A Fool, Free

by Beate Grimsrud

  Erik has been legally sectioned again. The police leave and Erik has to remain in the furthest room and is not even allowed out into the corridor. A nurse who is quite new calls me Erik. She’s corrected by another nurse who says that she must not play along with my psychosis. ‘Here on the ward, we call her Eli.’ But not everyone does.

  One of the nurses comes over to me the day after to say that the head of police has called. He wondered how both Eli and Erik were.

  My body is too restless to be hospitalised. Ask if I can play pingpong in the cellar or use the staff punchbag to do some boxing. Sometimes I’m allowed, sometimes not. It depends on who’s working.

  I think about when I was seventeen and had moved away from home to Hild’s flat in central Oslo. A block of flats with a narrow asphalted courtyard. I had started to play bandy. Put on my training gear and went down into the courtyard with my bandy stick. I am Emil. I hit the ball against the wall. A movement from the hip that extends out into the arms. I can feel it so intensely, inside the oversized sports clothes. A cap pulled down over my forehead. I’m a boy. Ten, in fact, but tall for my age. Very strong and extremely sure of the ball.

  I hit and hit. Swing the stick and hit the ball perfectly. I can feel it surging through my body. It fires me up. I can feel it in my arms, my back, my legs, my hips, my willy, boy, boy, boy. Go out onto the street and into a newsagent. Buy chewing gum, my eyes barely visible beneath the cap. The woman behind the counter thinks I’m a boy. I haven’t tricked her. To think there’s a gender stuffed into every body.

  From my medical journal: Pat became agitated yesterday evening. Smashed glasses in the dining room, said she wanted to cut herself. She later said that she was going to harm herself and smashed her head against the wall. The staff sat with her for a long time but it was eventually necessary to restrain her.

  From my medical journal: During today’s conversation she told me that Eli had not come yet. But that Eli was fine. It is Erik talking. She is bothered by a hole in her right temple. Erik, Prince Eugen, Emil and Espen and whoever is above and controls the voices is able to read her thoughts. She finds this very disturbing. Pat is incoherent, says that someone is watching her through the window. Gives long explanations of what Erik is saying and who decides etc... Pat declares openly that she will escape from the unit at the first opportunity. She does not want any inj as she believes that Eli has taken the medicine. Erik does not want her to take any medication and has not taken any himself. It’s Erik who smokes hash and generally causes a disturbance. That is why she throws things around, has angry outbursts, etc.

  Pat is clearly experiencing hallucinations.

  Pat physically restless throughout the conversation, drumming her legs, banging her head on the wall, sudden outbursts of laughter, etc...

  I want to go home. I want to get out. I want to get out of Erik. Out into the air and heat that’s coming. Summer that never penetrates into the unit. I want to go home to Eli who decides. Out of this body into my own. Explode my head. Break it into pieces and then put it back together again. Think boxing, but it’s not boxing. Hit but don’t hit. Don’t forget to breathe. First purity, then speed. And finally resistance. If I knew better I’d give up. But I keep fighting. It’s been decided for as long as I can remember.

  I am Erik and forget my visitors as soon as they’ve left and nothing has happened. Being where the world isn’t, is my world. Locked out of myself. Endless hours in bed or out in the corridor. Mealtimes. Half an hour outside in the yard every day with two nurses. Erik does karate kicks and shadow-boxes. Days that just pass. Spring turns to summer. Flower bouquets that wilt. Someone invisible has been here and left them.

  The people who come tell me that they’ve come to visit before. That we talked about writing and that I told them about the new book. The past in the present. I only remember Lisen’s husband’s fortieth birthday when I danced. My strong self. The one that’s done so well. I remember the head of police who seemed so nice but tricked me and got me back here. These events seem like only yesterday, but more than two months have passed with nothing to hang on to.

  My case was heard in the county court and the judgment was three more months enforced care. I heard about it one day when my doctor, Manne, passed in the corridor. I had no idea what the county court was, no one told me what it entailed. It was a humiliating situation. I didn’t have a chance, my lawyer met me five minutes before negotiations started. She couldn’t help me. She knew nothing about me.

