"Harlan Ellison - Paingod & Other Delusions" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ellison Harlan)

I won’t use the young woman’s name for reasons of libel that will become clear as you read the letter. The
story to which she makes reference is titled “Lonelyache” and it appears in my collection I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I
MUST SCREAM [Pyramid Books, 1974]. It is about a man who comes to unhappy terms with his own overpowering
guilt about being a loveless individual. The “Discon” reference is to the World SF Convention held on Labor Day 1974
in Washington D.C.

Dear Harlan:
We spoke briefly at Discon concerning reading sf to the mentally ill-your sf among others’. Something
happened the other day that I thought might interest you.
I am presently working in the one medical-surgical building that - - has. Since most of my patients are in
here for only very short stays, there has not been much opportunity for me to continue the reading/therapy that I had
been doing in another, quieter building. (Also, having IV bottles and bouncing E KG’s to baby-sit leaves little time
for other pastimes, however therapeutic). (And furthermore, I’m working midnight shift now-which cuts down
somewhat on people interested in being read to).
Anyway. In this madhouse of a building we have, among wards intended to hold up to twenty-five, one
which cannot house more than seven; Ward 6A; otherwise known as Wounded Knee (from a time when we had five
fractured patellas up here at once). A fracture ward, as it were, which also houses diabetics being newly-regulated,
and staph infections, and new heart attacks who’re healing. Rather a quiet place as contrasted to most of this
madhouse (pardon unintentional pun), and since I came back from Discon, my very own ward (on nights).
We have up here at present a patient who has put more employees of various sorts out on compensation for
various injuries of various sorts than any other patient in the hospital.
The reason for this is hardly any fault of hers; the fault lies with the aforementioned employees, who worked
constantly (maybe unwittingly, but that doesn’t excuse them) to drive her a good deal more insane than she ever
was to begin with. The syndrome is easily described: A) Some facet of our enlightened state hospital system (the
Earth should only swallow it) enrages/tortures an already hurting mind to the point where it can no longer control
itself and the person attacks the first thing that comes to hand. Eventually, an employee steps in to halt the mayhem,
and gets mayhemmed himself B) The word goes around from staff to staff, from staff to patients, eventually is voiced
right in front of the sick person involved: “That one is nuts, will kill you if you turn your back, goes bananas at the
drop of a hat, etc. ad nauseam...” C) The person thinks, “I haven’t been too well lately, these are attendants and
nurses and such, they say I’m crazy; who am I to prove them wrong? So I’ll be crazy, I’ll attack everything in
sight...” and so it goes, and the ugly circle turns on itself. Follows thereupon much Thorazine, many camisoles, long
hours in seclusion which do no one any good. Things get worse.
As it was on the night of this past July 4th. The lady who is now one of “MY PEOPLE” was in seclusion-as
usual-on a third-floor ward. It was hot. No one would bring her a drink of water. Also, her room stank-as might have
been expected: no one would take her out to the john, she had long since stopped asking, and had used the floor.
The stench, and the heat, and her thirst all combined, and she rose up and determined to go OUT. Naturally, as she
later explained it to me, they would not let her out. So she reached out, heaved at the screening that she had been
yanking on for the past five years, managed to detach it, and went OUT. Three floors down.
Naturally, she had fractures. The right humerus, the right tibia and fibula, a re-fracture of the left tibia and
a new one of the left ankle. (Amazingly, that was all-no pelvic or spinal involvement.) She was sent up to my ward. It
was very interesting up here for a while: she insisted that she was fine, that her legs hurt a little but she wanted to
take a walk, that was what she had come out for, anyway....What do you say to something like that? I cried a lot,
and held her down. The next day I was transferred to another building, where they needed a nurse, so they said.
After much screaming and yelling at the chief of Nursing Services, I managed to get out of the nothing
building where they sent me-a building in no need whatsoever of another nurse, where the only really worthwhile
thing to do was to read to the patients-and came back to the Med-Surg building. It took me a month.
When I got back, I found matters somewhat improved. The day nurse on this ward is a good friend of mine, a
very highly skilled lady who got something like a 99 in her psychiatric nursing course, and deserved more. She was
not afraid of this patient, and had been doing constant therapy on her. It was working. The patient was calmer than
she had been, was being weaned off the 4000 mg/day of Thorazine that her building had her on (500 mg / day is