The Institution

by Kristen Rose

With a scrunched up face, I stood up and strutted into the office. Well, as much of a strut as I could manage with the cuffs restraining my hands.

  The purple and gold curtains were pinned open today, the sun shining in the room.

  I completed my strut towards the couch and plonked myself into it, proceeding to lie down.

  ‘Don’t put your feet on the couch! It’s brand new, remember.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Look, Heavy Debbie, I’ve been here longer than you and if I want to put my feet on the damn couch I will. Besides, if you didn’t want people putting their feet on the couch then why did you buy a couch, a chair would have been more fitting, wouldn’t it?’ I planted my feet firmly onto the cushy arm of the couch.

  ‘The couch is there in case I have more than one person in here for a session, it’s cosier and it looks nicer. Now I’d rather you not dirty it with your shoes.’ She walked over to me and knocked my feet off the couch. I lost my balance and slowly began to slip down onto the floor. My cuffed hands forbade me from saving myself and I plopped onto the purple rug with a dull thud.

  ‘Don’t you remember we had this discussion yesterday Jenny?’ She glared at me.

  ‘Yesterday is old news,’ I scowled up at her. ‘I’m living in a time called today and if I’m forced to spend a whole hour in here with you every single week day from now on I’m either going to do it comfortably or un-cooperatively. Choose which one.’ I picked my feet up and pushed myself backwards so I was leaning up against the couch. ‘And my shoes aren’t dirty.’

  ‘Fine, you can lie down, but take your shoes off.’ She stared down at my sparkling clean blue Converse sneakers.

  ‘I would, but someone cuffed my hands together.’ I extended my cuffed hands, displaying them as if they were a unique item of jewellery. ‘I wonder whose idea that was.’

  ‘Jenny you threw quite a tantrum yesterday. You shouldn’t have punched that poor guard. He’s quite unwell you know. He thought he would be okay but we just had to send him home.’ She said, walking back towards her matching chair and sitting down.

  ‘I can’t help it if I have excellent self-defence skills. Anyway, I punched him yesterday. He can’t still be unwell.’

  ‘How would you know Jenny, you’re not a doctor.’

  ‘Yes I am! You know, you shouldn’t make false accusations. How would you like it if I went around saying you were thin? It’s misleading and potentially dangerous.’ I shifted my hands towards my shoes and began clumsily untying each lace.

  ‘Dangerous?’ She looked down at me, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Yeah, if I went around telling people you were thin,’ I stared down at my feet and took hold of my left shoe, yanking it off, ‘they wouldn’t reinforce your chairs and so whenever you sat down,’ I took hold of my right shoe and pulled, ‘you would break them and fall flat on your arse.’ I looked up at her. ‘I wouldn’t wish a broken coccyx on anyone, no matter how much I hated them.

  ‘See, potentially dangerous.’ I finished, clumsily picking my shoes up and placing them neatly side by side at the base of the couch.

  Debbie chose to ignore my argument and continued in her annoying voice. ‘Jenny, you know as well as I that you are not a doctor, but, perhaps you would like to tell me why you go around bragging to everybody about being a doctor?’

  ‘I don’t brag. Can’t you think of a better question to ask me?’ I said, using my legs to pull me up into a standing position.

  ‘Okay, fine. As soon as you’re properly seated we can get started with the session.’ She sighed.

  ‘Aren’t you going to un-cuff me?’ I held my hands out once more.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’ I clenched my teeth.

  ‘Because I don’t fancy being punched.’ She smirked up at me.

  ‘I won’t punch you.’ I said sweetly.

  ‘Dr Baker doesn’t wish for you to walk around freely without cuffs on just yet. Perhaps we might take away the cuffs in a few weeks.’ She mothered. ‘The guard you punched is very distraught you know, he may press charges. He’s afraid of going near patients; and he certainly won’t go near you ever again.’ She gathered her double chins together and looked at me sternly.

  ‘What a sissy! I thought guards we’re supposed to be brave.’ Debbie pursed her lips, cringing as I planted my blue and white striped socks firmly onto the cushions.

  ‘Jenny, don’t you care about what you did to the guard?’ She looked at me, eyes wide.

