E15. More Psych Ward

We return to Station 64 as Sadie remembers the joys of a locked psychiatric ward where clothes, movies, and music become a lifeline. 

Outside the hospital walls, on the University of Minnesota campus, protest, freedom, and the first Earth Day swirl like a living promise. In staff notes, Sadie is “blossoming," yet a call from her mother triggers a home visit. We unpack why survivors keep abuse secret, how shame and fear of being labeled “bad” keep us silent, and what it takes to start building a new self-image.

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Special Thanks to our supporters, who have made this podcast possible.

• Lucy Mathews Heegaard: Audio Engineer 
  • with music via Epidemic Sound
• Terry Gydesen: Photographer

• Polly Kellogg
• Kate Tillotson
• Dawn Charbonneau
• Jacob Wyatt
• Molly Tillotson
• Julian Bowers
• Wendy Horowitz
• Pat Farrell
• Lynette Tabert
• Laura Jensen
• People's Farm Collective
• Deborah Copperud of "Spock Talk" podcast

Transcript

Welcome And The Story Setup

Speaker 1 0:03

Welcome to the Sadie Green Story about an older adult looking back on her abusive childhood. It's a conversation between Sadie and myself, Pam Colby, her longtime friend. We are exploring how early trauma can affect a lifetime. Thanks for joining us. Hi Sadie. Hey there, Pam. So we're back at the Psych Ward, where you really found yourself. And I love your stories, as difficult as they are.

Sewing Clothes And Friday Movies

Inside Station 64 After Dark

Speaker 0:38

Actually, these stories are good times for me. These stories on the psych ward. Good memories. Good memories. Okay. Thank you for your willingness to listen. And I will just jump in here. Another exquisite pleasure on the psych ward was having my own clothes to care for. My mother had mailed a box of clothes to the station for me. I kept them folded neatly in small stacks on the bookshelf. I washed and ironed them. I sold with intense purpose in the small room down the hall. Cotton summer pants, simple blouses, skirts made out of curtain fabric, and gathered into waistbands with elastic. I spent hours browsing through new patterns at the five and dime store. I rummaged through the local thrift stores, then clutching my odd purchases, rushed back to Station 64 to show them off to staff and ward mates so that every person in my world could share my heaven. On Friday evenings, we were taken off the ward en masse to local movie theaters, walking with my mismatched family through the university campus on those balmy summer evenings. I had no idea that monumental memories were taking shape inside my life. I didn't appreciate the enduring characters who walked beside me until they were long gone. There was tall Wren, who wore her thick coarse hair in one long braid and walked forward on her tiptoes. And Eric, who back on the ward, banged his forehead on the wall. There was ponytailed, autistic little Sherry, who clapped her hands so fast and frequently in front of her face, I wondered why she wasn't cross-eyed. There were others of us, each carrying a secret burden. But on movie nights, we moved in sync. Giddy with expectation on those Friday afternoons, we craved anonymous theaters where we could lose ourselves completely in the large imaginary lives that flickered across the screen. One night en route to the movies, I remember how the streetlights reflected streaks of color on wet sidewalks as we clustered at a corner, waiting for the signal to turn green. Then all held hands and ran pell-mill and laughing through the intersection. The wide front doors of our adored movie house opened right off the sidewalk, and once inside we bunched together down the long glass counter, admiring the candy box temptations. Amidst the staccato sound of bursting corn, we watched those fluffy kernels spill over the silver cooking bowl, while the popcorn smell that filled the lobby made our mouths water. Once under the vaulted ceilings of the inner theater, I scrunched down in my cushy flip-up seat, moving my hands in and out of the precious box of buttered popcorn. During Easy Rider, the bigger than life-sized figures on the screen felt on top of me as if I stood tiny by the roadside, in a sweep of wind, as massive motorbikes flew by. During fight scenes, when I'd see the fellow coming at my hero with his fists, I'd cower instinctively, cover my face, and jerk my knees up to my body. With each dull thudding sound of impact, each unrelenting grunt and groan, my body twisted into panicky positions. Oh my god, I must get out. All these people to climb over. Please, I cannot stand it. A clammy dampness broke out on my forehead. When the movie moved on to a different scene, I felt the tension slip out slowly through my fingertips And mechanically I'd move my hands back to the popcorn box. When the credits finally rolled on the big screen, our own cast of characters reclaimed each other as we bunched our sweaters back over our shoulders, single filed past the people, lined up for the second show, and fell out on the pavement once again. We walked home to the hospital, more pensive than before, but the resignation in us was a kind one. We may not have climbed Mount Everest together, but the comrade re was with us, just the same.

