There’s a Crack in Everything: Groundhog Days

CHAPTER 8

One of the most brutal ways the psych ward attendants kept us less than human was in screwing with our sleep.

There was no way to get any real amount of good rest. “Lights out” at 10 p.m. was not lights out. It simply meant that you were encouraged to be in your bed. But if there was a movie on and enough people wanted to finish watching it, then 10:00 could be pushed to 10:30 or 10:45.

And the lights, the solar flares that flooded the ward, never went out. The main ward lights were on 24/7. All the bedrooms opened into the main ward and were set up like dorm rooms with two beds, each with a side table, a set of shelves to share, and a bathroom with a half door, open at the bottom and at the uppermost top.

Because of possible harm to ourselves or others, an employee checked on every room every fifteen minutes throughout the night. If you kept your door closed to the main room, you had to suffer a loud click and an equally loud closing upon the employee’s entrance and exit. That’s every fifteen minutes throughout the night.

Or, as my roommate and I chose to do, you could leave your door cracked enough to stay open letting the ridiculously bright blazing beacon of the large ward flood the bedroom with a piercing shaft of light, but not having to suffer the sound of the door opening and closing. HOWEVER, with the door ajar, you could hear every word of the attendants working the night shift, who didn’t drop their…