Keith (friend turned enemy) appeared at my door yesterday. He was like an emperor inspecting his territory. A thick ginger beard obscured half his face. I did not invite him in. He spoke gibberish for a few minutes and then turned and descended the stairs. I heard him address Andy. He had, amazingly, remastered the English language.
I remember the day I first met him. On the acute ward. He was right at home there. He was wearing a long, black and white striped A-line skirt and a thick wollen jumper and a soiled pair of trainers. His pale, hairy ankles were encased in unwashed sports socks. He threw himself down on an easy chair. ‘I just thought I’d cheer everyone up on these dark, bleak days. Don’t you ever feel like doing that?’
I feigned fascination as he recounted the events that led to his admission. A duty doctor went to visit him at home. ‘I wanted to be admitted,’ he said.
‘But there are no beds,’ the hapless doctor protested.
‘Well, there will be,’ announced Keith and started to tear off his clothing. The doctor stared, open mouthed when he saw that Keith’s naked body was coated in green spray paint. ‘I am the original leprechaun,’ he told the doctor before heading out of the door, getting on his bike and riding off. ‘The neighbours must have thought the world had been invaded by bicycle riding aliens,’ said Keith.
The doctor granted his wish and Keith was sectioned for six months.
Keith is a disciple of the Pseudo Messiah*. They are the repeat offenders. When they are inpatient they are the ubermenschen of the ward, if not the entire hospital. They boast openly of their ability to bend the doctors, nurses and even their fellow patients to their will. They ‘play the system’ and they make no attempt to hide it. ’They are, in their own eyes, superior to the nine-to-fivers living beyond the hospital walls and the tedium of their lives. They call themselves ‘free spirits’. They see their illnesses as a means of liberation. But I know that they are enslaved by their disorders and by the sprawling, chaotic system that accommodates them so willingly and I believe that somewhere, deep down, they know it too.
They relish their outsider status and yet, in that hospital, I was the real outsider. They are imprisoned in a ghetto they have created for themselves. I am a prisoner of my decision to remain aloof from all around me. I do not feel as though I belong in the world and so I continue to build empires within myself.
This world is not my home.
*He is also a patient of Dr. H. The words ‘wrapped around’ and ‘little finger’ spring to mind.
Tags: attention seeking little twat, hospital, mental illness, outsider, psychiatry
