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14 Psychiatrized Women




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This article is from the Essays on the topic of Women and Disability.

14 Psychiatrized Women

Sunnybrook

Sculpture and text by Persimmon Blackbridge

I got the interview at Sunnybrook because I put on my
application that I had worked at a child guidance clinic in
Ontario.

(Actually, I had been a patient there, but I knew the jargon and
I knew the routines, so what the hell.)

I went there dressed for success, in brand new panty hose,
borrowed shoes, and a dress with nice long sleeves that covered
the scars on my arms. I was interviewed by Dr. Carlson, the head
psychiatrist. I think he wanted to hire someone quickly and get
back to his important work. It was a short interview.

"I understand you've worked with teenagers with learning
disabilities," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"So you must be used to dealing with some pretty anti-social
behaviour," he said.

"Yes," I said.

"But you've never worked with retarded people. Well. That's
unfortunate. But you do know behavior mod?"

(I know behavior mod.)

"Oh, yes," I said.

"Good. Very good. Well then. I feel I must tell you: the girl we
hired last month for this position quit. One of the residents bit
her. Quite badly."

He looked at me. I didn't flinch, and the job was mine.

I liked Ward D. There were lots of friendly people there--
Shirley, Pat, Geneva... In fact everyone there liked me except
for Mary. Mary liked to sit by herself and look out the window.
She didn't like people bugging her.

But I had to bug her or I'd get fired for not doing my job. Dr.
Carlson got me a book on American Sign Language and told me to
teach Mary to sign.

I had a few days to study my book, and then I went to meet Mary.

Nurse Thompson, the head nurse on Ward D, took me over to where
Mary was staring out the window. Mary glared at her for a
second, and then looked away.

"You do know behavior mod?" Nurse Thompson asked.

"Oh, yes," I said.

"Well behavior mod is a little tricky with kids like Mary. And
not just because she can't speak or hear. The form of negative
conditioning we like at Sunnybrook is withdrawing attention."

"Of course," I said.

"On Ward B, that means a few hours in the side room, which is
your basic solitary confinement."

"Right."

"Here on Ward D, we put them on a chair in the hallway and
everyone ignores them for awhile. It's humane, it's effective.
Except with kids like Mary who are so anti-social they'd just as
soon be ignored." Nurse Thompson laughed and shook her head. "In
cases like Mary's, we use good old positive reinforcement. It's
really just as effective."

(It didn't matter that no one else on Ward D knew how to sign. It
didn't matter that I didn't know how to sign. I could learn from
the book and teach Mary. Then she would have a way to
communicate, in case anyone who did know sign happened to drop by
the ward.)

I was at Sunnybrook for a couple of weeks before I started on
Ward B. But when I reported in to the office on my first day,
Nurse Jones told me Janey was locked in the side room.

"She'll be there for another hour or two. You might as well take
a break."

I sat in the staff room. No one else was there. I didn't feel
like reading old magazines, or writing my weekly report.

I went back out to the dayroom. It was nothing like the dayroom
on Ward D. Ward B had a bare concrete floor and no TV, no
pictures on the wall, no curtains over the barred windows.

But there were lots of people and they were all shouting except
for the ones who were sitting in corners with their eyes closed.
There was an orderly sweeping up broken glass. He nodded to me
and kept on working.

I went back down the hall, past door after locked door. One door
had a window in it, with bars and safety glass. Inside, I could
see a woman in a strait jacket.

(I knew it was a strait jacket, even though I had never seen one
before.)

The room was small and square, with a tiny high window that
didn't let in much light. The woman was singing.

(It had to be the sideroom and it had to be Janey.)

I stood there for a minute and then I unlocked the door. It
locked behind me, automatically, like all the doors in
Sunnybrook.

When she saw me, Janey started to scream, kind of a high quiet
scream through clenched teeth. An anxiety scream.

(I could understand her being anxious. I was feeling a little
anxious too, and I had keys and no strait jacket.)

I backed into the corner by the door, and we stood on our
opposite sides watching each other. After a while she stopped
screaming.

One of the best places in Sunnybrook was the staff washroom in
the basement of the administration building. No one ever used it,
not even the maintenance staff.

