Poor Mary - A Tale of Schizophrenia

The following Saturday arrived and Sylvia was to make her first visit to see her mother at the mental hospital. It seemed that she was to go by herself, for no one offered to accompany her. It was a daunting prospect for a seventeen year old girl. A normal hospital she could handle - but a mental hospital! She found out how to get there and it involved two bus journeys each way. Her grandmother gave her the exact money for the bus fares!

Sylvia had no idea what to expect and she worried all the way of the journey which took a long time. At last she reached the mental hospital, having had a long walk after alighting from the second bus. Crowds of people, obviously all hospital visitors, were making their way towards the grim ugly building which stood at the top of a hill. Sylvia shuddered as she noticed the bars at the windows.

"My mother is incarcerated in there", she thought. Surely this was more like a prison than a hospital. Enormous great doors stood at the entrance to the building and were obviously locked and barred from the inside.A tall clock tower crowned the slate roof and on it was a great clock with Roman numerals and large black hands. It was one minute before two o'clock, and not one second before the hour was any attempt made to open these doors.

The crowd stood patiently waiting. Not many people were engaging in conversation of any kind, and their faces were gloomy, their eyes turned to the ground, their feet shuffling uncomfortably. At the stroke of two could be heard the sound of bolts being drawn, and the rattling of keys. As the great doors swung back the crowd surged forward, carrying Sylvia with it. A gaunt grim faced lady, dressed in a nurses uniform, went ahead of the crowd, having first pushed the doors to and relocking them. Again Sylvia shuddered, not relishing the idea of being locked in this prison of a building.

The grim faced nurse led the crowd down miles of corridors and each time they came to another door it had to be unlocked, then relocked behind them. Eventually the crowd was ushered into an enormous hall round the edges of which were rows of chairs. Sylvia stood a while, uncertain what would happen next. The rest of the people, obviously used to the routine, made a dash to grab a chair each, and to reserve one for the patient.Sylvia followed their example and sat down. She looked round at the dismal room, its walls painted a dull brown. There were bars at the large windows and not a picture in sight. A watery sunshine flooded through the curtainless windows and lay in slanting geometric shapes across the floor.

The sound of jangling keys came from behind another door which began to open at the far end of the room. Several nurses appeared, each wearing an enormous bunch of keys at the waist. Sylvia then froze in horror at the sight which met her eyes. Patients were being herded into the room like animals and Sylvia recoiled from what she saw. There is no doubt that mental illness can drastically change the physical appearance of its victim. Men and women shuffled into the room, their eyes hollow, their cheeks sunken in, and many of them had no teeth. Some of them were muttering to themselves, hardly aware of where they were or who they were. Sylvia of course did not know that they were like this because they were heavily sedated in order to keep them under control.

Suddenly she saw a familiar figure shuffling amongst the rest. Surely that could not be her mother, so bowed, her once luxurient dark hair now grey and unkempt.Why was she wearing that ugly, long brown coat which was cetainly not her own? As Mary looked up for a moment Sylvia noticed that she had two bruised and black eyes - eyes which were distant - not registering their surroundings. Her cheeks were sunken and her pale lips had almost disappeared. An icy chill slid down Sylvia's spine. What had they done to her?