Moments, Memory, and Madness

Let’s go back to the hospital, again. It’ll be different this time.

I have told all these stories before, I think, but never like this.

Maybe.

The trouble is, I don’t remember all the stories I’ve told about my years working at a locked, inpatient psychiatric hospital. Most of them are here on Medium, some of them are scattered in other publications here and there. There are anecdotes and stories in talks I’ve given, or remarks during a talkback after a film screening and there are muffled voices in my head, some of them are reciting old punchlines, some of them are screaming to be let out of seclusion. Some of them are mistakenly calling me “Doc”, because, when you work in a psychiatric hospital and you wear glasses and you tuck in your button-down shirts, you’re a doctor.

Some of the voices are delusional, some of them are more rational and grounded than my own.

I am mad; just like them. Madder, maybe, than some of them. I believe that. I bet you won’t. Maybe this essay can convince you; maybe it’s an attempt to do that. Maybe I want you to commit me. Maybe I want you to see sickness in me and call me out and ring the bell and get the guys and take me down and shoot me up.