Thrilling, Tempting Misery
My first bout with the type of delusional thinking known as auditory hallucination occurred following a suicide attempt in the early 1990s when I was in my mid-twenties.
Born into a family rife with depression and alcoholism it is not surprising that I would leave an unfulfilling yet promising job in Virginia to move back home to my parent's house in New Hampshire in 1991. Before I had quitting, I had grown increasingly depressed and despondent regarding my station in lfe. Trying things anew back in my home state felt like the right thing to do. But soon after returning to the town where I was raised I lost all interest in pursuing work, socializing, or doing anything remotely constructive. Life was unbearable. I dreaded the future as much as the present. Attempts at therapy, supported by my parents, proved embarrassing failures as I felt no hope of anyone or anything pulling me out of my self induced funk.
Ultimately, after months of contemplation, I decided to take my own life. Using an industrial size bottle of aspirin bought in a fit of rage at a local pharmacy I injested four hundred pills over two hours while sitting on the bed in my room late one night. Soon I felt weak and tired. And fell asleep, though waking after only two hours of unconsciousness. Realizing the need to vomit, I put on my shoes and went outside so as not to wake my sleeping parents with the sounds of my retching. Suffering from an upset stomach I stumbled about on foot through the side streets of my parent's neighborhood, vomiting every few steps. In this way I was able to extract involuntarily much of the poison in my system acquired from the aspirin bottle.
The next morning, realizing I was ill and in need of medical attention, I asked my mother, who had slept in the adjacent bedroom with no knowledge of my activities, to take me to a hospital. We arrived at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. I was led to the Emergency Department and given a charcoal like substance to absorb the poison remaining in my stomach. Within minutes I was vomiting again. The ER staff seemed relieved at the sight of me throwing up. I would learn later that they considered the vomiting a good sign, that my body was rejecting the harmful chemicals contained in the aspirin.
For the following three days I was a patient in the Intensive Care Unit. My doctor, a woman of great charm and kindness, seemed genuinely concerned about my welfare, making me feel welcome despite my embarrassment over the overdose. The doctor asked if I would like to stay at CMC in a unit I might find more suitable to my needs. I quickly agreed, glad for the attention.
The psych unit, a locked ward on the third floor of CMC, felt comfortable and safe. I was led by a cheerful and friendly staff member to a room near the nurse's station. Though not luxurious, the accomodations seemed better than any apartment or dorm room I had ever occupied. Soon after being left alone in the room I lay down on one of the two beds in order to take stock of my situation. Having made a genuinely sincere attempt to commit suicide I did not feel lucky to be alive, as one would expect after such a close call, for it was my view that I was a worthless, flawed, and unlovable person who had no hope for a happy life.
Soon after, the voices began.
The first voice I heard came through the near wall, coming apparently from the room directly behind the headboard of my bed. A male with a deep and commanding voice that instantly intimidated me loudly exclaimed "Why do we have to spend the time on HIM? He is so boring and weird. Nothing he does will be interesting to study." The reply came from another male with a sense of authority attached to him: "Because it's our job! We do what we're told, regardless of the worth or worthlessness of the subject. Let's just see what he does." It was clear that I was to be studied by these two men for the duration of my stay in the psych unit. But how could they see me? There were no cameras in the room, at least that I could see. I quickly came to the conclusion that the sprinkler head directly over my bed must contain some sort of video camera and microphone capable of transmitting pictures and sounds to the researchers next door.
In the beginning the voices were with me only in the hours I spent in my room. For two days I was largely left alone by the nurses, who would pop their heads in every fifteen minutes or so while doing their "safety checks." I was free to think and consider my plight. The voices continued to discuss how boring, strange, ugly, worthless, and unappealing I was: "Loser." "Freak." "Strange beyond belief." "Pathetic." The cruelty was astonishing. And so blatant, with no regard for how hearing their taunts would effect me, a suicidal patient in a locked psych ward. I wondered if my hearing was possibly so exceptional that neither of the researchers realized the walls were thin enough to allow me to overhear them.
I did not wish to be a bother to the nursing staff that fed me and gave me whatever medications had been prescribed. They treated me well, with both compassion and support. Thus I never voiced any complaints about the ongoing study and the awful things being said about me by the two researchers.
