The Train of Consequences

Each morning that fateful summer, I would pause as I pulled out of the apartment complex, waiting for the traffic to clear so I could make a left toward campus and summer school classes. In front of me was a sign with an arrow pointing right that somehow must have always been registering through the turmoil in my mind. But this morning, July 14, 1990, as I was poised to turn left, I stared at the big “H” on the sign, and the words “Trauma Center” under it, and decided it would be a good idea to turn right instead.

            I wanted to escape the phone calls and the feeling of being followed and known wherever I went - in class, while driving to the store, talking on the phone. I felt like I was constantly being monitored, that I was being brainwashed, set up, that people wanted me to leave school. I was getting on people’s nerves with the skinhead look and the alumni baseball cap I was wearing all the time and my black “Members Only” jacket. They were fed up with my arrogant, cocky attitude. “There he is, the tough guy. Don’t mess around with him.” I had no freedom. After three months of hell, it had reached a boiling point. I began thinking I wanted to kill myself.

            I remember parking my car and then finding myself in a room with a few doctors, telling them over and over I was going to kill myself. They didn’t know that the only way I would have followed through was if there had been an easy way to do it. The doctors kept telling me they wanted to help me. Finally, they called the cops to keep me from fighting to get out of there. They could see I lifted weights and was a pretty big guy. They believed I could become violent and told me I had to go to the Psychiatric Unit. That wasn’t my choice. They took responsibility for me at that point. My admittance became involuntary. All of a sudden, I was not just a prisoner of my mind, but I had lost all my freedoms.

            So the cops got there and grabbed me. Not wanting a broken arm, I didn’t resist. They led me through a tunnel-like pathway, up an elevator and right into what was eventually my biggest nightmare - my first of a series of stays in mental hospitals. When all my dreams had been coming true, how could I have ended up in this place?