The Psychiatric Closed Ward

The boy was rushing through replies on the interview before being signed into a psychiatric institution. An ambulance brought him there. Doctor observed him cautiously, he was empty within, as a machine for screening diagnosis. When he talked with a patient he had a ready set of behaviors, questionnaires. He did not think too much, too many cases went through his inspections.

-’Age?’-

-’21’-

-’Profession?’-

-’Student’-

-’Any suicidal thoughts, someone following you?’ -

-’I’ve seen them, I swear, they looked at me. They sniffed something, they knew, the sky went black, I’ve seen wings’-

Doctor jotted down: ‘Persecution delusion, manic behavior, screaming in the streets ‘you are all zombies!’ -

He was arrested and escorted to the hospital. Auditory and visual hallucinations, probably paranoid schizophrenia, for further diagnosis.

-’When will you let me out?’ - asked the boy, bewildered.

-’Please release all valuable items, they will be restored later, now please change your clothing, you’ll get pajamas, do you have a cell phone?’- A bulky male nurse informed.

-’This is some kind of a mistake, they are everywhere’ - Resigned, he changed his clothing into damaged, torn pajamas that stenched of hospital laundry, when the nurse observed him, after putting all his things into a blue garbage bag, shoes inclusive.

-’Is that all? Let’s go!’ - The nurse commandeered.

They marched through several corridors, steel fortified doors, until they reached the closed ward opened with a semblance of a key. There were several people inside, one woman observed him and started intoning: ‘Jesus will save us’ - screaming and shouting. Another patient approached him and laughed, then shouted in a word-salad ‘Fuck no, save no, I’ll pick your eyes out, little children degutted, it is a contract, deal, conspiracy, the ruling, they are picking eye out, my wife shoved me into this shit, bitch didn’t want to listen’-.

The male nurse showed the incomer his bed:

‘Alright, you lay here in the corridor until a bed is free in one of the rooms, we’re full for now’

A large bulky guy looking an ancient warrior approached, asking whether he’s got a cigarette. He had none. The bulky guy danced for a while as to a faraway song and went away. He sat on the military bed for a while staring emptily into space, human voices tore his mind apart: ‘What is it, what is it pig, you’re imprisoned? You ought not be born, maggot shit!’-. His skull was scanned inside out, he had no privacy, every signal of words was like a needle in his mind, as if his soul would be torn to shreds, scalpeling his feeling out. He put his head into his hands, every word was a combustible mixture of fear, anxiety, aggression, agitation. He said:

-’What the fuck, what have I done, better to die’-

His though was taken over by a female voice: ‘Die die die, rot whore until you die, nothing done? Nothing done? Nothing. Done. Kill yourself you human pig!’

-’Why are you saying this to me?’ - he asked the female voice

All of a sudden his head became full of compulsive-obsessive thoughts looping: ‘Kill kill, murder, kill’ as he heard the voice saying :’I said die you fuck, die once and for all’. He approached one of the nurses slowly, saying ‘I hear voices, I hear them’. She looked the other way around towards the second nurse and said: -’Yeah, look at that. What do we have here? The other nurse checked the papers: -’Nothing yet, please wait for the doctor’ He’s seen the face of the first nurse as a half-rotten maggot-infested face, the latter had a whitish-greenish aura around her. Only he’d seen it.

He received his supper at 6 PM, slice of bread with 20g of jam 2x2 cm. He went to the smoking room, asking for a cigarette. A female around 30-sh with nervous spasms after anti-psychotic side-effects, she just said: -’Here’s one, don’t ask again, get your own’. He smoked, inhaled deeply, the rest of patients talked, or were silent. One was circling the 4 square meter cage for smoking like a wolf and talked to himself lively. He laid in bed during ‘night silence’ time, minute went slowly. Patient next to him was tied with ‘belts’ for misbehavior, he started screaming after midnight. He looked in his direction. Shadows, four shadows around his bed, one was putting a sharp object through his head, body, the rest was moving something around him, here and there. He was screaming like hell, whispering quickly. After an hour he stopped. The next morning he asked the screaming guy why did he scream, he responded: -’They come to me, torture my body, experiments, injecting weird things’ - he answered.

