CHAPTER 78

2025-08-20

Just arrived (Cantonese for "just arrived"). For safety's sake, I could only keep a low profile and observe.

After completing all the paperwork and checking into the psychiatric ward, I felt like a frightened bird, completely insecure. I feared being bullied, misunderstood, and framed. I was extremely cautious and low-key. Looking back, I think it was delusional, not hallucinations. It was characterized by exaggerating all unfavorable possibilities.

My self-esteem plummeted, and I believed myself to be a failure, which led me to my admission to the psychiatric hospital. During the paperwork process, in conversations with the medical staff, I felt that most of them didn't believe the reasons for my concerns and my situation, leaving me feeling very isolated. When a few staff members understood my predicament, I felt a sense of connection restored and a sense of relief. But at the same time, I reminded myself that my concerns were real, and the pressure of the predicament suddenly overwhelmed me, a very conflicting feeling. It turns out that whether others understood my situation or not could become stressful.

There were about more than a dozen patients in the ward, a mix of men, women, young and old, and of diverse races. At the end of the hallway lived an elderly, weathered Asian man who lay in bed constantly, his hair white and his room unkempt. A woman, a visitor, kept him company. I worried if I stayed in the ward for too long, would I become like him?

There were three to five people, including a young woman dressed as a man, all expressionless, taking turns pacing the hallway. As a newcomer, I worried they might hurt me, so I avoided eye contact to avoid causing trouble. On the one hand, I had suicidal thoughts, but on the other, my survival instinct remained. (I now completely oppose the inclusion of psychiatric patients and those with developmental disabilities in euthanasia.)

Later, I started pacing myself. Firstly, walking aids recovery, something I always do after admission, especially after surgery. Secondly, hospital life is monotonous and boring, and pacing the wards was a way to relax.

I remember a middle-aged male patient of South Asian descent pacing briskly, his expression tense. That night, I went to the cold, pungent bathroom and found it filled with the smell of cigarette smoke. I quickly returned to my room, fearing the staff would mistake me for smoking. Suddenly, I heard a commotion. The staff asked the residents to stay in their rooms while they investigated the source of the smoke and who had violated the rules. After a ward round, they found both the evidence and the offender, and his free time was reduced as punishment.

Every day, one or two residents had to stay in their rooms full-time to prevent them from escaping during daytime elevator hours. The hospital had to arrange for outsourced caregivers, both men and women, to stand guard outside the ward doors. The next day, while I was walking around, I helped a very friendly man guard the door who asked me to translate a few words in Cantonese for him.

A few days later, a new resident arrived, and he dealt a heavy blow to my pride as a helper. I recognized him; he was my eldest son, Lun's, new roommate. He had trouble adjusting to life in the group home and had caused big troubles, requiring psychiatric intervention. He now lived in the same ward as me, next door.

While walking upstairs with fellow residents for a group activity, I ran into the manager of Lun's Home in the hallway. We'd known each other for thirteen years, and she had just arrived to discuss the admission of a new resident. I asked her if Lun was doing well, as I hadn't had the energy to drive for some time and had stopped visiting him. After she consoled me, I suddenly thought about whether I might never see Lun again. Overwhelmed with grief, I burst into tears.