The Story of Phelia

New York City 1978 She was getting ready for another night with the beautiful people at Studio 54, absent-mindedly brushing her long, shimmering light brown hair when she no longer recognized the reflection in the mirror and panicked. Not until chilled by the November night air, horns blaring and brakes screeching did she become aware of being in the midst of zooming traffic with no idea how she got there. Coaxed onto the sidewalk by strangers, she reluctantly returned to her apartment, nerves throbbing in terror to the hoofbeats of her heart, wondering if the time had arrived. She had come to New York to reinvent herself. For a little while it looked as though she might succeed. Because she was still a beautiful, statuesque young woman with a flawless alabaster complexion, sparkling hazel eyes and a deliberately haughty attitude, most people treated her with the utmost courtesy. She had even been given V.I.P. status at Studio 54. But for some time now, not even the upbeat disco-music and dancing strobe lights of Studio 54 could lift her spirits. Most nights she sat alone in the dark balcony oblivious to the bacchanal taking place all around, thinking of her circumstances until the music stopped and the maintenance lights came on forcing her exit into the dawn of another day remembering things she wanted to forget. Her waking hours had become filled with sadness. Some days she carried it around like a monkey on her back, but when it saturated her soul she stayed in bed wallowing in self-pity, blaming others for her unhappiness. Other days, the pendulum swung and she was responsible for her sorry state of affairs. She deserved to be miserable. It was her punishment. And the longer she thought these things, the more miserable she became. When she managed to summon enough courage to look in the mirror again, she saw the familiar Phelia and realized her thoughts were demons that were about to drive her over the edge. She had to get help. Trancelike, she put on a sweater, picked up her purse from which she took out keys, walked out the door, locked it and returned to the street where she hailed a cab. “Watervue Hospital,” she told the driver. It was the first stop of what turned out to be a long and terrifying journey. After telling the all-knowing receptionist in the emergency room why she had come to Watervue, she was escorted to the notorious psychiatric ward where a preoccupied nurse shoved a clipboard and pen into her hands and walked away. She had almost completed the admittance form when a male nurse told her to follow him into a large fluorescent-lit room filled with people who looked and smelled like they needed a bath. Loud shrieks pierced a relentless, irritating chorus of frenzied babbling. Bodies not aimlessly milling about were either draped over chairs or laid out on the cots that lined the edge of the floor beneath the pocked walls. It was as though she had walked into one of Gustav Doré’s frightening illustrations of Hell for Dante’s Inferno; flakes of fire falling like flakes of snow the only element missing. She stared in disbelief until realizing there was no sound! The people were quiet, looked calm and resigned to waiting. Or were they? Unable to figure out what was going on terrified her. Just as she was about to make a dash for the exit, the nurse that brought her to the room came back and retrieved the clipboard. “Ophelia Backer,” he said, looking her up and down. “You left out the date of your birth.” “December 30, 1949,“ Phelia said. “Insurance?” he asked. “Bill me,” she answered, wondering if she would have enough money. “Follow me,” the nurse said, and led her to an empty cot covered in what appeared to be a clean sheet. She would be seeing a doctor as soon as one was available. Meanwhile, if tired, she should nap. Nap! Here? “No way!” she said. The nurse calmly asked what was bothering her. “Are all these people ahead of me to see a doctor?” she managed. “Oh, no,” the nurse answered. He told her that Watervue had recently opened a shelter for homeless men. Once the screening process began the women and children who had accompanied the men would be bussed to a different shelter and the room would empty quickly. She would be seeing a doctor long before then, he promised. He did not tell her that most of the people in the room were part of the rapidly increasing number of former mental patients who had been discharged from hospitals with prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs and, depending on who you asked, ended up on the streets as either beneficiaries or victims of the state’s deinstitutionalization plan. Phelia saw a doctor shortly after the nurse left; a psychiatric intern who admitted her as a voluntary patient for the mandatory observation period that subjected her to physical and psychiatric examinations by several interns and doctors after which she was discharged with a prescription for the pill form of the antidepressant drug she was injected while in the hospital. The medication helped her get on with her solitary life for almost a month until she became paranoid. She stopped taking the drug. Her paranoia regressed but was replaced by a state of depression requiring another visit to the hospital. The doctors insisted she was told paranoid ideation was a probable side effect of the drug she had been given. She belligerently maintained that had she known she would not have taken it. After being given a medication that calmed her, she was offered a different drug; a new drug compounded to prevent and control depression without inducing paranoia. After reluctantly agreeing to take it, and to continue doing so if it did what they said it would, she was discharged. Despite her previous complaints, they didn’t mentioned side effects! She didn’t ask! Three weeks later, after successfully managing to get through the Christmas doldrums, she returned to the hospital bitterly complaining that she was now paranoid and depressed, insisting the medication was responsible for her symptoms. She was readmitted, again as a voluntary patient, interviewed, examined and tested by several more doctors and interns who recommended another medication they believed would alleviate her symptoms. She refused to take the new drug; afraid it would produce adverse side effects she couldn’t handle. The doctors, believing the drug would be effective in controlling or alleviating her symptoms, refused to release her until she agreed to try it.