Reality testing

From Asylum

Your ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, as determined by the psychiatric professional. One of the classic and most basic ones consists of the questions, "Can you tell me your name? Can you tell me where you are? Can you tell me today's date?" Other reality testing may take a far more subtle form.

Once in the long ago, (1950s - 1960s maybe) I was subjected to a "sanity hearing". This paragraph reminds me of that experience.

I had decided to leave my husband and live my own life. I told him. I packed up. I insisted he drive me to my parents home in a distant city that night because I couldn't bear being with him. From there I planned to return to the city of my birth. But I didn't tell him this. He wrote several post dated checks for me to use when I got where I was going.

The intended ex-husband drove me to my parents' house that night. That's when my parents learned from me that I was leaving him behind and moving on. I told them I planned to get on a bus to somewhere in California, get off in a small town and disappear. I told them this rather than, "it's none of your business." I got a bus schedule for the next day. Daddy said he would drive me to the station to catch the bus I'd selected.

Next day my mother stood mute, stone faced. My dad disappeared. It was a very strange feeling in their house. (I had not grown up in this house) When I asked my mother where Daddy had gone, she shrugged off the question. So I continued to get dressed for the long trip.

I had taken the rollers out of my fairly long hair, and was brushing before styling it, when a sheriff's car drove into their driveway. My first thought was that something had happened to Daddy, but Daddy stepped out of the police car, looking very serious.

I asked Mama what had happened. She assumed a pity-poor-me pose, wringing her hands, said, "We are just doing what we think is best for you." I swung out hard and fast with a fist, but stopped short of Mama's jaw. I demanded to know since when was leaving a husband a crime.

I stormed into the living room from Mama's sewing room and made the same demand of the officer standing there. He told me I was being taken for a sanity hearing. Daddy explained, "We are afraid you will get down there and get involved with the wrong kind of men. We can't let you do that."

I exploded with rage at Daddy! I didn't get all of it out before I told the officer, "Let's go. Let's get this over with".

I felt nothing but contempt for both parents, who I'd learned had been busy arranging with my husband for the sanity hearing. He began it in the town where we lived, but when I went to my parents' home, I was in a different county, so it took Mama and Daddy, together with the husband, to make new arrangements.

The checks the husband had given me were no doubt useless, so in the back seat of the Sheriff's car, I ripped them to shreds and threw them at Daddy's head. He was sitting in the front seat. I yelled, I raged. I didn't leave one second of quietness in that car. When I got out of it at the state hospital, I was still making noise.

Now I suppose you could say that I was out of control. Maybe that I was having a psychotic experience. Maybe I was just an hysterical woman. Say what you want. I was experiencing feelings of betrayal, frustration, anger, determination to maintain, and expressing them like a new born babe - loudly, wordlessly.

So I'm in a room with a long table in the middle. Three or four men are seated opposite of me. The questions came:

"Can you tell me your name? Can you tell me where you are? Can you tell me today's date?"

I knew my name and I knew I was in a room with a long table in the middle. I knew I'd once and for all left the home of my husband, and knew that I'd never live with my parents. So I tapped on the table in front of me, and announced in a fairly even tone of voice, "I'm right here."

One of the men said quietly, "I didn't understand your answer. Would you please repeat it." He wanted to know if I knew where I lived.

I again tapped on the table, and said loudly, firmly, "I live right here, my hair a mess, with the clothes on my back and no money." One of the men read my parents' address to me and asked if that was my home.

I think at that point the reality of the situation hit me, and I burst into tears. Through sobs, I asked for an attorney, for my priest, and was denied both. So I continued to cry, with my head on my arms on that table.

After awhile, one of the men asked, "What do you want to do?"

As best as I can remember, I said, "I've left my husband, my parents have betrayed me, I have no where to go, no way to get there, and no money, so take me to the nut house. I'll figure out what to do there."

I was taken to the nut house.

I've always wondered whether I was taken to the nut house because I was deemed to be psychotic or because I had requested to be taken there. Once there, I was put into a room by myself, and I cried for three days. Everybody left me alone to sob out my misery. Somebody brought me food, and there was a pot under the bed.

The day arrived I didn't feel a need to cry anymore. I was taken to see a doctor, who began to arrange to release me to my parents. I refused to return to the husband, most definitely refused to have anything to do with my parents. I refused to be released until I could walk out on my own.

The doctor arranged for me to stay until I could set up new living arrangements for myself. I left the hospital when I got damned good and ready to leave. My husband probably got stuck with the bill for my room and board.

My priest and an attorney friend came to visit me. I told them both I wouldn't leave the hospital until I was good and ready. They no doubt helped to arrange that. They knew my husband.