Seeing Beavers

A short story I wrote for a school thing about the experience of psychosis and how it impacts a person. Keep in mind I have never experienced psychotic symptoms firsthand.

                                                                  Seeing Beavers

“I’m not like other girls.” I’m not sure if there’s a single phrase you could utter that would annoy me more. Well, sure, there’s “I’ve always been different/unusual”, and all the related phrases, but that’s besides my point. I’m not entirely sure why I hate it so much " maybe I’ve just come to realize that it’s so redundant to say something like that. After all, everyone is unique " every girl is “not like other girls”, and in fact, by being unusual, you are, in fact, just like everyone else. It’s quite the ridiculous paradox, I know.

Then again, I’m probably just overreacting. I’ve probably just read far too many books far too many times over about the mundane, yet completely incredible life of some teenager, and how they had everything transform in front of their very eyes. Maybe those stories just hit a little too close to home. They’re tame " there’s nothing overly stimulating or exciting ever happening (which is probably why my parents brought by so many), but they’re a way to pass time. Of course, I continue to read them, despite how much I hate them " there’s not much else to do, really (it’s almost a love-hate relationship). I have, after all, become intimately acquainted with making do with the s****y cards I’ve been dealt.

My mind tends to run off like this a bit in the morning. After all, when the sun is still down and everyone else is asleep, what is there to do besides stare at my stack of used books? I sit up, and decide to change out of my pyjamas and wash my face " there’s no point in getting dressed, but I need the routine.

The nurses are changing shifts in their own little room that the rest of us are never allowed in, so it’s dead silent on the floor. I suppose I can always rely on Mister Schulze to be sitting in the dining room, watching the seven-o-clock news, though " I can see his red mittens even from down the hall. “Good morning, Mister Schulze,” I greet him almost robotically as I take a seat in front of the television. “You’re up early.”

“I wonder when we’re going to get out of this ice age…” Mister Schulze remarks.

“I suppose it is a little chilly, but it’s not cold enough for me to be wearing mittens in here.” I reply.

“Is that so?” The old man trails off and turns his attention back to the television, as do I. I don’t expect anything else out of him " we have this exact conversation every morning. Call it tedious or mundane " it is " but it’s nice to have some interaction; loneliness has become one of my greatest fears nowadays.

It wasn't always that way, though " in fact, it was just the opposite before. I was sort of introverted growing up; I had my group of friends and was perfectly comfortable never having to talk to anybody else. In fact, socializing was a chore, and I judged everyone I ever encountered, to the point where I’m pretty sure that was my most practiced hobby. Everyone asks me all the time how it was possible for me not to have realized that my thoughts were so farfetched and delusional, and the conclusion I came to is this: I hate people.

Early in my teenaged years, I started to really advocate for social justice issues; around the same time, I had finally started to figure out my sexuality. In essence, I gained a reputation as a raging lesbian feminist, and by the time I hit my twenties, had become completely accepting of the fact that nobody would ever accept who I am or what I say seriously. It was sort of a vicious cycle where every time I talked to someone new, I would get shut down, which really just made me keep to myself and hate people even more than I had before.

Point being " I couldn’t trust people. At the end of the day, I was convinced that people were going to shut me down no matter what I said, and that what they thought didn’t matter; so when I began to experience my first psychotic episode, I refused to believe what anyone else thought of me, and was perfectly content to shut myself in my room until the doctor strapped me into a straightjacket and locked me away.

I’m just kidding, the reality wasn’t nearly so quixotic.

For some people, the line between normality and psychosis is blurred " a slow, insidious descent into the unknown that you don’t realize is happening until you’re too far under. For me, it began suddenly, and I remember the day well.

Belinda Wilson " a name that could rile me up in an instant. Suffice it to say, I never liked the girl, even though I hardly knew her. I’m sure that if I were to look back on the days leading up to the onset, I would notice something or another slowly changing in me, but it must have been subtle because no one suspected anything. She sat behind me in lecture that day, belting out her personal affairs at the top of her lungs. I distinctly remember rolling my eyes several times as I tried to shut her out.

On my way home, I encountered an old woman on the road. She spoke to me, telling that Belinda was a witch who stole people’s bodies. She was an eccentric lady, one with a laugh that sent chills down my spine, and part of me thought that she was ridiculous. Yet at the same time, I found myself believing what she said " even though it was all so fantastic and unreasonable, the thought never occurred to me that she wasn’t really there.

