"Your Mary Magdalene!" she screamed. "You're trying to kill me!" We can no longer be roommates. I need a new one and with that Kathy was out the door and on her way to tell everyone that she wanted me out of the room. I could hear her in the hallway, by now a common occurrence as she told whoever would listen to her what was going on. She had a habit of doing this, but this time she was frightening me because she seemed to really believe that I wanted to kill her. I knew it was time to talk to someone in charge or a TA, short for Therapy Aide.
I didn't have to wait too long. "Checks" were done every 15 minutes and it wasn't long before they were checking the room. When you first arrive they are done every 10 minutes, all day long and all night long. I was having a hard time sleeping and still trying to get used to the constant noise here. The jail was so much quieter. I had never slept so well until jail. It had been so long since I had slept well. The last couple of years were horrible. Each apartment the noise harassment was constant as I looked for a safe place to live. It was the same in my 20-year marriage. I was finally catching my ex-husband waking me up at night. He had been on third shift for a long time and I had only been catching him recently banging doors open, turning the volume up and down on the TV and generally making noise to wake me up, but once I did wake up—it was quiet. I would then get up to ask how he was if he wanted something to eat, and general conversation before trying to go back to sleep. I got so I was awake more often than not when he came home late and knew he was waking me up on purpose, but why he was doing it would take me longer to find out. For years I thought I had just become a light sleeper but was to find it was being done on purpose. Before I was married, on my own, I never had a problem and slept really well. While Kathy was yelling down the hall I explained to the TA that my new roommate thinks I'm trying to kill her. She keeps calling me Mary Magdalene. The TA paused for a few uncomfortable minutes and then said, "Are you?"
I was a little shaky already. I hadn't eaten very much for breakfast, the food here and at the jail was an ongoing problem now. I had requested a vegetarian diet, grateful they had one, but I just wasn't getting enough protein. Meat made me sick, but I was forcing myself to eat some to get protein. It was of poor quality and therefore making me sick and weak. I also wasn't sleeping again with all the checks. Then she laughed a little and then said, "she had to ask." No, I said. I wasn't trying to kill her and in fact, I liked her in some ways even though I was trying to get used to the way she was behaving. Today would be different. Talking to the TA about what she was doing let her know that I wasn't going to put up with it. She knew what she was doing and would stop, at least yelling that she thought I was trying to kill her, but many other things didn't stop and got worse. Slamming the door on her way out, she told the TA that she wasn't sure about me, she didn't trust me and maybe I would be better off having another room and roommate. She came in and out of the room by this time making these pronouncements and her usual demands of what she wanted to be done. I had to laugh a little because once she started doing that I knew it was okay and she was onto something else. The whole thing about killing her would be over as she demanded a cleaner bathroom—the ones she tried were dirty! The bathrooms were pretty bad in the morning, often not cleaned yet and after so much use was often pretty dirty by this time. Clean bathrooms were an ongoing problem, which was why I liked taking my shower at night. Some bathrooms were still clean from an earlier cleaning or were ones not used that much. Cleaning schedules seemed to be hit or miss. I could never figure out exactly what the schedule was and it changed often. Certain ones were used often and not as clean, other ones were more quiet and clean. I wanted the TA to help because I wasn't sure what was going on and I was also scared that they would really think I did have bad intentions towards my new roommate, which I didn't, other than trying to understand what made her all of a sudden start accusing and yelling at me.
"Time to get up!" she would order me each morning. If I didn't comply, she would get angry. I hadn't known her that long but was starting to understand how to calm her and get along. I usually by this time took my shower at night, it was easier and quieter. Kathy would shower in the morning. I wanted to sleep the extra hour. I was having a hard time with the new regime—showering at night was just easier. I had to explain this to her quite often. In the end, she never accepted that I would shower at night, but after she left our room for another, she started showering at night too. She started doing a lot of things like me and at first flattering got difficult after a while. She liked to follow me around and then argue about it. Accuse me of following her or having a pen. Having a pen was proof I was going to hurt her.
She insisted I be up to take my shower in the morning. It was another thing I did that caused her to be suspicious. This would be a regular occurrence with so many things. When I explained I already had one, she would look at me in that quizzical way that I knew she wasn't sure I was telling her the truth. She would either then get angry and storm out, slamming the door or she would talk for a while. I liked it when she talked—I liked her in ways. She seemed bright and interesting, but she could be volatile. She would only talk a little bit and if I asked too many questions or didn't follow her reasoning, she would get angry and leave, slam the door and let anyone who wanted to listen to the tirade know I was "asking too many questions" to get information and therefore I must be a "spy." In fact, she was pretty sure I was a spy—I seemed to know things. I seemed to know what was going on here. I seemed to want to do something to her. She was sure I was sent to spy on her specifically.
