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More things in heaven and earth

One of my best friends Ben is schizophrenic this is not something everyone can say. Certainly not the ones who have only ever lived in the sane lands, who have never crossed over into the country called madness. I crossed over when I was just fifteen, that's when I had my first episode. Can you even imagine that, I hadn't even worked out what was what yet but I was crazy enough to get locked up in a psych ward at New Arden Hospital.

I know I shouldn't use words like crazy, it's not politically correct but I think out of all the people in the world I can call myself crazy or mad if I want to. Other people think it about me anyway but they can't say it. You're probably wondering what I have like it will give you some kind of key to who I am. Well my name is Charlie and I have Bipolar type 2 or Bipolar lite as some of us like to call it. There's nothing particularly lite about it in my opinion.

You have to get yourself into a real mess to get onto a psych ward, I mean beds are scarce. I got myself there with a manic episode and a suicide attempt. The thing is I swear I saw one of my friends Lucy sprout wings and fly away and I was messed up enough to believe I could follow them. "I was just trying to fly," I blithely explained to the cops. I didn't actually intend to kill myself. They took me in and had my parents sign some paperwork effectively ending my freedom for a month. Time they said I needed to come down and get onto a good regime of medication.

I didn't come down that quickly despite the drugs, I was still talking a mile a minute for the next few days, which is why I think I got Ben for a friend, because Ben is quiet but he is also kind so he listened and put up with me. We also had the weird experiences of psychosis to compare, it was Ben who convinced me that a lot of it wasn't real. He'd been diagnosed for a lot longer and his doctors had taught him to talk about things in that way. Whenever he gets too literal about things I start quoting that speech Hamlet gives "There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I know this makes me sound like a smartass but we were doing it in school just before things went bits up for me.

Ben and I have one other friend, her name is Felicity, she has a common variety depressive disorder, it seems to mean she's a little bit grumpier than other people. I know I shouldn't classify people but it's hard. We all come with tags in here and we all know each other's tags. They even make us sit in groups and chat about the nature of our difficulties. I wasn't in groups the first week, I had to get adjusted and trusted before that.

Our ward is locked only the staff can really come and go. Some of the more trusted patients can head out with permission. My mum and dad came to visit me, they really aren't bad parents but I could see they were out of their depth. Dad was trying to be stoic and logical and Mum was bleary eyed, they kept on trying to say it was for my own good. A doctor was sitting in with us and he listened while they dug over the family history looking for that odd aunt or uncle who had somehow spawned all this. They both had one on either side which I guess makes it better for them because neither one is to blame if they both are. At the same time it doesn't really change things for me whether it was Aunt Matilda the horder or Uncle Fred the kleptomaniac.

Lucy was the only friend who came to visit me. She didn't have wings, she said she hadn't even seen me that morning. I couldn't fathom why I remembered it so clearly but I guess our brains pick the faces of the people we love when shaping these things. I was sad after she left, I guess it confirmed that I was truly crazy. I went to my room and laid down on my bed and had a little cry. I swear Ben is like one of those animals that knows when you are hurting because he came in and laid on his bunk and just waited till I was done and then launched into a story about some fight in the lunch-room. He didn't make me talk about the sad thing and that in a strange way made it better.

I had been there two weeks when I started to feel really antsy about being locked up. My meds had started to kick in so the world was a lot less sparkly. I was also getting used to the routines and the place. Even so I wanted out, whenever I asked the Doctors about this they would give very vague answers. I felt like the world I knew outside was getting further and further away and the one in here was becoming my reality. I turned more to the people here, to my friends Ben and Felicity. The older patients scared me sometimes, sometimes they gave comfort and advice. You never really know what you'll get in a day. The Doctors talked about having good days and bad days and how each day is a new day. It's like time has stopped and we are all waiting here suspended for it to start again.