Fear and Loathing in a Mental Ward

By Ann

After I push through the imposingly heavy door, I have to wait for it to close before I can open the next one because it won’t unlock with another door open. This is to keep "them" out of the rest of the hospital.  The “them”  are the mental health patients who have been committed because they are a danger to themselves or others. Today I have the privilege of representing a patient in a hearing whereby the staff will testify and commit her to the hospital against her will.

 I walk down the hall and see her.  She is a young, tiny, docile woman sitting melancholy in a chair.  I naively assumed the hearing would be your run of the mill type with the doctor stating his opinion that she is suicidal and in need of just a few more weeks of treatment to allow the medicine to accumulate in her system.  

I was wrong!

As soon as I introduce myself to her – everything changes.  Her demeanor and actions erupted in a manner that is so shocking that even though I have never experienced an earthquake, I am confident that I can now identify with victims of any natural disaster.  

She is screaming and yelling and crying and flailing.   She wants a real lawyer.  She wants a paid lawyer.  And she wants to cut me.   The staff cower.  The nurses run for cover and the hospital security is called.  In the meantime, a brave hospital employee ushers us to a room where we can talk privately.   I foolishly allow myself to be led to a room with this tasmanian devil human hybrid.  I use the word room liberally because it was really a cage.  I walk in and look for a chair.  No luck. 

There is just her bed.  It is just a twin sized mattress covered in dirty sheets.  The windows are covered in bars and wire mesh.  I try to find the least offensive corner and rest my bottom half on and half off as I try to appear confident and in control.  

This becomes increasingly hard as she sits right on top of me.  She is yelling and crying and threatening some more. I redirect again and again and assure her that she has done nothing wrong and I hope that she doesn’t have anything in this room to cut me.   I try to explain the hearing to her.  I try to explain the situation and I try to get her position on paper.  I try to do this while tuning out the fact that she is not merely invading my space, but she has completely conquered it and now I can smell her breath.  I try to do this while tuning out the fact that I am sitting on a bed covered in a microcosm of filth, crazy person dander, and that it was the very spot where she was restrained for a period of at least 6-7 hours because she is violent and homicidal.  I am consumed by fear which is why I let myself get into this precarious situation.   I feel the classic signs of fear: heart racing, dry mouth, tunnel vision, and poor judgment (hence the cage room meeting).  Then the spell is broken just as quickly as it came.   She cried on my notepad and her teardrop fell right on the “I” in the word homicidal on the commitment petition.  Time stops as I look at the paper and feel myself in the midst of a rational epiphany.  I realize that everyone in this hospital is crazy.  My client has bona fide organic reasons for her craziness, but the staff are completely bonkers for putting me in this room, on this bed, with a severely agitated and unstable person.  I am no longer afraid.  I am now consumed with impatience and annoyance with the collective imcompetence and lack of judgment exhibited by the “professionals.” With righteous indignation, I stand up and bring her to the next room. I announce to the staff that  this meeting room isn’t working for me and we’re just going to use the room across the hall because it has a table and chairs.  And so we did.