The TA didn't think my concerns were all that serious. I wanted her to know what was going on by this time and that I was not trying to kill my new roommate. I had been alone the first couple of weeks and then Kathy arrived. It wasn't long after that this happened. It would be one of many times, but by then I knew it was sort of the way she communicated when she was suspicious and paranoid about something or just plain scared about what was happening to her. She never accused me of trying to kill her again after I talked to the TA, but her being suspicious of everything I did became routine. I assured her I didn't want to kill her and she seemed to believe me, but after being accused of "brandishing a gun" recently I knew I better be careful. I never brandished a gun, made threats about any gun, or even thought about them. I didn't really like them and was shocked about this blatant lie. My ex-husband had guns. He often told stories of him and his buddies going hunting and stories about knowing some Hells Angels. I look back now and know it did what it was intended to do—scare me, but not overtly. It was done very subtly over time. Stories he told me over time that got worse as the years went by and more dangerous. Adding more of the truth, rather the lies he told when we were first married. I had yet to learn about "being a danger to yourself or others" that was part of the smear campaign used against me. Part of the plan to make me look mentally incompetent that had been going on a long time behind my back. I had no idea of being a "danger" was part of this. That some mentally ill persons are a "danger to themselves and others" and some can't live alone without being in "Supervised Housing," which I was to learn was another part of the ongoing smear campaign towards me. Another threat that had been planned all along.
Because I did a lot of writing in my journal, this also was a reason I was up to no good about her. She knew I was writing things about her. She would get me in trouble often for having a pen. She talked about it all the time and it eventually got so bad, she messed it up for me to write in my journal in the room. Pens were considered a "weapon." "Patients could swallow them and do," I was told. I had a little bendable pen from the jail and this made no sense to me. How could I be allowed to write in my cell at the jail and not here? Why are patients that would eat a pen put with a patient that would never do that? As time passed, so much didn't make sense. Kathy tried to take her life and it was horrible, but by that time she was in another room and I didn't really see her all that much.
"I'm a Paranoid Schizophrenic," she said as she sat crossed-legged on the bed one day. I liked it when she did that. It meant she was calm and would talk. She would pull her blanket over her head and in a way that looked like a veil or hajib—Madonna-like, she would pray. I imagined we could be like girlfriends and at those times we were. I like you I said one time when she was crying and she said how upset she was no one liked her. "I like you too," she said. I have Bipolar II and I can't sleep, she said. I had seen her at night just get up and sit on the bed in what can only be described as awkward. She would be in this way for quite a while. It was scary at first, I liken it to one of those demonic movies where the person rolls around in some bizarre way acting possessed. It scared me at first, but as I came to know about her illness I was less afraid and sadder she couldn't sleep. She would just curl up like in a yoga child pose and stay that way for what seemed like quite a while. I would eventually fall back to sleep. She took sleeping pills to sleep, which she said often didn't work. I learn not to be afraid of her mental illness, but it was difficult to stay connected to her in ways. The illness got in the way of having a sort of friendship. I say friendship because it's hard to describe the type of relationships you have. I came to care about Kathy, but it was difficult because of what she struggled with. I knew she liked me, but things often got in the way. Sometimes we would just sit together. Just quiet. I would just ask if she was ok and we would give each other that look. No, things were not ok, but we could sit for a moment and be ok. The silence between us a sort of communion—a language.
She started talking fast, but softly about her illness and I just sat memorized by it all. I had never heard anyone talk like this before about an illness. It was sort of like a song she rehearsed—she liked to sing I would find out and we both loved Karaoke. I never did sing in front of people before and was enjoying it. Surprised I never did Karaoke before. I learned how much fun it can be. It made me sad at first. I remembered my Dad and his band. How popular he was, but it had been so long ago. I wished I had been able to see him as a child and sing. I was told that I was good at it. She started telling me about the meds she was on and how she didn't trust the doctors. When I asked if she believed she was Schizophrenic, she said yes, she had been diagnosed quite young. She was now about my age and had been all her life. She was also alcoholic but had been sober for a long time now. She stopped taking her meds when she became homeless, which she said, landed her in the homeless shelter and when she had nowhere to go they ended up sending her here. She admitted she had not been taking her meds and it was wrong. She never understood why I didn't take meds and she followed me around often telling everyone it was suspicious I didn't take them. I was eventually threatened and after being told it would look like I was "cooperative" and could be released sooner. I agreed to take a small dose of Risperidone. She was unhappy then and told me that I didn't need them and it was suspicious now why I was taking them.
