Editor’s Note:

The Story you are about to read is dramatic and very powerful. I think you will agree it is incredibly well written. For now, the author chooses to remain anonymous. Please don’t let that distract you from the critical nature of the writing. I believe it draws the connection between people who are not well and damage done in the world as well as anything I have read. You are encouraged to let us know what you think.

With all my love and gratitude!

Namaste!

Bill

The scream pierced my ears as I fell toward the window, the van coming to a screeching halt. “bloody maggies” came the cry from the driver seat. George had always prided himself on his driving skills, in fact George was the kind of man who prided himself on everything and I mean everything. I met George when I was 13 at the local swimming pool. He stood about six feet tall and had feet like fins. His uniform, which he wore for every occasion even funerals, was a track suit and a pair of Reeboks. At 65 he could swim 100 metres in no time.

“You kids alright?” he asked as he winked at us through the rear view mirror. “Yeah” came the collective answer from back of the van. We were on the last leg of our trip, almost to the city of Traralgon before we hit the Magpie. It had shattered the windshield of the van while we were driving down the Princess Highway not far from “Hobbos” Park.

“Look now we’re at the loony bin” came a cry from one of my friends. Hobbos Park formerly known as Hobson’s Park Hospital was a hospital for the mentally insane; our van had broken down right out front. It had been a long time since I had been to Traralgon and even longer since I had thought of this place and here we were stranded right outside.

My water polo team a piece of my new life now seemed in competition for thoughts of my old life. The life with Mum, the life that included a trip to Hobson’s Park. I sat on the curb of the Highway with my headphones on and allowed my memory to take me inside the walls of this seemingly peaceful place.

Hobson’s park which opened in 1963 spread over acres of lush green grass. There were two tennis courts and park benches scattered throughout the field which surrounded the light brick buildings. The park itself seemed like a public park, you would have to walk clear to the trees to find a fence. From the outside, it didn’t look like a Hospital it seemed like a Botanical Garden. The only hint you would get that Hobson’s Park was an institution was from the white coated staff wandering around and the occasional shout from disturbed pzchizofrenics who occasionally went on walks with the white coats.

I was seven when I visited Mum at Hobson’s Park Hospital, she had tried to drown herself in our bath tub, she failed of course and instead she was committed to what would be the first of many stays in mental hospitals up and down the East Coast of Australia. We were nomads of sorts, I suspect if there was a map of the East Coast of Australia and Hospitals and Battered Women’s Refuges were Landmarks that our map would be chock o block full of push pins from our travels. Some exciting and some, well lets just say some that are character building.

I could see George’s irritation grow as he paced the van waiting for help. It was going to be a while before another bus could come and rescue us. To secure my thoughts without interruption I lie on the grass, if you could call it grass with my headphones on still, there had been a drought in Gippsland for months now and green grass seemed to be a distant memory. The entire country was under tight restrictions for water usage and the highways seemed to disappear into a dull landscape of brown with an occasional gum tree standing over.

I remember the first day I visited Hobson’s Park that the path from the Parking Lot to the front door of the building seemed to go on forever. It was ten o’clock in the morning when we could see Mum and we were early.

I held tightly onto my Pops hand as he limped beside me, he had a bad hip from being shot in World War 2. His hands were rough with calluses. I don’t know which I was more afraid of, holding his hand or the building in front of me. At seven I didn’t know what an insane asylum was only that Mum was there and she was so very sad. Each night I talked with her on the phone and listened to her stories that detailed the way in which she, my sister and I were to be cut into pieces by Satan’s worker who lived around the corner. She also spent our time talking about how much she loved us and how sad she was to be locked away from us.

During our nightly talks she would cry and cry for leaving us with her father until she figured out ways for me to smuggle valium and serapax to her which she said helped her feel less scared. Sometimes she told me stories about people that she had met so far and how the staff was out to take us from her. At seven, I believed her, so I could see no problem sneaking her little yellow pills in my mouth to her. While she was committed. She warned me not to swallow them and I never did. After a couple of weeks her calls became less about the Devil and more about missing us. And then as if God had answered my prayer personally we were allowed to go visit her!

