Why Ice Cream Is The Currency Of The Psych Ward

I was moved from the ward to a solitary room after my escape attempt from the psych unit.

If this seemed like an over-reaction to my abortive bid for freedom, they put me on High Dependency for good measure with not one but two psych nurses with me at all times.

Unlike the rest of the staff who wore cardigans and jumpers over their uniforms, my two new minders wore crisply starched nurse gear with razor sharp creases. Kevin was the smaller of the two and looked ex-Army, specifically ex Physical Training, the ones with tight cropped hair and neat moustaches. Kevin was unfailing polite when telling me not to lock the toilet door, or stay away from the elevator buttons or emergency exit near the stairs.

With him, almost Steinbeckian, was Dave. Dave was big, really big. Dave didn’t look as if he worked out, he ate out. Dave didn’t talk much. He just looked at me like he was still hungry.

The only time I was without my minders was after lights out. This was, of course, a misnomer as my room was opposite the nurse’s station and the door was wedged open so they could keep an eye on me. I was still not sleeping and I measured the nights in shift changes and the smell of burnt toast.

If it sounded oppressive, it was. I had felt locked in mentally and now I was physically, too. I wasn’t going anywhere. It truly was purgatory.

I’ve never abided routine but routine is the beating heart of hospital life. And no more so than in a psychiatric unit. Routine underpinned everything like a dull toothache.

Curtains open, ablutions, breakfast, common room, meds, visitors, common room, lunch, common room or therapy, visitors, evening meal, games room, common room, meds and bed.

It bored me to tears but over the weeks it became reassuring. It was the only order that I could relate too. My mind was still galloping at a tremendous pace and my ward diary has the same phase over and over at the top of each page: ‘I wish I could concentrate more.’

It was probably a side effect of the war being played out by the anti-psychotics but it was having other side-effects, too. I felt detached and often only referred to myself in the third person. I’d forgotten how to write and I could only write backwards, like mirror writing, which I could read but no one else could. Clearly my brain was fighting its own battle in there.

The psychiatric unit was divided into P1 — our floor — and P2 upstairs where staff didn’t wear uniforms. Kevin wouldn’t let me go up there. If I even looked at the stairwell, Dave smacked his lips.

P1 was for cases like mine; acute emergency admittances. P2 was where ex-P1s went to rehabilitate to the outside world before being released.

I wasn’t the only one in P1 with issues. Mostly people came and went without reference to the long-termers like me but there was a handful of us who were stuck there. Most of my common room time was spent writing, smoking to kill time and alleviate boredom, and playing chess with a guy from Darlington called Brian. Brian was one of the smartest guys I’d ever met. A capacious brain fast as lightning and a mordant wit. He always wore his grey (always grey) shirts buttoned up to the top with no tie and his sleeves rolled down and fastened. He was a chain smoker and usually had one in the hand and one in the ashtray on the go.

He was also a paranoid-schizophrenic. By and large he kept to his med schedule — the nurses saw to that — but his paranoia was always on edge. He refused anything that didn’t come out of a sealed packet or tin.

‘They put bromide in everything, Gaz. Stops us wanking,’ he’d lean over, faux-whispering behind his hand like a hammy actor, always loud enough for the nurses and visitors to hear.

Breakfast was only fresh fruit or Ski yoghurts. He’d dodge lunch but he was starving by evening meal. The problem was evening meal was cooked on site and he refused to touch it. The only thing that was sealed was the ice cream which came in little tubs of strawberry, chocolate or, if you were lucky, Neopolitan. But we only got one serving each because ‘those are the rules’.

It soon became clear that the only way Brian could be fed with any satisfaction would be with tiny tubs of single serving ice cream. And it also became clear that he’d swop cigs and small change for his favourite — Neopolitan.

And that’s how the ice cream economy began.

Next time: How Did You Get Those Scars?