I’ve officially been discharged from IMH. If you don’t live in Singapore, or if you do but you have lived under a rock for the past decade, IMH stands for the Institute of Mental Health. I shiver a little on the inside every time I even think of the place because it brings up terrible memories, but I’ve been meaning to write this for a little while now, and it’s probably best that I write this now while the memories are still fresh. That’s right, I’m crazy. Literally.
Trust me, I tried everything to get myself out of being admitted again, but you don’t have many rights when you’re nuts. Initially I wanted to go to a B2 ward, but they were all full, so I went to a C class ward instead. A spot opened up a couple of days into my stay but I decided to turn it down as I didn’t fancy making another exhausting move. I stayed for around 2 weeks before I was finally deemed ready to go home yesterday. I guess I’m sufficiently “qualified” to tell you about my experience as a patient in a C class ward on a typical day. Not that I’m proud of that particular qualification.
I usually wake up around 6:45am. I know this because my bed was right in front of a giant clock, which worked out great. (Patients aren’t allowed any electronic devices, so no watch for me.) Trust me, when I say I woke up at 6:45am, that was when I climbed out of bed and headed for the toilet. There was no perfect day where my sleep wasn’t interrupted in some way. I usually had to watch the clock hands inching their way towards 6:45 before I could climb out of bed. The incessant screaming on some nights and the night time activities of some patients made a good night’s sleep impossible.
Officially, the time to wake up is 7:00am. That’s when the lights come on and the nurses holler for everyone to roll out of bed. I get up fifteen minutes early to pee, brush my teeth (when the toothbrushes come out of a locked room there’s a mad rush to get to the sink) and most importantly, be one of the first to stand outside the shower room so I’d get to be one of the first few to shower. The queue forms pretty fast as there’s only three cubicles that have doors, and about forty odd patients total. Of course, being in the queue doesn’t automatically get you a pass to the shower room even if you’re the first in line. More often than not, the other patients would just cut my queue and barge into the bathroom the minute the doors opened, or the nurses would let certain patients shower first because they had something important planned for the day or they couldn’t wait in line like the others. Yet I still queued because being one of the first gave me exponentially better chances of getting a spot in one of the cubicles before 7:30am.
Freshly showered and dressed in that horrible floral blouse and cotton shorts, I would sit on my bed and wait. At 8:00am the nurses unlocked the dormitory doors and we were herded into the activity area, where we would eat breakfast. Breakfast usually consisted of a mug of coffee that was overly sweetened, and either bread or biscuits. We would then shuffle back into the dormitory when we were done, because it was medication time. Medication was usually served in alphabetical order, and having a surname starting with “T” meant mine was on the tail end. When your name is hollered, you would go up to the small window, get your pills in that little plastic cup, and down them with a cup of water from the trolley outside. All this is observed by a member of staff to make sure those pills end up in your digestive tract and not anywhere else outside your body.
The rest of the time before noon was spent however you’d like. You could get a little shuteye, get a shower if you didn’t get one before breakfast, have a few card games, walk up and down the corridor, have an argument, you get the drift. I usually spent mine pretending to be asleep so I didn’t have to partake in the drama, or some card games if I was roped in to one and couldn’t turn it down. The morning is also when you were called into the interrogation room where a group of doctors would stare down at you and you’d have a bunch of questions to answer. That’s the doctor’s review, and they were usually done once a week. You’d only know when you’re up for review on the day itself when a frazzled looking staff nurse would call your name and usher you out of the dormitory into the tiny air-conditioned room.
Lunchtime is at noon. We’d get herded out again into the activity area, where we’d sit down for a meal served in a large plastic container that had several sections for one meat, one vegetable, a portion of rice, a slice of watermelon and a plastic spoon. No forks or chopsticks, they could be used as weapons. Of course the menu varied depending on the day, but that’s the most common meal I saw. We’d have free time till 3:00 pm, when tea is served. That usually consisted of a bun or a slice of cake, accompanied by a mug of milk tea. Next came more free time until 5:30pm, when dinner was served. Dinner was similar to lunch, and that would be the last meal of the day. People usually filled up even if the food was disgusting because there would be nothing else to satisfy your hunger pangs before bedtime.
We would return to the dormitory after dinner. You would be patted down before you enter and contraband would be confiscated. I’ve had pens taken from me a couple of times. Medication time came around 7:00pm, and it was mostly the same as the morning rounds, except with different meds and a different nurse. You could also make your phone calls in the evenings. You’d tell the nurse in the observation box the number and she’d punch it in for you before handing you the receiver. You can then laze around till lights out at around 9:00pm, which was bedtime. Go to sleep and the day’ll repeat the next time you open your eyes.
Of course I haven’t factored in the visiting hours, where you’ll get pulled from the usual schedule and have a little respite from the madness. You’d have to have a visitor, which goes without saying. They were officially 12-2pm and 5-7pm. The staff were pretty nice about it if the guests came early or extended their visits a little, as long as it didn’t interfere with the usual routine and it wasn’t too extreme. These are also my favourite hours as they were the only quieter hours I’d have and guests usually also meant outside food.
I’ve probably missed a thing or two in this long recount of my experience but that was the gist of it. Of course, I hope to never return. I do also hope you never have to experience what I did, and that everyone I had the opportunity to know during my stay, whether patient or nurse, thrives in the days ahead.
Thank you to everyone who took care of me during my stay, and to people who actually took time to come down to visit, thank you for making the time to accompany this crazy lady. I appreciate everything you’ve all done, and it does mean a lot, regardless of how cheesy it sounds. Here’s to moving on.
Balancing AQT 