She was right—I didn't need them! I was healthy and fit. I told the psychiatrists that all the time. I was running regular, ate very healthy, did yoga and wanted to move on with my life after being in an abusive marriage for 20-years. I had shock and trauma from what had been done to me recently and I was working on that, but I was not mentally ill. The 2 psychiatrists, both Indian who I could barely understand their English and seemed quite sexist, spent more time being angry at me than listening to me. I was told I "didn't listen," which mostly meant I didn't agree with their "diagnosis." My ex-husband said that all the time. "You never listen," he would say. I came to see it was a euphemism to just accept his lies and not question them. I did for many years, believing he really believed I didn't listen, so I would try really hard to listen, which after a while is all I did. Not voicing my needs, wants and problems for fear I wasn't listening and not understanding. I came to see that was the point about always being told that I didn't listen. Not listening was not about listening, but about not following all the orders and demands I was given. I realized in horror all the times I did and how exploited I had become, but by then the horrible plan he had was unfolding with precision.
Whatever I said was ignored by these psychiatrists also and I was repeatedly told I was delusional about everything including being sexually assaulted. I was delusional about having had a seizure too, but after having another at the psych ward they backed off that one, but still basically ignored what I told them. The Risperidone made me feel drugged, made my hair fall out and I was tired and constipated all the time. Partly from the seizure also. It was awful and I was happy to be off it after agreeing to it for a short trial period—proving I was cooperative. It also impacted my creative ability and my writing, which I wanted to become more serious about. I had been doing some writing for work and was told I had talent, another reason I never took drugs or drank the past 30-years. A little in college and for a short time in my 20's I liked to go out with my boss after work or dancing, but nothing major. I do like wine now, but I was told I had a "drinking problem" so it's been hard to even have a glass of wine now without being accused. My ex-husband drank to excess every weekend. We would never have achieved what we did without me being the "designated driver" on the weekends and all the other times I kept everything in order and organized. Running a rental business would not have been possible or anything else for that matter with both of us drinking like he did. He had numerous DWI's but was always let go.
Kathy spoke in rambling ways and I could tell she was suspicious of me. She would talk for a while and then give me that look and stop. That look that conveyed that she knew something was wrong. She would often laugh out loud for no apparent reason, listen to the voices she heard and talk to them or get angry with me for not understanding. I could tell she liked me and tried hard to talk, but I could also tell she struggled. She could be so honest and sincere, which was why I liked her, but then get very upset in the middle of some innocuous talking that didn't seem to relate to anything. Her upset would come out of nowhere most times. I felt bad at those times. She would just up and leave and have to go do something. She had to be busy all the time. She had anxiety she told me and could not sit still. She would strip the bed often, leave it undone. I remember the first time she stripped mine and told me I needed clean sheets. She would get upset if I questioned her about why, as I just had changed my sheets, but then she would get upset and leave, often come back into the room later—crying. Most of the time, a TA would explain to her that I could change my sheets when I wanted to. It would take a while, but she would then know that it was ok and I wasn't trying to hurt her by not changing my sheets. She needed new ones often and she would get confused and forget if she did just change them. I would remind her that it was ok.
"Do you hear voices," I said. Yes, she said—"all the time." "What do they say?" I said. All kinds of things. Are they talking now? That's when she got upset. I persisted a little this time wanting to know, but she was done with the conversation. And so it went, sometimes she would talk and other times she would be upset. It became somewhat routine. She would slam the door, accuse me of something like not taking a shower and then leave. Only today, she was telling me I wanted to kill her. This was too much and so I had to tell someone if this was real or if like the other times it wasn't.