She never appeared again, but the damage was done " my mind was overloaded with paranoia, and I believed that Belinda was going to kill me and wear my hollow corpse like some sort of fur coat. I wasn’t afraid of being killed " just angry. Every time I saw her, I would seethe and glare. “I think she wants to kill me.” I would mumble, and no amount of reassurance from my friends could convince me otherwise. I’m sure they had good intentions " that they tried to help, but they were scared and in denial. Nobody knew what to do, and that was why I was left unchecked.

Those surreptitious thoughts continued to fester, eating away at me day and night. There was absolutely no way I was ever going to let her take my body from me " that was what it all came down to. Then came my brilliant epiphany " I just had to made sure she couldn’t. There were a few ideas I considered, but when push came to shove, I depended on the entropic power of fire to transform me into a crispy husk that would have been impossible to use. Haha Belinda, I thought, how do you like them apples?

Fortunately, I never ended up enacting my quite literal blaze of glory. In the incredibly anticlimactic end to that arc in my life’s story, my parents dragged me to the hospital, where I was admitted onto the psychiatric unit.

I was never a physically aggressive person, but I yelled a lot the first time I was here. I didn’t want to take the medications at first " I refused to believe there was anything wrong with me after all, though I didn’t really have a choice. I kept to myself, not wanting to socialize with any of the other patients, and that was when I began to feel lonely. My friends did visit " the close ones anyways; often at first, but the more time that passed, the less I saw of them. Even when they did come, I was always left with a foul taste in my mouth, because I still couldn’t see that there was anything wrong even when they clearly could. They would eye me with a certain glare, one that made me feel… distant and inhuman, as if I were no longer the same as them.

To say I hated the hospital was an understatement. There was never anything to do; there was no privacy; people were running around everywhere, all the time; the doctors and nurses and social workers and occupational therapists and whoever the sod else were asking me the same things day in and day out, never considering anything I had to say that was unrelated to my delusions. I felt like a broken record " a one-trick pony trying to accomplish greater things but failing magnificently, and I was growing sick of it. Most of all, I was scared of the other patients there " they’re nothing like me, I thought. I’m different.

It took a few weeks for the medication to kick in, and when they did I began to see just how ridiculous I must have sounded. I felt humiliated, reflecting back on my actions and remembering all the crazy things I must have done. I began to doubt little things in my life, afraid that everything was a lie. Even though all those thoughts and experiences felt like some sort of dream after I had gained some insight, they were as real to me at the time as my own two hands.

I would sit at the window and just stare at the city bustle with activity below me as a sort of impartial member to the world. It was as if I’d taken a time out from reality " as if the moment someone snapped their fingers, my life would restart and I would be sitting at school again. Life is never that simple.

When they discharged me and sent me back to school, I realized I had fallen behind. I missed a very considerable chunk of a semester and had to take a lot of extra courses to remain in the same year as my friends. For some reason, school also just didn’t seem that important anymore after an earth-shattering experience like a psychotic episode.

The weird looks continued from anyone that knew me. At that point in my life, I lied. When people asked me about what transpired, I said that I got mono, and left things at that. My group of friends was a fraction of what it used to be, and even then, they always seemed cautious and guarded around me. The people I used to know transformed into something unrecognizable, and treated me with an attitude that ostracised me. Even my family appeared wary of how I acted, and I could see the gears turning in their heads as they tried to rationalize anything strange I did with being crazy.

I’m sure it all made sense for my mother at that point: “Ah yes! This is why she’s always so angsty! It’s because she’s crazy " I knew there had to be a reason as to why she’s never had an interest in boys!” My mother’s face was easier to read than a highway billboard. It was as if, overnight, whoever I used to be no longer existed, and all that remained was just this psycho nutcase with no other characteristics of her own. It couldn’t just be that I cared about gender equality and queer rights " no, no, it must have been the insanity talking!

It was hard for me to be taken seriously, which is probably part of the reason why I was ignored when I started experiencing stomach pains. Turns out I developed a stomach ulcer from all that stress, which really just caused more stress, pain and quality hospital time… and of course because my body knew that I just loved the hospital so much, it decided to throw in my second psychotic episode as an added bonus. Fantastic.

