Clocks

My infamous clock, drawn at my initial neurological exam with Dr. Dunnigan on May 23, 2018; only three days prior to my grand mal seizure.

My stint in the psych ward and that damnable clock. Both have been taking center stage of my thoughts over the past month.

It was recently May. The time for reflection. To revisit the old haunts of my mind. Where I allow myself back to 2018, even if it’s just for brief moments.

The sting doesn’t penetrate as far anymore. The novelty has mostly worn off. The big feels have reduced to those much smaller.

But what I notice the most now is how much the pain has changed. In its proportions and dynamics, and my reaction.

The psych ward is no longer a place of deep shame for me. Nor do I believe I’m some unusual suspect amongst a cast of characters that couldn’t possibly envision what it’s like inside the locked, double doors. Or to stand before the glass.

Years ago, I found this photo on an AE blog, and I believe it looks just like I "remember" my patient room. I've never seen any other realistic pictures taken inside a psych ward.

Yet it’s still a place of great intrigue to me. Because I’m not allowed back. Neither physically nor in recollection. I’ll always want more. I want to see myself. I literally want to watch it all like marathoning a long movie.

Although this spring, I came a little closer to revisiting, and once again saw the pain morph. While invited to a local networking event, I met someone who knew something.

I had to give myself a 90-second introduction, and I said I was a former-trial-lawyer-turned-AE-survivor and the author of Unwillable. And what I mentioned, registered with another in the crowd.

At the conclusion of the meeting, she quietly approached me, introduced herself as Tonya, an NP, and said, “I used to work at Sanford. I was there when you were in the psychiatric ward.” That landed like a bombshell for me! And I immediately hugged her.

As we chatted more, she couldn’t remember if she was on the floor when I was there or had just heard about me, but she had definitely heard of me. Because she was yet another key to unlocking my past, we took a picture together and promised a coffee date.

In my quest to better understand that part of my story, on a deeply personal level and in the realm of mental health, I’ve learned so much more about psychiatric hospitalizations. And I owe a great deal of that to Cousin Morgan, a med student.

Morgan and I are long-lost soul sisters, but our journey began only two summers ago when she reached out to me. Her father is a physician in my story and a relative. A relation I knew very little of and just a bit about. But that all changed when she reached out after reading Unwillable, and we became close after the first time we met.

No one has offered me more of an understanding of what was happening to me while I was in the ward than she has. She has taken a great deal of time explaining the protocols and goings-on that I would never otherwise learn. She’s listened to my stories and always has powerful insight into why I question what I do, have the fears I have, and what I can’t remember.

She’s verified some of my recollections and tells me when I’m off. She assured me that my memory of the floor’s layout was fairly accurate. And because she knows how much I grapple with this lost time and place, has figuratively walked with me through the actual space.

After I recounted my memory of the floor's layout, Morgan drew this accurate diagram for me per her knowledge from rotations.

But she really lit some fireworks off for me just a few weeks ago.

Not coincidentally, Tonya and I had coffee over the anniversary of my stay in the ward. We didn’t talk as much about the details, much to my anxiety-obsessed dismay, but at some point, I shared with her my tale of how the jumbled clock began right after I left work while I lay on the futon staring at it. And that it was in my inpatient room that the clock “jumped around at me.”

That caught her attention, and she told me that she was quite sure there are no clocks in the patient rooms. Because I’m me, I managed to say, No, I can see it, it was at the foot of my bed on that wall. She paused, but told me she was pretty sure there are no clocks, because many of the patients find it annoying that they need to go to the common rooms to check the time.

I was shocked.

How shocking can it truly be? I have amnesia for a month and a half and I always knew that plenty of my memories were skewed. But this seemed wild, since I’ve been telling the story as: clock first fades for me on the futon; then couldn’t read it as I sat in my hospital bed and stared at it, trying desperately to figure out the time; and then mangling it in my assessment with Dr. Dunnigan. That’s been the story for seven years now.

It’s stored in my mind—I can see that clock on the wall.

When I left Tonya after coffee, I anxiously texted Morgan about her knowledge of clocks in patient rooms. She replied lickety-split – Absolutely no clocks. That’s standard. There aren’t clocks there, except maybe in the art room…

I was stupefied.

