Natalie Forsyth

Uncomfortable, Yet Familiar: An Asylum Experience

I take you to my room on a cold April morning. My head usually feels like the boulder Sisyphus had to push up the hill but that day it was much worse. The littlest sounds felt like I was being waterboarded. Drip, drip, drip. They came to me like drops of water slowly hitting my head. Each one more agonizing than before.

I’m now at my backyard screen door. I feel the sharp breeze hit me like a piercing shiv. I walk outside with only little ankle socks to keep my feet dry; the cold quickly seeps into my socks until my feet start to feel numb but I don’t care. By that point I did not care about my health, I did not care about my well-being. I was just focused on punishing myself because I thought that’s what I needed, I thought that’s what I deserved. I did not have anyone around me telling me otherwise. My thoughts were the only thing around me. Like people they kept me company. They told me what I deserved and what I didn’t. They told me when to stop and when to start. They hovered over me like monsters restricting me at every turn. Keeping me locked in my mind, locked in my body.

I had no control. I was at the mercy of my thoughts and the more this went on the angrier I got. So much so that I find myself in my living room with a glass smashed on the floor and books strewn all over the place. My dad’s restraining me and the police are on their way over. At this point I lose all confidence, all toughness. I’m vulnerable, raw and exposed. I feel lost and like I can see no way out. I feel out of control in my mind and trapped.

I break down. All my defenses against the cops are gone. They have taken control, they have just further broken what is already out of control. I don’t see a reason to argue or scream as that would just make them think even less of me than they already do. So I just watch, watch as they aimlessly play on their devices while I’ve been waiting two hours for the nurses in my local hospital and my anger boils but I cannot let them see this insanity is what I think to myself. Insanity is what they think. They already know I’m not mentally sound. I’m just putting on a show for them. Insanity isn’t acting, trying to be sane is, when you’re really not yourself.

That is what I told myself and that is what I’ll continue to tell myself. That is what I felt throughout my stay at my local sub-par asylum.

It was like any other asylum, but in some ways it wasn’t in that I didn’t feel the loneliness you feel at other asylums. It was weird that way that is isolating and community forming all at the same time. It was my first experience in an asylum but I would not want to change it for anything. I had a community around me. One that’s kept me from the demons of my own mind. But in many ways it did resemble the stereotypical asylum. There was a TV room where patients would occasionally stroll in and out, and a glass window where we would line up to get our meds. One area was sectioned off for what they called the “difficult patients.” I always wondered why they secluded patients who were more difficult. It is all up to the psychiatrists to determine who is difficult and who is not. They are the “gatekeepers,” which to me is everything wrong with our system. We put psychiatrists on top when we should be putting the patients on top.

Patients spent most of their days in their room and when they did come out they were only allowed up and down the hallway. We’d hear the nurses’ cards click to be let out, out into the world while in here was the netherworld. But there is also another word that comes to mind when I think of this asylum, this isolated ward for the “mentally insane.” It’s unheimlich, meaning uncanny. A feeling that is familiar yet uncomfortable, welcoming yet isolating.

It was a place where I found my first belonging. A place where I found my community. A place where I could finally reclaim the mad identity that had been hiding away. Even though we were surrounded by authority, our community shined through our collective madness. It was a beginning for me, the start of a community forming. This is the community that helped me find my voice. Where I no longer felt locked away in my mind. Where for the first time I felt that sanity was no longer the norm.

I learned all of this in an asylum which for me has a lot of personal meaning. The word asylum means sanctuary and a place of safety. This word I feel has been misconstrued over the ages to mean a place of horror and misery. It’s strange how a word dipped in such sweet meaning could become something completely unlike its origin.

For me it was a word that defined a mental health resistance movement but was also shrouded in so much history. Its walls speak of many horrors but also many movements. And that is what I find so incredible about asylums: there is a mixture of happiness and sadness all at the same time. A place that was a sanctuary and a place of resistance but also a place of grief and oppression. I take both those histories with me.

It’s just another example of how nothing in life is as simple as it seems. This was a place where I felt both lost and found.  Seen and yet unseen. A typical day would start with us getting our vitals checked. Then we were only allowed to enter the hallway where we got our daily exercise by walking up and down the hall. The people I met were all unique in their own way. One was a man of very few words who was also full of kindness and life, another was a woman whose name echoed rebellion and difference. She had been a young adult in the 70s and the passion that she had then was still with her. The silence and isolation were even more deafening in the 70s than it was in that asylum, where she soon had to leave because she could not take the tight restrictive feeling that sent reverberations through the whole center.

That is what stands out to me about my stay, it was incredibly restricting yet I felt so found and free to be myself. There I was surrounded by my people when at home all I felt was isolation and emptiness thickening the walls until I felt so trapped I wanted to scream and never stop. It was a sense of freedom from the shackles of my mind and my mind’s space in my house. It was a freedom of mind and space and time and space. It was a place that was welcoming yet uncomfortable.

This drawing represents my mental health progress and the wholeness I felt within myself And the people around me after my experience in the asylum.

This story was always a cathartic piece for me. It was a way to let out those emotions I was feeling and reclaim the voice I had lost. It was meant for me to reclaim my madness and to take up space proudly. I wanted to express the nuances that come with being hospitalized. It can be both a restricting yet freeing experience. I found my identity there along with feeling a sense of being confined. The asylum experience has always been one of two histories. One with oppression and neglect and one with resistance and power. For me asylums came with resistance from powerful women like Dorathea Dix and Elizabeth Packard who fought for the right of the mad. I took that history into my story and tried to show that side of it. But along with resistance comes the history of oppression and confinement where the mad were neglected and treated lesser than. Where they were seen as not deserving of love. That history still continues today with police treating the mad as though they are a  threat who needs to be escorted by police. Looked at as though there was something wrong with them.  With this story I wanted to change that. I wanted people who felt their voice had been taken away to feel they could speak out and not feel ashamed of it. For people who felt alone, ignored and neglected to feel loved and seen. I wanted people to know that it is okay to break down. You don’t have to pick yourself up right away, you can take your time. I wanted to create a conversation about madness and mental health. To let people know that they are powerful even though they might feel weak. They can overcome any hardship they go through because they are strong and have a mad community right there to fight for them. We can create change through speaking and telling our stories. They deserved to be heard because they have not been heard for so long. They have been pushed aside but we can reclaim that voice, reclaim our place and find comfort amongst our community. We can reclaim our madness and celebrate it instead of feeling ashamed of it. My story was meant to give people a safe space to share their stories and feel that they are not alone. They are heard. They are seen and they are loved. It is powerful once you find your voice and scream from the rooftops that you are proud to be who you are. It is powerful. It is beautiful and I am so glad to be able to share this with my community of strong, powerful mad women.

My name is Natalie and I identify as a mad person. I live with OCD and Depression and many days it can be a battle but I love myself and am proud of myself for my strength and resilience in the face of my mental illness. I want to help others who feel alone feel heard and seen and know that they are strong and powerful and know that it is okay to break down. I still break down sometimes and am finding pieces of myself every day to rebuild and feel comfortable and safe in my own head.