Inverted freedom

Freedom means you can be, walk and do what or wherever you want. The opposite of freedom is un-freedom, although this word doesn’t actually exist according to the English dictionary, I think. Anyway, you could change it in imprisonment, confinement, or lock-up. Still, I prefer un-freedom.

I lost my freedom some 7 weeks ago. First I got an IBS (‘In Bewaring Stelling’), then, last week, I got an RM (‘Rechterlijke Machtiging’), which means that they can keep me here at the clinic for a maximum of 6 months. I’m not planning to stay that long, but until now, no improvement has been made. It have been hectic times: isolation cell, violence, impulsiveness, fighting, refusing to eat or drink… It hasn’t been easy so far. Today I got – for the second time – de-separated, which means that tonight, if everything goes well, I can sleep in a normal bed in my room at the closed ward.

When and if I behave better – that is, when I don’t end up in the isolation cell again – I’ll get certain freedoms, like going for a walk under a nurse’s supervision and later even alone. The hard thing now is that I’m scared. I’m afraid to go outside. I still want to escape from this ward, but I wouldn’t know what to do outside. All the stimuli, it would be too much. So escaping doesn’t have any sense right now.

In fact, yesterday, I wanted to sit on the balcony. I couldn’t keep it up for 5 lousy minutes. Too many stimuli, I guess. I got scared, I got angry because I got scared and I decided to go back inside. We have an inside garden that belongs to the ward. Many people go smoking there. It’s not that big, so you can’t play ball or something like that. The grass is even artificial. Still, I want to be able to sit in that garden without having the slightest notice of fear, otherwise, how the heck am I going to be able to go outside??

This is what I call inverted freedom. One day, they’ll give me the freedom to go outside, and I will refuse, that is, if things keep going like this. If I’m already afraid at the balcony and the garden is as attractive as mouldy cheese, I don’t see any good coming from this. I’m afraid some syndrome that will certainly have a name - which I don’t know - is taking place right here, right now, namely that after a long period of un-freedom or confinement, people get afraid of freedom, even when this is offered to them.

It’s a bit the same as what is happening right now. Call it psychosis, call it a fantasy world, but I’m sometimes in it, and then I’m pretty scared because it isn’t a beautiful fantasy world, but when I get out of it, I reconsider my options and observe that there’s nothing left but this boring closed ward of the hospital. Let me tell you about the fantasy world. It’s not a beautiful story, so consider yourself warned. It’s a story that starts with a riot here at the ward. The Snake Princess and the other three voices agreed that I have to be the leader of the riot. It starts in the Comfort Room: throwing chairs, shattering glass. Then the nurses’ office: broken glass everywhere, papers everywhere, chairs and computers destructed. As all the patients join in, we can easily take the nurses hostage. We put them all in line in the kitchen, hands behind their back. As we don’t have weapons, we’ll have to do with brute force. Then the leaders, including me, put everything on fire and we flee to the ward on the other side of the building, also a closed ward, to free our fellow patients over there. We act in the same way. As we have the keys from the nurses from our ward, we can get in easily. We set all the patients free and keep the nurses hostage. Then we set everything on fire. And then we flee. Unfortunately, the police have been warned, so we can’t really escape. It ends up in a bloodbath, many of us dead. None of the hostages survives the fire.

 

This is the fantasy world I live in right now, with the slight alteration that I won’t be the leader, however hard the voices are pushing me. Still, there are a lot of others who could be leaders. I’m afraid this will happen. I’m afraid that I’ll be considered a traitor because I put this on my blog. I’m afraid they’ll shoot me. Strange, isn’t it, wanting to die, but not wanting to be shot…

One day, I’ll get back my freedom. When is still the big question. I’ll first have to adapt to the garden, to the balcony, and only then to the outside, which means T-I-M-E, time I don’t have. I wanna get out of here as soon as possible!