Snowfall

It was a dismal reality, one that I was reluctant to acknowledge as my own. To awaken, if that's even the word, from a cocaine-induced suicidal psychosis, and find yourself in an all white room of a psychiatric hospital. White walls, white bed sheets, a white ceiling and the unrelenting buzz of a white fluorescent light. Even the floor was made of individually white linoleum tiles. Outside, everything was covered in a fresh coat of white January snow. I was tired and could sleep all day.

       For months leading up to my "break," I had held down a full-time job, and an even more demanding and more full time cocaine habit. Once inside, I was put back on my old medications: Seroquel and Celexa. Two cure-all drugs that psychiatrists hand out like candy, and both known to make you lethargic. Somehow I was still receiving two milligrams of Klonopin a day, that I would religiously cheek then crush and sniff once back in the privacy of my room. I would sit there and wait for the bitter taste to drip down the back of my throat, and feel all worry and emotion melt away. So that's what I did, slept all day, waking up only to eat and when mom came to visit me. She came every day, and brought lunch she knew I would like: Pastrami and Swiss, Diet Coke and pretzels. She remembered my minute preferences, even when there was so much more at hand than what I would have for lunch that day. I had become so accustomed to deceiving her: to concealing the extent of my desperation and misery. Our conversations consisted of small talk. I would lie about having read the spiritual Deepak Chopra books she brought me. She would tell me about work and the recent lay-offs. “You need to shave”, she said, as she gently rubbed her hand up and down against the side of my face. Unaware of just how much of a process shaving can be inside of a psychiatric hospital, “I know, I will”, I reassured her, with no intention of shaving supervised. The time always came for her to return to the office, which was a relief. Despite my abundance of sleep, I had very little energy and maintaining facades, even if only for 30 minute periods of time, was trying. She would return to work and worry, leaving me and my bed where I would find temporary solace through sleep.

Inside institutions, time leaves you behind. Sure there are clocks, but those numbers mean nothing. There was daytime, with three meals to serve as intervals. Then there was night time, a dark timeless void.

         One morning, or it could have been afternoon, I was awakened by Dr. Ivanov, the unit's Russian psychiatrist. She came into my room followed by several foreign note-taking interns and opened the curtains. She asked her routine questions, while the interns looked on as if I was a specimen, something to be studied. Then they were all gone as abruptly as they had arrived. I wanted nothing more than to return to my catatonic slumber, but I couldn't, not with sun spilling into the room through the window, only to be amplified by the whiteness of the room. I tossed my blanket aside and stood up quickly. I approached the window where the radiator's dry heat met the cold air permeating through the glass, allowing me to feel both simultaneously and bask in the contrast. Outside was barren and snow covered, void of people and color. I could see a playground, a closed playground equipped with a perimeter fence and signs instructing to "KEEP OFF." Fleeting and forlorn memories of a childhood once enjoyed surfaced. It suddenly became clear: I was living in a perpetual January: everything lost in past and present, as intangible as a playground in a never-ending winter. As distant as memories and dreams, soon to be forgotten, during a long wait for spring.