30 Days Behind Locked Doors In A Psychiatric Hospital - Part 10

Dinner clatter echoed from the distant ward kitchen, but I stayed where I was, staring at the cracks in the ceiling as if they might reveal a way out. The barred windows threw long stripes of light across the squeaky wooden floor, sharp and cold, like a reminder that freedom existed only a few feet away but remained untouchable, like a promise I couldn’t touch. Time inside those walls didn’t flow as it did outside. Minutes stretched, warped, turned into a strange kind of eternity.

I could almost feel the eyes of the institution on me: I imagined the social worker with her clipboard, the psychiatrist with her quiet, probing questions, the psychologist searching for hidden meanings in my words.

A month of sessions lay ahead, but in that moment, the idea of analysis felt absurd. What could they possibly find in me that I hadn’t already torn apart myself? My mind wasn’t sick; it was tired; tired of fighting, tired of pretending, tired of being judged.

Somewhere deep down, a small voice reminded me to hold on to the memory of my mother. Her quiet strength, to the stubborn belief that God still had a plan even when I couldn’t see it. I repeated these thoughts like a private mantra, not because they erased the fear, but because they kept it from swallowing me whole.

The room door creaked open; it was the night duty nurse. I noticed her shadow falling across the floor.

“Dinner is served at 7:00 p.m., be there, you have to eat something”, she said, almost with a caring tone in her voice. I leaned back against the cold wall; the beds around me were still; some of the patients lay curled under their helium-light pillows, others sat upright staring into nothing.

I realised then how alien this place was; a world suspended between life and something else, a room for minds deemed unfit to walk free. “I’m not hungry”, I replied, “but I would love to have one of my 500ml bottles of Coke, which the day shift staff took from me, and when can I get my cigarettes”? “Okay”, the reply came. “I’ll get that for you, but you have to attend the breakfast table tomorrow morning; otherwise, I have to report that you are refusing to eat.” I ignored that remark and asked her when I could shower, since I’d only showered that morning before I went to court, and I just wanted to feel clean and fresh.

Her answer came as a bucket of ice water: “When you see THIS face, you don’t ask me to shower or any other favors.” I demanded that I needed to shower because of all the stress I’d experienced during and after the bail hearing. Eventually, she granted me my wish, and from then on, I was privileged to shower every morning and evening under her watchful eye. She mostly worked the night shift during my entire stay there. The sight of someone standing there, clipboard in hand, while I dragged a razor across my own legs and armpits, was both degrading and humiliating.

Other than that privilege, it was as though every small act of control had been stripped from me, piece by piece, leaving only the raw outline of who I used to be. After I showered, I returned to my bed and sat there for a long time, staring at the barred windows. This wasn’t a holiday. This wasn’t a retreat. This was a sentence without a cell door, a test to see if my mind could be trusted, a cloud hanging over me where I had no say in the outcome. And yet, I was breathing, still alive, still watching the man in the moon winking at me through the barred window. (No, I’m not crazy - just checking if you are still reading).😁

From the moment I was admitted, it was obvious that I would be treated according to the media coverage that had splashed my name across every newspaper and magazine in the country. It wasn’t my imagination, nor self-pity, nor some twisted attempt to claim a victim’s role.

I could feel it in the air, in the measured pauses between words, in the eyes that slid across me and then away. It wasn’t cruel or openly disrespectful. It was worse; a quiet verdict that said without speaking: "You are a murderer." Every conversation, every signature on a clipboard, every glance over the top of a pair of glasses carried that unspoken sentence.

The patients didn’t care. Why would they? Most of them were so sedated they wouldn’t have noticed if I’d walked in wearing a crown and waving to an invisible audience. To them, I could have been Queen Elizabeth or nobody at all. But the staff, oh, they knew. They had read the stories, the headlines soaked in sensationalism. I could feel their caution like a draft under a locked door. They spoke politely, their smiles practiced, but behind it all was that quiet calculation: dangerous until proven otherwise.

