The first afternoon when I was having lunch I was in a ward called Oak. The politically correct term for Oak is that it is the “high dependency” ward. I later found out that often when new patients come in they have to go into Oak, but at this time I thought Oak was the whole place. I was one of five patients in Oak the first night/afternoon I was there and all were male. The dining area in Oak was the most depressing place I’d ever been. It reminded me of the film “Scum”, a late 1970s English film about a borstal which myself and @mickee321 have referenced here a few times.
There was a chap there shouting and screaming at the warden, who was sitting about four yards away from him. The warden’s face didn’t flinch a bit, it was as if he couldn’t even hear the shouting and screaming. I had first seen this patient about three seconds after entering the ward the previous night. He’s a dead ringer for Brian Clough circa 1991. He even wore a green top, which was an Irish rugby tracksuit top but it reminded me of Clough’s green jumper. The other patients were sitting there with blank faces. In Oak you could go out for one cigarette per hour, but I didn’t yet have any cigarettes on me. I got talking to the Clough lookalike afterwards, he was in listening to RTE radio which was coming from a television. He rolled me a couple of cigarettes, but almost immediately I was called out and moved to another ward called Hazel, which is for the “normal” patients. I encountered Clough a few times over the following week or so as the “garden” in Oak backed onto the window in my room. Clough would spot me through the window and come over to shout through the window. “Happy Christmas, my friend!” Another time, after dark, he spotted me and knocked on the window of a meeting room which backed onto the Oak garden as I was talking to my mother and brother when they were down for a visit. I said to them “that’s Cloughie, he’s harmless”.
In Oak ward I had a room to myself but I didn’t leave it from about 9:30pm when I got in there on the Friday night until Saturday lunchtime, because I was petrified to leave it. I didn’t sleep a wink on the Friday night into Saturday morning. Cloughie was not the worst, if you got on his good side he was genuinely friendly. But he’s been in and out of there since 2000, and I have no doubt will be in and out of there for the rest of his days.
If I ever wrote a play of my time in there I’d have Fairytale of New York playing ironically over the lunch scene.
It was Christmas Eve babe
In the looney bin
An old man said to me
Won’t see another one
And then he shouted at Tom
“I want a cigarette”
I turned my face away
And looked down at my hospital food
Do you know what strikes me reading this Cheasty, is there is no mention at all of your feelings towards your eye or even the bother it is giving you in any of the last few posts.
Tell me fuck off if I am wrong but was all this time in there a big distraction for you due to so much going on and your fear in there that it took your attention away from your eye?
I think a play would be the way to go of your time in there. Get a few of the lads in here to appear in it for you and take it on the road.
Use it to raise awareness.
To an extent yes. But during the night I’d be constantly looking at the curtain rails above me to see if I could see them straight or if I was seeing them warped. When I’d be having a smoke I’d be looking through one eye at the window frames and thinking they looked like that bendy building in Sopot in Poland. And I’d be looking at the window in the door during the night and trying to measure how much different I was seeing the window with the left eye compared to the right, how much different was the slanting from the left eye compared to the straight image from the right eye, and the difference in where I was seeing them in my vision.
During the night the staff would come into your room every 15 minutes or so and shine a torch at you to check you were alive. Sometimes the staff wouldn’t co-ordinate and another staff member would come in shining a torch a minute or less after the previous one had done so.
One night I was asleep and I got this terrible flashing in my eye. I woke up and thought “oh fuck, my retina is detaching again”. Then I realised it was just a warden flashing a torch in my eye. Phew.
Sharing a room takes your mind off things, especially if you have good room mates, and I was lucky enough to have two good room mates, probably the best available to share a room with. From last Saturday on I was moved to a single room and found myself thinking spending a bit more time alone and thinking about the eye a good bit more. I’d try and get to sleep by thinking up a list of the 100 greatest association football goals ever scored and imagining them in my mind and that I was putting together a Channel 4 special of them and imaging which people I’d have commenting on each goal.
I had the Sunday Indo dropped into me, I found it in a bag that was given to me by my brother. There was an article in it about a woman who had spent 31 days in a psychiatric ward in the North in 2017 and is now publishing her diary of her stay. The irony of seeing that story in a psychiatric ward.
I hope you don’t mind me reiterating what others have said but there’s a fine mix of honesty, humour and humanity in your writing. I don’t know much about your life - I think you were a carer if I recall correctly? - but you’re a fine storyteller. Hoping things improve for you, and one day you’re work is published somewhere other than TFK.
That wee lassie was on RTE radio post Christmas Day outlining her story. Possibly morning time I’m unable to confirm but she was terrifically warm and interesting. It’s probably accessible on the Player as they call it but I can’t confirm this.
You’re on the mend anyhow which is the important thing. Good luck for the future.
A fantastic idea for a thread on TFK. A countdown from 100 to 1…one goal a day with a post on the goal, the context, YouTube videos etc. No discussion… You owe it to us @Cheasty now that you have planted the seed…
It’s all been said now, I hope you’re strong enough to push through this, at least now the fear of the psych ward may be gone for you and if the need arises again it won’t be set o daunting.
The writing is superb, I know the feeling of smoking cause there’s nothing else to do, fags are the least of your worries.
If I had your talent I’d love to write a book, I’d say you could do anything at all, fiction or sport especially, but I like the idea of a play as well,
I’d say there’s probably somebody here who could get you published, or at least we’d crowdfund it
Good luck, get well
I’d love to write a book. I have ideas floating around my head, probably bullshit, and I don’t think I have the discipline and where with alls to do it.
