THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
MONDAY, MAY 5, 2008
NEWS
5A
editor of my high school newspaper, always had respectable grades and did well on the ACT.
"Assume that your mind is like a meat grinder," the doctor says. "For Thor, it does grind, but it comes out a little slower. The way he processes information is just slower."
The rage builds up in me. I ball my hands into fists. My face is red. My heart is pounding, and I can hear it.
I stand and snarl, "You're wrong." I'm out the door, and it slams behind me.
Three weeks later, on a bright sunny day in early July, we have a family session with the psychiatrist. On this day, like most, I am agitated. I don't want to be here.
"Thor, if you have suicidal thoughts, will you alert your father?" she asks.
I stare at her and don't respond.
The mentally ill in Building No. 6 are among the last residents in this ghost town that would shut down completely soon after my release.
"You tell your father?"
"No."
"If you have suicidal thoughts, will you tell your father?"
"Then I have no choice; you must be hospitalized."
Like hell I do, I think, as I run from the room and then the building. It is the last act of freedom I will have for four months.
My dad catches me down the road. He urges me to go back, but I refuse. As we talk, a squad car pulls up beside us, and two armed officers jump out. One grabs my arm and puts me in the back of the car. I see my mom staring at me as we drive past the psychiatrist's office.
Because there are no beds available in Brainerd, the town next to my hometown, I am transported via a police van to St. Cloud.
I am put in a white, tiled room with two beds. The beds have metal bars on the side. I refuse to talk to anyone that day. All doors going out are locked.
When mom comes the next day,
I don't acknowledge her presence.
We sit in silence.
"I'm leaving," she says and stands.
Then I start talking, but I am still seething. I'm furious at the psychiatrist, furious at my parents.
On day three, I get a roommate. Jonathan is in his 30s and has spent time in prison. He holds eye contact incessantly. He has a look in his eye I have never seen before; I will come to know it is the look a man gets when he no longer has any connection with reality. Jonathan occupies his own world, stars in his own daily movie. He scares me.
"Do you smoke?" he asks. Eye contact.
Although I insist to the hospi
I look away. "Some."
"OK."
Eye contact. "I have something to show you."
He breaks eye contact to pull a cigarette from his pocket.
"Gotcha."
"Snuck it in. In my armpit. They never look there."
He produces a paper clip and a foil gum wrapper.
"Come here." He is at the electrical outlet between the beds.
damaged. The thousands of residents, insane, addicted, indigent and retarded, have moved to smaller group homes. The state had decided that institutionalization was not the best form of treatment. Just a few buildings are still open. The mentally ill in Building No. 6 are among the last residents in this ghost town that would shut down completely soon after my release. I join them in the middle of July when the grass is just beginning to brown.
He hands me the cigarette
"Now just hold this until I say so."
He jams the paper clip into the outlet and jerks it around. I can't believe what I am seeing. He has a spark. The foil wrapper smolders with embers on one side.
"Cigarette," he says hurriedly.
I hand it to him. To my amazement, he gets it lit. He offers me a puff, but I decline. He hasn't taken four or five puffs before we hear footsteps. Jonathan puts the cigarette out on his tongue. It sizzles. He rushes to the closet and puts the butt beneath a stack of shirts. Two attendants walk in. They pull Jonathan from the room.
When it is time for bed an hour later, I can't fall asleep. Jonathan is in the bed next to me, and I can't bear the thought of closing my eyes. He falls asleep as I lie in the darkness. His snores are throaty and loud. I grab my pillow and blanket and head to the front desk.
"I can't sleep in there. He snores."
The attendant tells me I can sleep in the seclusion room. It is just like the movies—a white padded room.
"This'll be fine."
- * * * *
After a week, a bed opens up in Brainerd, and I am transferred back. The dozen low-slung brick buildings strewn across green manicured lawns were built in the 1960s; a self-contained city for the
tal psychiatrist that I have no suicidal ideas, he puts me in the suicide watch unit. They take my sleevelaces and belt. I wear slippers, a T-shirt and flannel pants.
The bathroom stays locked, and I must ask for permission to go. Once inside, the attendant waits outside the door. Suicide watch patients must be observed taking a shower. I have no intention of letting a stranger see my naked body, anyway, because I have gained almost 100 pounds in a year. Fat hangs over my waist band. My torso is streaked with stretch marks.