I was already wearing the label of murderer, even though no judge had yet spoken the word. Was I criminally insane? No. But that didn’t matter. I was a forensic patient then, stamped and categorized, my life reduced to a file thick with speculation. I was now a number in a system designed to decide if my mind could be trusted with freedom.

There were two of us under that cold classification of "forensic patients." The other was an elderly woman whose crime seemed almost laughable in comparison: theft.

I overheard a nurse call her a kleptomaniac one evening, the word rolling off her tongue like a diagnosis and a curse. A kleptomaniac, a person driven by an uncontrollable urge to steal, not for need or gain, but for the strange, fleeting relief it brought. The elderly woman shuffled through the ward with a kind of sad dignity, her gestures small and hesitant, as if even reaching for a glass of water might betray her secret compulsion. I felt a pang of pity for her; her crime was petty, but her punishment felt as heavy as mine.

The rest of the ward, twenty or so souls, were a shifting sea of instability. Some knew they were sick and clung to their treatment like a lifeline. Others wandered in a fog of denial, trapped in their own storms, unaware of how far they’d drifted from the shores of sanity. Their moods rose and fell like a rollercoaster: laughter one minute, tears the next, outbursts that cracked the stale air without warning.

And there I was among them, neither fully one of them nor entirely apart, a woman caught between the world’s judgment and the cold machinery of a system that would decide who and what I truly was.

The following morning, I went for my first of many psychiatric evaluations, a routine that quickly became the rhythm of my days. I was introduced to my appointed psychologist, psychiatrist, and social worker, each of them carrying their own stack of files, their own quiet exhaustion.

Some days I met all three at different times, other days only one or two, but never a day passed without at least one appointment. It was relentless, like clockwork. From the start, it was obvious that they were overworked. Typical government facility; understaffed, overloaded, and running on fumes. Their faces told the story long before their words did. There were moments when I could see it in their eyes: the silent calculation of how much of me they could manage to hear before moving on to the next patient.

I often felt like a case study instead of a person. They weren’t cruel or dismissive, but there was a routine to their questions, a clinical rhythm that left little room for real conversation. They followed the procedure the way a surgeon follows a checklist; precisely, without distraction. My evaluations were not about comfort; they were about gathering evidence. Every question was designed to probe, to measure, to build a profile for the court. These weren’t ordinary therapy sessions. They were forensic psychological assessments, and in my case, the results would help shape the judge’s final decision.

They dug deep into every corner of my life: my childhood, family, medical history, relationships, education, work, and the events that had brought me there. They asked about substance use, about fears and habits, about every shadow I might have hidden. Even my thoughts were dissected: how I felt, how I reacted, how I coped. It was unsettling to realize how much they could pull from a single answer, how quickly they could spot patterns I didn’t even know were there.

One truth became clear early on: no one walks out of a psychological evaluation with a clean slate. Nobody is perfectly normal. We all carry quirks, scars, or hidden fractures that place us outside the neat lines of “average.”

The process wasn’t about proving I was sane or insane; it was about finding something. And they always do. In that room, under their steady gaze, I felt them peeling me apart layer by layer, searching for the pieces they could name and classify, until even I began to wonder what they might find.

Every day was extremely and unbelievably boring. Time moved so slowly it felt as if the clocks had forgotten how to turn. I couldn’t interact or socialize with the other patients, and even if I wanted to, there was no one to really talk to. Most of them weren’t even aware of where, what, or who they were. They floated in their own worlds; some stared into space, others mumbling to themselves, too lost in medication or illness to connect with anyone around them.

Sometimes, a few of the staff members would pause for a moment, sharing a bit of light, animated chit-chat, but it never lasted long. They were careful, always keeping a professional distance. Rules made sure of that. No one was allowed to get too close, too personal.

By the end of each day, the only real therapy I had, the only human warmth I could count on, was when my mom came to visit. Her presence broke the monotony like a ray of sunlight piercing a dark room. For that short time, I felt seen, felt human again. When she left, the silence returned heavier than before, wrapping itself around me like a damp blanket.

