Sylvia Wynter's Dream

written by Dominic Ramsay:

WARNING: THIS WRITING HEAVILY CONTAINS POTENTIALLY TRIGGERING THEMES OF MENTAL ILLNESS, SUICIDE AND CRUEL AND DEGRADING PUNISHMENT. IF THESE TOPICS ARE TOO INTENSE FOR YOU, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE AND READ ANOTHER WORK.

This is an image of what medical workers call: a four-point restraint

This story is called:

For Four Nights

I went to hell for four nights. 

It was a mental health institution whose name I cannot mention due to the stigma. I was admitted for a reason I cannot mention for fear of being questioned about it and sent back.  

Nobody was allowed pencils to write things down as they can cause harm to ourselves or others. 

These memories are the best accounts I can give. 

Day 1:  

I was transported to a nearby hospital and admitted to the A&E section. 

Despite me telling the inspector to let me go back home, she informed the nurses that I was to be taken in as a dangerous “patient”. 

To avoid proving her right, I had to meekly comply and quietly allow them to tie my arms and legs to the four corners of a bed and stay there. 

For 8 hours, I could not move. 

I barely said a thing. 

After that, I was lifted by two men and put into the back of an ambulance to go to hell. 

Then they stole my blood to test for HIV and gave me a bed in the communal ward.  

They were kind enough put me closer to the nurses’ station as they said,  

‘Beds that were further away were harder to check on. Don’t want anything bad to happen to you.’ 

That was a hard night to sleep. 

Day 2: 

It was time for breakfast. 

One of the “patients” taught me how to eat an orange. We couldn’t have plastic knives to cut open an orange, so he taught me how to use the back of a plastic spoon to pierce and saw open the flesh of the fruit.  

It was a mangled mess, but it gave you some fruit. 

After that, it was mandatory two hours of outside time. 

The intention was to get us to exercise and socialise in the sun.   

One man about five steps away from me proceeded to piss and shit himself for a minute before the orderlies took him away.  

When this happens, they punish bad behaviour by sending these “patients” to a special cell alone where they are locked in a tiny room behind an iron grill with a blanket and whatever nasty mess the last unruly “patient” left behind in there. 

They are left there to scream, curse, get violent and make as big and as smelly a mess as they need to before tiring out.  

It’s a disgusting version of solitary confinement, except everybody can see you. 

This room was right next to my bed. 

 I no longer had an appetite at dinner time. 

 Day 3:  

I still had no appetite so I gave away all my breakfast.  

I tried staying in bed to make time go faster.  

A nurse came to my bedside and said she was watching me give away food and barely speaking. 

In a soft-spoken tone that came across as almost motherly, she said: 

“You have to eat at some point. If you don’t, we’ll be forced to strap you down to the bed and shove a feeding tube through your nose into your stomach and force feed you. You don’t want that now, do you?” 

My dinner for that night was as much rice as I could eat without vomiting. 

Day 4:  

I was nearly broken.  

As my body felt weaker the only way, I could think to keep what was left of my sanity was to draw the alphabet on my arm with my finger to remind myself of some semblance of order.  

This became difficult as it was hard to remember L-M-N-O-P when right next to me someone is on the floor bashing his forehead into the ground, wailing that he wants to kill himself as two male nurses physically fight him back into his bed and tie his arms to the post. 

 There are many more details to this story that is still too difficult and painful to include. 

There is no real happy ending to this story. At best I can only be content with surviving long enough to leave after four nights. Most of the men I left behind in that place probably weren’t as blessed as I was.