Elizabeth Flock - But Inside I'm Screaming

Sukanya casts a glazed glance at the pitcher containing the unnaturally red beverage.

“Here you go.”

Sukanya takes the Dixie cup in one hand and the pill cup in the other and starts to turn away. Julie grabs her arm. “Sukanya,” she sings in a mock-friendly tone, “you know better than that. You need to swallow the pills here, where I can see you.”

Sukanya stares at the fingers wrapped around her forearm until Julie releases her grip. Then she slowly places the pills on her tongue and swallows them down with the punch.

Can we move this thing along?

“Good job. Okay, let’s see, who’s next? Isabel?”

Isabel moves forward. Like a model patient, she takes her pills in front of Julie and moves away from the doorway of the tiny pill closet. After ECT, this is nothing to her.

“Kristen? You’re on deck!” Julie is back to her clipboard, checking away. She does not know that when Kristen pops her medication into her mouth the pills nestle under her tongue. After Kristen turns away from the medication checkpoint, she spits out her medicine.

Isabel has taken only two steps into the group therapy room. There, facing the double doors, is Lark, neatly tucked into the wing chair, enveloped by the jacket.

We have to look at that damn jacket for the entire session?

“Let’s start off this group session by checking in with everyone,” Larry announces. “Let’s go around the room and each of you can let the rest of the group know how you’re feeling or what you’d like to work on or, well, I’ll leave it to you. Whatever each of you would like to say. Isabel? Let’s start with you. How are you today?”

Isabel breaks her stare at the jacket and tries to focus on Larry. Thirty seconds later she looks back at Lark, who appears to be fighting to keep her eyelids open.

“Isabel?”

“Yes?” Focus.

“I asked how you were doing?”

Focus.

“I’m not doing too well, if you must know. I hate this fucking place. I don’t want to be here. I think this is all a bunch of shit…sitting here, talking about ‘what’s going on with us,’” she says, mimicking Larry’s slow intonations. “I’m sick of it. Sick of it all. I want to get out of here.”

“Hmm.”

“And furthermore, Lark’s sitting in here in that thing and it’s a little hard to concentrate.” She stops and looks back at Lark.

“And?”

“And nothing.” She pauses. “Actually…I thought this place trumpeted the fact that all patients are in charge of their own treatment regimens, or however you put it,” she challenges Larry.

“Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning I have been subjected to a treatment that I didn’t necessarily agree to. I thought we were supposed to be able to agree to what kind of treatment we received.”

“You’re referring, I assume, to ECT,” Larry says.

“Yes. I’m referring to ECT.”

“What’s she talking about, Larry? What’s ECT?” It is Ben, who seems slightly agitated.

Great. Just fucking perfect. I’m getting electroshock therapy and Ben the I’m-gonna-blow-up-my-school guy isn’t? Great.

“They shock you,” Melanie jumps in. “They put a thing in your mouth and they shock you in the head.”

“No they don’t,” Isabel cries defensively. “They don’t put anything in your mouth.”

Isabel feels her cheeks reddening.

Get those smug looks off your faces: I am not like you, you goddamned nutcases.

“ECT is a very effective form of treatment,” Larry intercedes on her behalf. “It’s been very successful in the past and I’m sure Isabel’s therapist feels it will best suit her needs. Isabel, I hear that you feel upset about this, but I do know that Dr. Seidler has repeatedly tried to talk to you about it.”

“Wait a second. Wait just a second. You guys talked about me?” Isabel is horrified, picturing a coffee klatch of doctors swapping stories about their pathetic patients. Five bucks says mine’s more screwed up than yours.

“Now, hold on,” Larry says, trying to calm the now unsettled group. “We work in tandem, your therapists and I. I speak constantly with all of your therapists to ensure that we are all up to speed on the issues you’re dealing with. It’s imperative that we maintain an open dialogue…”

Open dialogue my ass.

“…to better serve your recovery.” Larry stops and takes an exaggerated deep breath.

“Let’s move on. Lark?”

“Wait! What am I supposed to do?” Isabel is infuriated. “Seidler told me I’m having ECT again tomorrow—I don’t get a choice? That’s not okay. I am not doing it again.”

“Have you told Dr. Seidler that?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

Isabel shifts in her seat. “I don’t remember,” she says sheepishly.

“I think what she might have said was that it is not uncommon for patients to experience anger following their first treatment, but we’re confident—” Larry hurries past the word we’re “—that another session will enable you to achieve the maximum benefits of ECT.”

“But…but couldn’t there be another way? Couldn’t I just promise to work on myself more actively or something? Please? Isn’t there any way I can get out of this?”

“Let me talk with Dr. Seidler after this session and see what she has to say.”

“Thank you, Larry.”

You catch more flies with honey.

Larry takes another exaggerated deep breath to emphasize a subject change.

“Okay. Now. Lark?”

Lark slumps farther down into the tall chair.

“Do you want to tell the group what your situation is, Lark?” Larry asks this while surveying the nervous faces around the room.

“Why don’t you do the honors, Larry.” Lark slurs her words through the hair that had fallen into her face. She does not try to shake it away, it just hangs there like a veil.

“Lark is in restraints today because we believe she could be a danger to herself and maybe to others,” Larry addresses the group.

“And a danger to you, Lar, right?” Lark challenges through her mask.

“Well, if you’d like to talk about that, we can.”

Lark’s beady eyes dance as she tells the group she bit Larry before being carried away to the soft room. She appears proud.

“Do you think you’re a danger to yourself, Lark? Will you sign a contract?”

“What the fuck’s a contract?”

“A contract is basically a written agreement between you and your doctors that you will not try to take your life. We write it up in whatever language suits you, but it boils down to a promise that you will not harm yourself for a certain period of time. Feel like signing one? If you do, and if we believe it’s in good faith, we’ll remove the restraints.”

“Fuck you.”

“Why are you so angry, Lark?”

“Fuck you, Larry!” Lark has shimmied to the edge of the seat and is struggling to stand up. The jacket ruins her balance and the anger ruins her equilibrium. The combination keeps her tumbling backward into the seat.

“I’m going to have to get an orderly if you cannot control your temper.”

“Fuck you, Daddy!”

“Lark?”

“Don’t hurt me anymore, Daddy.”

Larry stands and quietly moves toward Lark.

“Get away!” Lark spits as she whips her head from side to side until her hair has completely covered her face.

“Lark, what do you want to say to your daddy?”

Lark’s breathing becomes forced and shallow, and from behind her hair, she starts to wheeze as she tries to take in air. “Please don’t hurt me, Daddy…I can’t breathe. Get off. It hurts.”

“Do you need your inhaler?”