Recollections of a Worse Time

She's a lunatic in her parents asylum.

Stolen away from this home in a violent way

I come to find out yesterday there was never a hope of a medical condition.  My parents took the only route they could see through a system that solely deals with mental illness.  I lingered in prison unnecessarily.  I lingered waiting for a proper medical evaluation.

My behavior, as strange as it was, was all based upon the instincts of survival mixed with a little confusion over the sensory impute I was receiving.  Try to play god to a child acting out of the ordinary.  It is a lot easier than you could ever believe.

"Bitter much?"  I ask myself often.  "Why not, " is often my response.

I have a history of treatment for balancing hormones without ever a diagnosis.  But, now I have the preexisting conditions of mental illness, a banner perhaps you could hold high, if you only knew in some places it gives people carte blanche to treat you as inhuman.  The drugs they gave me did not help; they made my pee smell of cream-of-wheat.  

Room 618 is where you linger with the amplified sound of the HVAC return retrofitted into the bedroom.  Pink noise and noise of a co-ed dormitory with men loitering outside of the room.  Exposed asbestos tile near the new motion activated sink. 

Nothing but a flimsy shower curtain for the old toilet-shower room.  The shower has been defunct for years with a rusted shower head and some previous inmate's litmus test strips littering the shower pan.  The original matching blue toilet was replaced with a contemporary "comfort height" toilet which really is handicapping for a woman my size, under 5 foot tall.

The toilet never flushes correctly, though it makes a great attempt at it, not completely overflowing at every attempt at flushing.  The water from the sink tastes of blood - too much iron.  The main stack must be old cast iron and rusted innward.  An expensive repair, I know, I've learned lots watching people flip houses on tv.  I wish I could focus properly on a television in this place and escape in my mind, but what does it matter they have an awful, old television down the hall.

My body feels sea-sick.  I am in a haze.  

"Meditation Time" I read on the schedule posted outside the nurses station.  Oh, I realize too late I'm the only yogini in the place.

"Medication Time," well, a mistake you can smile at today.

This was meant to be an "Health Center."