"Part of her delusion," I was told. That she thought I wanted to kill her. I had come to see that she believed I was a spy because I seemed to know things and when she was really stressed would not want me in "her room." She would forget that it was also my room and that I was her roommate. "There's nothing wrong with you!" I know you're here to spy on me, she would say. I would kinda laugh because I also knew there was nothing wrong with me. I knew I sometimes did ask her too many questions, but I was trying to learn why psychiatrists here thought there was something wrong with me and why this whole nightmare was unfolding once again. This time I was not in jail, but a psych ward. Accused of being delusional and Schizophrenic myself. I was also Schizoaffective because I had supposedly had "moods." They just weren't completely sure yet. I had buried my mother-in-law not that long ago. I had mentioned I had sorted so much of her and her sister's things after she passed and felt her presence one day in the attic.
I was sent here for 3 days in 2016 when police busted in the door with no warrant and told me I was "agitated." That was all it took for them to tell me I "heard voices." I finally was told where they got the idea I heard voices and had to laugh. Things just kept getting more and more ridiculous.
Kathy and I hugged one time when we both started crying and agreeing how difficult it all was, but being friends was often short-lived. She could not rectify why I was here. There was nothing wrong with me, I knew too much and therefore I had to be a spy. I agreed there was nothing wrong with me, but I wasn't a spy. I liked her but knew because this made no sense to her it upset her in ways she could not deal with. I had a hard time with it too and for her, I imagine it was even worse. I learned to just let her be. To let her think what she thought without challenging it too much. It would help her to be calm if what she thought was true and in ways it was. There wasn't anything wrong with me. I did ask questions because I wanted to know about Schizophrenia considering this was what I was being accused of. I could not understand why psychiatrists here thought I was, but I was starting to see how it made sense in a twisted way. The diagnosis fitting the coverup. What better way to deny someone's credibility than to say they were delusional and had made everything up?
Today I know something about who Mary Magdalene is. At the psych ward, I didn't. I spent my marriage in awe of Mary—Jesus's mother. My mother-in-law, blind by the time I met her and extremely demanding and all the women friends of my ex-husband was in fact just like the Virgin Mother Mary that I was often accused of being jealous of them whenever I questioned their Madonna-like demands. Always with the subtle implications, they were more deserving, "they were mothers!" I was not! I had learned early on to defer to all these women. I had to "learn to be a wife!" They all had been married a good 10-years before me and my mother-in-law and father-in-law had been married close to 50-years. They knew. They knew how to be good wives—I did not! I came to see I never would. They didn't acknowledge anything I did and I came to see over the years never would. I was to learn after 30-years of knowing all of them and some since I was a kid that they never had any intention of getting to know me, be friends, or have any respect for me. That in fact the entire marriage had been horribly set up to use and exploit me. I was never thought of as a "wife," but a prostitute and was told that repeatedly when the brutal divorce started after I was violently thrown out and put on the street with nothing in spite of all I had achieved and accomplished.
I felt and was made to feel most of the time that I just was not good enough. That here had been just "something wrong with me." I was told this quite often early on whenever I questioned what went on concerning anyone. At first subtle disagreements that didn't make sense. I was often told how my arguing about my position was seen as not being a "lady." I was always a lady, my ex-husband would say, just not when I acted like that. "That" was usually just some innocuous clarification of some silly misunderstanding that often went on, but would turn into an ordeal. Then I would hear how they were afraid of me or that I was jealous of them. This started out very subtle. I would be given looks of disapproval. How can you question women that believe they are "Mary"—the Virgin Mother. My then sister-in-law was also married 10-years before I came along and was the same. How could I challenge anything she said? She was a mother! I was not and if I continued to not want to have children it was already putting me at an extreme disadvantage to being Mother Mary. Being Mother Mary, was extremely important. By this time, I was attending the Orthodox Catholic Church in a regular sort of way. Not like my mother-in-law of course who belonged to the Rosary Society and went all the time, but often enough to know I was certainly not like them and probably never able to be—I would never be like Mother Mary!
The pressure started soon after we married to have children. It got really bad at times, but of course, my then-new husband assured me "he never wanted children." He had "older parents," and he knew how awful it was to have a Dad that could not "play ball" and do the things the other young dads did at school and therefore he didn't want to do that to any of his own sons. If he did have them they would be sons of course—he would joke he could easily have me "pop out two." I would laugh, but over the years would come to learn that "not having children" was some Feminist hate on my part to deprive him of "sons." I would be told there had been something wrong with me right along and Feminism was a "mental illness." We had never talked about "Feminism." I was not really by the time I married any sort of feminist, although looking back I wish I had been the radical one I had been accused of—I never would have put up with the abuse I have come to see was there all along. The horrible coercive control all those years I never had a name for and the economic abuse that started after our first fight that included my inlaws. "Our finances" I came to learn involved all my inlaws also, but at the time I just accepted I made "too much of things."
