I looked at the hospital band around my wrist. This sucked. My knuckles were still bloody and bruised from hitting something. The glass in the phone booth. Joey. The walls. Something. My anger and my being out of control had scared everybody, including me.
I had to wonder if I was like my father. He had been angry and out of control, too. Was he bipolar? That's what they were telling me was wrong with me. I was bipolar, which was a mental illness. My brain chemistry was off, I was wired wrong. I was screwed up. They said being abused hadn't helped, maybe it triggered it this early. Maybe it was just silently waiting no matter what had happened.
I talked to psychiatrists and nurses and mental health techs and everyone asked how I was feeling, how my mood was. Bipolar was a mood disorder. Mood swings. I'd had mood swings alright, that was true. I'd had this elation over marrying Ashley and writing all the songs in this flood of almost scary creativity. I'd had this rage explode at Joey when he tried to say something wasn't right with me, and he grabbed me and tried to keep me from leaving. I wanted to leave so desperately. I wanted to find Ashley. I didn't want to stay and deal with the credit card business and the hotel room. Then there was the hotel room. Ashley had rejected me and I couldn't contain anything. I wanted to destroy everything.
Everything had come crashing down. I was locked up here in this psych ward. I didn't know what to say to them to get them to release me. I'd pace my room, pace the halls. I felt like a tiger in a cage.
"Craig?" The nurse tiptoed into my room carrying a cupful of pills. I barely knew what they all were. Seroquel and depakote and ativan and Abilify. They meant that I was screwed up. I'd wanted to not take them but already I was learning this system. The hospital and mental health system. If I didn't take them I wouldn't get to leave, even though they made me feel drugged. Tired. Weird. If I didn't take them they'd get the injection version of them and hold me down and make me take them anyway.
I looked at her, feeling like a crazy loser. There was no choice. I took the pills and washed them down with water and watched the nurse watch me take them. In about a half an hour I was going to feel sleepy and off. These pills slowed the thoughts down, that was for sure. But maybe I didn't want them slowed down. Maybe I could control this myself and didn't need this.
I laid down and watched T.V., watched everyone on the T.V. seem to move slower, things were stretching out. I didn't know which drug it was that was making me feel like this, not like the doctor cared. He said I had to adjust to them. Adjust. That was his favorite word. I told him I was feeling a little bit like a zombie. He shrugged.
"Craig?" Joey this time. He crept into the room, his eyes watchful. Maybe he thought I was going to hit him again. I felt the shame wash over me. I was just like my dad, hurting people I was supposed to love. Maybe I should take the pills, no matter how they made me feel. I couldn't risk being like him.
"Hi, Joey," I said, not getting up. I didn't feel capable of getting up. One of these pills really knocked me out. Why did I have to get up, anyway? I was sick.
"How are you doing?" Joey said, his voice and eyes full of concern. I blinked slowly and watched him come over to the bed and sit on the edge of it. He didn't seem mad at me about beating him up, and that just made me feel worse. I didn't know what to do with people's understanding.
"Okay," I said, and looked away from him and back at the T.V. What could I tell him? That I was afraid I lost Ashley? That I was afraid of all the things I had done and how I seemed to have no real control over any of it? That I felt drugged half the time and out of my mind the other half? That my future was suddenly filled with medications and psychiatrist and failed coping skills and maybe drugs and maybe violence and who the hell knew what else? How could I tell him any of that?
He brushed my hair away from my forehead and I thought for a second that he was about to cry. I wanted to cry, too. I know he hadn't bargained for any of this.