Cafe Babanussa

by Karen Hill

  I eventually found myself about twelve blocks from home, at the corner of Dundas and Broadview, taking refuge in the Coffee Time. It was late at night by now. I sat down at the back in the corner. This time folks weren’t so friendly. An old man came over waving his hands fiercely at me. He stuttered that I should get out if I wasn’t buying anything. He came closer. “Get out, lady. Get out or I call the cops.”

  Keeping to the side streets, I made my way home, shivering, and unsure of what I would do when I got there. It was now about one in the morning. When I reached the co-op I went to a friend’s unit and banged on the door. She was looking after my cats and would have a key. She didn’t open and I could hardly blame her. But now I was stuck.

  A dog barked as I passed through the laneways back to my unit on Logan. I thought about all the dogs in the park across from my unit and how they always seemed to be telling me to stop what I was doing and shut my mind up. This was unlike my cats, who gravitated to me when I was sick. They would nudge me, directing me to sit in a certain place or to look at certain things that they sensed had meaning and would be helpful with my healing. They would knead me endlessly and then curl up and help keep me warm. I had one cat that lived upstairs and communed with the moon while keeping me company at night, and two cats that lived downstairs and watched over me there, while focusing on more earthly things. Between them, they tried to keep me on track, with their affection and guidance.

  I want to go home and see the cats. They help me, the way they turn their heads. If they rest their paw on me, they tell me through their motions which way is safe to lie on the couch so that my thoughts can’t be heard or stolen or manipulated as easily. Which way to lie in bed to try to talk with different people in my head. Luna is left—my brother Larry, my mom and a few others. Magic is right for Dad, Dan, Malaika . . . Luna will be talking to all the other cats throughout the night in the co-op, updating them on our situation. Oscar is centre, the protector of the middle ground. They are love.

  When I got to my front door, I pulled on the knob but it didn’t yield. There was a picnic table in the small front yard and I sat down on the bench and cried. I wondered what my father would tell me to do were he alive, but the vision of his warm, brown face faded quickly. I went to the door and called out to the cats, but I knew they couldn’t save me. I decided to brace myself up against the wall and do some yoga poses. I felt the hardness of the brick seep into me and give me strength. I stood there with my knee bent and my arms splayed, pressing into the wall for a long, long time. I was so frustrated that I had made it home but couldn’t get in. Inside was my sanctuary. I could crawl into bed and sleep. Except that within me there was still that knowingness, the deeper level of thought that reminded me that I probably wouldn’t sleep at all. I would be up all night cavorting around the place.

  I began singing songs to myself. I loved Joni Mitchell’s “The Circle Game” and I had taught it to my daughter many years before. We would curl up in her bed and sing it to each other till we fell asleep. Later I would crawl back into my own bed, the song still like a lullaby in my head. On this late-December night, “The Circle Game” comforted me for quite a while.

  I went and lay down on the bench and tried to rest. It was too cold and snow was blowing in my face and felt like little icicles pricking against my skin. I was so cold and weary. I went back to the wall and stood there again, stoically flattening my back into the bricks as hard as I could. I continued this back-and-forth until finally I could see that the eastern skies were starting to lighten. I decided to walk up to the Danforth to see if the Tim Hortons would be open. I walked up the hill dreaming of coffee. But I didn’t know how to get a hold of any money. I swung open the side door at Tim’s and sat down at the nearest table. It wasn’t long before a big, burly woman in uniform started snaking her way over to me. I didn’t even try to argue, I just got up and left. I cursed the fact that I had no money and I cursed myself that I didn’t have the gumption to find any. I cruised on foot along the Danforth, peering into windows along the way, till I reached Broadview. I had no place to go. I had to go home.

  Back at the picnic table in front of my door, one of my neighbours stepped out. We didn’t really know each other. He looked at me for a bit and asked if I was okay. I shook my head no. His eyebrows were raised and he stood there for a moment silently. Then he said, “Come on in.” I followed him up the stairs. His girlfriend was sitting on a chair at a desk, typing on a laptop. They invited me to sit down. But the woman kept looking at me like I was some kind of animal and I was sure she was typing nasty things about me. I was very uncomfortable and after five minutes, I jumped up and went back outside. Fifteen minutes later my downstairs neighbour opened her door and yelled out my name. “Karen, here you are. Come on in. Have some tea.” She pulled up a chair for me. The apartment buzzed with the sound of kids getting ready for school, a dog waiting to be walked, people getting ready for work. It was just after seven. I sipped on my tea and sat quietly. My neighbour also sat at her computer, and it looked like page after page of names of companies, associations and people were flying by on the screen. I thought these must be some of my supporters and she’s showing me that they’re here to help. But instead, half an hour later the doorbell rang and a dear friend of mine stood there with her arms wide open. “We’ve been looking all over for you, Karen. Dan is on his way.” We hugged for a few minutes in silence but my mind was hissing. Christ, I thought. It figures. I knew that Dan would take me back to the hospital, and at that moment I hated him for it.