Life inside was structured to the minute. A schedule dictated everything: when you woke up, when you ate, when you were expected to “participate,” and when you were left to simply exist.

They encouraged you to follow it, but almost nothing was forced, except my scheduled daily appointments.

Most patients spent their first days hidden away in the room, lying on their beds in a medicated fog. I did the same, venturing out only when it was time for an evaluation with one of the appointed doctors. New arrivals would appear and then vanish back into their room, sometimes unseen for days. The staff expected this withdrawal and didn’t press, at least not in the beginning.

Twice a day, we were allowed outside. Those brief times became the most important markers of the day, like two breaths of air in an otherwise suffocating routine. The space itself wasn’t much, just a patch of grass, a few old wooden benches and tables that creaked when you sat down, and the odd shrub with a few flowers trying their best to brighten the place.

But what really stood out were the bluegum trees. Tall, ancient, and everywhere. Their smell clung to the air, sharp and clean, so unlike the sterile, recycled staleness of the ward. They felt alive, strong, untouchable. Those trees were the only thing in that place that felt sane, solid, silent, unshaken.

Twice a day, I’d sit under one, the only living thing in that place that seemed unbothered by all the madness around it. It stood there silently, offering shade like some ancient witness to human suffering, and I’d remind myself: I don’t belong here. I’m not crazy. I’m just passing through. But on some days, even that reassurance felt thin.

That area was also the visitors’ area, which gave it a strange double meaning. On some days, it was where laughter or tears broke the monotony, where you saw faces from the outside world and remembered that you were still someone’s daughter, sibling, or friend.

On other days, it felt like a stage where your reality was exposed, stripped down in front of people who didn’t really know what it meant to live inside those walls. For me, those few minutes outside weren’t about freedom; they were about contrast. Inside was noise, madness, and fluorescent lighting that made everyone look sick. Outside, even though it was limited, there was grass under my shoes and the whisper of trees. You’d almost believe for a second that things were normal, until the session ended and you were herded back in.

The rest of the day? Inside. Always inside. The ward was filled with people who sat in the TV room, staring blankly at a screen that was usually playing reruns or the evening news. Sometimes they’d laugh, but not because anything was funny. The voices in their heads told them the scene was like a Tom and Jerry cartoon. The TV was entertainment, inducing a numbing, euphoric escape from the voices in their heads.

But I’ll tell you this: the patients themselves… well, they were something else. Calling them “interesting” doesn’t even scratch the surface. Honestly, the highlight wasn’t the benches, the shrubs, or even the towering trees; it was the patients. The ward was populated by characters you couldn’t make up if you tried. Every person carried a story, sometimes bizarre, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes both at once.

There was that girl, remember, the same one I mentioned earlier, who attended school with my sister and later committed suicide, Lindsy. She wasn’t shy about her… let’s say connections.

She had, according to herself, a direct psychic line to President Nelson Mandela. One night, the news was on. There he was on the screen. She froze, listening. Then she stood up suddenly, as she had just received urgent instructions from God himself. Apparently, Mandela had told her, through the television, to slap the kleptomaniac elderly lady sitting right next to her, busy knitting. And she did. Before the knitting needles and wool could land on the floor, the lady jumped up and ran from the television room.

Chaos followed. I assisted the staff in trying to locate the poor woman who had been slapped in her face. Eventually, we found her under her bed, curled up tightly with a pillow clutched to her chest. She was shaking so violently that her false teeth rattled. At one point, I thought they were going to pop straight out of her mouth. The nurse, trying to keep a straight face, suggested she remove them before she accidentally swallowed them. That moment, as horrible as it was, had a strange comedy to it. Here was this woman, traumatized and trembling, while her teeth were bouncing up and down like a bad circus act. It would have been funny if it weren’t so tragic, but I couldn’t help laughing afterwards, not because I didn’t care, but because sometimes in there, laughter was the only way not to lose your own mind.

