A Word Please

Interesting how many respond the way you did, yet they use this room to make people less nuts? Things that make you go, “hmmmmmm”.

      I was arrested last year in Mendocino County, CA for assault charges when I had a psychotic episode as a result of my mental illnesses that were untreated and worsened by illegal drug abuse. I told the police officers I would hang myself with bed sheets if I went to jail, so they put cuffs on me and stuffed me in the back of the vehicle and took me to get evaluated by a mental health professional at a hospital en route to jail. It seemed that I was simply unstable.

When I arrived to jail my ears were battered with the sounds of slamming doors, tinkling keys and screaming people. My glasses were then immediately removed by someone and placed in a plastic bag. As I was being walked further into the jail inmates were speaking horrific words to me and some cursed the police officers for putting us in jail.         I had a quick checkup and I arrived blindly into what was my new hell.  I had to take my clothes off and put a green “turtle suit” on- a short green slip that was rough and uncomfortable. I couldn’t even have my bikini on, and I felt sickened about who may have been naked in this suit before me. What was I touching, exactly? Ewww, there’s hairs all over this thing…SLAM! The door closed loudly and I knew I was trapped in there. The paint on the walls was chipped, a dull light grey revealing a butter-yellow foam underneath. The walls and floor were dirty and had urine, feces and blood stains everywhere. The flickering light that was still extremely blinding added to the eeriness of it all.  There were three cameras on me and my every move was being monitored. Going to the restroom was difficult because the drain had a bottom to it so I had to wait until someone would press a button from the outside to flush it. I was also visited by Aunt Flo in that jolly rubber room and didn’t get any sanitary care products for it, so it was pretty miserable.
I felt like I was going insane only 5 hours into it. The screams and constant chattering of the fellow rubber room inmates was horrible. A woman next to my rubber room was coming off of some hard drug and was screaming about how she wanted to die. I could hear misery in all shapes and forms all around me. People punching and kicking their rubber rooms next to mine, yelling, cursing, screaming and crying. While having an episode myself and trying to maintain, I found it very difficult to compose myself with so much suffering around me. It was like a baby nursery in a hospital, one person would weep and the rest of us would cry too. The floor was so cold and as the night progressed into the downward spiral that it was, it got colder and colder. I couldn’t really sleep besides curling into a ball and using the shoulder part of the turtle suit as a pillow with both of my arms tucked in the suit to keep me more warm. The AC blasted and made it even colder and I wondered, was that on purpose? It was the most miserable I had ever been and hopefully will ever be in my life.The keys never stopped jingling, the doors never stopped slamming, the suffering didn’t cease one bit. I stayed up all night peeling the paint off of the floor and the nail polish off of my nails. I was literally going crazy in there. I stayed in the rubber room until 7 pm the next day, then at 11pm was given my glasses back and taken to housing unit A where I could shower and be clothed and warm. I hope none of you ever have to experience this, because it was definitely traumatic for me. 

Hello, it’s me again! I’m pleased to see the response. I totally agree, putting someone with mental disorders in a rubber room all by themselves in terrible conditions only makes it worse, which leads me to believe it’s part of their “plan.” I am definitely considering writing a book about my life experiences. The rubber room will for sure be mentioned, it was truly a feat to survive that place.