  I don’t want to take the medication, but they force me. Don’t recognise myself in their descriptions of me. Think that everything exists simply to medicate me. As soon as the ruling for three more months enforced care is passed, they relax restrictions a little. I’m allowed to go out by myself as long as I say where I’m going and when I’ll be back.

  Gradually, I manage to catch up with myself. Gradually, the cracks in my head heal. And then one day, Erik is no longer there. Clouds of everyday voices break through. I have sunk back into myself. It feels like a release. A new start. I have become number one. The one who decides. One day I will decide everything.

  I’ve got a desk in my room. It’s Eli who writes. I fly into the words. Words become sentences. Sentences become pictures. Pictures become meaning. The text feeds itself. It pulls at me. To be writing. A wordsmith, an observer, a liar. To sit in silence and wait. Get, taste, feel, enjoy, sing, be amazed. Wait for the thought behind the thought. Not have time to think it, just suddenly see it in front of me on the paper or the computer screen. It’s gone directly via my fingers.

  Tell me something, I whisper to myself. Entertain me, shock me. Teach me something. Writing is a hole in the illness. I run into my room and comfort-write. Eat my way through the paper. Everything else can wait. I feel my mouth salivating. I could have been anything that didn’t require good sight. A masseuse, a spice merchant, a baker, a florist, a cook, a joiner, an inventor, a violinist. Or an ambassador. I’m free. I have chosen. I have become precisely what is best for me.

  I write about imagined dreams. I write that I stretch my arm straight out from reality and fish for stories, and they come.

  I’ve got a twenty-two-year-old room mate. We’ve become good friends. We lie and listen to my audio books in the evenings, books that Kassandra would never have opened. She likes it. Kassandra is slim and has dyed dark hair, dark eyes and cute lips. She changes her clothes and earrings all the time and has loads of comfy clothes. She sleeps a lot during the day, which worries me. I pass her bed on my way over to the window. I stop and look at Kassandra’s sleeping face. She’s so sweet lying there in her turquoise clothes with a turquoise headband and turquoise earrings. I touch her cheek. She can’t be woken. But she shouldn’t sleep her life away. I wish I could squeeze some courage into her body so she would do something.

  The past weeks have been hard for Kassandra, as her little sister and several of her friends have passed their university entrance exams this spring. Kassandra hasn’t even managed to finish lower secondary. And what do you wear when your arms are full of scars? She cuts herself, has done since she was twelve. There’s hardly a patch on her arms where the skin isn’t scarred. She has some loose, black sleeves which cover her arms, so she can wear vests and short sleeves.

  Five years ago, she was run over by a bus and was in hospital for several months. There’s a big dent in her bum. She shows me her padded knickers. ‘You get treated better in an ordinary hospital than you do in psychiatric,’ she says. ‘More respect, like.’

  We drink tea. Kassandra has her own store of tea bags and I want to try all the flavours. I like Chai and Yogi Tea best. Her bedside table is covered in perfume bottles and things. She is one of the few who tries to make things personal and homey. A towel over the bedside lamp to give a softer light. Her own big turquoise teacup. The hospital ones are too small. She has put a picture of her dog over some of the worst stains on the walls. It’s so easy to talk to her. Bright, sad and funny. I’ve got a friend.


  Discharged and at home again. The days are lonely. I’m scared of the windows in the flat. They are dark routes out into the world. Think that I’m going to be sucked out and suddenly it will all be over. What if I just... I found, I found something, I found a hole. A long longed-for peace. Nothing more of anything.

  The windows tempt me with their mute freedom, their freedom of nothing. I sleep with my head too close to the window in the bedroom. It feels like the bed slopes towards what is dangerous. The big African sculpture stands there as protection. I can’t move along walls with windows. The extra weight that is me might trigger a landslide.