To put the scene into a clearer perspective: she always had an almost pathetic posture, she hardly ever mixed with the patients, she was quiet, somewhat of a loner. One couldn't help but feel empathy for her without knowing her life story. She didn't receive daily visits like me, but when someone visited her, it was her husband, and he never stayed the full hour.

And then there was the one who believed she was a twin. Not just a twin, but that her twin had to be recognized in everything. At lunch, when the nurse refused to set a plate and fork for her invisible sister, she completely lost it. She flipped the table upside down, food everywhere, people screaming. It was both terrifying and disturbing.

That’s the thing about being locked in there. You don’t just see madness, you live inside it, day after day. And while part of you wants to laugh, another part knows this isn’t funny. These weren’t just quirky personalities; these were people drowning in realities they couldn’t escape.

And in the middle of all that, I was stuck. Watching, listening, laughing when I shouldn’t, shaking my head at the situation, and at the same time, feeling my own grip on reality being tested. You can’t sit in a room full of people convinced of impossible things without starting to question yourself about what’s real.

Many of you might ask: "But why was I placed in that specific ward?" It was the only ward where escape was impossible. I was placed in that ward because of the crime I had committed. The level of security, the barred windows, locked doors, security guards, and constant camera surveillance existed because it was not a place for people who were simply sad or anxious. It housed patients whose minds could become dangerously unstable without strict medication and supervision.

Because they heard voices that commanded them, some lost touch with reality entirely. Without their prescribed treatment, their behaviour could spiral beyond their control, posing a great risk to themselves and to the outside world.

The ward was designed to contain chaos, not punish it. Every bar, every lock, every camera existed to keep those patients safe, inside and out, until their minds could be stabilised again.

The other wards on the hospital premises were open wards for patients who didn't pose a threat to anybody, but had mild mental health problems. They could come and go as they wish.

Then there was the girl, who couldn’t have been older than twenty, who firmly believed her ex-boyfriend was Elvis Presley. She spoke about him with the certainty most people reserve for death and taxes. For her, the King was still alive, and more importantly, still hers. The nurses mocked her gently, telling her Elvis might be a little too old for her. She shot back with a look of pure confidence and unshaken, as if they were the crazy ones.

I’ll admit it, I laughed harder than I should have. The whole situation was hilarious. I couldn’t help but laugh, but behind the humor, there was something deeply sad about it. A young woman trapped in a love story that only existed in her mind. So young, yet her reality had already split apart, and she had built this fantasy relationship to fill the gap.

Another patient liked to pretend she was a pillow. No explanation, no conversation, just lay flat and rigid, arms pressed close, face blank. A nurse even fluffed her once and asked what she was doing. She mumbled, “I’m a pillow now.” She didn’t react, didn’t move. Just remained a pillow. Times like those, I would completely forget why I was there.

Another patient had her own ritual. She paced the room endlessly, back and forth like a pendulum, counting her steps aloud. One, two, three, four, five, six… skip seven… eight, nine, ten. Then she’d start again. Always skipping number seven, as if it carried some kind of curse. It made no sense to me, but it made perfect sense to her. I watched her for hours sometimes, mesmerized by how committed she was to her own pattern, as if the whole world would collapse if she dared to speak “seven.” I asked her once why she skipped it, and she just looked at me blankly and started again. “One, two, three…” I still don’t know what happened to number seven.

Being surrounded by those people was a strange experience. On one hand, it was deeply unsettling, but also extremely sad. These were individuals whose grip on reality had slipped so far that their entire lives revolved around things that weren’t there, or weren’t true. On the other hand, it was fascinating. They weren’t boring, not like the gray walls or the humming fluorescent lights inside. They had fire, belief, conviction, misplaced as it was.

Every single patient had their own brand of madness. It struck me then that the line between “them” and “us” wasn’t as thick as people liked to believe. Sure, I wasn’t talking to Mandela or dating Elvis or skipping number seven, but I was still there, locked inside with them, trying to hold myself together. And maybe that was the most sobering part. We all had our cracks. Theirs just showed differently from mine.