Open Writing

I’ve asked them more than once if I’m mad, but they never give me a straight answer.

They have this infuriating habit of turning the question round and asking me if I think I’m mad. When I say that I have no idea and that they’re supposed to be the experts, they just smile in what I suppose they think is an encouraging way. All it encourages me to do is to close my eyes and go to sleep. Perhaps that’s the idea behind it all.

There is no doubt that some of the people here are totally barking.

I find it difficult to communicate with them at all. Not that I really want to. I started off by trying to be friendly. I’d ask them why they were here and I thought they might tell me, particularly as I was one of them, on their side, so to speak. I thought they might say things like ‘I dismembered my mother and kept her in the freezer for a year’ or ‘I know what the government is really up to, which is why they keep me locked up’ or ‘They took me away in their spaceship and carried out all sorts of terrible experiments on me’. But I never got easy-to-understand answers like that. They usually ignored me or shuffled away tearing up a newspaper.

I would have been prepared to tell them why I am here: I am unhappy. That is something we all have in common here: we are all unhappy. But I don’t think being unhappy is the same as being mad. I wanted to have a sensible discussion on this topic with the doctors who are supposed to be treating us, but so far they have shied away. ‘Why are you unhappy?’ ‘Can you think of a time when you were happy?’ ‘When did you first start feeling unhappy?’ Don’t ask me things, I used to say. Tell me things. Then the smile. I thought I would save a lot of time by writing a long essay about my unhappiness. They thanked me politely and put what I had written in my file. And then they just carried on as if I hadn’t written anything at all.

None of this, I suppose, helps you to understand why I am in this place.

I had a breakdown. That’s the word they use. I was in the computer business. I worked for a number of well-known companies. I started as a technician and then went into programming. I used to design software to meet a firm’s particular needs, install it and then train their own ICT people. Occasionally I would be called back to up-date or modify. It was well-paid work and it occupied most of my time. Computing can be like that. There was no time for serious personal relationships, so I had a succession of girlfriends, no more than that, right up to the age of thirty-two, when my trouble started. The drink must have played a considerable part, I know, but I am not so naïve as to blame everything on it. I believe (though I can’t get anyone here to confirm this) that people are genetically predisposed to unhappiness. Does that sound like the ravings of a lunatic?

I got up on the first day of a fortnight’s leave and took a train to Chichester. I used to do that sort of thing, you know, just get up and go, nothing planned. In Chichester I hired a bicycle and cycled towards the coast until I got tired. I lifted the bicycle over a hedge and fell asleep beside it. When I woke up it was dark, so I cycled on a bit until I came to a pub, The Earnley Arms, where I had a meal and stayed the night. They didn’t normally put people up, but they had a spare room and it was quite late. At breakfast the next morning they asked me where I was making for and when I said I didn’t know they looked at each other, the landlord and his wife, that is. When I set off on foot, they had to remind me that I had a bicycle. By this time I had got a bit fed up with cycling, but I made a joke of my forgetfulness and collected it. I left it on a beach somewhere.

After that, everything gets a bit hazy. I lost my shoes at some stage. I remember taking them off to paddle, but it was only when I was back on the road that I felt a pain in my foot and saw that it was bleeding that I realised that something was wrong. I remember trying to telephone my mother, but I hadn’t got an up-to-date number - or at least that’s what they said. I took a bottle of water from a shop because I was thirsty. That’s when then police first appeared and I had to spend some time in a bare room while they made some telephone calls.

Since then - I’ve heard them use the word once or twice - I’ve ‘stabilised’, whatever that may mean. I’ve slept a lot, but the unhappiness is with me all the time and that’s something they’re not dealing with. Kind they are, but irritating. Whenever I mention going home, they smile that infernal smile and say ‘Let’s talk about that tomorrow’. I asked to see my mother, but they say she died about three years ago. They’ve made a mistake, because I saw her quite recently. They take no notice. They asked me about my work and I told them. They looked at each other and one of them said that none of the firms I mentioned remembered me. I explained that in the world of computing there are so many secret deals going on that that was not surprising. I know what many of these firms are up to, so I understand why they want to forget me.

Apparently someone went to my address to collect a change of clothes and other things, but came back and said the place was empty, hadn’t been lived in for years. There again - they’ve made a mistake, obviously got the address wrong.

What I am hoping is that the unhappiness will eventually lift. In fact, I’ve noticed that some of the people here have got less unhappy during the time I’ve known them. We have no calendars, so I can’t tell how long that is. The doctors don’t talk so much to me now, but I did tell one of them that it seemed to me that no-one can ever be happy. But we can learn to live with our unhappiness. He looked me straight in the eye and said that if more people realised that he’d be out of a job. He’s probably right.