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Narrative personal writing
Narrative personal writing
Narrative personal writing
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Narrative personal writing
Narrative personal writing
Narrative personal writing
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
During treatment, the criminally insane are cared for by nurses, psychiatrists and other hospital administrators. For the treatments to be effective, the hospital staff must adapt to the way of life in the psychiatric hospital. In the article “Inside a hospital for the criminally insane” by Caitlin Dickson, posted on The Daily Beast, Dickson shares her readings of a book written by Dr. Stephen Seager about the inside of the Napa State Hospital. Napa State Hospital is home to approximately 12,000 patients and a majority of the patients are rapists, killers and mass murderers (TheDailyBeast). Everyday the hospital staff endures violence and personalities of the patients.
I can hear the footsteps coming. Closer. So close. I hear the rattling of the keys as someone drops them, at the front of my door.
The door slams shut. A dry breeze follows me into Ryan’s Fourth Ward Polls as I escape the cold October night. An eerie group of men eye me up and down as I walk to the bar for my evening dose of cognac. As I shake their stares off, an old bartender greets me. We indulge in some light conversation about the upcoming Election Day as he pours me my smooth glass of cognac.
It was a gray day. The sun did not shine; it could not pierce the layers of powdery black skies along with the fog. The thick mist that was not really rain, or fog covered the southeastern corner of New Jersey. It was depressing, just like most days in the area surrounding the Overbrook Asylum. On the outside, Overbrook was a welcoming place where patients were treated with care along with respect; the inside was very different.
"Are you reading this? If you are, then you have woken. You have been in a coma for 23 years. Everything you've ever seen, felt, heard or tasted was a hallucination. Your friends weren't real.
Rabidus Insane Asylum While I sat alone in my room, my parents were cooking our family dinner. Each year my mom and dad prepared a huge feast for the night. It wasn't Thanksgiving, it was not holiday, it was purge night. A purge is where there is 12 hours with no laws and with no limitations to what you choose to do. I took my medication with a glass of chilled milk, and went into the kitchen.
Once again, freezing darkness was carrying me in its hand. This time, I was hearing a breath so rough and powerful than the wind of the 1400s. Fear can sometimes make us want to die when you feel that we are in danger because it means two things: either you die and you don’t fear anymore, either you are saved but in that case, you are condemned to fear again and again until your last breath. That was the situation I was put into.
Today I sit here in my own cabin, head team lead of the St. George Asylum. These four blue walls surround me, a huge window looking over the main sleep room of all the mental patients. Number 83, the wheel chair is empty, as empty as the depth of my heart. The anger builds inside of me, with love in my heart, and tears down my cheek. Chair, bed, and clothes number 83 have become a huge part of my life and who I am today.
Slowly, a bundle of bells began chiming, growing louder and louder, until my ears felt like they were screaming in agony. I snapped out abruptly, screaming and sweating like a child wanting his mother. What was that? Was it a sign? No, it couldn’t be.
It was 8:07, Saturday morning, when I awoke to an insufferable rapping on my door. I tried to ignore it, and sleep, but the knocking persisted. This went on for no less than thirty minutes, until, it suddenly stopped. The abrupt silence was unnerving. I sat up in my bed, wondering if they had finally given up, and gone away.
Locked in a dormitory which became my only survival resource, for the disaster and dystopia that surrounded me in every inch of my eye, and which soon became my worst fear in the entire planet, death. Terrifying, frightening and alarming was the ambiance that was perpetuated in my conscience. Unimaginable nights when a single room became the aegis of my brother and myself from the violence and murder, which suddenly portrayed as hell in my perspective. Liberty and freedom had become slavery, and for one moment, I even thought if this was worth a better future. Worth risking the lives of my family.
I woke up in Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. I live alone, my family lives down in Iowa. Sometimes I visit my family, and they love it. I have decided to take another trip down to visit.
Imagine that the only thing in existence is one room. The room seems to be dark, like the deepest onyx, and barren like a frozen tundra. You turn realizing you were facing the wall and see many shadows lining along the edges of the room. From the shadows emerge several beings. Limp and pale, almost to the point of being translucent.
Growing up with mental illness they called me crazy, annoying, and angry. They looked at me differently. They’d even talk about it amongst themselves, but never offered guidance. That’s the problem with society these days. Everyone loves a party, but no one wants to clean up the mess.
“Sure” I thought. At this point we had arrived at the actual building and I kept thinking I wasn’t going to make it out, like I was going to have open heart surgery or something. The whole waiting room smelled of a doctor’s office which bred even more fear within me. And before I knew it my name was the one being called out. It was time.