Damien And The First Real Bond

Roxanne And Learning To Rebel

Restraint Shock And Sudden Goodbyes

Speaker 5:21

The psych ward housed up to a dozen kids at once, ranging in age from five to sixteen. The front door opened into the ward and out to the psychiatric's offices. The inner ward had smooth, worn, speckly granite floors and pea green corridors with a yellow stripe painted along the wall for interest. The first room, on the right, after entering the psych ward, was a recreation room. On Monday evenings, residents gathered here with staff for mandatory meetings. After the meeting, and on other evenings, when the rest of the kids slept in their beds, I came here by myself to watch the late-night movie shows. Turning off all lights except the television screen, I'd wrap myself in cotton hospital blankets and sit cross-legged in the center of the sofa. I like to be alone here until Damien came on the scene. Thin, blonde, and quiet Damien was my first friend. Night after night we sat on the couch, watching TV shows. We didn't waste time with silly conversations because we didn't feel silly with each other. Instead, we philosophized on questions like: why do people go to church? Why were we born the way we are? And why are we in this world? We cried at the sad movies when our heroines got hurt. Damien was delicate. He liked to paint and make things out of fabric, intently focusing on details through his thick eyeglasses. He liked to help bake cakes at birthday parties, and generally preferred to be with girls rather than tumbling in the gym with other boys. One night he swore to me he'd be my real life brother, and I swore to be his only sister, and we cried because it was that important. Wrapped up in a single blanket, we waited for the staff to kick us out. They seemed to view us as just ordinary teenagers with crushes. A crush wasn't even close to what we had. What was wrong with Damien's folks? I wondered, that they didn't want him. Just because they dressed in all those fancy clothes on visiting days and lived in a big house near Summit Avenue. They didn't fool me. I was standing in the background, watching, when they came to take him home, everybody smiling and pretending, while Damien curled up in a ball inside the armchair. Was I the only one who thought this was a terrible idea? He was broken like a shattered glass inside, and they seemed to take his quietness for dull. When he was gone, I stayed inside my room all afternoon, pushed my plate away at mealtimes, and decided I would never watch TV again without him. Roxanne was my second friend. Tough and energetic with thick dark hair and tight blue jeans, she came on the ward in motion. I seemed small and colorless compared to her, until she claimed me as her important friend. With Roxanne, I practiced wearing makeup for the first time. We created wild hairdo's on each other. Roxanne was a real teenager already, like the kind I read about in books, and just being near her made me feel special too. Late at night I snuck into her room to lie on her bed and listen in the dark to her wildly exaggerated escapades. I stuck up for her when she got herself in trouble with the staff. She let me wear her clothes. During pass on summer afternoons, we climbed down the steep hills leading to the riverbank and smoked her cigarettes. Sometimes we stole upstairs inside the riverboat theater and lay flat on our bellies to look down on the performers practicing their parts below. Staff passed knowing looks between themselves and asked out loud if she might be a bad influence, but I didn't care. Her bold rebellion was a drug that spirited independence of hers kept something dormant in me, opening a window to the world. Most thrilling of all, however, the thing that made me sore each time she said it was the sure, possessive way she called me friend. A favorite time of day for Roxanne and me were mornings spent in occupational therapy, commonly referred to as OT. The unconventional chaos of this high-ceiling, sunny room seemed out of place inside a hospital. Paint splattered the varnished floorboards, paper mache masks, and odd sculptures teetered in long rows on the windowsills. Celia, our OT instructor, was not separate from the art room she was ruler of. She wore full ballooning skirts, big gaudy jewelry, and loose bold-colored t-shirts that matched the splashy posters that she thumbtacked to the walls. Her strong bare arms reached over and around our shoulders as we sat faithfully at wooden workbenches each weekday morning. We adored Celia, not only for her wild outfits and the way she wound her unruly hair in headscarves, but for the way she welcomed us, without words, into her world. She let us turn the tacky photograph up loud while we worked privately on projects, and never tired of the same two songs we played every day for weeks, from the Beatles 45, with Hey Jude on one side, and Revolution on the other. During quiet times in OT, I compulsively wove lanyards, those multicolored plastic strands the staff wore around their necks to hold their keys. I made dozens of those chains, matching colors to the seasons, or to favorite outfits of particular staff people. These lanyard gifts were practical, a necessity for every staff person who worked on a locked ward. Unlike me, Roxanne refused to make lanyards. The tools to my own prison, she called them. She was interested in leather projects. She made wide leather belts and drawstring pouches, floppy hats, and simple vests with dangly fringe. She called me her personal mannequin because I modeled the outfits for her before she made final adjustments. One afternoon, I came up the hallway from the schoolroom and saw a group of staff clustered around a hospital bed on wheels. I watched as the grown-ups clumsily tried to wheel the cart into a side room. As I slowly realized what the commotion was about, my body seemed to stay behind me while I floated forward toward the room. My friend Roxanne was on that cart. It was her voice screaming. Two men held her head and arms down as the cart was disappearing through the doorway. All adult attention was focused on the cart. I saw them pull a stiff white wrap up from the side rails. I saw them through the doorway, but my outnumbered friend was the only figure that concerned me. I hurled myself against the blonde man, pushing the back end of the cart. My screaming mingled with Roxanne's. Out of here, I heard a grown-up say, and another, get her out. Then I felt them grab my arms and lift me, pushing me back toward the hallway. Until stunned, I watched the door slam shut in front of me. I didn't see Roxanne again until the next morning at breakfast. Her screaming was all over now. We ate our instant eggs in silence. We walked together to the OT room as usual, she to work on leather billfolds, while I sat in the chair beside her, humming through a magazine. Others chose the songs that day, while we pretended on the outside everything was still the same. Except for when I leaned toward her and proudly whispered, I will not make their lanyards anymore. Soon after Roxanne disappeared from Station 64, patients often were not privy to why or when another patient left the ward, or even why or when they themselves might be asked to get their things together. I don't know where she went. The last image I have is watching her walk backwards down the hall, swinging large lumpy bags on both her arms in an attempt to wave goodbye. Passing by her bedroom door that afternoon, I noticed how the usually cluttered and overflowing dresser by the bed was closed and empty. The smooth floor, now bare of tossed clothing, seemed to stretch out further than before. I noticed the bedclothes folded neatly around the mattress corners, immaculate and formal. I pulled the door shut softly, surprised at how loud the latch clicked when it closed.

