Scared shitless scary stories

Schizophrenic

It’s currently 5:13 PM here. The sun is shining and it’s looking like a great day. At 6:00 PM, I won’t be around anymore. I’m not going to reply to any of you, I have a story to tell and there are so many things left unanswered that I’m too afraid to delve into too much detail. I just don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know if what I tell you could put you in danger. I just don’t know anything... well I’ll get to it at the end. For now I’ll start at the beginning.

I started living at the complex when I was 24. Complex is probably a bit of a strong word, really it’s just an apartment block but it is for the rehabilitation of the mentally unwell. We house all from schizophrenics to severely depressed and everywhere in between. But if I’m going to tell this story I had better start at the beginning. I trained in Australia to become a nurse. I enrolled in a double degree of arts and nursing, and for the arts component of my course majored in psychology, which is where I picked up my interest for psych nursing. I did my placements in psych units at hospitals, and in my final year I had placement specifically in a mental hospital. This is where I met Brian.

He was an interesting case, suffering from what appeared to be paranoid schizophrenia, however he acquired his symptoms somewhat prematurely, or at least before paranoid schizophrenia became apparent, at the age of 16. He was multi-drug resistant, and found little to no relief though psycho training and therapy, as well as undertaking a course of ECT to no avail. He had a family that gradually relied more and more on institutionalization to care for their son, and finally at the age of 22 had him permanently lodged at the hospital I was placed at, St John of God in Burwood, Sydney.

I was instantly drawn to him from the moment I met him. Although he carried the symptoms common among schizophrenics, if not at a more advanced stage (such as extreme auditory, tactile, and visual hallucinations, negative symptoms and often extreme paranoia), I was instantly drawn to him. He was just a normal guy, around my age, with a head of shortish, messy brown hair. He was fairly well built and kept fit by exercising in his room at the hospital. Because he’d been there so long they allowed him to attach a bar across his doorway and a few other minor adjustments. His room was personalized by the time that I had come to work.

He talked freely with me and I even went down to the smoker’s area during my breaks to chat to him and share a cigarette. I was only placed at the hospital for a month, but they were so impressed by my work that they offered me a job when I finished my degree. I accepted. Brian and I continued contact via email when I left, and we became friends. Another 5 months went by before I finished my degree, and then another 2 as I retired over the Christmas break.

Then I went straight to work at st John of god. Over the next two years I became very close to Brian, and learnt more about him. He was very easy to talk to and we shared a lot in common by way of opinions, personality, and tastes. I used to bring him new music, books, TV shows and DVD’s, and we talked about them avidly, as well as the goings on of other patients etc within the hospital.

When we weren’t together in the hospital and I was bored in an office, we used to use the hospitals Wi-Fi network to stream videos of ourselves over VLC media player. It was mostly inane bullshit but it used to make me crack up when Brian would stream a video he had just created of himself throwing pebbles at people at the car park and screaming that the voices were back until they ran away in fear. Not very professional of me, but funny nonetheless.

In a new initiative from the hospital, they decided to buy a set of apartments with the aid of government funding and in association with health authorities and other hospitals, which would be utilized as rehabilitation or permanent residence for mentally ill patients who required long term care or were well enough to be integrated back into society. They offered me a position as primary caretaker, which would involve me living on site and taking care of medication, and management of the patients.