The Sun and the Moon [Wattys 2015 winner]

Chapter 18: Exclusive

"All patients need to be strip-searched. It's protocol."

"But I'm an attorney. I'm a professional."

"No exceptions."

"But I thought I could check out at any time. This is voluntary. There's no 5150 hold on me. I don't have anything with me..."

"We need you to remove all of your clothes and place them on the bed. While you are here, you cannot have any shoelaces, drawstrings, or underwire in your bra. Do you understand?"

"But I don't want to take off my clothes."

"This is procedure. A female nurse will be in here to do your assessment. She will be looking for cuts and other markings on you. You can wear this gown, but leave the ties open."

The brusque male nurse left.

I was locked in a room that defined the term "institutional." It was straight out of a movie about the loony bin. There was nothing in it but a wooden bed with a mattress that had a sheet on it. There were no electric plugs, no furniture, no pictures, there was nothing else in this room except the fluorescent light overhead and a large door with a window. The door locked on the outside but not on the inside. I had never been in a room with nothing else in it except when moving into or out of a home. It was so eerie.

I could not leave this room. If I wanted to go crazy and climb the walls, I could. If I wanted to scream, this was the place to do it. If I wanted to pitch a fit and show them that I really belonged in a mental institution, this was the time to do it. Something about the bare walls made me feel like I could hear the echoes of past mental patients' screaming embedded in there.

I did not like this room. At all.

But I needed to get help.

I needed to stop thinking about killing myself. I needed to stop planning to kill myself. I needed help.

I needed to take a deep breath and get on with it.

I looked in the adjacent bathroom. If I was being facetious, I would call it an "en suite." There were no locks. There were no door handles. The door could not close.

I had never been in a bathroom with a door that intentionally never closed.

There were no towels, no towel rack, no toilet paper rack, no trash can, no soap dish, no soap. Nothing but a sink, toilet, and toilet paper sitting on the tank.

So this was a mental institution bathroom.

I took off my clothes and placed them neatly on the bed. I put on the hospital gown and waited for the nurse to come in.

It took a long time.

The nurse came in and told me to open my gown.

She had a clipboard in her hand and stared at me, naked, taking notes. I did not have any cuts on my body. I did not have any tattoos or piercings. She saw my c-section scar even though it was healed by now. As healed as it would ever be. I did not try to kill myself with anything other than my thoughts and a railroad track. I turned around and showed her my back.

It was embarrassing for someone to see me naked.

She silently made notes on her clipboard. Then she picked up every piece of my carefully folded clothes and felt each item all the way through. She confiscated my bra because it had underwire. She told me I could get dressed and left the room.