Soon the voices would follow me to other parts of the psych ward. After a bit of prompting by one of my favorite nurses that I should interact with the other patients I decided to take a journal I was working on into the day room of the unit. There was not much activity going on so I opened my book and began attempting to write some poetry. Immediately I could hear the same male voices from my room discussing how perfectly awful my poems were. "See how he wallows in self pity? Can you believe how bad his prose is? I understand now why people despise him; he's awful." Shocked that the folks watching me would be so blatant in allowing me to hear their views in such an open and public space I looked around for more cameras. No sprinklers were in view overhead, yet the voices continued their abuse. "Loser." "Incompetent." "No one loves him." The only possible conclusion was that the cameras and microphones had been made so perfectly small that they could fit into the spaces in between the tiles of the ceiling.
Instead of considering the implausibility of what was occurring, my belief at the time was a sureness that what I was experiencing was reality. How does one go about the process of not trusting ones own senses to inform them of what is real and what is not? I was unable to make the leap in questioning the plausibility in what seemed to be happening to me; what I heard was therefore true. The researchers were people with incredible new technology studying me in an attempt to understand why people try to commit suicide. The fact that they were unhappy in their assignment and that I was such a dull subject simply made the goings on more plausible: most people are unhappy in their work and I was without question a waste of human flesh. Everything seemed to make sense.
Claiming to be feeling better and more hopeful in my subsequent meetings with doctors and nursing staff, I told no one about being a subject of the study. After all, it most likely was supposed to be secret. The hospital could be expected to work out the kinks and not allow future participants to overhear the comments being made about them. I was a bit of a guinea pig and a little proud of myself for being the subject of such intense observation. Though the researchers clearly hated me, any attention was better than the alternative.
The day of my anticipated discharge I was interviewed by a psychiatrist who was not on staff at the hospital but, I was informed, was to be be assigned to me upon my release. He seemed a decent sort, though unexciting and uninspiring. I told him of my depression and suicide attempt and as the session appeared to be winding down it occurred to me to ask about the study being done. When I explained to the incredulous doctor about the two researchers watching my every move through hidden cameras, he claimed to have no knowledge of it. When I persisted he offered to speak to a doctor more familiar with the unit. Upon returning, my assigned doctor told me there was no study. That no one was watching me.
----------------
It would be nice to say that that was the end of things. That my delusions were over once I had proof of their illegitimacy. But that is not the case. I would suffer from these hallucinations periodically throughout the rest of the 1990's and into this decade. Having been free of them for some time now, I very much hope they are gone for good.
Born into a family rife with depression and alcoholism it is not surprising that I would leave an unfulfilling yet promising job in Virginia to move back home to my parent's house in New Hampshire in 1991. Before I had quitting, I had grown increasingly depressed and despondent regarding my station in lfe. Trying things anew back in my home state felt like the right thing to do. But soon after returning to the town where I was raised I lost all interest in pursuing work, socializing, or doing anything remotely constructive. Life was unbearable. I dreaded the future as much as the present. Attempts at therapy, supported by my parents, proved embarrassing failures as I felt no hope of anyone or anything pulling me out of my self induced funk.
Ultimately, after months of contemplation, I decided to take my own life. Using an industrial size bottle of aspirin bought in a fit of rage at a local pharmacy I injested four hundred pills over two hours while sitting on the bed in my room late one night. Soon I felt weak and tired. And fell asleep, though waking after only two hours of unconsciousness. Realizing the need to vomit, I put on my shoes and went outside so as not to wake my sleeping parents with the sounds of my retching. Suffering from an upset stomach I stumbled about on foot through the side streets of my parent's neighborhood, vomiting every few steps. In this way I was able to extract involuntarily much of the poison in my system acquired from the aspirin bottle.
The next morning, realizing I was ill and in need of medical attention, I asked my mother, who had slept in the adjacent bedroom with no knowledge of my activities, to take me to a hospital. We arrived at Catholic Medical Center in Manchester. I was led to the Emergency Department and given a charcoal like substance to absorb the poison remaining in my stomach. Within minutes I was vomiting again. The ER staff seemed relieved at the sight of me throwing up. I would learn later that they considered the vomiting a good sign, that my body was rejecting the harmful chemicals contained in the aspirin.
For the following three days I was a patient in the Intensive Care Unit. My doctor, a woman of great charm and kindness, seemed genuinely concerned about my welfare, making me feel welcome despite my embarrassment over the overdose. The doctor asked if I would like to stay at CMC in a unit I might find more suitable to my needs. I quickly agreed, glad for the attention.