As I walked down the path, I stared at the woman by a gum tree who was laughing at the air. Her hair was long and tangled and her dressing gown stained with pee. There were more like her; a man in a wheel chair driven by another man in a white coat went by us. “Fucking Pricks” he shouted. I jumped. My Pop pulled me a little faster down the foot path, slapping my hand. He reminded me that staring was rude.

I kept staring in spite of his too tight hand, feeling a little braver knowing that my mother was inside the building and that while she was around Pop couldn’t touch me. I hadn’t seen her in almost a month. The day I found her in the tub they took her and sent Kerrie and I to our Grandfathers house. We didn’t know him very well and Mum had put the fear of God in us about Pop, I would discover later that the Devil did exist in him; she was right on that one.

As we got closer to the building, I stared at the small group of women smoking , each had a white styra foam cup in their hand , one lady waved to me I quickly looked to the ground afraid that I would get in trouble for staring again and a little unsure of whether she would yell too.

I could hear Pop breathing hard; walking wasn’t easy for him anymore, his plastic hip made it hard for him to walk far without rest. He let go of my sweaty hand to reach for the door. The double glass doors opened before he could press the red bell and a tall man walked out. Pop pushed my head first through the door “C’mon get a move on “he growled between gasps. We entered the foyer which was lined with chairs against the walls; there were two large coffee tables with magazines overflowing onto the floor. Behind the glass window a lady sat in a nurse’s uniform working. When she noticed us which seemed to take a while, she slid the glass open. “Name?” she said abruptly.”Glenda Hair” my Pop replied.

With my shirt wound tightly between my fingers I waited with anticipation to see her. It had seemed like a year had gone by since they took her but it had only been one month. I missed her smell when she hugged me and the freedom of her smile. I couldn’t wait to see my Mum and I especially couldn’t wait to get the cigarette cellophane out of my mouth, it was starting to taste bitter, years later I would perfect smuggling pills in to her. Usually I could fit about four little yellow pills inside of a cigarette plastic, I would crumple it and tape it into a small square that fit perfectly inside my mouth. As I got older I became better at it but as she got older she became hooked and I couldn’t fit enough in my mouth to help her.

We waited in the cold environment, with tiled floors and doors made of metal that closed loudly as they shut and locked. I listened to the sound of metal on metal as they opened offering a brief glimpse of large, colourless, sterile hallways.

While we waited two of the people in white coats ran through the foyer, and then two more and then two more, one carrying a white sheet. Then what followed was the deepest scream I had ever heard. I heard banging and yelling. I scanned the waiting room as my eyes began to fill with water. The lady across from me seemed calm and I wondered how. The shouting stopped almost as quickly as it started and the building was once again filled with silence. Did they kill someone? Was it my Mum? The sting of his hand woke me from the thought “stop bloody staring” he gruffed again.

As if another prayer had been answered the tan door opened. The door had a tiny window; behind the window is where the screams came from. We walked down the corridor to a room with tables: people dressed in white hospital gowns which I later discovered were called “suicide gowns” walked by slowly in a daze.

Coming through those hallways, with doors opening and locking shut, our journey ended in a warmer room. In this room, with nice carpet and wood fixtures on the walls, I would visit my Mother. The warmth of the visiting room did not convince me that the hospital was a good place. In fact, I was painfully aware of the bad conditions thanks to my Mothers almost nightly reports. I was scared for her safety.

There are thoughts that I have a bout this hospital that seem like memories but they aren’t mine. They are memories I created from listening to Mum over the many days as she recounted her experiences. She spoke of being locked in solitary confinement for long periods of time and being told “she would never get out” and she spoke of being tied up by the people in the white coats. But during these conversations and this visit I too was in captivity, in a holding cell waiting for Mum to get better so I could have her back.

