White Bed, White Walls, All Surfaces Are Padded

I didn’t sleep well at all. I was having a severe bout of OCD and was tortured by having to get up out of bed several times. I had a roommate, which added to my stress as I was terrified of bothering him. I was extremely restless and depressed all throughout the next day. The realization that I was locked up became more and more intense and I knew that there was no one for me to turn to. I had voluntarily admitted myself to the Stephens Unit, but I later found out I had an affidavit next to my name that allowed the hospital to keep me against my will until I was evaluated by a psychiatrist. I asked one of the nurses if I could be given any form of medication that would help get me through the night. She obliged, but it likely was nothing that would be completely helpful, because there was no psychiatrist there to even prescribe something for what I was going through. Nevertheless, I was somewhat hopeful that my depression and anxiety from being there would get marginally

First off, the hospitals are no longer referred to as insane asylums, they are referred to as mental hospitals, rehab, and so on. The daily schedule in hospitals today is very similar to the hospitals in the 1920’s. The day starts with a wake up call then seven o’clock breakfast is served (O’Brien). Both then and now hospitals had outburst in patients. A patient may screem when not agree with the doctors, grabbing others attention, or a patient might react rationally.

In the next stanza, the poet describes “A figure walking towards cloaked in blue/ Beeping/ Tubes/ Needles.” The poem addresses the routinely and monotonous aspect of being in the hospital for long periods of time. It is a critique of the biomedical model and how the hospital system is created where patients are tended to by multiple doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals. The patients and healthcare professionals are unable to form a relationship that consists of what Kleinman describes as “empathetic witnessing” (Kleinman). Therefore, detachment between patient and health workers is developed and established, to which the patient cannot recognize or know the people assisting them. In addition, Grealy discusses this in her earliest accounts and appointments with doctors. She states that there is a layer of “condescension” and is an “endemic in the medical

To illustrate the mental institute, the narrator describes remembering “the trapdoor… and find the girl tied to a bed (Ellison 74).” Many medical facilities have a seclusion room where they isolate patients who are violent or self-destructive, with medical restraints, according to Gale Springer from the American Nurse Today. The girl tied to the bed symbolizes the use of medical restraints and “her clothing torn to rags (Ellison 74),” suggest that the girl was doing harm upon herself or to others. One may think the narrator’s comment on “everything was fixed (Ellison 75),” was about the constant visits to the “bingo hall” looking the same. In the perspective of a mental institute, an

Dr. Oz is on.” Those words echoed in the morning. Every morning my grandmother and I sat on the couch watching Dr. Oz. Surprisingly, I did not remember anything he was saying but I focused on the conversation we were having. “Dr. Oz is quite the looker, if only I was younger.” She said sipping her coffee. I remember gazing up at her laughing. “Do you think it’s time to wake everyone up?” She asked pointing at my cousins that were still sleeping on the couch. “Definitely.” I said maliciously. The bacon sizzled on the pan as I whisked the eggs in the bowl. Just as the food was cooking I would set the table because everyone would be awake. As the aroma of the bacon and eggs spread through the house, one by one my family sat at the

I remember falling asleep, but I don’t remember being in a bed. I had fallen asleep in the hall due to my emotional state. My body didn’t need the sleep. My mind did. I’m actually happy I did. It got my mind off all my problems and sorrows for a good while. I sit up, pushing the unfamiliar blankets off my body. I’m in a strange hard bed in a foreign room. Everything around me feels new and alien. This isn’t my dull little prison. This room is slightly decorated with light brown walls and a dresser covered with random things.

My legs are shaking with pain, but I need to know where I am and what strange things lie outside of that door way. Slowly I am making my way there, I hear people having a conversation just outside. I haven’t a clue what they are saying, it seems to be in some odd language. Finally I’m at the door. Terrified, I grab the knob and start to open it. It squeaks when I swing it open. In the hall I see no one, just white walls with white tile. “What the,” I say to out loud. I could have sworn I heard someone. My eye catches my room number, 387, it has my name on it. I look right and left, but see nothing expect florescent lighting and shut doors. I go to the door across from mine and try to open it. Locked, that’s odd. I try the next one, locked once again. I keep going, now at room 365 I give the knob a turn and it actually comes open. I hesitantly wander into the area. It looks the same as mine, minus the painting on one of the walls. It is an extremely abnormal painting. It depicts an out of the ordinary creature. “Why would this be in a hospital?” I whisper to myself.

