kagablog

now, with the same gravity as the words, “Dear Reader, I married him,” dear Aryan, I was committed to Sterkfontein.

I’d been in Tara for a week and a half and i was not feeling well at all. turns out i was addicted to xanor (tranquiliser) - had been on it for eight months and was chowing 8 a day by the time i got into tara. so my blood pressure was through the roof, i was unbelievably anxious ALL THE FUCKING TIME. to the point where i couldn’t feel my own skin. sounds weird, but you know when you play dead man’s finger. same phenomenon. and when you’re that dissociated you just want to get back into your body and i was fantasising more and more about cutting. was already a huge issue as they were literally body searching me every day (can’t even begin to tell you…).

anyway, when i told my therapist there, they immediately mobilised and announced to me that they were committing me for my own safety. as scared as i was, i was also relieved.

but fuck, sterkfontein is as bad as the rumours of it make it out to be. i was taken there at night, so my first real experience of it was waking up in the morning. you know those scenes from schindler’s list where the jews are hoarded into the showers, or the one where they’re made to march in a circle naked? Well, i was made to strip, along with the 40 odd other inmates (mostly black, 90% schizophrenic, 10% bipolar with psychotic symptoms) and made to move in a conveyer-like strip through the shower…

then, breakfast. (food not bad) and meds; then locked with other patients into a ’sun room/stoep’ until lunch, with NOTHING to do but smoke. and you’re not allowed lighters, matches, so have to rely on nurses’ whim - and dale, these were women who are so jaded by what they have to deal with, their favourite outburst is “Ek sal jou moer!”. same cigarette scenario i described in that story of mine - unbearable. and they do. there were frequent fights. incidents of girls putting their hands through windows. one girl had cut her neck open the week before i arrived. same drill till supper, same drill from supper to bedtime at the excruciatingly late hour of 9. i made it through the hell of this ‘chronic ward’ for a week by takng it a day at a time. there was nothing else i could do. the fear. i can’t describe. just knowing that you’re committed, that your freedom depends on whether a panel of 15 people think you’re sane - so debilitating.

then moved to ‘rehabilitation ward’. better. much. but still the hours. there was a skew pool table with a skew cue (sp?) and tv. but couldn’t watch tv - it not being at home just made it unbearable. other patients better in this ward and no more communal showering. but patients still really sick. one girl, for eg. constantly talking to herself, when she wasn’t begging for my stompie: her voices communicated through her and she had to voice them. asked her whether the medication didn’t stop the voices. she said that the only time the voices stop, since she was 14, is when she’s asleep - the meds only calm her down.

if it had been a few years ago, it might have been a bleaker situation for me, but being there and being literally jailed was enough to make sure that i didn’t hurt myself or entertain any real thoughts of it. that would have meant a sure 3 months extra. there are 2 girls - literally girls - who have been there for a combined 15 years…
i made it through the hours days and weeks by smoking, not thinking, just focusing on getting out - how to get out, what did they want to hear? obsessing about that. missing celeste and doggies chronically, but celeste, kate and my mom visited each weekend - thank god. spent my sister’s wedding there and my 30th birthday - you can imagine the existential angst of the latter.

then i discovered knitting in OT, and my sanity was restored! i just sat like Patience on her Monument and knitted and knitted, not thinking, just counting down the days, one day at a time, one week at a time. not knowing how many weeks it would be was unbearable, but knowing that i wasn’t acting crazy made it bearable, knowing that i would get out.

so now i’m on a week’s parole, having had a weekend’s parole. i go back on monday to report back and will probably be released. taking a bit of getting used to being ‘out’. very anxious. also need to make serious moves to finding freelance editing and writing work. but i don’t regret being there. if i’d been in tara i would have learnt a whole lot of stuff on paper. what i learnt in sterkfontein was so fucking excruciatingly tactile it feels etched into me; learnt that i can survive, that i can make it through, anything.