 

I stare at the tray of food in front of me, listening to people talk. The awkward buzz of the morning meal has a tendency to grow on you " then again, this is my third time here, and a lot of this has just become mundane for me. The food isn’t bad " better than what I got on the medicine floor, and definitely better than whatever I usually make (hint: it’s instant noodles). I usually have to fight with myself on how much I should eat though " I’ve been gaining weight after starting my antipsychotics, and I’m starting to be more conscious of what I take in. To be fair, I have been eating more in the hospital " regular meals, three times a day and all that, which is probably part of the reason why I no longer fit in the jeans I arrived in.

Then it occurs to me to look around the dining room. I don’t see any sign of Ralph, which I find strange because he’s usually out before breakfast. I have to wonder if maybe he took a turn for the worse and had to be locked in seclusion. My symptoms come and go, but they do so for long stretches at a time and remain steady when they’re there. Ralph was completely unlike me in that sense.

I met Ralph the second time I was admitted. I was sitting in a corner, watching television, sulking because I couldn’t believe that I was back here.

“Woah, I thought you were like a student or something.” He said, taking a seat across from me.

I eyed him, and did the judgmental thing where I tried to read him. He was a younger patient like me (I later found that he was nearing thirty), tall, lanky, and dressed in baggy clothes. At first glance, you wouldn’t think that there was anything strange about him at all.

“Never met you before " you new?” He stared at me intensely when he asked, to the point where it almost scared me. He hardly gave me time to respond before he continued, extending his hand. “I’m Ralph.” I reluctantly took his hand, and he shook me vigorously, the way one would a carton of orange juice. “What are you in for?” His leg was fidgeting the entire time.

I looked away. “Paranoid, nihilistic, and grandiose delusions, with some auditory hallucinations on the side.”

He laughed. “Cool. I’m manic, which means I can’t seem to stop talking sometimes, so let me know when you need me to shut up.”

I tried to ignore him " he was giving me a headache. He continued to talk, going on and on about something " I don’t really remember all of the details (he was right " he did talk a lot), and jumping around across subjects. I spent much of that first meeting wondering why he was talking to me " maybe it was because I was closer in age to him than a lot of the others? Maybe he was just flat out crazy?

Then he shut up, and stared at the television, and that was when it happened. “Hey, don’t say things like that!” He started yelling at me.

I gaped at him, wide-eyed. “Huh? But I didn’t…”

“No, you can’t say things like that to me " you don’t even know me!” He continued to scream about what I apparently said, and I shrivelled up in my seat, genuinely scared for my life. He grabbed my arm and I began to scream, which was when the nurses came in and rushed me out of the room. I don’t recall too much of what followed " they tried to coerce him into taking some medication and moved him back into the walled off, low-stimulation room he resided in.

The experience shook me to the core. Though obnoxious, he had seemed so harmless right up until that sudden change, and though it should have caused me to fear people with mental illness more, it actually caused me to question myself and how I must have appeared to everyone else. I found him again in the days that followed and resolved myself to have a decent talk with him.

Ralph was like a human sine wave " there were really good days and really bad days, and he would yo-yo from absolutely normal to completely psychotic within the span of minutes. He was always fidgety and talkative, and he didn’t sleep much, but his mania was typically under control. The problem was that the moment he became psychotic, his impulsivity and irrationality would skyrocket, and he would just be so eager to buy into his psychotic thoughts and become physically aggressive.

“I hear people’s voices " real people’s " and I don’t really know what to do.” He explained. “It’s like, the moment I look away from you, I’ll hear you talking, and I don’t know if you’re really talking, or if I’m just imagining things. Sometimes I can be really rational and realize that it’s a hallucination, and then I can sort of ignore it. Other times? Well, you saw what happened.” He chuckled dryly.

“Usually it’ll be negative things " a lot of insults involved. I guess I can be kind of sensitive to stuff like that, though can you really blame me? Sometimes it’s nice though " like someone telling me they like me, or having a conversation with me when I’m bored and alone.” Ralph had been living with his psychosis for nearly ten years, and there was a lot he had to say about it.

He was the one that made me realize the reality of what I was " that I wasn’t special, that I was just like everyone else here, and he did it by laughing at me. “Everyone here is just a regular person caught in a weird pit in their lives. When we’re at home, we’re just a bunch of regular people who have to pop a bunch of pills and deal with their problems, just like everyone else. When we’re here, it’s because we’re at our worst, so don’t be an idiot " you sound just as crazy to me as Mister Schulze over there.”