-I’ve seen’em’ - he said, confidently. The guy had terror in his eyes and replied -’No, you can’t! The doctor said they are hallucinations, phantoms of my brain, stop fucking me up! - ‘I beg you tell me they don’t exist, my brain creates them, dopamine’ - he whispered and went to the other side of the corridor.

He slowly got used to the thought that he will stay there for a bit longer. Some months. He was said that each week there is a psychiatric visitation with the chief ward psychiatrist. This day was today. All the other patients waited for it. New drugs, some released, some just wanted to talk, resigned.

Sad male and female doctors were wondering from patient to patient, noting something, the bearded chief psychiatrist asked each patient ‘How do you feel?’. -’Ah increase these drugs, give new ones, these don’t work. They were setting these pills as if they had any effects apart from controlling symptoms, damaging brains, making them into zombies, brainless cognitive experiments of old cybernetic research that cast a shadow since years. A looming shadow of control.

-’That’s what it is all about’ - one doctor said -’Control psychosis, depression, to control, control everything’.

-’I want to be healed, not stuffed with this shit’ - the 21-year old replied.

-’It’s chronic, it can’t be healed’ - the doctor pretended to be sad, as if he would utter revealed truths.

-’So diagnosed once, I’ll be stuffed with this shit forever?’ - he asked

-’Yes, schizophrenia needs to be healed, here I’ve got new injections, you don’t need to take pills every day’ - the psychiatrist smiled.

He looked at him disgruntled:

-’How much did you get from the pharma agent, motherfucker?’-

-’You’d get lobotomy in the sixties, you prefer that over Haloperidol, your mum is behind the door, we can discuss it with her’.

-’I’m not schizophrenic’ - he replied

-’You’re in denial, I’ll sign you in’ - he noted.

-’I’m schizophrenic’ - he mocked the psychiatrist

-’Well done, dissimulation’ - he smiled.

The 21 year old left the room and shut the door behind himself. He knew he had no power, once you’re in psychiatry is the power, not the patient. You need to lie and know how to move around.

In the closed ward there were several types of patients. Some loved their stays, returning oft to the hospital, others felt safe there, others felt like in prison, worse than prison. They didn’t know why they were locked up, some were unconscious of what’s going on, these who were felt helpless. Some were silent and lost in their worlds, others openly went mad, contributing to the madness of others.

Chaos, a screaming guy. Two policeman undercover brought some yelling guy, around 30 years old, they handcuffed him to a bed. They sat in the armchairs next to the nurses room, waiting for the chief psychiatrist. Other patients approached him, and played jokes on him. Some touched him, others talked, one kicked him. A typical Lucifer effect.

After a while the orderly arrived, he said a patient should not be handcuffed for 3 hours to a bed, he was unlocked and somehow he managed to run. Before he noticed, two male nurses knocked him to the ground, put him forcefully in a straitjacket as the man was desperately screaming. It was something of excitement to other patients. The 21-year old looked at the police, but they pretended they don’t see him. The other guy was thrown into ‘belts’ on the bed and he received pacifying injections. He was knocked out for twelve hours. After he was released he was crying, the young lad approached him and ask what’s the matter. -’I was on a democratic demonstration, these PiS governmental pigs beat the hell out of me and stole my bag, I had my savings there, I have no idea what I’m doing here’- he was shaking, anxious.

A old grandmother that was sitting there for the 30-th time said:

-’You won’t be free anytime soon, poor thing’

The boy observed everything around him, he’s seen white figures, aetheric worms growing out of human heads, looking like rotten face-masks that feasted on their minds, some greenish-blueish clusters of energy similar to a fog, sometimes the dead in various forms of decay. There was a shadow-person standing in front on the window at nights. A gentle voice in his head said: -’This hospital destroyed his life, he accuses all of them, he hates, please don’t end up like him’ - the whisper went away.

-’What a mess’ - he thought -’Remember not to talk with the doctor about it’ - he promised to himself.

