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From the desk of Constance Althea Rypka (a.k.a. "001")

Diary entry #1

The worst part of it all is that they think they cured me.

When I went into Ridgecrest Mental Hospital, I was completely sound. There was never anything wrong with me. I told them so. They thought me saying so just proved something was wrong with me. Everything you hear rumors about--shock therapies, chains and handcuffs, routine beatings? I've had all of it done to me. Multiple times. I'd wake up in the morning (feelin' like P Diddy!) to have pills shoved down my throat and an ugly greenish gown tied onto me (This one was clean. The one I wore last night wasn't anymore. Germsgermsgerms. Don't let them touch you. Might get sick. I was so disgusted with waking up to antiseptic and falling asleep with that sharp, pungeunt smell flooding my lungs). I'd be hauled off to the cafeteria and forced to eat. What did it matter, though? Whatever they did to me only moments later made me lose what I had just eaten, but still they persisted. Eat up. Need your strength. Big day today. Doctor's gonna take care of everything.

I'd get locked down for shock "therapy" before anything. Couldn't take risks. Couldn't have the most docile patient acting up. No, no...It took over a minute for the convulsions to finally stop.

They were the longest minutes of my life, it seemed. I would ask them what I did wrong what was wrong with me why did they do that to me. Always questions. Always "it's only a precaution" and never answers. They'd take me to the next appointment I had. I couldn't fight back. Couldn't ever fight back...

Ridgecrest was cold. So, so bloody cold. Or maybe it was because I was malnourished. I never knew. I couldn't tell. No one else complained of the cold, not that I heard of. It was complaints about the noise. Too quiet, too loud, can't think. I don't care what you hear. Ridgecrest was loud.

Really bleedin' loud.

I could never sleep for the noise. Screaming, moaning, crying. Animal noises. My roomate would sit in the corner, constantly whispering, murmuring.

Monsters, germs, darkness, snakes, "them", "they're coming", "they want".

Monster. I knew about monsters... When I did go to sleep, I dreamt about them a lot. Chasing me through the halls. Laughing whenever I tripped or stumbled. Growling, lunging, biting. They always bit so hard and I would lie there and bleed and bleed and sob until I woke up to more noise. Especially on full moons. On full moons, you hid. Stayed in your room. The full moon does odd things to people. It changes tides, it changes people. It's scary. No. Terrifying. It's not just these people--mad people--it changes, either. I can't stand the full moon... My dreams on those nights were even worse than normal. Never failed. Ever. I'd wake up screaming. The solution? Meds (Just like it "solved" everything else). Meds did little to nothing except knock me back out for nightmares.

Some days we'd have a sort of spa therapy, which was exclusively for the good patients. I got it once or twice. The water was too hot. I told them so. They wrote down a note and told the nurse to do something or other. Anyway, I think that perhaps they put something in the water because I felt sort of dopey afterward. Other than the way my face would mysteriously get wet (I hated that. As said--it was too hot) and having to be stark naked for it, the spa therapy wasn't all that bad. But that wasn't exactly my daily treatment at Ridgecrest.

Daily treatment: Pills, eating, shocking, getting sick, getting experimented on, getting hurt.

Maybe, in the future, doctors will grasp the fact that just because we are dumped into their facilities doesn't make us "lab rats" or any less human than anyone else. Oh, how I long to see this day.

Heaven knows none of us patients had a friend in the world there, but I did sort of take a liking to this elderly woman--Hazel Icet--during my last year in the asylum. She was shocked one day for rudely refusing to take her prescribed medicine. It killed her. I had respect for that old woman. Not love. Respect. She gave me a sort of hope, which was also destroyed soon after.

On March 13th, I was taken in for an operation that I was told nothing about. I have never been the same since. I doubt I ever will be.

Description
From the desk of Constance Althea Rypka (a.k.a. "001")

Diary entry #1

The worst part of it all is that they think they cured me.

When I went into Ridgecrest Mental Hospital, I was completely sound. There was never anything wrong with me. I told them so. They thought me saying so just proved something was wrong with me. Everything you hear rumors about--shock therapies, chains and handcuffs, routine beatings? I've had all of it done to me. Multiple times. I'd wake up in the morning (feelin' like P Diddy!) to have pills shoved down my throat and an ugly greenish gown tied onto me (This one was clean. The one I wore last night wasn't anymore. Germsgermsgerms. Don't let them touch you. Might get sick. I was so disgusted with waking up to antiseptic and falling asleep with that sharp, pungeunt smell flooding my lungs). I'd be hauled off to the cafeteria and forced to eat. What did it matter, though? Whatever they did to me only moments later made me lose what I had just eaten, but still they persisted. Eat up. Need your strength. Big day today. Doctor's gonna take care of everything.

I'd get locked down for shock "therapy" before anything. Couldn't take risks. Couldn't have the most docile patient acting up. No, no...It took over a minute for the convulsions to finally stop.

They were the longest minutes of my life, it seemed. I would ask them what I did wrong what was wrong with me why did they do that to me. Always questions. Always "it's only a precaution" and never answers. They'd take me to the next appointment I had. I couldn't fight back. Couldn't ever fight back...

Ridgecrest was cold. So, so bloody cold. Or maybe it was because I was malnourished. I never knew. I couldn't tell. No one else complained of the cold, not that I heard of. It was complaints about the noise. Too quiet, too loud, can't think. I don't care what you hear. Ridgecrest was loud.

Really bleedin' loud.

I could never sleep for the noise. Screaming, moaning, crying. Animal noises. My roomate would sit in the corner, constantly whispering, murmuring.

Monsters, germs, darkness, snakes, "them", "they're coming", "they want".

Monster. I knew about monsters... When I did go to sleep, I dreamt about them a lot. Chasing me through the halls. Laughing whenever I tripped or stumbled. Growling, lunging, biting. They always bit so hard and I would lie there and bleed and bleed and sob until I woke up to more noise. Especially on full moons. On full moons, you hid. Stayed in your room. The full moon does odd things to people. It changes tides, it changes people. It's scary. No. Terrifying. It's not just these people--mad people--it changes, either. I can't stand the full moon... My dreams on those nights were even worse than normal. Never failed. Ever. I'd wake up screaming. The solution? Meds (Just like it "solved" everything else). Meds did little to nothing except knock me back out for nightmares.

Some days we'd have a sort of spa therapy, which was exclusively for the good patients. I got it once or twice. The water was too hot. I told them so. They wrote down a note and told the nurse to do something or other. Anyway, I think that perhaps they put something in the water because I felt sort of dopey afterward. Other than the way my face would mysteriously get wet (I hated that. As said--it was too hot) and having to be stark naked for it, the spa therapy wasn't all that bad. But that wasn't exactly my daily treatment at Ridgecrest.

Daily treatment: Pills, eating, shocking, getting sick, getting experimented on, getting hurt.

Maybe, in the future, doctors will grasp the fact that just because we are dumped into their facilities doesn't make us "lab rats" or any less human than anyone else. Oh, how I long to see this day.

Heaven knows none of us patients had a friend in the world there, but I did sort of take a liking to this elderly woman--Hazel Icet--during my last year in the asylum. She was shocked one day for rudely refusing to take her prescribed medicine. It killed her. I had respect for that old woman. Not love. Respect. She gave me a sort of hope, which was also destroyed soon after.

On March 13th, I was taken in for an operation that I was told nothing about. I have never been the same since. I doubt I ever will be.