Coming Undone by Terri White (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) ๐
Read free book ยซComing Undone by Terri White (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) ๐ยป - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Terri White
Read book online ยซComing Undone by Terri White (bill gates books recommendations .TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Terri White
I pack the few items of clothes a friend has snatched for me from my apartment. My wardrobe is normally a carefully cultivated mishmash of second-hand dresses, shirts, skirts, T-shirts. Taken as separate pieces they look like the wardrobe of a deranged woman, but put together, itโs something approaching a look. A look that I could hide โ exist safely โ within. Grabbed at random, however, none of it worked. But itโs all I have with me to take to the next hospital: my wardrobe for the psych ward. My pink A-line dress; white shirt; a knee-skimming black dress that sticks to me in the bits that matter and those that donโt; a dogtooth mini skirt; an oversized T-shirt for my friendโs punk band; thick white tights; off-colour ankle socks; black tights with a ladder by the gusset; vintage lace-up brogues; a striped blue, white and red shirt with a dagger collar; navy blue cropped trousers; a thick yellow mini skirt.
I place my clothes, along with my make-up, a hairbrush and toiletries โ moisturiser, hairspray, deodorant โ and my laptop neatly in the big transparent plastic bag Iโve been allocated. The bags that youโre given when you leave or join an institution โ a care home, a prison, a hospital. The sign that your belongings are, were, never really yours. They belong not just to whoever had given them to you, but to the world. The people who now have every right to see your knickers and your socks and your lipstick on display.
I wait. And wait. Visitors to surrounding beds come and go. The food trolley goes past en route to other beds. โNone for me,โ I remind the porter with a smile, โIโm going to be out of here any minute!โ On the hour, every hour, I walk to the nursesโ station, still smiling while anxiously asking for an update. โItโs on its way,โ they say, on the hour, every hour. As each hour passes, I become more and more anxious. I canโt spend another night here in this ward, simply waiting.
It has taken several tear-fuelled conversations to my insurance company and the hospital administration team to sort the bed in the psych ward out for me. If itโs lost, Iโll be sent to the back of the queue. I feel beyond desperate just thinking about it.
I sit, stand, pace; I ask again. I donโt want to go to the bathroom in case they come and leave without me. The sun sinks a little lower. My bladder remains full. My fingers leave marks in the sides of the chair.
Eventually, several hours later, the paramedics appear: my rescuers. A middle-aged man and a young woman, swinging her high, tight ponytail, chewing gum. โWeโve had the worst day,โ they say to no one in particular as they pass the nursesโ station to collect me. They leave the gurney they were pushing in the corridor and come to the side of my bed.
โRight,โ they say. โTime to get you on there.โ
โNo thanks!โ I chirp, standing bolt-straight to attention as they invite me to get on the stretcher.
The female paramedic shakes her head. Itโs not a request. โYou have to,โ the man then chips in. โAnd we have to strap you in. Itโs procedure.โ
I look at the body-shaped stretcher, take a moment to steady myself. The thought of being strapped down, unable to move, takes the breath straight out of my body. They wait. Eventually, I climb up, covering my backside, as they ask me to cross my arms over my body, pull first a sheet then a blanket over me and strap me definitely not in, but down โ tight, with black belts pulled across my body. They start to wheel me out and this is the exact moment the trembling starts at my ankles: an immediate, physical manifestation of the panic blossoming, opening wide, in my chest. I canโt move. I canโt breathe. Help me. Please. God. I donโt know who Iโm looking at, for, but not for the first time that week, I look up. Up through the ceiling tiles, the electrical cables, the concrete, the tiles, the clouds, into the stratosphere, the sky beyond the sky we cannot see, no matter how hard we try.
As they continue wheeling me through the corridors to the elevators, the eyes of other patients and their family members fall on me, before bouncing swiftly away. Everyone can see the madness. The shame. They donโt want to be touched by it. There arenโt many other reasons to be tied down. I smile widely, red filling my cheeks. The skin in the corners of my mouth cracks, ever so slightly. My smile freezes still. They push me into the lift, talking over me; she casually texts; they laugh. As we get to the exit, my heart leaps. Through the doors, I can see the sunshine, the sky, the people hurrying, the cars speeding: New York, alive right there, just feet away.
I havenโt been outside, on concrete, felt the wind, tasted New Yorkโs dirty air on my tongue, in almost a week. As the gurney pushes the external doors open with a bang of metal on metal, the air flies in and I instinctively open my mouth, gulping it down. If my hands had been free, Iโd have been clutching at it, greedy with need. In the following seven or eight seconds it takes them to push me from the hospital exit to the ambulance doors, the wall of sun, wind, noise, clamour, chatter hits me square in the chest. Sirens collide with horns, meet screeching tires, melded with screams.
The paramedics continue to chat cheerily over my head, seemingly immune to the miracle happening all around us.
Comments (0)