ABSTRACT
This chapter explores women's first-person experiences with the mental health establishment. It forces you to cut deep straight lines down the inside of their arms and then people weep with relief for a focusing pain. Because the pain, the real pain, is psychic and ethereal, terrifying and inescapable. Group therapy this morning. Several members had just returned from ECT. They are docile, blank, momentarily relieved from intractable depression. There is so much anxiety this morning. It is difficult not to shake, not to want to scratch, not to become loud and aggressive. Discharged home and into the Day Hospital program. She sees Dr. Hall this morning. She tells her about narcissistic personalities. She immediately feels a scream forming in her chest. It almost reaches her mouth but she clench her teeth and hold it in. she feel screams rising up often. She has to bite her lip.