  ‘No, he deserved it. Besides, I don’t have the time to waste caring about stupid sissy boy guards.’

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’ Debbie opened her mouth, appalled, revealing a lovely set of crowded teeth.

  ‘Says you. Now hurry up and get on with the session. I don’t have all day, unlike some people.’ I stared up at the ceiling, my hands uncomfortably splayed across my chest.

  ‘Okay. I thought today we could talk about why you were sent here to Grove Hospital.’

  I groaned. ‘As if you don’t already know the answer to that question.’

  She ignored me. ‘Jenny, can you remember what you used to do before you came here?’ She picked up a wooden clip board off the coffee table beside her.

  ‘Yes.’ I stopped and waited.

  ‘Well? Aren’t you going to elaborate on your answer?’ She bit down onto her lip.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because, like I just said, you already know the answer and there is no point in me repeating it to you.’ I said to the ceiling.

  ‘Yes, but I haven’t heard the answer straight from your mouth. All I know is what I have read from your file. Come on, humour me.’ She smiled. ‘What did you do before you came here?’ I could see her out of the corner of my eye with a pen ready to write down every single word.

  ‘Fine! I was a doctor, like I said before.’

  A faint sigh. ‘No Jenny, you worked in a law firm, remember?’

  ‘I haven’t finished!’ I removed my gaze from the ceiling and stared at her. ‘This isn’t about you okay, it’s about me and if you want me to do justice to the story then you really should allow time for my effective pauses!’

  ‘Okay, sorry. Go on.’ She shifted an ear closer.

  ‘Thank you. Now if you had let me finish before, you would have heard me say that I was a doctor of law.’ I returned my gaze to the ceiling.

  ‘Really, you did a PhD?’ She began flipping through her notes.

  ‘Of course I did! You can’t be a partner in a law firm if you don’t have a PhD.’

  She stopped quickly; a tiny groan came from her mouth. ‘Come on Jenny, you’re twenty-eight. You’ve been in here a little over seven years and it takes four years just to get a law degree, how could you have a PhD?’

  ‘Look, I’m not going to argue with you. I have a PhD and if you don’t believe me then I’m not going to waste any more time talking to you.’ I went to get up.

  ‘Okay okay, you have a PhD. Please stay seated.’ She gestured for me to resume my laying down position.

  ‘Please? Wow, that’s a first’ I complied.

  She waited a moment before resuming the conversation. ‘Now, you said you were a partner in a law firm?’ Debbie patronised, hiding a smirk.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay then. So, you were a doctor of law and a partner in a law firm, pretty impressive. Why are you here then? Why aren’t you still working at the law firm?’

  ‘Because my parents made me come here.’ I said resentfully.

  ‘Ah, and I’m assuming that’s why you refuse to see or speak to them.’ She scribbled curiously onto her clipboard.

  ‘Yeah, that’s one reason. Hey, you’re getting smarter by the minute.’

  ‘Why thank you.’ She paused. ‘I think we’ll talk about your parents another day though. For the moment I’d like to know why you are no longer a partner at the law firm.’ She probed.

  ‘The law firm was too inferior for me. I�
�m an excellent lawyer you know,’ I turned and faced her, ‘I couldn’t bear being a partner in a law firm that wasn’t very good. I mean, my reputation was getting damaged by the day. Everyone except me was losing law suits.’ I said appalled.

  ‘So you quit?’

  ‘No, I resigned.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’

  ‘No, it’s quite different.’ I rolled my eyes.

  She looked up at me from her clip board, confused. ‘So ... then what happened?’ She said slowly.

  ‘I came here.’

  ‘No, I mean after that but before you came here. Something must have happened in order for your parents to send you here.’ She was frustrated. ‘I have a copy of an email Dr Granger got from them before you arrived.’ She flicked through a few sheets of paper pinned to her clip board. ‘Jenny, they say you were fired from the law firm due to incompetency. Is that true?’

  ‘No! Did my mum say that? She has a problem telling the truth you know, you can’t believe a thing she says.’ I could feel my skin rising in temperature.

