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They Mean Well.

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• One can get used to being in the Loony Bin. Each day is planned out for one. From waking one up, the daily medication and then breakfast; the work therapy then midday lunch, always a cooked meal with soup the main course and a desert of some kind. The food is brought to the table by the Male Nurses. A prayer is mumbled before and after the meal. Medication again, with those stupid tablets that one has to take. One does not know whether one is coming or going. One looses all count of the days. One day is like the other. The only change is when a new nurse appears. One can have fun with the new nurses. Most of the patients have their own method of trying to see what kind of a nurse one now has to deal with.
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• Many greet the new nurses with loud shouting; others creep up onto the unsuspecting nurse and ask for a cigarette. Others simulate a fit or run around shouting and screaming. I do not take part in this stupidity but watch very carefully to see how the new nurse will take things.  My approach is to be always smiling not a silly grin just a good-natured smile. I am helpful and do as I am told after all it is the reports that the nurses make that counts when it comes to getting out of the Looney Bin. It helps if one has a slight knowledge of one’s so-called illness. I am not ill, I have a split personality or if you want I am someone with a dual personality.
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• I was not always like this on my first stay in the Looney Bin. I made acquaintance with the straight jacket, with the padded cell. The padded cells are terrible they stink of urine many do not ask to be taken to the toilet they just let everything go. The straight Jacket is even worse one can only make very slight movements. Cramps come only too easily, arms ache, and one’s neck belongs to someone else. The injections sometimes help, one just falls asleep and wakes up in ones own bed. A nurse sits by the bed pretending to read but I have been in this situation too many times. They are not reading they are watching every move one makes. They must write out a long report of what one says or what one does. It is this report that lets one off the hook. If the report is favourable one is sent back to the normal routine sometimes a new medication is tried out. I hate it whenever they give me a new pill to swallow. One does not know what the effects will be like.
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• Once a month, one is sent with a nurse to a doctor’s panel one is assessed. If the assessment is in your favour you might be in the lucky position to soon leave the Loony Bin. I will be leaving next week, as I have had to sign a form saying that my treatment was in order and that I have no complaints to make in regard to hospital procedures. If one does not sign this release document then one is taken back to ones room. For many of the patients there will be no release they will spend the rest of their lives in the Mental Hospital. I am to be sent home next week with the promise on my part that I will take my medication as ordered by the doctors. My neighbours all know my problems and me. Some are kind others cross to the other side of the road to avoid speaking with me. The children are the best for them I am just Mr. Shaw or Uncle Bern smiles come my way and greetings that cheer me up no end. Bern
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• Who is at Home?
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• Who is at home? I know he is at home because he has left a light burning. Did I say he? Perhaps it is a she and she has left a light burning. I often ask myself why I jump to conclusions. Just because a light is burning does not mean to say that anyone is at home, He or she; it could be that someone forgot to switch a light off. Perhaps there is no one at home. Why I ask myself does the fact that a light is burning cause me to jump to conclusions?
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• Another thought has come to me, who is who? Why I am not even in my own street; I am in another part of town. A burning light means nothing really? What am I doing at this house? I am not related to any one living in this house. Am I just nosey? If I am why does that lighted room so fascinate me? Question after question and my poor brain trying to work out something that does not even concern me. But that light will not let me go. I am stubborn and have decided to get to the bottom of this puzzle. Why the light and who is whom?
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• No I do not think that I should see a Doctor or even a Psychiatrist. I am stable and have not had to have any treatment for a couple of years now. The last time I left the Mental Hospital I was told that all is well with me and that I have nothing to worry about. Plucking up all my courage I knocked heavily on the door. I just had to knock on this strange door to solve the riddle of the lighted room. I do not even know if the who is a she or a he. I only know that I will knock on this door until someone opens it.
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• Now lights are being switched on at the houses left and right of the house with the burning light. The people living here seem to be as nosey. A window opens a loud voice cries Stop that bloody banging you idiot. He should not have said this and the nasty remarks from the other neighbors made me determined to knock even louder. I just have to know who is who and what the lighted room means. I carried on knocking even louder if that was possible. I have just called for the Police to come you fucking idiot.
