Ward D

by Freida McFadden

If they were well controlled, the unit wouldn’t have to be locked, would it? But that’s not the real reason I am dreading my night on Ward D. I can’t tell Dr. Sleepy the real reason I was tossing and turning last night. I can’t tell anyone the real reason I’m desperately terrified of Ward D.

The truth is, I’ve already seen Ward D. I visited it once before, nearly a decade ago. Back when my best friend was a patient there. I still remember her matted hair and wild eyes when I came to visit. She didn’t look like my best friend anymore—more like a wild animal closed up in a cage. But the thing that sticks with me most—the thing I will never forget—are the words she spit out at me just seconds before I ran out of the unit, swearing to myself I would never return ever again: You should be the one locked up here, Amy.

“What if,” I say quietly, “at the end of the night, they get confused and think that I’m one of the patients there and they don’t let me out?”

Bro??!!!

“What little girl?” “The little blond girl who was standing next to me.” “I didn’t see a little blond girl standing next to you. What are you talking about, Amy?”

A mental health diagnosis is not a death sentence. All the patients in this unit are just trying to get better.

After all, if you meet someone who is truly mentally ill, that’s the only way to know that you’re sane.

How does somebody get to the point where their brain stops functioning like a normal brain? That their reality completely breaks from the reality that every other person in the world lives in? And what’s to stop it from happening to anyone else?

“Damon Sawyer wants to kill every single one of us tonight.” “Why…” My voice is a hoarse croak. “Why do you think that?” “Because that’s what he told me he’s going to do.”

Whenever I pick up a book, it’s like an escape. For an hour or two, I get to be part of the book world instead of my own much more boring world.