The Black Abyss

A contemporary rewriting of the tale of 'Rumpelstiltskin'

I’ve been at the Bethlem Royal Psychiatric Hospital in Bromley for nearly a year now, and Donna still hasn’t spoken to me about that day – the day that finally landed me in here. I’m still waiting for her to bravely drag it up from the past in a sudden moment of exhausted frustration… but I could be waiting forever. I never thought I’d be brave enough to deal with it myself until the start of my psychotherapy this spring. On the rare occasions she’s been visiting, we have both been making a conscious effort to build bridges, struggling blindly through the shortening and darkening days as I approach the second winter of my residence here. Yet a dark void of misunderstanding and resentment remains ever present between us, and remains all the more discomforting. What we have left unsaid and unresolved for so long has gradually eroded away our relationship – our old friendship – which had before changed both our lives for the better (or so I believed at the time), yet is now corrupted, corroded and ultimately destroyed.

I sit here now – a plastic badge pinned to my dress, bearing my patient number 105 and name, Myleene Stubbs – and I wonder how I got here. I can remember a time in my early youth when I was happy and well. I’d always been able to somehow emerge from every set back in life maintaining a streak of confidence; I’d never been particularly academic, yet I still managed to achieve three reasonable A-levels and then pass the following five relatively happy years working in a local library. It was this preservation of confidence which eventually exposed my creative and innovative imagination, which in turn encouraged me to start university in Kent as a mature student of fine art at the age of twenty-five. I was determined to work hard and I chose good friends; that is until I met Adam, who not only wooed me with love but also with cocaine.

My memory of this time is hazy. It took just a few months of gradual decline into what would become an inescapable abyss before I eventually found myself engulfed within a nightmare I may never have awoken from. I realise now how it could have happened to anyone lacking a disciplined mindset; unfortunately for me, however, it was love which made me vulnerable. I soon became haunted by my own cravings and obsessions, even if at first I didn’t show it. I became defenceless to any temptation and entirely dependent and motivated by the one thing I knew I was able to do; to keep taking the drug.

It was through working part-time at a local charity shop that I met Donna. Only a few months had passed and Adam had already left me, I’d dropped out of Kent within the first six months of starting, and I was now desperate for money to finance a growing dependency which I could no longer control. During these early days I was somehow able to maintain the appearance of being mentally stable, and my first encounter with Donna remains vividly engraved on my memory; she, slim with radiant skin and rosy cheeks, perched on the steps of the back entrance to the shop, deeply inhaling a cigarette; and I, withered, stony-faced and tired, my hair and posture wiry and limp.

‘You wouldn’t mind if I had one of them cigarettes, would you?’ I said.

The rosy-cheeked women gazed up at me, shook her head and handed me the packet. She forced a weak smile before turning away and inhaling again, looking deep in thought. I remember feeling intrigued by her presence; I was captivated by her elegance, yet resentful of her distant manner.

‘I shouldn’t be smoking them anyway,’ she sighed after a few moments, taking her last toke before stubbing it out on the concrete steps. ‘I’m trying to get pregnant…’

And so it began. She began to spill out her heart to me in one instant – over a mere packet of cigarettes. Her infertility seemed to be killing her emotionally just as much as my cocaine addiction was killing me physically and mentally. At first I listened only half-heartedly and resentfully to her sob story; poor woman, with the loyal and loving husband she scarcely seemed to appreciate, with the comfy cosy cottage she owned in the most affluent area of town… I barely cared about her childlessness – until I heard her mention the £21,000 she was offering to anyone who donated their eggs in order for her to get pregnant.

I didn’t need to think twice. ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘I’ll donate my eggs to you.’

And so it was. I cannot deny that I was sceptical about whether it would work; I was sure they would carry out blood tests, discover my secret and disallow the procedure. Sure enough I was required to complete a medical and psychological history about myself, including questions about my use of cigarettes, alcohol, and both prescription and illegal drugs – yet they never followed up my false claims. Neither did anyone question my motives or our acquaintance with each other; it was a perfect resolution for both our issues; Donna’s infertility and my bankruptcy.

During the following nine months of Donna’s pregnancy, we bonded well and became close friends. It was the first real friendship I’d had in years. Although my secret struggle to control my drug addiction continued, Donna kept me up to date with her pregnancy through regular contact by phone. However, our acquaintance, which had initially just been an opportunity for profit and exploitation, was in later years to become my next obsession…

I met Daniel Stubbs in the same month that Donna gave birth to a baby boy. That February, Daniel and I had started attending the same Prevention Class for people suffering from substance abuse, and as the weeks passed I felt more and more able to relate to his own personal experience with cocaine. Over the following year I lost contact with Donna as Daniel helped me through my continuous recoveries and relapses back into drug abuse. And at the age of twenty-eight, I agreed to become his wife.

I was happy for the first time in years. I felt like I was back in control, stronger, and independent…

Then, only three years later, Daniel left me for another woman.

Once again, my memory of this time is foggy – at the time I was unaware of my deteriorating psychological state. Now, as I look back, I understand more than I feel comfortable with. Sometimes I wish I’d been left oblivious to it all; left to stew in my own mess forever; left in that inescapable black abyss into which I’d thrown myself so many years ago. I remember moments when I wondered what on earth the point was; I kept falling, falling through the blackness… and there was never any end to it. Hours melted into hours, days into days. I would desperately try to drag myself back out… try to reach the surface again, breathe again… but I could never get a firm enough grip; I kept slipping away.