Almost two weeks passed and he got used to the idea that he will stay at least two more. Days were not much different from each other. A cigarette in the smoker’s cage, random chats with other patients. Doctors’ visitation, observing eccentric and psychotic behaviors of other patients. One was chasing something from the end of the corridor, some other screamed in a terrified fashion. When he stopped him to inquire about his turmoil, the latter replied: -’There is a battle between good and evil, and I’m on the side of good’- He started charging with an invisible company across the corridor with a walking stock he thieved from an elderly patient. Sometimes he stared longer on an insane, yet good-looking female, newly accepted into the psychiatric prison. Like in prison, there was not plenty of choice, so the subjects of amorousness were a few among patients.

After the ‘night silence’, he escaped unnoticed to the smoking cage, it was empty and dark. Nurses watched their TV in a room that was 15 meters away. He was threading as silent as a mouse, so that no one noticed he left the room. There was one shadow staring from outside into the cigarette cage, torn in pain and torment, moving like a hangman. Dead souls. Some called them shells, yet there was something much more to it, more eerie, a human echo of a paled soul.

In the Graeco-Roman world they were nourished with the blood of animals, sometimes humans, necromantic traditions. Then they regained the trace of the lively vigor, gaining color and shape. Each Autumn, on the Day of the Dead he prepared melikraton for them, a consecrated mix of honey and milk. They wanted blood instead. He invited them to feast on his hemoglobin filled with life-particles. He felt as the blood is sucked as life-giving fluid, light, acidic sensation felt through the skin. He fed the dead like his young, alchemical Pelican. That’s the only thing he could do for them, commend them to the Gods, psychopomps, guides of the souls, so that they finished their existence, not to wonder around the world anymore. The one standing behind the window, broken-necked, observed him. - ‘Another one with a life ruined by psychiatry’ - his female guide said - ‘He hung himself in despair’ - she uttered. He didn’t know what to think, but he observed him, repeating mechanically old remembered phrases: -‘I’m not the one to judge human fates, their histories, circumstances, decisions, consequences, sometimes they are beyond our control, beyond our choices and decisions’- He thought -’Sometimes you may be fucked by clusters of co-arising, co-dependent events pulled from elsewhere, perspective on fates, what you make of it, or what you are capable of doing with the received damaged, then it is a question of character, nature, and all…..in the hands of Providence and Gods’-

-’May we?’ he asked. One of the dead incarnated into him for a while, he nodded his head from within. -’You understand my thoughts, don’t you?’ - he asked in his head. He gave his will over, the dead kin composed the sentence and uttered in whisper through him: -’We know you inside out, we know your needs and your toils’-. -’Some call you devils’ - he thought. -’The dead have diverse natures and traditions, some are good, some are evil in the eyes of the living, various beliefs, diabolical traditions begun with the onset of Christianity, psychology of belief-systems deforming souls and hearts-’ he continued -’What do you think, how did a simple herbalist female faulted?’ -’They showed her as the incarnation of evil, she was magical, when she was called a witch, a devil’s spawn, what should she believe?’-’Some of them became the evil that was made by human hand and then became the evil that procured more’ -’Yet not only humans exist in this world’ - ‘No, invisible worlds are at work on Planet Earth and beyond, yet they all have their history, origin, genealogy, just like plants or trees.’

Patient in the room next to the smoking cage started screaming, it was time to withdraw to the room, five persons, one of the beds was his. He went silent, even when nurses would detect a whisper they would report to the psychiatrist. He would be imprisoned for longer. He returned to his room, and slept. He dreamed that he is bathed in a black tar full of worm, awfully decayed human corpses, one skeleton caught him by the leg attempting to devour him, he caught his neck and attempted to break it. Then he heard a sketchy voice, as if without vocal chords, as if bones could speak: -’My name is Sophia, my name was Sophia’. He stopped defending himself, the skeleton had a name. Detecting his defenseless position the skeleton starting climbing upward and attack him. He broke her neck in one movement. He heard a voice of a black master. He found himself in an objective void of black fires, he said, smiling -’In space of the void full darkness resounds’. The swamp of decaying corpses was no more. He woke up in the awful smell of the co-patients farts. He turned towards the other side and fell asleep again.