We have no planned activities. We read old magazines and fight for control of the TV all day. After a week, I graduate to the next unit on the other side of the building. The bathrooms are not locked, and
I can also receive visitors. My family is diligent. I receive multiple visitors a day. Mom, Dad, Quinn, Will, aunts, uncles, grandparents from both sides. The few friends who have stuck with me come, too. This is a major inconvenience for the staff, because they must check each one in and out after locking up keys and wallets. Their ideal resident is utterly alone and under complete control.
For the first week, I refuse to go the mandatory group therapy session. Instead I read books in my bed. My routine: wake up, breakfast, take pills, return to bed and read, lunch, read in bed, dinner, read, watch TV, meds, bed. Repeat.
One day I read "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." It gives me an amusing perspective on my situation. I begin referring to a condescending and tyrannical staffer who wears too much eyeliner as Nurse Ratched. I meet a giant Native American with a long ponytail who has frequent seizures and anger problems. I call him Chief to everyone but not to his face. I am told to get out of bed and attend groups or my visitor privileges will be revoked. From then on, I just carry the books with me.
Unlike my three previous stops,
I make an attempt to get to know people. My roommate, Paul, is college-aged. He is nice, but he always talks about the evils of sex and says he has too much respect to do it. He talks in his sleep, but he doesn't snore.
Sheena is a 19-year-old meth and coke addict. Her fiancé is in prison. She cheats on him often and brags about it. She says her mom hired the neighbor to tape her having sex in the family truck. After it was done, Sheena beat her momma's ass. She says she will have sex with me for $800.
Archie is in his mid-20s. I like him until one day in the common room he is sitting next to me and shouts: "I'm gonna fucking kill myself, man! I CAN'T TAKE THIS SHIT ANYMORE. I don't want to live anymore." His eyes roll back in his head, and he shouts words that are not words. One staffer runs to the med room and returns with a syringe while another locks Archie in a bear hug. When they inject him in the arm, the words taper off, his eyelids droop, and his body goes limp.
I enjoy talking to an older woman. She has white hair and wears cardigan sweaters. I call her Grandma. She is delusional and talks down to everyone. She frequently tells a story about how she once got offered $100 for sex from a black man but declined. Whenever a new person is admitted, I tell her to go tell them the story, and she does. She frequently states, "This place is evil," and "This place makes you sicker than you are." I don't disagree.
"How could I possibly get that kind of money, Sheena?"
I say I'll think about it, but I don't.
"Your parents."
With the closing of the facility now planned and the job eliminations that followed, it was clear the staff had one foot out the door. We were supervised, and so long as we didn't act up, we were ignored. If we caused a problem, they confined us and took privileges.
While I see other patients allowed to go outside, inside a fenced area, I am never on the list. I spend six consecutive weeks in the dark, tiled, sterile, flickering fluorescent-lit building before my mom complains.
"He could have gone outside, but he never requested it," she's told. This is a lie.
I am rebellious. I mouth off to staffers, especially Nurse Ratched. I don't clean my portion of the room. I leave books, magazines and newspapers on the floor. I get into confrontations with fellow patients. One night, I instigate a confrontation with David, a homophobic patient in his 40s, after he angers me. I use Grandma as my go-between to send messages to him about how we should kiss and make up. Then I wink at him. David is on his feet ready to "whip my ass" when staffers are upon us and send us to our rooms.
I stop acting up when I'm told that good behavior will allow me to receive night passes. My mom picks me up on my birthday, Aug. 28. As we drive into town, she says I am acting like an alien from another planet. I see a McDonald's. We could pull over and eat if we wanted. There is a movie store. We could pick out a movie if we wanted. We are in a car, and we could drive anywhere. The idea of freedom is much better than the cake and presents I will soon receive. But those are good, too.
The next day, I'm called to a meeting with the psychologist.
"No, I feel fine."
"I can't imagine about what."
"I can't remember in my history a patient who managed to alienate an entire unit. You do know what I am talking about, correct? Is something the matter?"
"Well to name a few, I was told you have been antagonizing several patients, almost instigated ficticus last evening, inappropriately call one patient Grandma, whipped a patient with your towel, snuck a cell phone with a camera onto the unit, and have made several lewd comments to the staff. Mr. Nystrom, is this how you act at home?"
