goldenmyst
01-26-2004, 04:53 PM
Life in an upscale mental hospital had its rewards. From the moment she came I was entranced by her. She was an 18 year old girl of Honduran descent who enchanted me. She had a lyrical way of talking. Her talk was sheer sensual poetry in words. Her name was Tanya. We flirted and played oblivious to the fact that we were in the bug house.
When I first met her I was immediately attracted. However I thought she was unapproachable. She seemed like a high class yuppie who wouldn't be interested in a dotty guy who talked books all day.
Over the days to follow I saw deeper into her. I saw beyond the illusion of her airs, and into the heart of a very vulnerable and beautiful person. She confided to me her fears and anxieties. She had had a bad LSD trip in the French Quarter. It had left her very frightened. Her outward display of calm assurance belied a deeper angst.
One lazy afternoon she lay on the couch balled up with a look of excruciating pain on her face. She said her ovaries were hurting because of birth control pills. I sat and talked to her trying to comfort her. Through little moments of compassion like this we grew close. One afternoon I stood in her room as she lay on the bed. We listened to Annie's song by John Denver. She asked me how the song made me feel. I responded "Moved". Then Richard, my close staff member, walked in saying,"PC" "PC" which stood for physical contact which was forbidden. He laughed with Tanya but told us that men and women couldn't stay in the bedroom together as ridiculous a rule as it was.
I sat out in the common area and wooed her, telling her places I would take her in Europe. She responded "If you pay for it sure!". As the tedium of hospital life began to wear on us we hatched a plan. We were going to escape. She arranged with her boyfriends to drive up in the parking lot in a car one night. She and I would run together through the corridor and out into freedom. We worked it out in the cafeteria after hours with her friend. However, the hospital staff soon caught on. One night while we were playing cards Richard, a staff member I was close to, introduced me to a burly woman security guard. He said,"John this is who will tackle you if you try to run." I just sat there staring at the hulk of a woman suppressing laughter and smiling.
One of my most endearing memories of Tanya is playing touch football in the quadrangle with her wearing a knee length skirt. She looked so cute I felt like swooning.
Once Tanya told me,"If I fell in a pond or something you wouldn't come in and save me would you?" I replied that I would but she insisted I wouldn't. Her moods seemed to shift like the wind sometimes. Like an ice berg I caught glimpses of her mysteries, but so much remained below the surface.
One evening Tanya and I were in the dance studio with Susan the dance instructor. As I stood facing the dance instructor I felt a tension in my legs. It felt like a schism forming as I felt my leg pulled apart. I told Susan about. She said,"Let's go with this." She held my thighs as my legs pulled apart and I groaned like an animal in pain. Susan gripped my thighs as my legs stretched to the limit. Tanya said,"Oh my God" as she watched in amazement. Afterward we three sat in a circle and talked. Susan talked of how people aren't always what our preconceptions tell us they are. I revealed that I had orginally thought Tanya to be another rich yuppie. Tanya joked "well I can be." This moment of intimate sharing between me and the two women, helped coax me to rejoin the human family.
However what was to come would test Tanya and my friendship to the limit. One dreary winter afternoon Tanya and I walked around the quadrangle talking. She seemed disturbed and I asked her what was the matter. She said she felt like killing someone. I asked who? She said "myself". She was scheduled to go on an outing that evening with her parents. As we sat in the reclining chairs outside she begged me not to tell the staff what she'd said. I made her promise not to hurt herself. She pleaded with me and made a solemn promise not to injure herself.
Later that evening Tanya told me one of her friends in the adolescent ward was taking drugs. She said he had glazed eyes and looked stoned. She asked me to accompany her to talk to the staff about the situation. I agreed. We sat in the room opposite several staff members, including the head of the hospital. Tanya told them about the drug dealing in the adolescent ward. They asked if she had anything more to say. She said,"That's why I came." I responded ,"And I'm here to support her." Laughter erupted. Tanya left. I stopped the administrator as he was leaving. The woman with him said he was tired and could it wait. I said it was urgent and told him about Tanya's suicide intimation. I knew that Tanya might not forgive me for this. She might feel I had betrayed her confidence.
The next night sitting in the Cafeteria with Tanya, I told her,"I jumped in the pond for you." During the weeks ahead Tanya grew interested in a young boy there. The medication left me somewhat numb emotionally. One afternoon she sat next to me wearing her dark sunglasses. I told her I didn't seem to have to ability to interact like I used to. She told me,"You have to fight it. You have to try. Don't you have any ****ing emotions?" I had cut myself off from my emotions but she had helped lead me back to myself. Through her interweaving with me, my wounded heart had found healing. When she left we hugged tightly. Then she vanished like a, fairie, seen in a vision, disappearing into the vast world which beckoned beyond the walls.