I just worked. Grateful to women like Gloria Steinem. After some conscious rasing in college, I learned I could have a career and overcome the poverty of my childhood. Eventually having a cool apartment of my own, a car, some nice things, and on my way to a career I loved. I never would have tried so hard to be a "good wife" knowing how futile it was with these people who were just using me and behind my back, making a mockery of me. I would also horribly learn they were all going to prove how feminists are mentally ill and I would be left with nothing—homeless, destitute prostitute, which is what behind my back they had said all along. Part of the reason my sister-in-law was never to visit again after that first fight was not only about finances and my "making a big deal," about what they were doing, but also about my not wanting children. "It's all in your head," she would say and she knew, she was a "Special Education Teacher!" I didn't know what that was really back then. It was a new field and she had a lot of power, which the family deferred to regularly. I was told she would come around, my mother-in-law said. It was ok by the Church for me to not have children. I took her word for it believing that I could be a "good wife" in spite of not having them, which was my intention. I was to learn though that the only reason not to have them was that you could not have them! The one cousin and his Aunt that did not have children, viciously told me when what was to be a very brutal divorce started that "they could not have them!" I had never known. These kinds of discussions were never really allowed. A lady doesn't ask or talk about these things. Whenever I tried to talk I got that sort of silence you get in Church—you don't question Mother Mary! I came to see you didn't question things in a traditional marriage. There were just ways things were done—unspoken rules. This extended to the women who didn't have children, so I wrongfully assumed they didn't have them. I didn't think there was a huge difference at the time between not being able to and "choosing" not to. I would come to see choosing was likened to blasphemy and that I deserved to be left with nothing. To have everything I earned, worked for and saved taken. All justified because I deserved to have nothing—I didn't have children, did I? I was eventually to learn this had just been another excuse. A cover that was used to justify the real reasons. The hate and revenge that had a tangible excuse for gaslighting and financial fraud.
My ex-husband's cousin that I thought was so glamorous in the beginning turned into a wicked shrew as time went on. She, I would later be told by her brother, could not have children!" Condescending in that blond, cheerleader way from highschool is the way she dealt with me. She would make these subtle remarks about things like she was surprised I was smart. I came to see that women from my socioeconomic level—Welfare, were considered dumb by her and her family, but I to her dismay could not be so easily dismissed in that way. "Wow, she said one time, "you do have a brain" she seemed perplexed. She took to basically waving me away as just irrelevant. I often felt with her like those girls in high school, just not in the same reality—you're just too beneath them. Breathing the same air was about all you could do and then you had better be careful they weren't sure about that either. The air was somehow different for them. I often believed it too. So beautiful, so ethereal they all were at times. It was often remarked how wealthy this cousin was. How she lived on Cape Cod and had some kind of glamourous job trading stocks. It was all so much back then that you don't ask faux celebrities too many questions and to be a good wife meant not asking her too many either.
As the years went by after divorcing numerous times and hushed talked of her nervous breakdown, my mother-in-law insinuated was just a tantrum, I came to see she was just another poser. Another phony who treated me like shit for years and went along with the gaslighting. She supposedly is broke now and had to go "back to work." Probably why she was intent on frauding me. She went through her sizeable inheritance and money—spending it foolishly. She laughed one time and told my ex-husband she had to "hustle again." I heard she ended up married again—I forgot how many times this was. By this time, she was just frumpy and mean—on the take. I remember all the condescending ways she would infer about "poor people." All the stereotypes she used, but at the time I believed because we both worked and didn't have children, I thought she had a career—we could be friends. She had never harbored such a thought—not once! Having a job was not having a career—she had a job, she was a married woman. Men have "careers." Women help out and are taken care of and most of them "don't have to work!" I was not good enough to not have to work! I had a career and that was very different. After she left her first husband and had a new boyfriend, he supposedly owned an Advertising Agency, she liked to brag about it to me. By this time, I was a corporate graphic designer and had worked in an advertising agency, the cool place to work when I was a new designer. She liked to go on about him and implying she also owned the company. It was short-lived, the relationship didn't last long, but at the time I thought it meant we had some things in common. Things were often inferred, but I was to come to learn this was part of the game. To make me think there was similarity when in fact there was absolute hatred. How else do you plot and scheme to leave someone homeless on purpose with nothing over a 20-year period?