  ‘They also say that after you were fired you got angry and trashed the entire office.’ I let out a laugh. ‘Your parents said that no charges were held against you though because your employer knew you weren’t of sound mind at the time. What do you think that means?’ Heavy Debbie pretended not to know the answer.

  ‘How should I know, I’m not psychic.’

  ‘Alright then. How about, why did you trash their office? You do agree that you did that, right?’

  ‘Of course. They deserved it. Besides, I wanted to show of my graffiti skills. I’m quite the artist you know.’

  Debbie sighed. ‘So, after that incident your parents asked you to come here for an evaluation. Is that right?’

  ‘Something like that.’ I mumbled.

  ‘And then Dr Granger saw you and diagnosed you with an extreme narcissistic disorder, then he asked you to stay here until he felt you were well enough to return to society? Am I right?’

  ‘Why not. Of course, there is nothing wrong with me at all. I just agreed to stay here so my parents would stop harassing me.’ I crossed my legs and started wiggling my air born foot.

  ‘Is that so?’ She asked, rhetorically. ‘Jenny, I’m sure by now you know what narcissism is. It’s an infatuation with one’s self. Perhaps you realise the entire time you’ve been in here all you’ve done is talk about yourself and everything that impacts you.’

  ‘Isn’t that the whole point of therapy?’ I looked at her. ‘Aren’t you supposed to talk about yourself and how things affect you?’

  ‘Well, not always. You overdo it Jenny.’

  ‘Oh, so you think I’m narcissistic too? Unbelievable! What does a person have to do to be considered sane these days? I want a second opinion.’

  ‘I am the second opinion. You know, I thought maybe Dr Granger had been here too long, had stopped caring about you or couldn’t be bothered re-evaluating your case. I had hoped that maybe you had been cured by time. However, all of the testing we’ve done over the last couple of weeks has only disproved this hypothesis.’ She looked at me seriously.

  ‘The reason I’ve put you in a new ward is because I think you need to be monitored closely in order to prevent any more harm from being done to yourself and others, and also, so I can get a good grasp as to how you behave twenty-four seven. The White Ward has constant video surveillance and I will be watching you closely Jenny. Dr Granger didn’t do much good towards your situation but hopefully I will be able to.’

  ‘What! I’m not going back to my old room?’ I sat up and glared at her.

  ‘Not at the moment Jenny.’ She had a false look of sadness in her dirt coloured eyes.

  ‘What if I were to ... recover ... just a little? Could I go back to my old ward then?’ I leaned in closer for an answer.

  ‘Jenny, you won’t be able to trick me. It takes years to recover from the kind of narcissism you suffer from and some people never recover. Pretending to be good for a week or so won’t help you.’

  ‘And you think sticking me in a colourless ward and watching me on monitors will.’ I yelled. ‘You’re an idiot!’

  ‘We need to try to get you to unlearn you current behaviour by isolating you from others.’ She said smartly.

  ‘Why? I don’t harm anyone. In fact, everyone here loves me. You’re doing a huge injustice by imprisoning me you know. I’ve got every right to ask Horsey Dan if I can leave.’

  ‘In that case, why don’t you?’ She smiled.

  ‘Can’t I at least have a mirror or something? The walls in that room are so bare.’ I said.

  ‘Definitely not.’ She shook her head firmly.

  ‘What about group therapy? Do I still get to go to that?’ I said hopeful.

  ‘Absolutely not. Half of the patients are still upset because of what you said to them last time. From now on you will be subject to total isolation, you will only be allowed down here for our sessions, until I determine otherwise. Now, before we end this session I’d like to give you a couple of things to think about

  ‘Re-iterating I am overweight hurts my feelings, punching guards for no reason hurts their feelings and talking about yourself all the time is rude.’ Debbie lectured.

  ‘What is your point?’ I asked.

  ‘All I want you to do over the next twenty-four hours is to just think about that and realise other people have emotions. I want you to try and imagine what it must be like for people you say and do horrible things to. And tomorrow I want you to tell me what you think they feel. That’s all.’ Her words unrealistically heart felt.

  ‘Whatever.’ I answered, pulling myself up off the couch and thundering my way to the door.