In 1982 I spent 8 months in a locked psychiatric hospital. It sometimes got frightening but mostly it was boring. I suffered tremendously every day and they put me on a very high dose of medication. It was twice the maximum dose that patients are allowed to be given now. A year or two later after I got out I was seeing a psychiatrist who had gone to college for 12 years and who had been in practice for 7 years and he told me that’s the third highest dose of that particular medication that he had ever heard of anyone taking.
But anyway, I survived the hospital and from there I moved into a nice Residential Treatment Home. 9 months later I was given a job in a hot tub facility owned and ran by a young married couple. This was 1983 and I don’t even know if they still have these. This place rented out small private rooms in it’s building. Each room had a hot tub, a bed, a shower and we also supplied towels and soap and music was piped into each of the 9 private rooms in the building. We charged $7.50 an hour to use the room. If you’re thinking that it sounds like the people who rented the room were probably having sex than you guessed right.
Anyway, I worked there for four years and during the last year that I worked there I was smoking crack. And to tell you the truth I was psychotic a large part of the time. But I did what I was asked. When they said, “Nick, carry those ten 100 lb sacks of rock salt from the back of the building to the upstairs rooms”. I said,“Sure”, and I lugged each those ten sacks up a flight of stairs to the second floor. I couldn’t even carry one of those 100 lb bags of salt up a flight of stairs now.
When they said , " Nick, we rented a dump truck. Load all this junk inside and drive it to the dump in the next city and dump it, I said, “Sure”, and I did it even though I had never driven a dump truck before in my life. And when they said, " Nick, drive up 50 miles north to San Francisco with Jeffry the maintenance man and pick up a brand new hot tub" , I said " OK" . And there I was in the City by the Bay, happy as a lark and enjoying the sights.
I did various other things too. Whatever they asked. Go to the mountains with the boss and all the other employees for a picnic? Sure. Drive the bosses BMW to the car wash to get it washed and detailed ? Sure. Take ten huge sacks of dirty towels to the packed Laundromat on a Saturday afternoon to wash and dry and fold with people complaining to me because I used ten washing machines and then ten dryers at once? Sure, no problem.
Yeah, looking back, it was interesting time for me. I was not happy most of the time, in fact, most of the time I was downright miserable and suffered SERIOUS bouts of agoraphobia, depression, delusions, paranoia, unreality and fear. But I kept on truckin through it all, and you know what? I did a boatload of fun things even though I wasn’t happy all the time. I had a couple friends, I dated even though getting a girl to go out with me was like pulling teeth. I lived on my own around that time and had a circle of friends and I partied with the “in” crowd of the affluent town I lived in at the time. One day, I mingled with the rich in the dorms of Stanford University and the next day I kicked it with the drug dealers and murderers of the small town a few miles away. I made friends with hookers and I made enemies of the thugs and people who ran the streets.
I went to family therapy, I visited my sisters and their friends. I watched TV and read books. I guess I’m just rambling now, but back then (and mostly now too), if I got asked to do something, I did it, whether it was work, parties, going out to eat, vocational programs, group therapy, playing tennis or visiting my parents. Anyway, that’s it. Here’s a toast to the future!