When I gave him a skeptical look, he just glared right back at me. “You can’t honestly tell me that all your talk of witchcraft and possession doesn’t sound even the teensiest bit ridiculous to you.”

I scoffed. “Ridiculous things happen all the time. What, you’ve never thought that maybe aliens or monsters were real?”

“Give it a week.” He was referring to my medications kicking in.

I pouted and rolled my eyes at the time, but he was right, of course. After my insight returned, I once again realized how strange it was for me to believe my outrageous delusions. “I don’t get it " I know what I’m saying is crazy, and that I might be completely delusional because it’s happened before, but there’s always this little voice in the back of my head that manages to convince me that I haven’t relapsed " that it’s all true. It’s clearer for me than for some " my delusions are pretty farfetched, but how do you do it? How can you tell what’s real and what’s not?” It was a question I asked over and over again, and the doctors would tell me to continue my medications, ask others for affirmation and develop coping strategies to prevent another psychotic episode from happening.

“You don’t,” was Ralph’s reply. “At some point, you have to doubt everything that happens. I always wonder if something’s wrong, but I still don’t know if that makes it a hallucination. I could ask others for help, but who knows if I’m just fooling myself and imagining an answer? You just have to keep a steady hand and do what you think is right " and pray that you made the right decision.”

I suppose a good metaphor for how I feel is this: imagine you’re walking down a street and you suddenly see a beaver crossing. It’s strange " there’s no lakes around you, so there’s no reason for a beaver to be there, yet at the same time, it’s undeniably there in front of you. You’re a little nearsighted, so you have a history of sometimes mistaking skunks for friendly squirrels, which has proved unfortunate for both you and your dog in the past. Yet the more you stare at this beaver, the more certain you are that it cannot, in fact, be a skunk. After all, skunks and beavers somewhat look alike, but you’re fairly certain that you would not mistake one for the other. Yes, it’s a beaver, you conclude, as you walk by and proceed to have your nostrils assaulted by the smell of flaming rubber. As you bathe in a mixture of tomato juice and shame, you realize in hindsight that you could see the telltale skunk colours on this “beaver”, but apparently just took no notice and made an inaccurate judgement.

That is what happens when I experience a delusion or hallucination " it doesn’t matter how much I rationalize it, the fact is that I believe the beaver is there, and I can’t convince myself otherwise even if I consider the fact that it may be a skunk, or delusion.

I started making friends with the other patients on the unit, and I stopped denying the nature of my mental illness. I accepted it as part of who I was, and when people asked me about it, I no longer tried to dart around the issue. I learned to write to relieve stress, and made new friends who were more accepting of who I was. Of course I still kept in contact with some of my old friends, but it was difficult since I had fallen so far behind them. Besides, even though they were open-minded about my situation, I would always remember that fact that there was no way they would truly understand what I had experienced, and that drew me away from them.

Of course being open about my illness wasn’t easy. I kept thinking back to something that Ralph said about stigma. This was after my parents found out about all the cool new psychiatric friends I had made, and after their big hoopla about how I shouldn’t “stoop to that level”. 

Ralph laughed ridiculously hard after I vented my frustrations to him. “People are always going to be like that " we’re always going to be judged and discriminated upon. They think we’re crazy and unpredictable, and more than anything else, they’re scared of us. All they know is what they see on the media " all the Norman Bates psycho-killers and nut-job geniuses they show in movies. Though to be fair, anyone who’s scared of me probably has a legitimate reason to be " I am the crazy and unpredictable.” He always spoke about it so casually, as if he’d been desensitized to it all.

I frowned. “But like you said before, right now, in the hospital is when we’re at our worst. I’m sure normally you're a perfectly pleasant guy " a little long-winded and obnoxious, but unremarkable otherwise.”

“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.” He smiled. “But that’s my point exactly " people don’t notice us normally, it’s only when we’re being frightening and wild and psychotic that they realize we are mentally ill. They never attribute the normalcy to a psychotic patient, and that’s why we’re so stigmatized.”

 

Well, Ralph isn’t in his room. I have to wonder where he is, but it could be anywhere from ECT to an activity pass in the city. He’s been really good and in control recently, so they’ve been letting him go by himself for a bit, but if that were the case, I’d feel a little betrayed that he didn’t tell me. We’ve become good friends, and I visited him a lot after I was discharged. Of course it was nice to see some of the nurses and social workers, too " as much as I like to complain and whine about being in the hospital, the fact is that some of the healthcare workers have made the biggest difference.