  If I could go home, I could at least be myself again. I think. On the TV they watch me, too. The newscasters see my face, my actions, read my thoughts. They’ve hacked my email. There is nowhere safe.

  Ten minutes later, my brother Dan showed up. “Hi, Karen. Are you okay? We’ve been looking all over for you.” I nodded my head. “Come on, Bev and David are waiting for you in the car.” I had survived the hospital many times before and I would survive it again.

  Again, a profound inner consciousness tugged at me, and it registered somehow that I indeed couldn’t make it on my own and needed help. I just wished it didn’t have to be the hospital.

  On a number of occasions my elderly mother had taken me into her home when I was at my worst, or she had come to stay with me. But my behaviour wore her down in no time. There weren’t many options, so I didn’t struggle. I was very lucky to have family and friends who cared.

  She’s been punching all kinds of names and numbers into the computer while I wait here drinking tea. Whose names? Maybe she’s watching me, too. They all hate me; just want to get rid of me. If I were in my place I’d just curl up into a little ball and try to block out the voices . . . What does Malaika know? Is she in on all this? One of the scariest things is everyone reading my mind so that there’s absolutely nowhere to hide.

  When I arrived back on the eighth floor, doctors and nurses crowded around me and berated me. Because of my behaviour I was going into the intensive care unit—no street clothes, no phone, security guards pacing the hall, only occasional visitors. In short, lockdown. I felt like a child being punished. I fought and pushed and yelled, but to no avail. I was a voluntary admission, but sometimes you are not treated as voluntary at all.

  There was nothing at all to do in lock-up. I couldn’t think straight yet, so I was lost in the nebulous world of my mind. Trying to sort out the voices in my head: who was a friend, who was a foe. How could their words help me to get out of here? Other people’s thoughts and directions intermingling with my paranoia. Family came to visit, and I would walk up and down the little hall with them, trying to stay with the conversation. I had pastels, so I drew a lot. Eventually the medication started to clear the fog, but I was more subdued than ever. After four or five days I was released back onto the general ward. I was happy, mainly because I knew I’d be able to go outside and smoke. My cigarette addiction was always worse when I was ill, and I don’t know how I made it through those days without s
moking.

  They’re lending me cigarettes and I know it’s crack. The Belmonts I buy at my corner store are laced with cocaine. But near the hospital they’re crack. I wonder how they do it. Why are they trying out all these drugs on me? Some of the patients are in on it and they give me their cigarettes, probably dope, too. They want to try mine because they know it’s coke. But I’m so out of it I can’t even tell the difference anymore. They can do anything they want. Nobody can protect me.

  Being back on the ward meant I could wear real clothes again. Clothes are a marker of identity and security. There’s nothing worse than roaming the halls day in and day out with only a gown that you have to fumble with. But back on the ward there was also one nurse who I was certain didn’t like me. I was intimidated by her steeliness and her bossiness. When there’s not much to do, you walk the halls round and round again. One night I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to go up and down the corridors to wear myself out. While I strode purposefully back and forth I felt like raising my fist in defiance, but I didn’t. Years before I had paced the floors with a raised fist at the Clarke Institute and had gotten staff in a dither. In the confrontation that followed, I had tried to force my way past a guard and was slapped with a Form 1. Now I didn’t feel like pushing my luck again. I just wanted to walk. Nonetheless, this one nurse was not happy with me going round and round the corridors. Finally, she stormed over to me and said, “You have to go back to your room. I will not have you pacing the floors on my watch.” I was upset. My paranoia had kept me from sleeping, but I didn’t want to take even more Ativan. Sometimes I was afraid that someone would do something to me. I felt unsafe and didn’t want to be totally knocked out. The next day you would feel so hungover. I wanted to walk off my vexatious mood. But I was stymied and was too afraid to make a scene.

  I found another way to resist: by fasting. My mind had told me that my ex-husband was fasting in Sudan so he could be released from prison. The people cluttering my mind suggested that I support him by joining him in this fast. None of this was true, but I decided to try it out.

