My Funny Farm - Chapter 6 – They’re Coming To Take Me Away – Part 2 of 2

 

My Funny Farm

By Karen Singer

 

Chapter 6 – They’re Coming To Take Me Away – Part 2 of 2

 

I felt like I had been arrested and was being sent to prison.  In a way, that’s exactly what was happening.  The family all got left behind and I was put into a police car and driven to the city behavioral center…aka the looney bin…aka the nut house…aka the funny farm.  Just the stigma of being put in there bothered me to no end.  I felt so…not embarrassed, but awful about being sent there.  My family, for good or bad, was quickly left behind and I was on my own, being sent to a world I was both afraid of and anxious about.  I wasn’t there yet, and I already knew I only wanted to go home.

When I arrived, I was put into an office where someone talked to me for what seemed like an hour, asking me more questions then I can ever remember.  Right there in the office, he gave me a pill to swallow, and he made sure I swallowed it before he led me out and showed me to my room.  A much smaller room than my bedroom at home.  Since it was late, he told me I needed to go to bed.  Right after he left the room, I noticed my head was feeling a bit dizzy.  In minutes, all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

When I woke up the next morning, my head still felt woozy, so I stayed in bed until they came and forced me to get up.  Another pill, then breakfast.  After that second pill, I felt worse than ever and only wanted to go back to bed, but they wouldn’t let me.

I had to spend some time being up and around everyone else.  It was then that I got a good look at my fellow inmates.  What a collection!  These people were nuts!  How could they put me in a place with people like them?  I just wanted to die.  A normal everyday thing.  These people had more problems than I could ever understand.  Serious problems!

At some unknown point, some guy came and got me and dragged me off to another office where I had to sit and talk with someone else…someone who surprised the hell out of me.  As soon as he started asking me questions, I had to stop him and ask one of my own.  “Why are you asking me stuff like this?  You’re a kid!”  How was I to know he had some kind of college psychological degree?

“I’m a doctor,” he told me, obviously put off by me telling him he was a kid.  “Your doctor!  Doctor Jasper.”

The kid doctor asked me his first question again, and I looked at him.  With as woozy as my head was feeling, talking to someone like him was the last thing I wanted.  So I came up with an answer to his first question.  “Kill me. Please.”  Then I answered his second question.  “Kill me.”  Funny, but I was able to answer all his questions so easily.  And all my answers sounded the same.

I did not want to be in that crazy place.  I would do anything to get out of there.  And I already knew that I didn’t want any more of their lousy pills that kept me feeling drugged and sleepy all the time.  Enough!  And that was only my first day.

James came to see me that evening, stopping by for a while on his way home from work.  I did nothing but spend that time trying to explain to him how much I hated being there and how I would do anything to get out and go home.  He impressed on me that it was only the first day, and I should give it a bit of time.  No help.

The next evening, Ashley came by to see me.  It was like having the same conversation with her that I had the night before with James.  I just wanted to go home!  And kill myself of course.

Night after night, someone from the family came to check on me, and night after night I told them all the same thing, “Get me out of here!”  I hated being there so much that I even told them I would be willing to go back to their stupid baby treatment if they would get me out of there.  To which they were all quick to point out that the baby treatment had been a mistake.  “You think?” I always replied to that one.  “But I’m that desperate to leave here!  I hate it here.  And I’m sick to death of those pills they force me to take that keep me feeling awful!  I’m tired of my brain feeling like nothing but mush!  It’s too hard to think!  Get me out of here!”

Something in my ranting must have finally sunk into them, because three weeks after I had gotten into that place, both James and Ashley showed up together for a long sit-down talk.  “Are you going to get me out of here?” I asked right away.

“Maybe,” James replied.

“That depends,” Ashley added.

“On what?  I hate it here!”

“We know!” Ashley told me.  “You’ve told us that countless times now.  You’ve told everyone countless times.”

“Then take me home.”

James shook his head and said, “Dad, listen.”

“To what?”

“Ash and I have sat down a few times now with Doctor Clive.”

“She was a whole lot better than that high school kid they have trying to talk to me in here.  He’s not old enough to know anything.”

James ignored my comment about the doctor.  “Dad, the reason we went to talk with her, was to try to come up with some kind of workable plan to take care of you at home.”

“You don’t need a plan.  Just get me out of here.”

“Dad,” Ashley said.  “Now listen for a minute, because this may sound a little…odd.”

“Very odd,” James agreed.

“What?” I asked.

“From our first meeting with Doctor Clive, she told us that using the baby treatment on you wasn’t really a bad idea.  It was very…unorthodox, but the biggest problem with it was that we never thought it through the way we should have.”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” I said.  “Those pills they make me take keep my head feeling like I’m in a thick fog.  You’ll have to explain that to me.”

“Well,” James said.  “You miss Mom, right?”

“More than you’ll ever know.”

“And missing her has you really depressed,” James continued.