While in therapy, the psychiatrist changes my diagnosis. I am so used to this that I don't even pay attention to the new illness. This doctor says I don't have schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Disorder, or Bipolar Disorder or any other psychotic illness. Now I have Borderline Personality Disorder, an emotional dysregulation featuring extreme sensitivity and a short fuse.
"I have just gotten done talking to a group of about, oh, 15 patients outside, all of whom have serious qualms with your behavior."
The doctor says most people with BPD were abused. Were you abused?
He is mildly surprised that I have no interest in his pontifications on my illness and his perceptions on my life. I'm done humoring these people. I want to go back to my room and read.
"I already told you. No."
The doctor says the diagnosis is unusual for a young man and calls me unique. By way of explanation, he tells me I have built an "invalidated environment" where I have not learned to care for myself emotionally. Then he drones on about my emotions.
A few days later, I have a court date for a commitment hearing. They give me an attorney. I tell him I'll do the talking. Inside the courtroom, in the basement of a campus building, I tell the judge: "I understand I was put here because people thought I was a danger to myself. I don't dispute this. But I am no longer. I'd really like to get on with my life. I don't see how anyone is served by me being locked up out here."
"OK."
The judge tells me I have articulated myself better than any patient in his history of coming to the institution. He commits me anyway, citing the strong recommendations to do so from my psychiatrists.
They send me to the Regional Treatment Center in Willmar, Minn. They treat BPD with Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT.
When I first get to Willmar, I hate it. The campus looks much like Brainerd's, with brick buildings, tiled floors and fluorescent lights. My unit, for those diagnosed with BPD, is full of middle-aged women. They are all emotionally fragile and can be easily set off. I try to be nice and not cause problems, because when they get upset, they burst into tears and talk about their sad lives. For the first week I rebel and refuse to go to group while requesting a transfer back to Brainerd.
The patients are starkly different from my previous stops. Everyone is friendly. No one yells or has seizures or talks about killing themselves or has vacant looks in their eyes. Many come from abuse and do not open up, but they still want to
They allow me a cell phone and an iPod. They give me free time to play PlayStation. They give me weekend passes to go home. We have nightly group outings to McDonald's or Burger King. I savor being out.
In the second week, they tell me if I complete the eight-week program, I can leave. They say they cannot force me to go to groups, but when I call, the clock will start ticking. This is all I need to hear.
Willmar has structure. We are required to go to DBT groups. The leaders in group speak of "Interpersonal Effectiveness" and "Emotional Regulation" and using our "Wise Mind." Some of it is bunk, some makes sense. The group leaders seem to care about us, the older women and me. I am no longer taking anti-psychotic meds, and they have lowered the doses of my anti-depression pills. I start to feel better. The fog is lifting from my brain, and I think more clearly.
talk. Because I am the anomaly, the 20-year-old male who talks quickly and doesn't get easily offended, some gravitate to me. I
"This is what I've decided to do," I say. There is a conviction in my voice that I haven't felt in more than a year.
They agree to support me finan
Photos contributed by Thar Neytron
Photos contributed by The Nystrom Above: Nystrom sitts with his brother, Will; his sister, Quinn; and his father, Bob, during a spring break trip to Hawaii in 2007. By then he had given up the meds, lost 150 pounds and returned to the University of Kansas.
Upon returning home, I inform my parents I will be returning to Kansas. They call it a "terrible, terrible decision." I have enrolled in spring classes at Johnson County Community College, and I have agreed to sublease a place from a student in Lawrence. They attempt to talk me out of it.
Left: Nystrom, right, poses with Will,
Quinn, his father and his mother, Rachel,
for a family photo in Baxter, Minn., in December
critically only if I continue taking my medications and seeing a therapist. I agree.
2004. The previous month, Nystrom had been released from the mental institution in Willmar, Minn., after spending four months in
I leave for Kansas at the end of December. A few days after I arrive, I am sitting in my bedroom. It is the new year. I am looking at the orange containers that hold my antidepressants and ADHD pills. I pick them up and throw them in the garbage.
three different mental institutions.
I am done with pills. Done with crutches. Done with other people telling me how to live my life. Done with psychiatrists telling me about chemical imbalances in my brain. Fuck them. Fuck them all. I have been warned about the fatal consequences of abruptly stopping the medication. But I am no longer willing to live by Their rules and under the influence of Their medication and Their ideas. This is Freedom. Sweet Freedom.