  White stands for my husband, Seif, in prison in Sudan. That’s why he hasn’t come back. I want to understand what happened to him . . . My brothers just shake their heads—they don’t understand. White is solidarity for Seif, who’s in trouble. That’s why the others want me to fast. To help him. They tell me to kneel down and pray to Allah for him at least twice a day. I try, on the bed and on the hospital floor, but it feels wrong. Once I hear his beautiful voice calling out to me, so fleeting, then gone. Canada won’t let him back in. They think he’s a terrorist. I have to fast with him.

  I only fasted for two or three days at a time—drinking coffee, tea, juice and water. Then one of my visitors would bring in some snacks and I would start eating again.

  Three weeks after my escape I went home, armed with new prescriptions for lithium and risperidone. I was subdued, tired and anxious to settle in and find my old self again. Going home after any kind of stay was always a blessing. However, it could take months before I would feel truly well again, free of paranoia and delusions. It was an arduous climb back to sanity.

  I will always have concerns about my medications and will continue to wish I could just ditch them altogether. You might think that I would be happy to have medication that calmed my mind. You might think that I would see I’m not alone: my brothers remind me that they have to take medication, too, for their diabetes. But my medications cause serious weight gain and wind my brain function down into a slow-motion fogginess. And yet, each and every time I try to cut my doses, I run into trouble with paranoia and psychosis. For many years I was compliant. I took my meds because, as a single mother, I felt I owed it to my daughter to be as stable as I could be. Now that she has grown, I still toy with the idea of setting my sights on freedom from medication.

  I often wonder what the ongoing treatment would have been like in Germany.

  If I could set my own treatment plan, it would definitely involve weekly visits to my psychiatrist and with my fabulous visiting mental health nurse and maybe a round of psychotherapy with someone else. I feel that I would need the help of not only my GP but also support from a naturopath or homeopath. It would mean living with as little stress as possible and the unconditional support of my family as well as friends. That’s asking a lot in these busy times.

  But I do have some good news. I have started on a newer medication that doesn’t cause weight gain. I’ve lost twenty pounds in a few months. And I’ve found a useful and pleasurable outlet. An occupational therapist I saw for a while helped me find my way to the Creative Works Studio. Here my passion to create outranks my fears and anxieties, albeit not without a struggle. Creative Works has provided me with a place to create, a place to go when I’m lonely and need to get out, as well as a place to go when my mind is full of ideas bursting to express themselves on canvas or otherwise. I am not trying to become an artist per se. I am simply trying to unlock doors to help the beauty of creating flow through my life more evenly, to let my inner voice soar in as many ways as possible. This distracts and soothes me from the regular paranoias of my mind. I recently took a hiatus from the Studio to finish writing a book. I missed it sorely while I was gone and am now making my way back in, slowly putting together paint and pieces of cloth and objects for a wall hanging, much like I am always trying to reimagine my life.

  Is it surprising that I occasionally miss the bouts of hypomania? People who have never experienced them don’t always recognize that they bring with them such creativity and confidence and outright joy. However, I never miss the aftermath: the months of depression or the struggles with acute psychosis.

  And I never want to see the inside of a psych ward again. It has now been more than three years since I was last hospitalized, which is something of a milestone for me. I am blessed with family and friends who care, with a visiting nurse and a good psychiatrist and the occasional help of an occupational therapist. I feel I have finally reached a place of some stability. From here I can reach out and become a healthier and more active participant in the mental health and wider communities. Sadly, this is still not true for many others who struggle with mental illness.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  KAREN HILL was born in Newmarket, Ontario, and grew up in Toronto. After graduating from the University of Ottawa, she moved in 1979 to West Berlin, where she stayed for nearly a decade. She returned to Toronto, where she raised her daughter, Malaika. Karen wrote poetry, practised the visual arts, worked as an adult educator and spoke four languages. Like her parents, Daniel and Donna Hill, and her siblings, Lawrence and Dan, she wrote with passion and felt deeply about issues of gender, race and culture. Karen Hill also struggled throughout her life with bipolar disorder. She worked for more than twenty years on Café Babanussa, which she had finished and was showing to publishers when she died in 2014.

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  CREDITS

  Cover design by Amy Frueh

  COPYRIGHT

  Café Babanussa

  Copyright © 2016 by Karen Hill.

  Foreword copyright © 2016 by Lawrence Hill Creative Services, Inc.

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  Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

  FIRST EDITION

  EPub Edition: December 2015 ISBN: 9781443438933

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