He begun to accommodate the though that he will sit for a while longer. He ate his breakfast, all queued for medicines which they were prescribed, according to the psychiatrist’s wish. A voice in his head said -’So, schizo, what’s next?’-. He felt a thick, fat larvae drilling his skull. He isolated it with energy, condensation of energy, gesture assistance, ejected. Ejecting it he’s seen a fragment of white energy that jetted elsewhere.

-’Feedback between human psychic apparatus, neurodynamisms and dimensions with all inhabiting entities and psychomorphs, frequencies, channels, demi-entities enveiling in human minds, really weird’- He didn’t know whether this idea is his, or was it formed in words by something else. It was wordless, he could transcribe it in written language if he wanted to, it would still be imperfect. Sometimes those ideas were inspired externally, a breakthrough in paradigm, an ingenious solution. Yet, psychiatrist said, those were delusions of thought broadcasting. The whole arsenal of psychiatric replies for every symptom, raitonalized, done away with, reduced, dehumanized, ‘it’s all in the brain’.

It was a day of visitations. His grandfather visited him with some fruit, juice and chocolate, he wanted to talk but was not capable of forcing any word through. -’Sedatives’ - he thought - ‘Animal farm of innocents’ - he felt as if his brain would be flattened, foggy with cognitive functions with intelligence frozen and done away with. Around is body and within he felt a monotonous swampy fog, an energy of some random soul overtaken from a different patient, hatched in him, or a being incompatible with cognitive functions of a highly intelligent person that he once was. While attempting to talk with his grandfather a random patient stumbled upon them, mumbling something about Virgin Mary, throwing pictures that he found in the church around himself and putting them on the tables.

He said his farewells to the grandfather. He recalled an ancient Roman law: -’Thou shall not force the souls of others to belief in your religion’ - as if the soul believed what the mind did. Psychiatric institutions were true brainwasher’s paradise for the ‘other side’, if not the trap of the psychiatric paradigm, then religion, in the middle there was a person with a system of beliefs with are subject to complete mix and confusion because of modus operandi of the mind, most of it psychopathological. He studied each patient with his sight, giving them his own "magickal" diagnoses:

One of them complained that in his nightmares he murders people in bloody genocides. He was a good fellow, a punk.

Diagnosis: Cacodaimonic inspiration, red dimension of one of the hells linked to his mind, citadel, contrast between ID and SuperEgo, continuous dismantling of personality, identity stumbling to re-integrate on the conscious continuum, that was creating larvae in his head mining for linguistic functions, Broca’s area and frontal lobe. These pseudo-personas derived from lexical pool created micro-entities eating the mental stuff of his brain. They feasted on his mind, torturing him and demanding more mental food. Sometimes these pseudo-entities were taken over by less friendly, malicious beings whose anger manifested in wrath and insults, sometimes random entities that integrated a more ‘positive’ reply to the correlated entities.

Psychiatric diagnoses: ‘Paranoid Schizophrenia’

One of these evenings an older lady sitting in the smoking cage said: -’I want to be on a throne of men, as a great whore, so that all these slave-dogs would fuck me’

Diagnosis: Sexual fantasy became a declarative said when possessed by a succubae, the woman was approximately in her late 50s, the conscious side wanted to test my reaction. Succubae was detected with second sight, she had black eyes like holes, rotten skin, and a twisted face. In honesty, succubae are just wondering clusters of sexual energy feasters with no intelligence apart from the ability to conjure hyper-sexual imagery from the psychic homunculas of the psychic sexual projections of a given person, leading to creation of a superb orgasm for food, sometimes creating a demi-demonic offspring, a child-boy without a face that tortures his ‘father’ and drives him mad.

Psychiatric diagnosis: ‘Paranoid Schizophrenia’

A third patient boasted of manifold romancing with wives of others. He ended up in the psychiatric hospital after he encounter his chair on the table in the kitchen dressed in a white sheet with splats of blood. When he started washing his hands in the sink, he’s seen an aborted child shoved into the sink. The story was clear, he was of sane mind, but he fucked with the fates of others, leading to plenty of consequences that ‘the other side’ played with illusions and wanted to finish him off.

Psychiatric Diagnosis: ‘Psychotic Episode’