Finding Grace in Building F

Disclaimer: All names used in this piece do not reflect the real names of the individuals involved.

The pillow was almost as flat as I was. Almost as hollow and thin. I had exceeded my college’s tolerated threshold of crazy and got locked up. Escorted to a stark white room on a unit by people with jangly keys and tired medical uniforms.

“I guess this is the pillow I deserve.”

Order of operations: concern the people around you with bizarre behavior, submit to a drug test, have personal belongings seized, sign a stack of admission forms without reading them. Solution: a tedious clinical evaluation conducted by a clinician trying to get through the end of their night shift. For me, the tedium came from the litany of questions I had to answer while struggling mentally. I answered with words that floated into a distant sky like balloons released by a startled child one by one.

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As a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist comfortably into middle adulthood, I am acutely aware that my empathy and intuition in my work is influenced by my early experiences. When I was 21, my world shrunk to the psychiatric ward in building F, a state-run facility in New York for adults ages 18 and up who were temporarily deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.

Photo by Adham Ragab on Unsplash

Passively suicidal, they determined. I wasn’t going to jump in front of a bus, but neither could I stop thinking about it. Earlier that week I had wandered the hardware store in a disconnected daze and considered razors or rope.

A staff member recommended hiding the change necessary for making phone calls under my pillow. It flitted across my mind that after receiving this tip, every would-be quarter thief would know to look there.

My only point of reference to a psych ward was a partial viewing of “Girl, Interrupted.” I tried to make my first outgoing call and alerted staff “the phones aren’t working.” She looked up from the desk sharply. “It’s group time.” Too timid to ask, I waited an hour until the phones were connected again.

My roommate spoke only Spanish. “Frio,” I commented to her, hugging myself and shivering. She smiled back and nodded in agreement. Having exhausted much of what I retained from high school Spanish, we did not speak again.

The first time I was handed a little paper cup with a pill in it, I wondered whether the prescribing doctor was behind a curtain somewhere, Wizard of Oz style. “I’m sorry…what is this?” There was a shuffling of papers before “Lexapro” was tossed in my direction. Much later I would learn this was the brand name for Escitalopram, an antidepressant often used to treat conditions like depression and anxiety.

My social worker was always drowning in paperwork. I was a social work major at college. I wanted to disappear from her caseload, just so she would have less to do.

My fellow patients and I gave disproportionate weight and attention to small things. “Do you want to get snack together when it’s time?” Planning the snack that would be doled out two hours later, and no more than thirty steps away, somehow did not strike us as utterly pointless.

The young man sitting next to me in the day room volunteered that he was an alcoholic. His shoes were ill-fitting and his odor pungent. Our conversation started out normally – “what are you in for?” Moments later, he lowered his voice and asked “so…do you like to play games?” I quickly scanned the room. “Um…do you mean like board games?” I asked. He clarified patiently. “Naw. I’m talkin’ ‘bout, like…a b*****b.” The next morning, another semi-lucid individual asked me to marry him over a bowl of cheerios.

Photo by Author Emily Randall

It was Frankie who taught me how to play war, and how to pass the time. He told me where he had stashed a razor and needlessly swore me to secrecy. He wrote down his Myspace information, urging me to overlook the overwhelming satanic vibes, and assuring me he wasn’t “into that stuff” anymore.

One day a middle-aged man asked me about my medication. “That’s baby stuff” he scoffed. A recently fired chef with a temper to match his cooking, he often complained about being under a microscope. “We’re like rats in a maze right now.” He pointed to a camera on the ceiling. “They’re watching every move we make.”

I was not convinced the staff were that invested- underpaid and overtired attendants often came in hoping for an easy shift where they could eat their Chinese takeout in peace while we watched TV or played cards without fighting. In my experience, short-term facilities like these rarely foster long-term relationships: the patient populations turn over quickly, there are frequent “repeat customers,” and professional detachment is necessary to get through the work in such an intense environment.

Witnessing psychosis can be striking; on at least two occasions a patient removed all their clothing for no discernible reason. But when no one threw a cafeteria tray or defecated somewhere that was not a toilet, it was a good day.

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Seventeen years later, snapshots of grace still shine through the faded memories. Take the banana breakfast tray lady.

She was doing fifteen-minute safety checks my first morning. On the edge of my assigned mattress, I sat alone, blinded by a waterfall of tears.

“Aw, you still cryin’?” She was in the doorway, urging me to get something for breakfast. I was not hungry for food.

She coaxed me to the cafeteria before it was locked and fixed a tray with a banana on the side. I hate bananas. And I’m not a big fan of orange juice. I nibbled at a few bites of cereal.

Nevertheless, it was filling. A feast prepared by Love. I stopped crying.

Determined little tendrils of healing poked through in unlikely soil. Like ping-pong with one of the security staff.

“Do you wanna play?” Normally shyness would have held me back. But this was a chance to escape into a game I love. I let the noise of the hollow ball transport me to happier places, far away from bare walls and industrial pipes. “You’re pretty good.” He won. But for ten minutes, I felt less like a liability risk and more like a regular person who could be trusted with shoelaces.

My soul, thirsty for belonging, was quenched with a cup of kindness.

Photo by Joshua Sortino on Unsplash

Grateful when my parents came to visit, I was equally relieved when they left. I didn’t want them to see me like this. Unwashed hair, chewed fingernails, classes traded for zoning out with dull eyes on the television suspended from the ceiling.

I’d asked my parents for reading material, figuring I would get what I thought I was worth, some old books, tossed carelessly into a paper bag. I’d never seen the crisp edges of a new paperback quite like that before, as orange and clear as a dawn sprayed over a desert ridge. I still have those three books on my bookshelf because they are tangible grace.

I happened to bring with me the assigned reading for a class on spirituality that semester. I devoured it in two days. Its message of mercy was like a salve from an aloe plant, cooling my skin, then over the dry land a softness grew, as from rain, deep underground, until it settled in my bones.

Sitting in that depressing room, I felt like a failure. Evidence around me supported the idea. But it was also there, with the raggedy shards of my self-worth torn and wilted through my fingers, that my Savior met me, and assured me that He loved all of me, even as the broken mess I was.

 I still find myself sifting through the shards of an old self. Sometimes they are like the jagged edges of broken littered beer bottles. Others are closer to sea glass; smooth treasures collected in a child’s overalls during a day at the ocean. Tenderly, I wash away the dirt. Nothing is wasted. From the pieces a mosaic of possibility emerges: a growing enthusiasm, fairies fluttering sparks of hope, beauty in redemption. Light shines through and illuminates a new story.

The hospital didn’t make me feel better, but that isn’t really the goal of a short-term psychiatric stay. What it did do was keep me safe, offering 24/7 monitoring and enough support to help me return to society, and for that I’m thankful. It represents the turning point after which I became determined to learn how to live in harmony with a brain that often colors the whole world gray and pointless.

It provided me with a steppingstone for ongoing treatment. In my own therapy over the years since then, I have received valuable support from other wounded healers. I am indebted to them for helping me be able to do what I love now – partnering with others to create new, more empowered stories for their lives.