Not too long after, though, we’re standing, and as soon as my muscles relax, the other sore spots get my focus again—the back, the jaw, the knuckles. I take in the view: a long hallway with several doors and, at the end, I see what looks like an elevator. When I point to it, Joe says, “Doesn’t work without a badge.”
“Figures.”
Slowly, we make our way down the hall and I pause outside one unmarked door. Suddenly, I have a flash of a wooden spoon-like paddle being shoved in my mouth. When Joe realizes I’m not walking with him anymore, he turns. “ECT room. Do you remember it?”
“A little.”
“Try not to dwell on it.”
I think he’s right, and I’m beginning to suspect the treatment has been part of why my memories have vanished.
As we walk down a little farther, Joe pauses in between the two doors located on either side. “Wilson’s your doc?”
“I think so.”
“Mine’s here,” he says, pointing to the left. “Dr. Butler. Maybe Wilson’s up here.” So I follow him farther down the hall. “Bingo,” he says, pointing to the left.
I realize we’ve been pretty lucky, considering that even though this particular hall is fairly dark, the lights from the elevator area and the hall behind us that we left are enough that we can see quite a bit. The door Joe is already jamming his paperclips into has a plate that says Catherine Wilson, MD, PhD, FACS, and I’m positive this is the large woman that spoke with my husband.
Was that just yesterday?
It doesn’t take Joe long and we’re inside. “We don’t dare turn on the light, Anna. When the guard makes his rounds, he’ll see it if he looks down this way.”
“Do they do that? And would he really notice a little light underneath the door?”
“I honestly don’t know, but if they’re worth their shit, they do. And, for all I know, they walk this hall, too.”
Even though a little light spills in from the window behind the desk into the room from a streetlamp outside, I can barely see anything. “We might as well just go back, Joe. I’m not going to be able to read a thing like this. It’s too dark.”
“Patience, baby.” He’s moving around, scrutinizing the room, and he wiggles the computer mouse. Just doing that causes the monitor to light up. “Who wanted internet access?” he asks, and there’s enough of a glow that I can see his face. Better yet, the light is shining toward the windows instead of the hall. “But that’s not all,” he says, lifting up a lab coat from the back of the chair. “I’ll cover the crack at the bottom of the door and then we can try turning on the desk lamp.”
But he already had my attention with the computer, and I’m clicking. “So much for that.”
“What?”
“It wants a password.”
Joe grins, turning on the desk lamp. There’s enough light coming from it to make searching worthwhile. He says, “Let me unlock this filing cabinet over here and then I can try searching through her stuff here for a password. Deal?”
“Sure.” His enthusiasm is infectious. While he’s messing with the lock on first four-drawer cabinet, I spy a small shelf of books on the other side. One just so happens to be the DSM-5, and I pick it up, sitting in the chair at the desk.
“Got it,” he says, and I hear the sound of metal on metal as he slides a drawer out. “Want me to unlock the others?”
There are two more and I don’t know what we’ll find, but I know Joe’s good at this. “Yes, please.”
I crack open the book but I’m hit immediately with a lot of words I don’t understand. I want to find out what mental illness might cause memory loss, but this thing’s big and wieldy and I don’t even know where to start.
“Boom!” I turn as Joe starts laughing. “It’s like taking candy from a baby.”
I can no longer resist. I look over and roll the chair back, replacing the book before making my way toward the first filing cabinet Joe unlocked. By the time I get there, he’s working on the last one.
When I peek at the top open drawer of the first one, I say, “Wow.”
“Crazy, huh? I figured all the files would be in the computer.”
I hadn’t even thought of that—and probably a good thing or I wouldn’t have made Joe go to this kind of trouble, maybe missing something important. I start looking at the tabs, flipping through them and realize this top drawer begins with A. I see Aaron, Amanda, followed by Adams, Stanley, and Anderson, Gabrielle. So I move halfway through the drawer and see the Bs soon followed by Cs. I don’t even hesitate, searching until I find a thin file marked Clawson, Anna.
Oh, will secrets be revealed in here?
It’s woefully thin, though, and I’m discouraged before I even remove it. I stand back from the drawer as I open the file. There’s a picture of me in there on the left-hand side, and in that photo I look more like I did in that magazine than I do now. Even though my eyes appear glazed in the picture, I have makeup on and my hair is long enough that it’s pulled back into a ponytail.
I tell myself it’s the look of a woman who just tried to take her life.
At least, that’s what my husband told me.
Underneath that is a form signed by my husband, an admissions form that has insurance details and intake information. I read the handwritten part, ignoring all the printed text. In an attempt to take her own life, swallowed the contents of several prescription drugs. Gastric lavage, followed by sedation. Involuntary commitment, per request of spouse. Great potential to harm self. History of depression.
This isn’t anything new. This is what Don told me yesterday, but it doesn’t open a window to my past. So I turn to the right side of the file. There are only a few pieces of paper, but I hope they tell me what I want to know. Surely, I’m meeting with the psychiatrist on a regular basis like Joe does, and Joe has told me I attend group sessions as well—so there has to be something about that, right? But there’s not and, in fact, only one of the papers has anything on it.
There’s a red sticker at the top, about the size of the pad of my thumb. Underneath, it has only these words:
Bilateral ECT, 120v, 6s, daily for 4w; 3x wkly for 4w; 1x wkly for 4w; then PRN
Diazepam, 10 mg IV every 3h; then 10 mg QID; maintenance 10 mg QD up to QID PRN
Midazolam, 1 mg slow IV every 2m PRN
Amitriptyline, 75 mg QD; increase PRN
Trazadone, 150 mg QD
Eval PRN
Behind me, I hear Joe opening drawers on the desk. “I bet this one has something,” he says and I turn to see a drawer on the desk that he’s using his paperclips on.
I say, “This doesn’t have much of anything. No history, other than what my husband told me yesterday.”
“That sucks.” He looks up. “Is that your file?”
“Yes.”
“Shit. I bet everything else is on the computer. Don’t worry. If her password’s here, I’ll find it.”
I slide the file back where it goes and then close the drawer, opening the one below it. Here are some Ds, and I can’t help but see the one that says Dublin, Joseph. I pull it out so he can see it if he wants. Unable to resist myself, I open it up.