The Hospital

“You’re going to the isolation room,” he said to me, as he and his colleagues subdued and sedated me. It was a bit of a tussle.

It was nearing midnight and I couldn’t sleep. I kept singing by the window overlooking the water, as if I were belting in a Broadway musical. The hospital was in the heart of downtown. It was New Year’s Eve, a holiday celebrated by fireworks in this city. I wanted to see a dazzling display of lights, but the mental health professionals surrounding me wanted quiet. A raucous patient, I surrendered to none but God.

Sometimes, we just need to be heard. Even an audience of one beats being alone with life’s riddles. I was shoved onto a mattress on the floor. There was a camera in the room affixed to the wall, but no one cared about me; no one was concerned. They just watched me suffer to feed their sadistic appetite. I knew I was in danger when the door closed and I was locked inside the cell. There was no air circulation. I was suffocating. My breathing was impaired.

I knocked on the door to get someone’s attention. I hoped someone would see me through the window. I struggled to be seen. I wanted compassion. Before I collapsed from the injection, I caught the eye of someone walking in the hallway. He had pity on me and opened the door. My expression of fear - furled eyebrows - was pathetic. I barely survived. If I had stayed a second more in that confined space, I would have died. God’s timing was perfect. This was His mercy.

While the new year held promise, I was imprisoned by mental illness. No one saw the beauty in me. I was a noisemaker that people wanted to silence. I was a burden, not a blessing. It would help if I could give up my dreams of performing, but the world was a stage; I wanted to sing and dance from my heart. Whatever talent I had was stifled in that hospital until they beat me into submission. It was like an early grave.

I was brought into the hospital on a stretcher, and I walked out on my own two feet. I stepped into the water and sank deeper. The familiar feeling of not breathing collided with the water in my chest. That’s when I said, “It’s not worth it. I will not die over this.” The pain and rejection of not performing should not result in premature death. Suicide is not an option. The same waters that reflected moonlight and fireworks almost claimed my life. That’s when I realized I could not live only for the sake of recognition. That’s when I began to sit and listen. I became an audience of one and let others take center stage. I learned to watch a parade and not star in a show on-stage. One day the curtain would close and they would throw flowers, but for now this was not my final hour.