head fell in her soup, I rushed to help and told people to get nurses.
At dinner though, I just watched as her eyelids slowly shut and she fell towards her plate inch by inch.
The real tragedy of Alzheimer’s is that young people find it so hilarious. Now that sounds like a setup for a Chuck novel.
Jade always sits in the same seat, she wouldn’t sit with me.
Sleater-kinney hammers in my ears. Makes me feel good. Empowered.
Over the phone my girl talks about my breasts. Her voice makes things fuzzy.
At this stage I’m ready to go home I’m feel more normal.
But can I tell the difference between normalcy and malaise.
Are they the same.
I guess channeling some of my dyke anger*
Patent Pending can help.
I miss my girlfriend her voice, touch, the smooth skin on her sides. Those little peaks of breast. Nipples taut between my fingers.
I love her. I want to be her wife.
I sometimes rely on a culture for support when I feel so personally disenfranchised.
Billboards say you must be pretty, small, thin, the coolest, smartest and that you too can be the next big thing in Paris. Stereotypes shot at my head I wonder where I fit. Movies other women and even books tell me I should like boys. I get so sick of it. Mainly though because I’m sick of trying to fit in where I’m not wanted.
One of the girls from the eating disorder table told me just now that I have the perfect figure.
I’ve always thought the total opposite, I guess its nice to have an opposing viewpoint sometimes.
I still don’t feel like I believe it.
Dear anon, thanks for making me feel pretty.
Grunge tears out of my laptop speakers, telling me how I should feel.
Kill this love. Kill this love.
Darkpop makes me feel empowered.