“That’s…true,” I admitted.  “I just feel…  I miss her.  So much!”

“Yeah, we get that,” he replied.  “You’ve also told us that it would be nice to have no more responsibilities about anything.”

“Dying would take care of that nicely,” I pointed out.

“We’re not going to let you do that, Dad!” Ashley told me sternly.

James continued.  “The only thing we know of that seems to interest you anymore, is the weird porn you were spending so much time looking at on the computer.”

“So you’re condemning me for that too?  Just get me out of here.  Just let me die!  Or better still, just kill me yourself!  Trust me, you’re family.  I won’t press charges.  Besides, I’ll be dead.”

“Dad,” Ashley said.  “Stop it!”

“Why?”

“Dad,” James said.  “We’re not condemning you…exactly.”

“Huh?  What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Like we said, we’ve been working with Doctor Clive, and we think we’ve come up with a workable plan to…help you.”

“Help me?  Help me kill myself?  That’s the only help I want.”

“We certainly hope not,” Ashley told me.

“A workable plan for you to live at home,” James told me.

“I’m in!” I said.  “Get me out of here.”

“Dad,” Ashley said.  “You better listen to this, because you may not like it.”

“But we hope that because of your…interests,” James said, “you might actually like it.”

“It’s these stupid pills they make me take,” I told him.  “You’re really confusing me.”

“Dad,” Ashley said.  “We’d like to go back to the baby treatment again, but…it will be different.”

“Different?  How?”

“No more bondage like Emily and Jared were so fond of,” James said.

“Well, not quite,” Ashley added.

“I’m even more confused,” I said.

“Dad,” James said.  “I’m going to level with you.  “Doctor Clive suggested that it might be better if we didn’t explain everything to you.  Just know that we would be trying to make you live completely like a baby again.”

“Most of the time,” Ashley added.

“Yes.  Most of the time,” James agreed.  “But there would be other differences too.  For instance, you seemed to be interested in a lot of the crossdressing porn you were looking at too.  We would be incorporating that in it as well.”

“So you’re going to make it all…weirder on me than it already was?” I asked.

“Um…” James said as he considered that.

“Yes!” Ashley confirmed.  “We would.  Absolutely.  But the big difference this time is that you might get rewarded for certain things, or punished for other things.  And strangely enough, some of those rewards might actually seem like punishments, but they’re all going to result in something we hope to see you enjoying.”

“And Dad,” James said.  “We’ll tell you this much up front.  Every time you mention wanting to die, you’ll be punished.”

“But at the same time,” Ashley added, “going a certain amount of time without thinking of committing suicide will gain you rewards.”

“And who’s going to decide all this?” I asked.

“James and me,” Ashley told me.  “Together.”

“You’re both moving into my house?”

“No,” James replied.  “Emily and Caitlin will handle most of your care.”

“How about Bill and Jared?” I asked.  “How much will I have to worry about them?”

“Probably some,” Ashley admitted.  “Emily and Jared have…separated now.  He moved out after almost being arrested that night.  And Bill…well, it seems that Caitlin isn’t as onboard with Bill’s financial plan for the future as he is, so those two are…not separated yet, but Caitlin is afraid it might happen.”

“Bottom line,” James said.  “If you decide you want to leave here and go home under our conditions, it’s going to be back to full time diapers for you again.  But…we hope…you’ll get better treatment this time.”

“Your bottom line,” I said considering that.  I was about to tell them that I didn’t care, but Ashley cut me off.

“Dad!” Ashley said.  “Don’t answer.  Don’t tell us yes or no.  Not yet.  We’ll be back tomorrow and talk about it again.”

“Yes,” James agreed.  “Take some time to think this through.  Remember the situation you left that you complained about so much.”

“And rightfully so!” Ashley admitted.

“Dad,” James said.  “We’ll see you tomorrow.  And don’t forget, I love you.”

“Yeah,” Ashley said as she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.  “And I love you too.”

They walked out after giving me hope.  Hope of…what?

I was supposed to think about everything they had offered?  How could I think with what those darn pills did to my brain?  I had already figured out that the purpose of those pills was to prevent me from doing much thinking.

I spent that night and all the next day trying to remember everything about what I had to put up with at Emily and Jared’s hands before I had been stuck in this miserable place.  As the day wore on, I pictured that and tried to compare it with the other inmates that constantly surrounded me, reminding me that I was one of them…another nut case.

To be, or not to be.  That wasn’t my question.  I knew the answer to that.  I didn’t want to be, but nobody seemed to care about my feelings on the subject.  So the new question boiled down to what kind of nutcase I wanted to be instead.  And then I had another session with my high school age psychologist.  He helped me solidify the best answer to my dilemma just by laying eyes on him.

That evening, when Ashley and James came and went over everything again, I was already certain of my answer.  “I don’t care anymore,” I told them both.  “Just get me out of here!”