“My Stifled Creativity in the Psychiatric Hospital”

by Obadiah Madsen

“Spread your cheeks”, he tells me. He didn’t mean the cheeks on my face. He meant my other cheeks. Everything in my pockets was already confiscated. They took my belt. They even took my shoelaces. What could I do? I turned around, bent over, and spread.

How embarrassing. But I also felt bad for him. I wouldn’t want to look up there.

The door was secure. The door (actually 2 doors) was locked. I couldn’t walk out. Even though I was here voluntarily, I just couldn’t walk out on my own. I was in a voluntary prison.

Don’t get me wrong. I needed to be here. I am not opposed to psychiatric hospitalizations. However, they are scary for me. I couldn’t function out in the world, so I am in here to stabilize, to reenter society.

I closed my eyes. Yes, he was still there. Every time I closed my eyes, they would turn inward and look at my brain. Because there is no light coming in, I could not see my brain, but I could see the red jaws. I could see the red fangs. I could see the mouth of the demon that was eating my brain. They told me that the jaws were a hallucination. I protested, “How could it be a hallucination when my eyes are closed?” They said it was a hallucination because I could see the jaws.

I turned to what I always seem to turn to in times of trouble – my journal. My journal is my poetry. My journal is my art. My journal is my diary. My journal is my prayer book. When I pray to GOD, it’s easier to write the prayers, than to speak them.

I asked the attendant for my journals. I was given one of them. I asked for a pen. My request was declined. “I need a pen”, I almost cried, I almost screamed, but I was at least coherent enough to know to never scream in a psychiatric hospital.

“Sorry – security reasons. A pen can be used as a weapon. We can give you the pen, but you have to sit where we can see you”.

I just wanted to escape. I wanted to write about the demon and ask GOD to take it away. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t want to be watched.

I accepted the conditional pen, but I couldn’t write. My creativity was hindered. I went to the counter and asked for my other journal. Maybe I could write in that one. That one was not my creative journal, but my commentary journal.

“Sorry – security reasons. That journal is spiraled”.

Another weapon. They were concerned that I would kill myself with my pen or the journal spiral.

I didn’t write in that hospitalization. My wife brought me my fuzzy gingerbread man slippers. Maybe I could get the creativity out through them. My slippers brought some joy to myself and other patients as well. However, I learned that my slippers were not a gingerbread man, but a turd from South Park. However, the psychiatrist was not amused about my grasp at creativity. I saw him look at my slippers while writing in my chart. I wonder what he said.

Today, I have been out of the hospital for a few years. I do not purchase any spiral bound journals, in case I ever have to go back to the hospital. However, I still haven’t figured out to get a pen in there. I know they are going to ask me to spread my cheeks.