Speaker 1 15:05

Wow, Sadie, you've really read so many hard things during this podcast, and yet this seems to be something that's really hitting you. Yeah.

Speaker 15:14

Particularly hard to read. I'm surprised. But it was so significant to be there. And those first friends were so important.

Speaker 1 15:24

That's what really strikes me is that other than your grandma, you're really feeling love for people. And you do have such a capacity for love. And so you're letting your heart open up, and yet you're in a psychoard, and so it's not really very safe to fall in finding friends.

Speaker 15:43

It seemed really safe.

Speaker 1 15:45

Yeah, but I mean there wasn't a guarantee that these people were gonna continue in your life.

Speaker 15:50

Yes. Yeah. And did you ever know what happened to Damien? I did not. He lived on Fairview Avenue. And I've every time I'm on Fairview Avenue.

Speaker 1 15:59

Do you have an idea why he was in the side coordinate? I don't know that either. Yeah. And then Roxanne, wow, what I just love that when you whispered that you're not gonna make any more landmarks for her. Or for them. For staff. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 16:14

But I love the staff. Yeah. I loved being there. The staff were great. We had tremendous freedom, really. Really?

Speaker 1 16:21

And and you unlike either of them, you were there because of needing to get away. You weren't being drugged, but you were being fed, which was what you really needed.

Speaker 16:33

And yeah, I think they didn't know what to do with me. Plus, I had these two surgeries scheduled.

Speaker 1 16:37

And they must have been just so excited to see you become you from the person who entered.