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• I was now very upset the neighbours swearing really got to me. I heard the police car as it entered the road its siren going. The car screeched to a stop and out got two very big Policemen. One of them opened his mouth and I heard the words, “It is Mr. Shaw again. Call for an ambulance.” His colleague went back to the car. The Policemen were kind; one told the people at their windows that they could go back to sleep there would be no more noise this night. The ambulance arrived with its flashing blue lights and two men dressed in white came to me. Taking me by the arms they placed me in a chair and strapped me into it. We are just going for a ride Mr. Shaw they told me and again with the siren going and the blue lights flashing the ambulance sped along as if it was a real emergency.
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• At the hospital yes it was the local loony bin. The men unstrapped me and took me into a well lighted hall. I knew where I was. I even recognised the Nurse on duty at the desk. He spoke in a not unkind voice, “Hello Mr. Shaw you have come to visit us. How are you? “The next question have you been taking your medicine like we told you to take? I was shown to another familiar room the bed had been freshly made and after an injection I was undressed and put to bed. The sidebars were put into place. I was wished a, “Good Night Mr. Shaw.”
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• The following morning after I had been given breakfast the Doctors entered the room. The questioning started why was I at that particular house? I told them about the lighted room and of my not knowing who lived in the house was it a he or a she many other questions followed and a report was written. They are going to let me out next week and I have one plea to make please do not leave a light on if you leave your house. The Tablets they give me make every thing look so small. Thank you for reading this report of my re-entrance to the Looney Bin I am looking forward to being free to walk the streets again. Bern
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•   Home Again.
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• Next week so the Doctors tell me I will be released once again as being completely cured. I will and have no urge to knock on doors late at night because a light has been left burning in one of the rooms. I must have told myself a thousand times during this period of hospital treatment in the Looney Bin. That I must take no notice of rooms in strange houses that are well lighted it has nothing to do with me and also I must not knock on strange doors. In fact what with the tablets and the therapy that I have been having I have gone back to my old passion. Telling Fairy Stories. This the Doctors tell me this is harmless and as long as I write the stories on my computer no one will be hurt or upset. I really must go back to writing my Fairy tales.
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• The front gate has been opened just for me. I can walk through the large front gate without having to go through that awful little side door. I have a supply of my medicines and tablets. I have a letter for my Doctor. Whether I give it to my Doctor or not depends what is written in the letter. After all it is I, myself that has spent the last twelve months in the Looney Bin Not my Doctor. I walk home knowing that my house keys are safely in my overcoat pocket. I will be glad to be able to make myself a cup of tea and get back to normal.
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• I check all over the house. All is as it should be no one has broken in, no one has stolen anything. My computer is inviting me to sit down and write another Fairy tale after all a year not writing is a very long time. I go to the fuse box and check that the electricity is in order and then I make myself comfortable in front of my computer. I remember the letter from the Loony Bin. I rip open the envelope and read. I am schizophrenic. I have split personalities. Then comes a row of tablets with even stranger names. I must take the tablets according to the plan that the Mental Hospital has given to me. I throw the letter and the envelope onto the fire that I have lit in the old range. I watch the flames rise and then die. That is the end of the letter and of the hospital. I switch on my windows Win Word program. I try to write. I do not know is it the tablets or have all my Fairy tales been taken from me in the hospital.
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• This is serious if I cannot write my fairy tales then I just know that something awful will happen and I will soon be back in the Loony Bin. Who knows this time they might not let me out and I know that, that will be bad for me. I have nothing in common with all of those other patients. They all have much better treatment than I do. Their tablets are much better than mine even there food is served in their rooms. I have to sit in the large dining room with all of the Nurses. It is not fair, I have no one to complain to the Doctors just will not listen it is I that have to listen to words that I do not understand. I think they do it purposelessly just to aggravate me. I am too crafty for this I know at the first sign of anger or aggravation. There are the padded rooms. The injections and what is worse that horrible straight jacket. I tell myself ever day if you want to get back to your own home you must be nice to everyone. I must not show any anger or bad temperednes
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• The weeks piled one on top of the other I did as I was told even to making those silly cake boxes that the hospital made for a Bakery in the town they gave it a wonderful name ergometry or work therapy. I have never in all my life done any thing as stupid as making those boxes. Forget about the boxes forget about the Fairy Tales. Put on my overcoat and go out for a walk. My eyes are everywhere I am looking for something. I do not know what I am looking for. I find myself back home and go to bed. I have spent my first night in freedom and nothing has happened. I will not take any more of those stupid tablets they make my head ache- Bern.