Today I laugh, coming to learn about Mary Magdalene. The supposed prostitute who some think was even Jesus's wife. I wish I had known all those years ago. I would have felt some comfort in the land of all the Mother Mary's. I would have been less intimidated and taken in by all the lies I was told. That the marriages I saw and were coerced to emulate weren't just the way it was and my wanting a partnership was valid. The partnership only involved our fiances where I was chased down for every dollar, "I was a career girl, after all, wasn't I?" Anything else pertaining to our marriage I had better consult the Church. Everyone we knew and my new inlaws and husband I wanted to please believed in the "Traditional Wife"—except when it came to the money of course! My ideas when I was allowed them was more in the lines of "where do you get this stuff?" How could you possibly think that way? No one thinks like you, he would laugh. If we were in public, he would often make jokes about something I said, in that loving teasing way a "good husband" does and a "good wife," of course accepts. Of course, they would agree with him. I would be admonished if I questioned their joking. A lady doesn't do that. "Why did I have to ask so many questions?" "Why couldn't I just get along?" "Why did I have such a hard time?" I came from a "Divorced family!" which usually would shut me down. How could I possibly know anything growing up on Welfare and certainly not being a mother was a sure indication that I had a lot to learn to be a wife.
Of course, I wanted to be a "good wife!" The more I was told I just didn't really measure up for some reason the more I tried thinking eventually I could succeed. I did succeed, I became a very good one and a decent family and Man would have acknowledged that, but that was not what was set up all those years ago. I was a failed Mother Mary not a successful companion like Mary Magdalene who I have learned did not have children either. Maybe she did, but for the most part, the word is out she did not. I love hearing about her now. Last time I went to Church, I heard of "Elizabeth." "God can do impossible things!" A woman friends with Mother Mary had been faithful, but childless and did have a child later in life—John the Baptist. I was thinking there was still hope for me before I realized the marriage was never one anyway and it was all set up to just use me on purpose. I had some hope I could stay with our Church. My name was never put on our tithing envelopes either I came to see. Along with everything else I was not acknowledged for this and was another shunning in a long line. He was "The Man!" you know, "Man and Wife." When we married I asked our vows to be Husband and Wife, they were changed, but our marriage really remained man and wife, especially concerning money. Once things came apart this was ignored. It was not "husband and wife." It got so bad, there were times I thought I would pass out in Church. My God, even our Church envelopes were some sign I was not a wife. Where was my name? They all asked because now it wasn't a husband and wife. They only said his, therefore everything was his. It all was becoming a horrible nightmare. That along with the accusations that I was mentally ill and had been from the start of my 20-year marriage, which also proved I was never a wife.
"You're a Prostitute!" the neighbor I had known 20-years yelled continuously at me while grabbing her crotch outside her lakehouse recently. She had the lakehouse next door, a vacant lot separated us. Shocked, I asked her what she was talking about. At the time, I was dealing with no water and heat and trying to stay at our lakehouse because I was being stalked around the city every apartment I rented. I could not get a safe place, so my personal belongings stayed in storage. By this time I had enough and wanted to move into our lakehouse that sat empty. Why could I not live there? I was to see this was another scam, but at the time knew we bought it shortly after we married, had been working on it together 20-years, paying taxes, maintaining it—everything remodeled and I should have had the right to stay there. We were in fact still married! Our dream when first married was to retire there. I had no idea what she was yelling about after calling the police and telling them my dog went to the bathroom on her property. It had been a hard Winter. We had numerous snow storms recently and he might have gone once on the vacant lot when I let him run a bit. He was a toy breed and was usually in my arms. Some days I was too weak after lugging in wood to keep a fire going, boiling snow for water, and trying to manage the ongoing threats. We had a propane heater, but it was left empty on purpose—another game with the heat. I might have let some small pieces of dog poop stay there. It was freezing cold and ice everywhere, I had planned to pick it up when they all came tearing up the road—angry and threatening. The neighbors on the other side too. They were all rarely here in the Winter. Over the years we had started to stay at the Lake in the Winter, no one ever came. Most were in Florida, snow-birds or just didn't come to the lake in the winter, but were here now making threats and allegations. I never got most of it—stayed inside after they threatened to call the police again. They had nothing really, but some dog poop.
