It’s all its quacked up to be

I remember the duck pond, it was my reward, escape, and serenity. Watching the ducks was oddly calming; believe it or not they have their own little personalities and dramas. The one with the emerald green head was always chasing the brown and black speckled one with the furious honk. Teamwork was the deal of the day when someone put seed out – each wobbling up onto the bank and eating from the communal table. This was how people were supposed to get along- not kicking, screaming, fighting and terrified.

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              My father and stepmother never should have been parents. Denise was a daughter of an alcoholic and I fell into her lap at the annoying age of eight, a tomboy with a bowl haircut and a smart mouth. I was in no way the frilly girl she had always hoped for. My father was head over heels in love with Denise – a side of him that was new to me. He usually was strict, aloof – the father that went to work and expected dinner on the table when he got home, kids that would drink all their milk and clean their plates without having to be told. When Dad found Denise, it was pure chemistry. I was happy my Dad and Denise found each other to share that passionate love with, it was just the rest of us who got in the way.

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              There was screaming coming from the adolescent ward. It scared me as I laid in my bed in the children’s ward of the mental hospital. What exactly was going on behind that big metal locked door? Was that where I was destined to go in just a few years? I rolled over in my dorm room and smashed the pillow up against my ears – shutting off the wailing.  It was only my second night and I did not even understand how I got there. I tried so hard to do everything right, so why did I end up shoved into a room with four beds, two of which were already filled with girls whom my only perspective was they weren’t able to close the door, presumably for some violent, awful reasons.

              The first night there I had been on my own, in isolation. A room with a single bed, nightstand and utilitarian style lamp. This must be what prison is like. Even the generic bedspread with the floral pattern was an insult. When the lady (ok, counselor – but not like the fun camp counselors, this one wanted to know your feelings) had brought me through all those doors that beeped with red and green card swipe locks, she had promised the door on my little temporary holding cell would not lock. I remember that vividly, like she wanted to make sure I understood I was still free – even if free only meant to the large hallway with 6 rooms angled away from a nurses’ monitoring station behind safety glass. Oh, and there was always someone around to help me (watch me) should I want it (need it).

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From the start Denise was brutal – the lock on the fridge, the way she made my father do a white glove inspection of my room. I lived in constant terror of dust; hunger gnawed at me. I strived to do my chores and do them without repercussions, like the time washing the dishes when Denise screamed, “you’re doing it wrong!” and slammed a glass against my hand. The blood that ran in the soapy water was scarier than the pain.

Things would escalate when we moved to Washington, far away from my mother. If I was not able to iron my clothes to my father’s navy instruction, the iron was pressed into my forearms. Did not get my homework done? Then I must not want to do my homework anyway and I got to stay home and clean house under Denise’s wooden spoon. When I was not able to curl my hair in a fashionable way, I apparently wanted to be a boy – and with the hairdresser crying and my father threatening to backhand me if I even shed a tear – my hair fell away from my head leaving a severe crew cut.

I wanted to die. Police came, saw a happy house, police left. I refused to leave school one Wednesday before the Thanksgiving break. Social services were called, a foster home was found for the weekend – I returned home Monday after school to four days of calm before the torture started again. I told my dad one night it would be better if I was dead. He agreed and helped me eat a 10-year-old fist full of aspirin before he himself did the same and told me to go to bed. I was living in a madhouse, upside down with pain and confusion everywhere. The second time I tried to commit suicide it really pissed my father off and likely saved my life. The new court-appointed therapist knew immediately I was a child in crisis, in need of something more than an unstable home life. It was she who sent me behind the locked door.

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              “We work on a point system,” it was explained to me. Do the chores and activities set out to you, get points. The more points you earned, the more privileges you could receive. Twenty points to go to the cafeteria? That was impossible! You only got two points for successfully journaling every day the previous week, or for cleaning the guinea pig cage. Three points for participation in daily group, bonus up to five if you figured out a positive way to deal with a negative situation. Please, I was ten and my roommate the night before had tried to set her bed on fire; the only positive I could find to that was she showed initiative!

              The point system worked out to levels of privileges. Go to the cafeteria, get to play dodgeball for 45 minutes (trust me on the ward this was the ultimate), leave the ward to go to the ceramics or art studio, leave the hospital altogether and go to the duck pond.

I needed the rules and guidelines of the ward, and that escape to the duck pond. I needed the consistency and reassurance it brought to know if I did things by the rules I could go to new, different places. I could even scream and pull at my hair and scratch my arms and it would be met with stoic patience and understanding, my points calmly waiting for me once I settled down. 

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              I think back to those years and I am ashamed to talk about them. Let’s face it, people are not the kindest when you say you’ve been in a mental institution. It gets even weirder when you tell them it was when you were ten – like, “damn, you really are screwed up!” sort of weird. But truth be told it was probably one of the most normal times of my young life. I was finally able to be out of control in a controlled situation, where for so long the adults in my life acted out their own mental trash and uncontrolled emotions. I knew what I could do, could not do – what was expected of me and what I could expect to happen if I strayed off course.

It may have been a little pond, but it was the one I needed.