Music Campus Protest And Earth Day

The Home Visit And Keeping Abuse Secret

Speaker 16:44

They have daily documentation in the notes, and so I have lots and lots of every staff person would write just a sentence. Uh-huh. And it starts out, wants to be alone, doesn't engage with other residents, very quiet. But pretty quickly, really, I start getting involved in yeah, I really blossomed. I really blossomed. You can just hear that's wonderful. Let's hear some more. Okay. For those parents and other adult visitors who occasionally toured the ward, beginning again at the front entrance and continuing down the hall past the aforementioned wreck and TV room, they came next to the phonograph room. This second room, no bigger than a large closet, held one heavy console, a dozen dog eared record albums, and two padded folding chairs. Two constantly played records. Simon and Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters, and the Beatles, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, wailed their favored laments daily, filling the hallway with distorted heavy bass sounds. Such freedom. Sometimes a staff person walked down the hall, holding their braided keychains to their chest to suggest we turn the volume down. But generally, they were very open-minded. At first glance, we might be children tucked away inside an institution. But timing was everything, and music seemed to fill the world in the spring of 1970. The hospital, my home, sat smack dab on the University of Minnesota campus. Outside its walls, the streets were filled with demonstrators protesting the war. The nearby Army recruiting station was bombed, and fast food chain stores were prevented from moving onto empty lots, renamed People's Park by festive all-night sit-ins. Staff persons, mostly young and long-haired, came to work wearing beads and leather sandals. On the first nationally organized Earth Day in 1970, staff loaded picnic baskets, grabbed spare blankets, and gathered patients into groups and onto elevators to guide us through the hordes of people headed to the campus mall to celebrate. Once there, we staked out a spot of grassy lawn, spread our blankets end to end, and settled in for what appeared to be a long and splendid holiday. Loud music poured across the mall from massive speakers set on stage. Rows of tie-dyed t-shirts hung on lines in vivid colors. Half-naked people, arms open to the world, danced in circles all around us. I'd never seen so many people in one place. So many kinds of people, or such a mass of moving color. And the clothes, ragged cutoffs, colorful skirts, women wearing scarves around their heads, men wearing turbans, men in robes. Flowers too were everywhere, hippies, hauling armloads, buckets full of flowers, as they passed through the crowd, reaching over bodies to put daisies into outstretched hands. Flowers floated on silky camisoles, hung in garlands like necklaces, and wolf-scented bouquets in the air. Told to check in every hour, we were released by staff to run wild through the party, to roll on the lawn, and to watch all the crazy dancers, until our bodies moved in unison. Exhilarated, wild-eyed standing in long lines for drinking water from a common garden hose. As free as we could possibly imagine, we were finally hungry and exhausted teenagers. I was so far removed from the old farmhouse, I almost forgot that it existed. But one day, my doctor called me into her office to give me some good news. Ma had called. Never having made it to requested meetings with the doctor before, we have too much work to do at home. Ma now asserted I should come home for a visit. The doctor thought this was a wonderful idea, but the doctor didn't know anything.

Speaker 1 21:32

I can hear the music.

Speaker 21:33

No, it was so fun. It was so fun. It's and it remained a soundtrack of my life, really, for decades.

Speaker 1 21:41

I mean, I can see the Sadie I met in a few years coming alive there.

Speaker 21:46

Yeah, that was an amazing day.

Speaker 1 21:48

It it's just your writing is so vivid and so rich. Thank you for that. I just can't tell you how my heart dropped when they called you in the doctor. Called you in and announced that you were gonna go on a visit.

Speaker 22:05

Yeah, and I never got along with that psychiatrist. It says in the notes, they'll even say, Susan doesn't feel comfortable with her doctor.

Speaker 1 22:16

You're keeping this secret that they were abusive, but these people are educated psychiatrists. How can they not be guessing?

Speaker 22:24

They were, but in my because I was closed in about what was really happening, it was a fight.

Speaker 1 22:32

Yeah, and I suppose they didn't really have the ability to say you couldn't go home.

Speaker 22:37

I don't know.

Speaker 1 22:38

If they would have said child refuses or Susan refuses to go.

Speaker 22:43

Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 1 22:45

Can you talk a little bit more about why you were holding the abuse secret so tightly? You thought it would come back on as a judgment about you?

Speaker 22:55

Yeah, I really thought that they would think that I was a a terrible person, that they would believe my parents, and that I was bad, that I was everything my mother said I was, that she bent over backwards for me and I was stubborn and I was selfish and I was manipulative and so you were finding yourself, but your mother's labeling and impression of you was formidable.

Speaker 1 23:19

Yeah, to conquer.

Speaker 23:21

It had it in me. It must have, it must have really been part of my own self-image. Over time, like I when I started going to school uh while I was on the psychoard, I never missed a day except for when I had surgery. So all these things that my mother said proved to be not true in this new world. But it took a while. It did take forever for me to really open up. It was just embedded in me, the secret.

Next Episode Tease And Farewell

Speaker 1 23:47

Yeah. So we're gonna come back to the psych ward next episode and see how things progress for you.

Speaker 23:55

Yes, thanks for listening, everyone. And thank you, Pam, for your support.

Speaker 1 23:59

Okay, thank you, Sadie.

Speaker 24:01

Bye for now.