Of course, by this time, any excuse to paint me as mentally ill, incompetent was being done. Not curbing my dog, even in the middle of Winter after never once allowing him to go on the vacant lot was suspect. In fact, my current dog had never been to the Lake. My other Shih Tzu "Casey" had passed at 5-years old and my new dog "Bentley" had only been there as a small baby. I had been excited about him being able to run and go in the water, but that was short-lived. These neighbors watched my every move and called the police numerous times. One sheriff, even seemed to be a personal friend, was there all the time, trying to catch me doing something. The divorce was still unfolding, but he had changed the locks, complained about all sorts of stupid things like his "toy car collection" being damaged that they were looking for anything to arrest me. It didn't matter he had 3 real vehicles and total use of all our properties, while my car was deliberately taken and I had no place to live. He viciously told me my car would be taken when this nightmare started and that "nothing was mine." I was in shock because the car was mine. I would deliberately be made homeless and destitute also! He was continually allowed to do whatever he wanted right along.
Mary Magdalene is currently being debated as to whether she was a prostitute. It seems the consensus is becoming she wasn't. Just Church dogma to reinforce the idea that a woman having any power or being that close to Jesus was suspect. I read for that reason they had to diminish her. Reduced to viewing her in terms of just her sexuality thereby making her seem less important—fallen woman. In the same way, I'm diminished as one now too. I did nothing my 20-year marriage is the accusation. How could I? I was mentally ill from the start, I'm being told and they have the papers and people to prove it! I sat stunned when I read the papers hurled at me that those were "his grounds!" I thought it was 50/50? Grounds? Who had grounds anymore? Hadn't the laws changed? Aren't those reasons used just to get a divorce and not about finances? I was horribly mistaken by the corruption I saw unfolding. But like so much I was to come to learn it all was set up from the start. The gaslighting and financial games started as soon as we married, but back then I had no name for what was happening. I now have some relief that there is a name for this type of horrible abuse. The teasing that started slowly and became deadly.
I miss Kathy. The last time I saw her, we sat together in silence mostly. She had finally gotten clothes some relatives bought her. I basically had the same set I came with. I wore them every day and often they were dirty. It was hard to get the washer and washing one pair of jeans was difficult. I would have to wear a hospital gown and I had come to dread that after having been wearing one the night I was yelled at over not moving fast enough out the door for a Fire Drill. I had just come out of the shower and put one on to get ready for bed, but after that incident, I slept in my clothes. I had gotten up quickly wanting to put on my pants but was practically dragged out and assaulted. I would write up a formal complaint and by then saw it as another attempt to make me appear that I "made up sexual assaults." "Just ignore her," the one TA told a group of them shortly after the "incident" in question, "she makes things up!" Insinuating I make up sexual assaults. I didn't say he sexually assaulted me, but he just about hit me and I was trying to get dressed, but the idea was to make it seem like I made up "these sorts of things." I never would have filed a report, but then he kept doing checks and wouldn't leave me alone and was getting more and more obnoxious. I finally told him to stay away from me. Funny looks about me being a prostitute were also being joked about around this time too.
I never heard anything after I filled out the papers of what went on. I was interviewed by a safety person, I don't remember his title. It was late and the ward was volatile after I was yelled at, threatened and almost hit again, for daring to say anything about this TA. Certain ones could do no wrong. I knew it was being set up to make it seem like I just "made up these stories." It was becoming obvious. My roommate at the time told them how mean he had been, but of course, people took sides. He had his adoring followers and some were very violent. "Taken down" on a regular basis. It could be scary as people were increasingly getting attacked. So it made that night one of those nights that were difficult. I told him what happened and he left. I knew not to ask too many questions—I never heard back. The TA was supposedly transferred, but I wasn't sure if it was about what happened. There were a lot of staff changes by that time and rotations due to increasing "drug smuggling" in the ward. It was management that decided moving people around would alleviate this. That and barring people from going outside at all, which was a problem from the first week I was there. You had to repeatedly ask to go outside. Often just getting snide remarks about how busy the staff was and there just never was enough. "I just don't feel like it" we were told one time when a group of us asked.