I won’t list names, but there are a few people who have really helped me a lot. With some of them it’s not even what they say, but the way they say it, as if I could confess anything (even murder) and not be judged. That was important, especially when I was still having a hard time accepting my diagnosis. Others I hated at first because I thought they were being too pushy " but it turned out to be tough love, and we all got along in the end, just like some cheesy fairy tale (not exactly because there are still some limeys that I absolutely can’t stand, but I shall not get into that).

Beyond that, my immediate family has been extremely supportive, all things considering. There are lots of things we don’t agree on, and lots more room for change, but I really couldn’t have gotten through all this by myself, no matter how distant I might feel sometimes. I could have had it a lot worse.

It was only recently that Ralph really opened up to me about his life and struggles. His mother died in a vehicular accident when he was young, and his father became an alcoholic. He had a hard time growing up, and ended up dabbling in a lot of illicit activities. The eldest of three boys, he was kicked out of his house after high school, and hasn’t talked to his father since, though his brothers still keep him up to date.

He became depressed shortly after, struggling with untreated episodes of depression and hypomania. He made a lot of friends like him " good friends who understood him and cared about him even after he was hospitalized. That’s a big difference between us " Ralph is much more sociable, and a better judge of character than I.

He smoked a lot to cope with his depressive symptoms, and that was what triggered his first case of psychosis. “That was the only time I ever saw something that wasn’t there " it was pretty intense. I mean there was music and lights " like a circus or something.” He laughed dryly. “I mean, I wasn’t sure if something was seriously wrong with me, or if I was just stoned out of my mind.”

That was the only time I laughed really hard at him.

He went on to explain how after he was discharged the first time, he lost his job. He’d just missed too many days. There was a lot of bouncing around between jobs after, and trying to hide/explain his illness. “I feel like my life’s been a cycle of: get a job, hospital, lose a job, get rejected times twenty because I’m too crazy for them to handle, get accepted, and repeat.” He shook his head. “I’m on financial support anyway, but it’s not great. Besides, it’s frustrating to be able to do work and not be given the chance to.”

Conversations like that made me appreciate how lucky I was, and really put my struggles in perspective. This is my third hospitalization, and while I would have liked to never come back after the second (I can’t help but think this is some sort of buy two get one free! deal that I didn’t sign up for), part of me feels much wiser after having experienced all that I have. I would even dare to say that I’ve been enlightened " that people with psychiatric illness are special somehow by having survived all their trials and tribulations in one piece.

Of course Ralph laughs at when I mention things like that, and then proceeds to wonder if I really have gone bananas.

 

At lunch, Ralph joins me at last, a wide grin on his face. I chastise him for disappearing on me, and he tells me that he’s going to go home. “After I spoke to the doctor about it, my brother called, and he said he wants me to stay with him for a while. Everything’s already taken care of, so I might get to go tomorrow.” He’s positively giddy " more than usual, which meant that he is so restless that it physically disorients me to watch him.

I congratulate him, and he proposes we make an impromptu trip to the city, just because he’s in such a good mood. Reluctantly, I agree. “But after I see the doctor " I’m hoping to go soon myself.”

Ralph and I have the same doctor, so when she comes to talk to me, I mention how great it must be for Ralph and his brother. She stares at me, perplexed and looks over to the resident beside her, who appears equally clueless and shrugs as they exchange glances. She asks me a little about Ralph, about how my conversation with him made me feel, then moves on to the routine questions. The entire time I can’t help but feel a little uneasy.

I ask her when I can go home.

“I’m not sure,” she replies. “But probably not for another week " we’d like to keep an eye on you for a little while longer.” Then I leave.

It’s probably nothing " after all, there is a whole doctor-patient confidentiality agreement thing, so she can’t exactly talk to me about Ralph; or perhaps she didn’t know about his brother. Still, there’s a little nagging voice in the back of my mind wondering if maybe, just maybe, beavers have been seen crossing the road. 

Author's Note

Hello trees.
Also if anyone would like to know more about the psychiatric system in Canada, or about mental illness I can maybe help?

Reviews

[Vic]

Cool story, I like reading about different perspectives and you did a good job making this one feel so real. The twist at the end really tied everything together - the uncertainty of it all. A silly criticism is the random " 's near the beginning.

[Lunacyrio]

Oh. Probably a copy/paste thing from word?
Also whoop thanks I hope it was semi-educational?