  I go and lie down on the hard linoleum floor of the kitchen as far away from the window as possible, right up in the corner. Have my pillows and duvet with me. My head on the floor near the sink. I stand up and turn on the tap. One of the boys is in the running water. It’s Espen the Ash Lad. ‘I found, I found something,’ he says, and cries himself to sleep.

  ‘We have to work on the basics,’ Jonathan says. ‘Sleep, rest, work, friends, travel. Use small details to create security. When you get home, turn on the lights. Music, radio, phone someone. Smells, flowers, food, tea. Exercise and cleaning. You have to stick to routines. Then you can make great leaps if you want. But first, you need to stand on solid ground. And you have at times. We have to get back there, and move forwards. You must always bear in mind how fragile you are. You have to give yourself an appropriate level of challenge. Not leaps and bounds every so often and then collapse in a heap. A film, a book, a play. A trip to Norway. It’s not the whole world.’

  ‘But that’s what my everyday is like. I enjoy it and then lose myself in it. If I go to Norway, I have to see so many people that every minute is booked.’

  ‘You have to book minutes for yourself as well.’

  ‘I keep up appearances. Every time I come back I think how strange it is that I live in Sweden. It’s almost like I don’t have a home. All the good stuff that’s happened, all the people, all the playing around with my nieces and nephews, it’s as though it’s all blown away.’

  ‘Yes, how to carry the joy over the river,’ Jonathan says.

  ‘It’s so strong sometimes. It lives in me, but I’m like a sieve. I look out from my flat up here and I think I live in space. That everything around me could be anywhere and that what’s inside is coming loose.’

  ‘That is precisely when you need to get back into your life as fast as possible. Because it’s there,’ Jonathan says.

  ‘It’s in my papers,’ I say. ‘But not in the real world.’

  ‘With time it will be part of the real world as well,’ he replies.

  I go to my workspace in the hope that I’ll be able to write. I sit there with my hands immobile on the keyboard. I stare at the painting on the opposite wall. The one I’ve stared at so many times before. It’s a painting of my family. Those who are dead are also in it, Marit, Granddad and Dad. It’s painted with broad brush strokes and heavy outlines, but everyone is recognisable. We dressed in nineteenth-century clothes. The picture is of Odd’s christening. He’s wearing a white christening gown. Marit, Mum and Hild have big hats on, Dad, Granddad, Torvald and I, the princess, are wearing sailor outfits. I’ve no doubt nagged my way into it in Dad’s imagination. He was the one who did the painting.

  In our midst sits an ape. Your eye automatically fixes on the ape. He’s himself. Whoever he is. Because he’s not dressed up. No bowties or tie. He’s not fixed in time. He’s staring straight at the painter’s hand.

  I talk to my little nephew on the phone. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Hi, how are you? Was there something you wanted to say?’ he asks. ‘Like what?’ I wonder. ‘Like you miss me, for example.’ ‘Yes, that’s what I wanted to say, I miss you every day.’ I go there for Christmas.

  I go up to the hospital to pick up some medicine when I get back. I’ve spent Christmas in Norway and been skiing. It’s New Year and I tell myself that everything seems a little lighter. I love skiing and seeing the children. But I don’t like the actual journey. Going home and coming back home. Home? Hold my mask. Hold my breath. Hold the voices at bay. Be myself and yet not at the same time. How do you carry the joy over? Breathe out, but not so much that everything crashes. The voices are on. They talk and I answer. But I’m so used to it. I will manage somehow all the same.

  I ring the bell and am let in. I don’t know then that I won’t be let out again for six months. I talk a bit to the staff. I have to wait for my medicine. After a while, I’m told that I have to see a doctor. I don’t need to see a doctor. Get frightened.

  From my medical journal: Am asked in my capacity as doctor on call to come to the unit to assess patient. When I get there patient is extremely restless, walking up and down the corridor, crying and talking without any prompts. Talking to herself, totally incomprehensible.

  Mental state: Awake, aware of persons and situation. Unclear whether she is aware of time.

  Contact: Reduced formal and emotional contact. Talks about herself in the third person.

