I've Been Committed To A Psych Ward Three Times

With Level One privileges at the psychiatric hospital where I was involuntarily committed in 2002, the patient was allowed off the ward for breakfast. Because I spent my first half day hidden in my room's wardrobe, sobbing, no one knew that I was not a danger to myself or others, and so I ate the first breakfast without any designation, stowed away near the nurses' station at a round plastic table. I chose raisin bran from a selection of preschool-sized boxes. I ate the cereal under supervision with a plastic spoon. I drank apple juice, which came in a plastic container with a foil top and a straw. There were patients who had been there longer, were well behaved, and yet also ate breakfast on the ward; signs hung on the doors of their rooms indicated that they received electro-convulsive therapy, and thus could not eat before their morning treatments.

The nurse who checked my vitals on the second morning informed me that I'd been elevated to Level One status, which I took as a good sign. I sat by the television for a while with some of the other patients, all of whom were groggy from psychotropic side effects and uncommunicative.