It does make sense. If you’re hospitalized in or committed to a place that you (most, if not about all) don’t want to be, you don’t want to watch time creep by. And per Morgan’s astute assessment, and surely in my case, clocks can be triggering.

After Tonya, after Morgan, I went home and grabbed my trusty copy of Unwillable, and flipped right to Chapter 14 (which is the place I start to feel physical pain while reading, that has not changed). I quickly read the entire chapter, much to Sean’s dismay (that has not changed). And there it was, on Page 144, “When I left work and began lying on the futon at home and staring at the small clock, I realized that I was having some trouble telling time. When I got into the ward, it got worse. As I sat on my bed and looked at the clock on the wall, it jumped around.”

I hallucinated a clock. And have endlessly discussed it. Cool.

An easy answer is: I was staring at a clock before I left the house, because I was unable to do much more than sit, lie down, and stare. And that carried over to me while housed in the ward, where the only capability I had to pass time was walking "circular" laps in my socks and sitting in my spartan room. Morgan’s deeper and more philosophical answer is: The mind is wild. As a student and professional, my life revolved around meeting deadlines and hitting goals. As a lawyer, I lived to bill by the hour. But once I began my rapid descent into hell, time forced my hand.

It's a bird; It's a plane; It's a spaceship ... No, it's the diagram I drew from "memory" for Morgan. Her honest to God and funny response: Why is it in a circle? You wouldn't make it in architectural school... Apparently the tale I've told of being lost in the "circular" hallway is also wrong ...

The psychiatric ward was the last place where I tried to exercise some will, however, my agency was already diminished. Time marched on. And so did AE.

I harbor no remorse for this inaccuracy. Clearly, my brain was a fried egg, and I offer that as a disclaimer at the beginning of the book. Although once again, I do feel a bit taken by my brain.

Yet isn’t that the whole premise of Unwillable? That not even the willpower of the Jackie M. Stebbins, overdoer driven control freak nutbag extraordinaire, could stop what overtook her?! And it severely messed her up.

It still hurts. And it’s a mystery. The mystery is the hurt.

My psych ward pain has morphed from the embarrassment and shame I first carried. To an attempt to come to terms with my own mental health and stigma. To the fear I feel now: I was so out of touch, so lost, what if…? What if someone would have hurt me…

Yet now, maybe more than ever, I take great comfort in the good people whom I believe were around me. I see the sweet OT, Scott, on commercials, now working at a group home. Jill, the OT, who sat with me on my bed that first morning, heard about the book and reached out that summer. Jason, the intake-nurse whose kindness stayed with me, has a sweet mother, Karen. Karen caught wind of my story and came to my Bismarck speech in 2022, and last year I ran into her and reintroduced myself. Tonya was there, or maybe she wasn’t, but I bet another kind soul like her was. And Morgan has assured me that people were always watching and assessing.

Morgan sent me this generic image to demonstrate that staff are always watching patients for safety, even while they're in the restroom (recall in Unwillable I speak about the loss of a patient's agency while in the ward). She offered me this in response to my telling her about how I "remember" the bathroom door swinging shut and startling and outsmarting me.

I’ll always believe that my time there was not for naught. Because it led me to Stephanie Macdonald, NP. And Steph saved my life.

This new revelation is just another piece in a puzzle that will always be rendered incomplete.

It’s also yet another nugget to add to my evolving story: Not only could I not draw a clock when asked on May 23, 2018, I was also hallucinating a clock on the wall on May 15-16.

Cool.

You never know what the days are going to bring.

But when you keep swimming, you steady the uncertainty. And when you always believe in the promise of better days ahead, you never lose hope.

Let hope spring eternal. No need to dwell on the mysterious past.

Luv,

jackie

"Tides that I tried to swim against

Have brought me down upon my knees

Oh, I beg, I beg and plead

Singin’ come out of things un said

Shoot an apple off my head

And a trouble that can’t be named

A tiger’s waiting to be tamed, singin’

"You are

You are

"Confusion that never stops

Closing walls and ticking clocks" ~ Clocks by Coldplay

__________

/ / The JM Stebbins blog is an autoimmune encephalitis blog from former lawyer and autoimmune encephalitis survivor, Jackie M. Stebbins.

Jackie M. Stebbins is also the author of Unwillable: A Journey to Reclaim my Brain, a book about autoimmune encephalitis, resilience, hope, and survival. / /