  Signs of psychosis: Informs of auditory hallucinations and claims that there is radiation coming from the walls, is frightened and displays anxiety.

  Mood: Mood swings, crying and laughing without motivation. Talks simultaneously about several things and cannot finish a sentence before starting another.

  Assessment: Known patient with schizophrenia, currently in an acute state of psychosis. Undersigned offers to have patient admitted and medicated, but she refuses, threatens to kick down the doors and smash the windows if I keep her here in the unit. Shadow-boxes and high kicks. Patient shows no reliable understanding of her illness, does not want to accept the offer of care, and the risk of suicide cannot be ruled out. Given the situation, I am of the view that patient is in absolute need of hospital care in order to receive adequate medication. Detention order filled out by the undersigned at 21.15 hours. Decision to section patient in accordance with the Mental Health Act taken by the undersigned at 21.15 hours. No changes have been made to patient’s previous medication.

  *

  To be sectioned in accordance with the Mental Health Act, the patient has to be assessed by two doctors. The following day, I see another doctor and this is my chance to be discharged. I don’t understand why I’ve been detained. The new doctor is a woman I don’t know either. I talk to Prince Eugen about making a good impression. But it makes no difference.

  From my medical journal: Patient is here and has been sectioned. Patient is deeply psychotic and anxious. Says that she is Prince Eugen, not Eli. Also claims that she has to go to work in an hour.

  Contact: Poor formal contact, does answer questions, but listens to voices and answers them at the same time. Tells me that it’s Prince Eugen who is talking to her. Sits crying and sobbing during our conversation.

  Signs of psychosis: Obvious delusions, auditory hallucinations that confuse the patient all the time. Not able to assess her own situation.

  Mood: Anxious, desperate and frightened. Dejected.

  Assessment: Patient is in a state of acute psychosis and categorically needs to stay here in the unit, can’t understand this herself. Claims that she has to go to work and that she has to leave. Fulfils criteria for being sectioned, §6b is therefore approved.

  The days that follow are total chaos. I’m given a notepad and try to work. I’m restrained twice. I’ve got bruises on my arms from the straps for a week afterwards. But nothing is mentioned in my journal.

  I cry. Imagine if I was to lift the receiver and call home. Imagine if I was to make myself visible in the way I did as a child and they found out what was happening. The successful Eli.

  Every day I had at least one crying fit. I was thirteen years old. It might last for an hour. I couldn’t stop. The source was bottomless. The trigger could be something minor or nothing at all. I was inconsolable, pulled faces and cried hysterically. Mum didn’t know what to do. She said that’s just the way it is with Eli.

  Jonathan and
I don’t normally talk about what has happened. We look forwards. But now I’ve read my medical journals again. The first time I read any of the journals, it didn’t bother me at all. Didn’t think that it had anything to do with me at all. Now they’ve caught up with me.

  ‘How do you feel then?’ Jonathan asks.

  ‘It’s an uncomfortable view from the outside that I don’t want to be there in print. Someone who has seen me when I couldn’t defend myself. Someone who doesn’t know that I’m Eli. A visible and an invisible twin. The one who functions, gives talks, writes books, receives prizes, the friend, family member, the citizen. There’s something good and healthy in there that’s been broken. It makes me sad to read that I cried. I don’t know why I cried. I can’t remember. I must have been upset. There are days and weeks that I don’t remember at all. It’s hard to know that you’re visible even then. It often says that I laugh without motivation, but that’s a way of communicating with the voices. A sign that I feel cornered and uncertain. That the air has changed. That the unit is a stage set. “Walk, stand, sit, wait, eat.” It’s like an avalanche inside. Like when I go to the supermarket and people with voices and bodies get in the way everywhere. And I can’t shop, have to leave empty-handed. The worst thing is meeting doctors you don’t know. I think they see me as being more mad than I actually am. It’s been better recently when someone from my support team has been there. I feel safer then. But all of a sudden I can feel insecure, even when they’re there. Because it’s not them who decides. It was worst the first time I was forced onto the floor by several people and restrained. It was terrifying.’