I'm gonna tell ya about the first trip to the nuthouse but concerning what I posted yesterday I gotta say I don't walk around suicidal all day. I just feel like I may have more than my share of "down day's." I may even be wrong about that. Like I said, people think I'm Mr. happy go lucky, so it's at least possible a lot of you have more down day's than you let on about. In a way it's the polite thing to do. If someone says, "Hey how ya doing?" The correct response is, "fine, how are you?"
My trouble is, if I think ya care about me at all, I might just tell ya how I'm doing. It's not always fine either. That holds true especially if your one of my Christian brother's or sister's because I know if it was YOU I would REALLY want to know. That is sadly not alway's the case with other folk and I'm kinda not all that sharp at picking out who's who. Oh well, that doesn't make them bad, it's just human nature in a way. If you start telling someone how you're really doing, their response could be..."Oh no! I don't really want to know!"...lol
   Ok, my first trip to the "nuthouse." In case you think that's "insensitive" on my part to call it the Nuthouse, all I can say is I've earned the right.
    I've shared small parts of my past with "friends"  before and watched (literally) their eye's change. One minute your their friend telling them something you've held inside forever, the next, your a fruitcake. I just calls em the way I see's em.
Ok, this is how I wound up locked up.
        I spent the entire month of August, 1977 awake and partying. I did not eat (except for half a bologna sandwich) or sleep for the entire month. Medical doctors will tell you that it is impossible to do that. I can assure you that it is not, although I would not recommend it.
  I had people that I partied with all day, and when they went home I had the night owls to party with.  There was ALWAYS someone around in a partying mood. I credit Miller Beer with keeping me alive nutritionally, and God for not letting me die. I was taking "tab T with a cocaine base", everyday, several time's a day. It was the same month Elvis died. I guess I was trying to kill myself but not consciously, I was just "partying." Somewhere along the way the drugs took over and I just kept going and going like the energizer bunny.
   My mom got wind of my circumstances and persuaded a cousin to find me. She did and I went to her house for a few days, along with my girlfriend. (More on her later) My mom also persuaded her pastor to come talk to me. Well, he did. "I don't want nothing to do with YOUR religion" I said. "OK" he said, "but your mom is really worried about you." "How about we go see a doctor and just get a checkup so she won't worry, you've been up for 30 day's, no sleep, no food, what do ya say?" It seemed reasonable to me, so I agreed. What I didn't know was we were going for the "checkup" at a state mental facility. So, I go with him. We get there and I recognize where we are. "Hey!" "I'm not going in THERE!" I say.
    I wasn't working at the time (naturally) and he persuaded me that we were just going to see a doctor to check out my physical condition and that was it. Me being dumb or him being smart I don't know which, but I agreed. I sat down with this doctor, a psychiatrist I now know. I'll try to relay the conversation as best as I remember it and I'll put what I was THINKING in parenthesis. Oh yeah, he was Chinese or something barely understandable.
Doctor: Why are you here?
Me: Because my mother is worried about me so I came for the free physical.
Doctor: I'm told you have been awake for 30 days, is that so?
Me: yep, all month.
Doctor: That's not medically possible Then he listed the reasons why.
Me: Well I was, I don't give a shit if you believe me or not, how bout that free physical?
Doctor: Yes, yes, one moment...do you hear any voices?
Me: Yeah (I hear your's asshole!)....notice the IMPORTANCE of the parenthesis. note: getting smartass with a Psychiatrist during an evaluation is not wise.
Doctor: Ok, I'll be right back.
 
The next thing I know I'm looking at "the pastor" through a glass door that's locked and he's waving bye bye. I remember feeling so betrayed. Christians CAN'T lie I said to myself. I felt like HE DID. Well, maybe he did maybe he didn't but he probably saved my life. That's not to say where he dumped me wasn't hell on earth. The next thing I know I'm a "danger to myself" and I'm LOCKED in this facility.
   I remember after I was locked in, being in a room, there were two "attendants" there. They said "take off your clothes." I said, "I don't think so." Soon there were six of them. "Take off you're clothes or we will take them off." "Good luck with that", I said. They did eventually get them off, and I don't remember much after that until what I guess was the next day. I was in a gown, and wondering, where the hell am I?  There was a bookcase there and I picked up one of the book's, it said, "property of Eloise."  Eloise was the mental institution. Oh no, I thought. You can not possibly imagine the blow I took right then. Eloise was a place everybody joked about. Now, I was in it. It did something to me that I can't even relate to you, I don't have the vocabulary.
When my girlfriend got wind of where I had been taken, she came there. I was on the floor crying. If you could make yourself die, I'd be dead. She went balistic!
LET HIM OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW OR THIS PLACE WILL RAIN MOTERCYCLES TONIGHT!!!

I knew a lot of people that were motorcycle enthusiasts at the time. She almost got me out too because it scared the crap out of them.
  The same cousin that had found me earlier persuaded them that she would handle that and they kept me. Still to this day, if I could pick one, they keep me or they let me go, I don't know which I would pick. I do know this, I'll always love THAT girlfriend for doing that!
See you tomorrow...or not.
                                                 Will


PS.....YOUR comments are why I'm here!