"My Prison-Cure in America", Chapter 6
Adapted from Annemarie Schwarzenbach, by Cleo Varra
Content warning: Involuntary psychiatric commitment
Read previous: #5. I'm Going To Fight Back
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Bellevue Hospital, New York City-- 1941
The guards led me down a hallway, and I nurtured a hope. --Maybe there will be some more light here, I thought, and maybe some more freedom of movement. Maybe I'll read, or write. I'll settle down.
I could even be allowed to smoke.
The guards pushed open a pair of double doors; and in that second corridor, dark and filled with musty, humid air, I began to be afraid.
—But, I told myself, the horrors awaiting me would be nothing new. Maybe it would be a little hotter, maybe a little darker. We started to pass by the other patients, all in solitary cells. Since nobody had any chairs, or even benches, it looked as if they were clinging to the walls.
I hesitated like a reluctant animal, and wanted to say that there must have been some mistake. But the guards twisted my wrists, and I gave in immediately. I broke out in a sweat.
At the end of the corridor I was allowed to stop again, and as they unlocked a door I began to speak hastily. I would rather not know what I said.
They pushed me forward, and I heard the door slam shut. I found myself alone so suddenly that I went on talking— "It must be a mistake, it must be a mistake," and so on.
Then, "I haven't done anything," and then, "Let me out," until my voice cracked.
I don’t want to think about it anymore.
You feel sorry for yourself and you scream, as if you could break the walls with your voice.
If you shout loudly enough, a guard might come and punish you. Or they’ll call you mad, and take you to a different department.
And if you catch your breath and start screaming again, you will be punished more and more. At last you will probably give in.
You will go into the silence, and you will forget yourself, for they will have obliterated and silenced you. They will make it impossible for you to do any differently.--
I just went on walking and walking along the walls of my cell, which I touched with my outstretched hands.
***
Since I was exhausted, I whispered softly: "Oh, you should let me out!"
They should come again and again with their threats. I was not afraid.
Without thinking much, I repeated my own echo: out, out, out.
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Next: #7. Screams Of The Ward