When she came through the heavy metal door, she looked showered, her hair was still wet and she wore no make up at all. I was used to her wearing a lot of make up. More than most other mothers in my schools. Her cheeks were always painted with pink and her lips bright red. I usually hated it because I thought it would invite more men to our house, it seemed easier if she was ugly. That day, I missed the red of her cheeks.

She walked over to me and grabbed both of my cheeks and put her arms around me and as if a someone had opened a flood gate she began to wail. She held me so tight, her sobbing chest against my body. I cried too, even Pop who believed crying was for “pooftahs” started to cry. She wouldn’t let go and I didn’t want her too. Her tears which soaked my pink Amelia Earhart Jumper came from deep inside her heart. I could tell and feel that she was devastated – but I didn’t know why.

We visited for a few moments, it seemed too short. I watched her knees shake uncontrollably as she talked to Pop about medication and booze. She still seemed drugged, her words slurred and her eyes still yellow. “How are you love” she asked noticing my boredom. “I want you to meet someone”.

Mum reached out her hand which was empty. She usually wore lots of rings and necklaces but today her hands were bare. Her shoe laces were gone too and her belt. I held her hand which was always warm and followed her outside to the smoke area. Pop stayed behind to talk to the nurses or to arrange her death, I would not have been surprised by either.

Once we got outside, Mum gave me another hug and kiss; I slipped the wet cellophane into her mouth.

“Do you know how much Mummy loves you darl?” she said as she fondled the packet. I knew she did.

“We could get out Mum,” I said. “Maybe take a bus back to Brisbane?” Just as I was encouraged to plan an escape with Mum a white coat came around the corner.

“What’s in your hand Glenda?”

“I’m visiting with my kid” she snapped. “Why don’t you mind your own business”

The man said something on his walky talky and before long there were another three men standing over us. One of the men, the tallest one reached for her hand and as if his grasp was filled with electricity my mum ascended into a screaming rage, swinging her hands and screaming. They threw her onto the ground and I jumped on top of them, I was screaming too. A white coat picked me up off the ground so my feet couldn’t touch. By now more white coats had come and mum was being wrapped up in a white coat with buckles in the back. I was scared for my mother and my heart was in so much pain at the sight of her tears rolling down her cheeks. She screamed at them “help me – you fucking bastards”

As the man held me in the air she looked at me, our eyes locked both soaked with tears. I could see desperation and grief in her eyes, I watched. The picture of her sad face began to tattoo itself to my soul as they carried her through the glass door screaming.

Mum received a diagnosis of schizophrenia and manic depression in the late 1990’s. Through no fault of her own. She began hearing voices which commanded her to kill herself in the late seventies. Despite that Mum was awarded custody of my sister and me in 1979 after she left our father. It still amazes me that no other adults knew she was ill. I recall knowing when it was time to go to school when the Beatles cartoon ended. I also remember her crying a lot and thinking that our neighbor Brownie was going to splatter my blood over the walls in our lounge room…She also would walk around the flat trying to catch her eyes because she said Satan had taken them out of her face. She often locked herself in the bathroom and talked to herself in the mirror, mostly telling the voices she didn’t want to die.

There were times when the Priests would convince her to have an exorcism to rid her of the devil. These were terrifying events usually performed by creepy priests, I hid in my toy box when they took place in fear that I would catch the devil. Mum told me he only liked good people.

We lived like this for thirteen years, through over twenty schools and hundreds of flats, boyfriends and priests, Then, overnight, we were moved to another state where a custody battle ensued, which ended in me living with my father. It is as if the first thirteen years of my life had vanished in a day. We never talked about Mum again, I suspect because it was hard for Dad to hear. We wore school uniforms, had friends and played sports like Water polo. This was our new life.

As I sat on the curb of the Princess Highway right outside of Hobson’s Park Hospital, tired from our Water polo match and shaken by uninvited feelings of sorrow for my Mum, I came to realize that the time with Mum was not the darkest time of my life, that in fact, it was now the beginning of my 14th year on the planet that the dark days began.