And the more I slipped, the angrier I got. I became paranoid and suspicious of everyone around me. Nobody would help me; I was alone, isolated, and the whispering voices in my head mocked me; criticised me. I felt frustrated, out of control, as if someone else had possessed my mind and thoughts. I lost sense of what was real and what was delusion. And I wanted people to go away – but protect me… help me.

And I remembered Donna, and our friendship, and the way she’d helped me; more than anyone had ever helped me. And as I passed the days by in hopeless despair, I once again found myself obsessing over my memory of her; the way she moved her lips when she spoke; the way she threw her head back when she laughed, her hand gestures when she talked… She was the flawless one, the one who could show me the way… So I called her one day, and again the next, and the next… And every time, she tried to sound happy at the sound of my voice, agreeing to stay in touch out of mere politeness, or so I now realise…

Then, during the winter of last year, it all changed. It was the fifth time I’d phoned her in three days, and the ice finally shattered.

‘The voices are back again, Donna,’ I said. The receiver shook in my hand. It kept slipping from my grip as sweat formed on my palms. ‘They keep telling me to do stuff… I don’t want to do it… Can you hear them, Donna? Donna, you can help me, you know everything -’

‘Myleene, I can’t help you,’ Donna said. I remember her voice was shaky. ‘You can’t call me anymore. Please stop calling me -’

‘What?’ I was angry. I’d helped her, done her a favour – and this was how she repaid me?

‘No! I need you, Donna. I need you to make them go away. You can hear them! I know you can!… Is this a joke to you?’ I suddenly snapped. My face contorted into an ugly sneer. ‘Is it? IS THIS A FUNNY JOKE!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ Donna was shouting. She was shouting at me. ‘Go away! Don’t call again, else I’ll call the police!’

‘No!’

But she’d gone. The receiver was dead.

The anger I felt then was not normal; it was blind rage, a fury I couldn’t control. She’d deceived me, and she’d abandoned me – just like Daniel had. And as I realised this, I realised something else…

I was thirty-one years old, my husband had left me – and my greatest chance to ever have children had escaped with him. It was like an electric shock; the prospect of children had never once concerned me, yet now the unlikelihood of it was suddenly swelling inside me, burning me up with anger, until it was all I could think about… Distress became despair; despair became desperation… until I became completely overwhelmed by fear and fury. I was convinced that I’d been mistreated, conspired against by both Daniel and Donna; how dare he leave me! And how dare she, the poor woman with the perfect life, steal my child, the only child I’d ever have. She’d plotted it from the start… It was rightfully mine.

And before I knew where I was or what I was doing, I was standing on the threshold of her home. I pounded on the door, and a moment later it was opened by a tall, dark skinned man.

‘Hello, Myleene, how are -’

‘I want to see my son!’

‘Excuse m-’

But I’d already pushed passed him in a frenzy of passion. I was shouting for him, pleading, calling…I stormed up the narrow staircase – and there was Donna at the top, standing before me, a defiant look in her eyes, clutching the hand of a small boy of no more than five.

‘How dare you come here,’ she hissed at me. Her eyes flashed. She no longer looked so beautiful, but menacing. I could feel the anger bubbling inside me, as if I were a volcano about to erupt.

‘That’s my child!’ I said. My teeth and fists were clenched; my eyes bulged. ‘You stole him from me! He’s rightfully mine!’

And I made to grab him – but Donna forced me aside, slamming me against the banister. I screamed with rage and ran at her – but her husband got in the way and wrestled me against the wall –

‘Get out of our home!’ He was yelling in my face. Saliva flew from his mouth. ‘Leave my wife and child alone -’

‘He’ll leave you, Donna!’ I screamed over the shrieks from her husband and the cries of the child. ‘Ed will leave you, just as Daniel left me! They’re all the same! He doesn’t love you! And he doesn’t love my child! He’s better with me!’

Donna was crying hysterically. ‘With YOU!’ she screamed. ‘YOU – who are a crack addict! Who would sell your own child for drug money! Who is mentally unbalanced! HE’D BE BETTER OFF IN THE GUTTERS IN THE STREET, YOU SAD B***H!’

Then I leapt. I don’t know how I managed it, or how I escaped from Ed’s grasp – but I knocked him aside, and the last thing I remember is grabbing hold of Donna’s blouse as I hurled both of us headfirst down the stairs… Screaming, crying… and then silence.

 

*

 

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia on my arrival at Bethlam Royal last winter. I don’t remember how I arrived here; I remained unconscious for most of the journey having split my head open at the bottom of the stairs. But I’m glad of that; to have seen Donna’s face as I left her home would have scarred my memory for life.

         Donna refused to visit me for six months after my admittance here. I still don’t know how she was persuaded to change her mind. I will never use my mental disability as an excuse for what I did – I will probably never be able to forgive myself – but I can honestly say I was never so happy to see Donna the day she appeared at my bedside for the first time.

         Her face had looked haggard and tired. I was shocked when I first saw her – all the vibrancy and elegance I had once known had died, and now a ghostly white mask gazed, unsmiling, back at me. I reached out for her with a trembling pale hand. My body felt stiff in the bed, my head dizzy. These were the effects of the neuroleptic drugs which I had to suffer day and night.

‘Donna…’

          She just gazed at me. Then she walked slowly forward, sat beside my bed, and rested her frail hand on mine…

         During the last few months, Donna has helped me to understand myself more than my psychologist. Her soft whispering voice has spent hours talking about my problems, helping me to recognise them, deal with them… I now feel, not angry, but proud to have granted Donna her ultimate wish for a healthy and happy child. And without her knowing, much of the money Donna granted me has financed my psychotherapy. She has helped me a lot more than she realises.