When I first met her I was immediately attracted. However I thought she was unapproachable. She seemed like a high class yuppie who wouldn't be interested in a dotty guy who talked books all day.
Over the days to follow I saw deeper into her. I saw beyond the illusion of her airs, and into the heart of a very vulnerable and beautiful person. She confided to me her fears and anxieties. She had had a bad LSD trip in the French Quarter. It had left her very frightened. Her outward display of calm assurance belied a deeper angst.
One lazy afternoon she lay on the couch balled up with a look of excruciating pain on her face. She said her ovaries were hurting because of birth control pills. I sat and talked to her trying to comfort her. Through little moments of compassion like this we grew close. One afternoon I stood in her room as she lay on the bed. We listened to Annie's song by John Denver. She asked me how the song made me feel. I responded "Moved". Then Richard, my close staff member, walked in saying,"PC" "PC" which stood for physical contact which was forbidden. He laughed with Tanya but told us that men and women couldn't stay in the bedroom together as ridiculous a rule as it was.
I sat out in the common area and wooed her, telling her places I would take her in Europe. She responded "If you pay for it sure!". As the tedium of hospital life began to wear on us we hatched a plan. We were going to escape. She arranged with her boyfriends to drive up in the parking lot in a car one night. She and I would run together through the corridor and out into freedom. We worked it out in the cafeteria after hours with her friend. However, the hospital staff soon caught on. One night while we were playing cards Richard, a staff member I was close to, introduced me to a burly woman security guard. He said,"John this is who will tackle you if you try to run." I just sat there staring at the hulk of a woman suppressing laughter and smiling.
One of my most endearing memories of Tanya is playing touch football in the quadrangle with her wearing a knee length skirt. She looked so cute I felt like swooning.
Once Tanya told me,"If I fell in a pond or something you wouldn't come in and save me would you?" I replied that I would but she insisted I wouldn't. Her moods seemed to shift like the wind sometimes. Like an ice berg I caught glimpses of her mysteries, but so much remained below the surface.
One evening Tanya and I were in the dance studio with Susan the dance instructor. As I stood facing the dance instructor I felt a tension in my legs. It felt like a schism forming as I felt my leg pulled apart. I told Susan about. She said,"Let's go with this." She held my thighs as my legs pulled apart and I groaned like an animal in pain. Susan gripped my thighs as my legs stretched to the limit. Tanya said,"Oh my God" as she watched in amazement. Afterward we three sat in a circle and talked. Susan talked of how people aren't always what our preconceptions tell us they are. I revealed that I had orginally thought Tanya to be another rich yuppie. Tanya joked "well I can be." This moment of intimate sharing between me and the two women, helped coax me to rejoin the human family.
However what was to come would test Tanya and my friendship to the limit. One dreary winter afternoon Tanya and I walked around the quadrangle talking. She seemed disturbed and I asked her what was the matter. She said she felt like killing someone. I asked who? She said "myself". She was scheduled to go on an outing that evening with her parents. As we sat in the reclining chairs outside she begged me not to tell the staff what she'd said. I made her promise not to hurt herself. She pleaded with me and made a solemn promise not to injure herself.
Later that evening Tanya told me one of her friends in the adolescent ward was taking drugs. She said he had glazed eyes and looked stoned. She asked me to accompany her to talk to the staff about the situation. I agreed. We sat in the room opposite several staff members, including the head of the hospital. Tanya told them about the drug dealing in the adolescent ward. They asked if she had anything more to say. She said,"That's why I came." I responded ,"And I'm here to support her." Laughter erupted. Tanya left. I stopped the administrator as he was leaving. The woman with him said he was tired and could it wait. I said it was urgent and told him about Tanya's suicide intimation. I knew that Tanya might not forgive me for this. She might feel I had betrayed her confidence.
The next night sitting in the Cafeteria with Tanya, I told her,"I jumped in the pond for you." During the weeks ahead Tanya grew interested in a young boy there. The medication left me somewhat numb emotionally. One afternoon she sat next to me wearing her dark sunglasses. I told her I didn't seem to have to ability to interact like I used to. She told me,"You have to fight it. You have to try. Don't you have any ****ing emotions?" I had cut myself off from my emotions but she had helped lead me back to myself. Through her interweaving with me, my wounded heart had found healing. When she left we hugged tightly. Then she vanished like a, fairie, seen in a vision, disappearing into the vast world which beckoned beyond the walls.