The weeks go by much quicker than in Brainerd. They release me in early November. I walk hurriedly from the building to the car and lock the doors once inside. I am afraid they will call me back in.
"I'm done with them." My voice is strong, and my resolve is absolute.
enjoy their presence. They know I am a sports fanatic, and they let me have control of the TV when the World Series starts in October, even though they hate baseball.
"If you feel that strongly about it, we have to support you," he says. "As a pharmacist though, I am hesitant. I think it is a big mistake."
I call my dad the pharmacist the next day. I tell him I am done with the gills. He tries to talk me out of it.
One time at IHOP, when I am with friends, a drunken man throws a sausage at me and yells, "Eat it, Tubby. Eat it."
"I understand."
"You're going to need a refill of your Addlerall," he says. It is my ADHD medication.
"I'm done with them," I repeat.
He is taken off guard. But he sees a son who is finally taking back control.
"Thor, you have to at least be on that. You've been on it for five years."
"Dad, I'm done with the pills.
All of them. End of discussion."
The clouds lift in the next few weeks. I see the sun. I have friends again. I am smiling. Smiling.
I see the psychiatrist in late January. I tell him I am great, I tell him I am done
I am intoxicated with freedom. Sometimes I drive around Lawrence when I don't have anywhere to be. Sometimes I decide to skip class. Sometimes I do homework. Sometimes I play poker. Sometimes I go out. Sometimes I stay in. Sometimes I go to IHOP at 2:30 in the morning by myself for pancakes. This practice is not good for my already obese physique, and I weigh 330 pounds by the end of the semester.
"I would not suggest that," he says. "But whatever you are doing is obviously working."
with the pills. I threw them out.
I grin.
I am deeply embarrassed by my appearance and the fat I gained during my chemically-induced ordeal. While I have the freedom to do whatever I please, I am not actually free. People don't pay attention to my opinion. I am stared at. One time at IHOP, when I am with
On June 1, 2005, I quit something else cold turkey: carbohydrates. I start working out. I will not stop until I have all of my life back. In the next year, I lose 100 pounds. I apply to KU again, and I am accepted. I decide to study abroad in Costa Rica that summer. I never learn much Spanish, but I zip line through the rain forest and drink Corona and sit with new friends in the darkness and watch volcanoes erupt. I see poverty. I see wealth. I am an American, and I am free.
friends, a drunken man throws a sausage at me and yells, "Eat it, Tubby. Eat it." I seethe. Girls are out of the question.
When I return to the States and the University, I restart my diet. I don't stop until I weigh 180, 150 pounds less than my peak. I go to the recreation center everyday. Before exiting my car, I remove from my wallet the old driver's license that lists me at 325 pounds. I study the picture. I walk in driven.
I always leave the rec bone-tired. As I trudge out, I see Naismith Hall to my left. I look into the parking lot and remember a boy bleeding on the pavement. I can see his hurt. I feel it in my heart. I want to talk to him. I want to tell him to chill out, that it will all get better. Sometimes I walk to my car and tears come. Then I remember that if the boy hadn't asked for death that night, he would never have been reborn. He wouldn't have this understanding of life and death and friendship and courage and loyalty and family. Sometimes I want to turn around and walk right back into the gym and work myself until I collapse. But I always return home to get ready for the next day—one step closer to where I want to be.
I began scribbling "L2BA" on school papers, daily planners, calendars and notebooks. I get it laser-inscribed on the back of my iPod. It means Lucky to Be Alive. And I don't want to forget it. I am playing with the house's money for the rest of my life. A man who should be dead shouldn't have problems taking chances and forgiving his own faults. He should be thankful every day knowing that for whatever reason, he was meant to be here.
I am.
I will graduate on May 18. The diploma's text will read: "Thor Reabe Nystrom, The University of Kansas, Major Emphasis in Journalism, Minor Emphasis in English." But that's not everything it will say. That piece of paper will say: Determination. Resolve. Fight. Conviction. Purpose. Willpower. Persistence. Success. Failure. Happiness. Sadness. Life. Death. Blood. Sweat. Tears.
A broken man will accept it. He will look at it and he will whisper to himself that he doesn't deserve it; to never, ever think that he does. But there will be another voice in his head telling him that he has never deserved anything more in his entire life.
Edited by Dianne Smith