Kathy looked nice. She said they were trying to place her somewhere. Getting out and getting housing was what everyone talked about all the time. It was always delayed, always a problem. We all hated the ward mostly. "You don't belong here," she said. I know I said. I like your new clothes, I said, you look nice. Kathy smiled, I knew it was time to stop talking and we just sat quietly. She had her pen and journal. She really didn't write anything. I was not allowed mine. I was denied mine unless in the common room, but Kathy had hers now all the time. Her complaints worked and I was not allowed one unless it was just in the common area—where I was watched. Kathy took to doing what I originally liked to do—carry around my journal, but I don't think the staff appreciated me writing all the time about what was going on. By this time, she liked to copy and had to copy everything I did. It got hard at times to deal with and she could get upset about it, which was why she got her own room eventually. I had wished for a single room, but I was learning about patients with real Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective and Bipolar, so having a roommate was, in fact, better for me even if at times really difficult living with someone who had these illnesses. I liked all of them. I could separate the illness from their unique personalities and individuality. I came to see that I wasn't sure why so many others could not. People that have mental illness are still unique people, but even here they are treated as a set of "behaviors" their diagnoses more about who they are rather than their full humanity. An illness, rather than a person with an illness.
We both sensed I would be leaving soon. I look back now and realize we had both been right. Kathy had an uncanny way of knowing some things. I liken it to developing other senses because some of what you have isn't functioning in a regular way like being blind and you develop more acute hearing or other ways of being to compensate. Kathy would be uncanny about some things. She was often right, but in that way at first glance could be suspect. I didn't belong here like she and others said, but according to Doctors, she was delusional so you couldn't believe what she said. She also knew I asked a lot of questions and in some ways, a writer is like a spy. I had to laugh again, but it's the kind you have for a child when you know they don't mean to do something even though it's wrong and they can be so cute making excuses. There were times Kathy was like that. She was lost in a place that made it hard to reach her at times. It made it hard for her to live on her own, but she was often on point. It was like having to read between the lines with her. She could be so insightful one minute, but so upset the next. She could be so understanding, but then be very bullying and volatile. I had to navigate the spaces in-between, but she reminded me of someone. In fact, a few someones that I knew at home, even though I haven't seen most of them in 20-years! My half-sister told me recently she thinks my mother is Bipolar. My half-sister calls herself "psycho" and wants us to be the "psycho-sisters," but that is not going to happen. I'm not delusional nor psychotic and have not made anything up—I don't lie! I know now she has been telling stories of her own delusions that have included me for a long, long time now. I haven't seen her since first married—she visited once. My ex-husband repeatedly told me she didn't want anything to do with me. How did he know? I never really knew why and asked about her frequently. Many lies she had yet to own and the gaslighting she was a part of. Her observations of my mother are probably correct. My mother would often rage when we were young and had to take valium for her "nerves." She called her pills her "nerve pills" and often took too many.
The Aunt I took care of, for 20-years, my ex-husband's Aunt was Manic-Depressive. She often had "spells," but her illness was another one of those things we didn't talk about, as was her Lithium—just accepted. Our "records" were increasingly getting mixed up as was the fact we now had the same psychiatrists. Wasn't that a conflict of interest? Another question, but I was learning would not be answered just yet and only made me seem like I was "Paranoid." This another indicator of my "illness," "Asking too many questions!" but Kathy was teaching me how difficult it really was to actually have Schizophrenia and Bipolar, the stigma and hell it caused and for that, I was grateful to her and for her friendship when we were together that short time at the psych ward. "I don't have Schizophrenia and Bipolar," I told the Doctors repeatedly when forcibly admitted for resisting arrest, which I never did. "How do you know that?" he condescendingly said one time. "Only I can tell you what you think!" Astounded, I told him that was offensive, but he ignored me like he usually did. I told him again another time it was because I met Kathy, I liked her and she did have Schizophrenia and Bipolar! I told him about the Aunt I took care of for 20-years, but this was also ignored. By this time I was learning what that entailed. I also met persons with Schizoaffective, who were people and seemed to know more about their illnesses than he did. Partly because I was not ill and he kept insisting I was. It would take me longer to understand why this was being done. I would have to ask more questions and observe. I was learning to be careful about this. Kathy taught me to read between the spaces. Being a "good patient" and cooperating was more important than being a person. A good patient "accepts the diagnosis" and acts accordingly. A bad patient does not act accordingly. A bad patient might not be released for years. A bad patient doesn't get housing, although on the waiting list, which can mean more time locked up. Kathy taught me a lot and I hope she is doing well. I miss her in ways, but the horrible psych ward I don't. I know she can't live on her own. It would be nice to visit her, but the threats keep coming about me being locked up again. Going near a psych ward again is not something I want to do anytime soon!
original artwork that was stolen
*names have been changed.
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