The psych unit, a locked ward on the third floor of CMC, felt comfortable and safe. I was led by a cheerful and friendly staff member to a room near the nurse's station. Though not luxurious, the accomodations seemed better than any apartment or dorm room I had ever occupied. Soon after being left alone in the room I lay down on one of the two beds in order to take stock of my situation. Having made a genuinely sincere attempt to commit suicide I did not feel lucky to be alive, as one would expect after such a close call, for it was my view that I was a worthless, flawed, and unlovable person who had no hope for a happy life.
Soon after, the voices began.
The first voice I heard came through the near wall, coming apparently from the room directly behind the headboard of my bed. A male with a deep and commanding voice that instantly intimidated me loudly exclaimed "Why do we have to spend the time on HIM? He is so boring and weird. Nothing he does will be interesting to study." The reply came from another male with a sense of authority attached to him: "Because it's our job! We do what we're told, regardless of the worth or worthlessness of the subject. Let's just see what he does." It was clear that I was to be studied by these two men for the duration of my stay in the psych unit. But how could they see me? There were no cameras in the room, at least that I could see. I quickly came to the conclusion that the sprinkler head directly over my bed must contain some sort of video camera and microphone capable of transmitting pictures and sounds to the researchers next door.
In the beginning the voices were with me only in the hours I spent in my room. For two days I was largely left alone by the nurses, who would pop their heads in every fifteen minutes or so while doing their "safety checks." I was free to think and consider my plight. The voices continued to discuss how boring, strange, ugly, worthless, and unappealing I was: "Loser." "Freak." "Strange beyond belief." "Pathetic." The cruelty was astonishing. And so blatant, with no regard for how hearing their taunts would effect me, a suicidal patient in a locked psych ward. I wondered if my hearing was possibly so exceptional that neither of the researchers realized the walls were thin enough to allow me to overhear them.
I did not wish to be a bother to the nursing staff that fed me and gave me whatever medications had been prescribed. They treated me well, with both compassion and support. Thus I never voiced any complaints about the ongoing study and the awful things being said about me by the two researchers.
Soon the voices would follow me to other parts of the psych ward. After a bit of prompting by one of my favorite nurses that I should interact with the other patients I decided to take a journal I was working on into the day room of the unit. There was not much activity going on so I opened my book and began attempting to write some poetry. Immediately I could hear the same male voices from my room discussing how perfectly awful my poems were. "See how he wallows in self pity? Can you believe how bad his prose is? I understand now why people despise him; he's awful." Shocked that the folks watching me would be so blatant in allowing me to hear their views in such an open and public space I looked around for more cameras. No sprinklers were in view overhead, yet the voices continued their abuse. "Loser." "Incompetent." "No one loves him." The only possible conclusion was that the cameras and microphones had been made so perfectly small that they could fit into the spaces in between the tiles of the ceiling.
Instead of considering the implausibility of what was occurring, my belief at the time was a sureness that what I was experiencing was reality. How does one go about the process of not trusting ones own senses to inform them of what is real and what is not? I was unable to make the leap in questioning the plausibility in what seemed to be happening to me; what I heard was therefore true. The researchers were people with incredible new technology studying me in an attempt to understand why people try to commit suicide. The fact that they were unhappy in their assignment and that I was such a dull subject simply made the goings on more plausible: most people are unhappy in their work and I was without question a waste of human flesh. Everything seemed to make sense.
Claiming to be feeling better and more hopeful in my subsequent meetings with doctors and nursing staff, I told no one about being a subject of the study. After all, it most likely was supposed to be secret. The hospital could be expected to work out the kinks and not allow future participants to overhear the comments being made about them. I was a bit of a guinea pig and a little proud of myself for being the subject of such intense observation. Though the researchers clearly hated me, any attention was better than the alternative.
The day of my anticipated discharge I was interviewed by a psychiatrist who was not on staff at the hospital but, I was informed, was to be be assigned to me upon my release. He seemed a decent sort, though unexciting and uninspiring. I told him of my depression and suicide attempt and as the session appeared to be winding down it occurred to me to ask about the study being done. When I explained to the incredulous doctor about the two researchers watching my every move through hidden cameras, he claimed to have no knowledge of it. When I persisted he offered to speak to a doctor more familiar with the unit. Upon returning, my assigned doctor told me there was no study. That no one was watching me.
----------------
It would be nice to say that that was the end of things. That my delusions were over once I had proof of their illegitimacy. But that is not the case. I would suffer from these hallucinations periodically throughout the rest of the 1990's and into this decade. Having been free of them for some time now, I very much hope they are gone for good.
posted by joe sweeney at 11:34 AM
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