The rooms were confined to themselves by a large metal door with a small slot about 5 feet from the floor that could only be opened from the outside. The walls were once a brilliant white, but now filled with the scratch marks and blood stains from the ones before me. The room stench of urine, most likely from the other patients. All there was in the room was a small cot with a mattress so thin, it almost looked as if it was a thin piece of plywood. As I laid there strapped to my bed by leather restraints that were made to “protect” me from myself, I kept pondering on the question “what did I do to deserve to be locked up in a place like this?” Then I remember my crime, and smile.

It was a gray day. Unable to pierce the layers of powdery black skies along with the fog, the sun did not shine. The thick mist that was not really rain, and not really fog covered the southeastern corner of New Jersey. Just like most days in the area surrounding the Overbrook Asylum, it was daunting. On the outside, Overbrook was a welcoming place, as far as sanatoriums go, where patients were treated with care along with respect; the inside was very different. Hired on at the asylum as a nurse in May of 1910, I commenced my duties and was eager to be able to lend a helping hand to the people in need. What made people tick or to what made people think the way they did had always interested me. The hospital provided me a living area for

You sit in the darkness terrified. You turn on the lamp on the bedside table periodically and watch the roaches scatter, ensuring your safety for another five minutes of so. You grew up in the rat and roach infested building, you supposed you were used to it by now, but still, you sat choking on the sobs you would not let escape your mouth. You usually fell asleep soon after the lights in the studio apartment went out, but this particular night, it took you longer than usual to drift into unconsciousness.

As I await the therapist in the waiting room, my mind is racing, heart pounding, and palms sweating. I’ve been waiting for three years to meet with him, but of course, Dr. Johnson was completely booked until now. Each night I have been taunted with an atrocious dream and ready for the affliction to cease. Finally, he appears in the doorway and calls my name. Instantaneously, I stand up and shuffle behind the therapist to the cubicle.

I shadowed medical professionals as they treated their patients, one of whom was a forty-something year-old man with Stage II lung cancer. I didn’t know his name or how long he'd been sick, but it was clear that he was desperate and emotionally worn. In the doorway between the scanning room and the observation room, I watched him prepare for tests. On my right, the patient stepped onto the “couch”, or the CT scan bed. I entered the observation room and was instructed to flick on a switch, alerting personnel to vacate the room so as not be exposed to the radiation. A red light flashed and the loud rumbling of the gantry startled me, a seemingly normal procedure to everyone else. Four doctors surrounded a control panel and a set of displays, shooting each other uncertain looks and mumbling what I assumed must have been bad news. Perhaps the tumor had spread. I followed the lead doctor into another room, never to hear of that patient again, never to learn what had become of

They told me I was getting a “roommate”, more like cellmate. I haven't spoken to another human,or at all frankly, in 246 days. I wonder why they there are being thrown in this place. Well I guess I thought so much I fell asleep.I wake up to hear them outside my room. They walk in, and instantly I start to freak out. IT'S……….A……….BOY! How dare they! I-I think they are trying to kill me I mean why else would they do this to me? I can barely speak so all I say is “You’re a b-b-b-boy”, I am so stupid who says that, apparently me. He looks familiar, but that's impossible so i ignore it. He takes my bed and his to make one big bed for himself. I Would say something but I don't. He keeps asking me questions, but i'm not going to answer because

The grounds consisted of a main building, a barn, a small playground where the younger patients get to go if they're good, and a huge green yard with a greenhouse in the corner; they always say flowers can heal any soul, but I dare them to tell that to patient number 2784. Winnie Watson was the craziest one in the place. She's been here since she was seven years old; rumor has it that at her fifth birthday party she disappeared, she was at the park with her parents getting ice cream, they turned around for one second and she was gone. Two years later she reappeared, she wouldn't talk or look at anybody. The next day when she woke up she went berserk. In the interview her parents, with their strong Scottish accents and detailed Scottish faces said, “we kept callin’ her name, then we tried screamin’ her name. It was like she couldn't hear us. She was lost in her own head, murmuring random things in several different languages.” No one knows what happened to her, she hardly ever speaks, but when she does it's usually to me. I don't know why we clicked, maybe it's because on my first day here I gave her my food. When I first got here I didn't eat for a week, before I had my plan I was determined to kill myself, one way or another. But then I kept hanging out with Winnie everything felt less lonely. 5832 is my patient number and Logan Chase is my

“Subject 193 Resting chamber” I think I knew just who this “Subject 193” was. The room she put me in was big but didn’t have a lot of decoration. There was an ordinary bed stationed in the corner and a odd looking PC opposite of the bed. The walls were white and bare. Dr. Wadsworth motioned to the bed and said “I know you have questions Matthew but hang in there. You should get some sleep. Good night.” I’m overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of tiredness and lay on the mattress. I start to close my eyes but before I fall asleep I notice a camera and speaker in the corner but I am too tired to care about it. I close my eyes and quickly drift into a restless sleep.