When I was in the hospital for 8 months they would grant weekend passes. You had to earn them though on a point system. If you made your bed you got a couple points, if you attended a class you got a couple points, if you picked up cigarette butts in the back yard you got a few points and so on. At the end of the week, if you had enough points you could get a weekend pass. It took me awhile to learn this, the first few months I didn’t do anything but eat, sleep and walk.
When I finally started earning passes my dad and mom or my sister would come pick me up on a Friday and I would spend the weekend at their house and then on Sunday my dad would take me back. This was the second year of my illness and I was suffering and really, really screwed up.
When my dad dropped me off he would always walk me inside. The hospital had these big wooden doors to get inside the hospital. You went through those doors and you were in the lobby. There was another door leading inside that the nurses had to buzz you in.
Lastly, there was the locked door into the actual ward. This door had a small window that you could look through and see the inside of the hospital. You could see the patients walking around and see the nurses and the nurses station. Me and my dad would be standing there and a nurse would let me back in. I would say goodby to my dad and walk back inside.
My dad told me years after I got out that as I walked away he would look through the small window and he would see me shuffling down the hallway amongst a bunch of patients in gowns, with some people laying on the floor, some people would be acting weird and some would be screaming and arguing and he told me later that every time he saw me walk away through all this he felt like crying. He was a tough guy but it was really sad and it just showed how much he cared about me. I was touched when he told me that.