If you had keys you could go in there and close the door and know
that no one would ever come in, or even knock on the door. I used
to go down to that washroom for my breaks or even my lunch hour.
I would just sit there, doing nothing, thinking nothing.

(Or maybe I would cry.)

The only sign I ever saw that anyone else ever went there was
when I found a book on the back of the toilet. It was called
Honeymoon for Nurse Holly.

At first I ignored it, but when it was still there after a few
days, I started reading it. It was a little bit boring, but also
kind of soothing. Like you knew just what was going to happen,
and you didn't really care.

(The story was about this woman Holly, who graduates from
nursing school and comes to work in a big hospital. Right away,
she starts having trouble with this handsome but arrogant
doctor.)

"Jesus, Persimmon, it makes me so mad!" my girlfriend said,
typing furiously on my weekly report.

(The reason she called me Persimmon was because it was my other
name, the name my friends called me. No one but shrinks and
landlords and people at work called me Diane.)

(She could type and talk at the same time. It was impressive.)

"Mary doesn't belong in that place!"

"None of them do," I said.

"Well yeah, but Stuart and Janey...it sounds like they really are
seriously brain damaged. You know? And Mary isn't."

They shouldn't be in that place, I thought to myself. After a few
minutes, I said it out loud.

"Yeah, but what's the alternative?" my girlfriend asked. "Do you
really think they could get along in the outside world?"

(I had already considered this problem. It was the main
unworkable element that had forced me to abandon my kidnapping
scheme.)

I was silent for a long time and then finally I said, "Things
could be different. Like big things. It's possible."

"Yeah," my girlfriend said. "Don't hold your breath."

Janey, your arms are scar on scar. Tooth marks track you layer on
layer year on year. I've seen you tear your skin to blood and
skin is strong. How can someone bite that hard? I guess you use
what you can get. I use a razor.

I was finished for the day, walking across the grounds and down
to the main gate, like every day, the long walk down to the gate,
clutching my keys.

I had a key to the main gate. I could get out. I could leave
whenever I wanted to. I wasn't an inmate.

Dr. Carson told me I was doing a good job. At our last meeting he
said the nursing staff was pleased with my work. He said he liked
my reports. He acted like it was really true.

Maybe I was doing a good job. I considered that possibility as I
walked down to the gate. Maybe they'd keep me on, even after the
government took away their one to one counsellor money. It could
be real, like a career, and not just one more in a long series of
short jobs.

I could take night school classes, even. My girlfriend could help
me type papers, and I could learn how to write things with
footnotes.

And look up things in the library.
And read serious books.
And memorize things for tests.

(You can do it. Come on. Everyone has trouble at first.
Just try. Just try harder. You're not trying. You're lazy.
You're selfish. You're irresponsible. Just try. Try harder.
You're not trying.)

Or maybe I wouldn't take a class. Maybe it would be ok if I just
kept faking it. They seemed to like the way I was faking it, so
far.

There was a security guard near the gate. If he asked me what I
was doing, I'd tell him I was a staff person going home. I'd show
him my keys. I'd quote Shakespeare: Out, out, damned spot. See, I
know Shakespeare, I'm on staff, I can prove it.

The guard nodded to me as I unlocked the gate.

"Good night," I said, with my best Nurse Holly smile, and made my
escape.

Sunnybrook is not written from the perspective of a good-
intentioned social worker. It is written from the perspective of
a woman with learning disabilities (myself) who fakes her way
into a job at an "institution for the mentally handicapped "
Sunnybrook isn't about a sympathetic staff person who disagrees
with the hurtful things that she is required to do to inmates--
it's about a person who is required to do the same hurtful
things that were done to her, in order to keep a job that could
be her ticket out of the minimum wage ghetto.

Persimmon Blackbridge has worked as a part-time housecleaner and
a part-time artist for the last fifteen years.

Sunny brook was recently exhibited in the Charles H. Scott
Gallery at the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in
Vancouver, B.C.

Artwork used within the sculpture by: Shani Mootoo, Jo Cook, Deb
Bryant and Susan Stewart

 

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