CHAPTER ONE

"PAT!" "PAT?" "Pat?" "Can you hear me?"

"Unh, huh." It was very dark and warm. I responded to a voice calling to me from very far away.

The voice was very gentle. Strange. As awareness slowly crept upon me, I felt pain. I was in agony beyond comprehension. My head throbbed, my hair hurt, my gut felt as though it had been jumped upon repeatedly, and my back ached as if it had been hit with a baseball bat over and over.

"Pat?" Again, the voice. Gentle still, but closer this time. "Can you talk to me?"

"Unh, huh." Where am I and why do I hurt so bad? What does that voice want? It is so soft and compelling. Should I respond? Can I?

"Pat? Will you come out from under there so we can talk?"

"No!" Panic was added to the pain.

"Pat," the soothing voice coaxed, "do you know where you are?"

After several long seconds, I finally answered, "Yes."

"Please come out and talk to me."

As the cloud of confusion slowly lifted, I realized that I was in the psychiatric unit of a hospital. As I came more fully to consciousness, I recognized the voice as belonging to one of the nurses.

I asked, "What happened?"

"Please let me take your coat off and let's talk about it."

"So," I thought, "that's why it is so dark." I was curled into a tight fetal ball with my coat completely covering me and the nurse wanted to remove the covering.

"Just a minute." I slowly uncurled my stiff and aching limbs occasionally groaning from the pain. Finally, I responded, "Okay."

At my response, she ever so gently eased the coat from off my head. As my eyes slowly focused, I could see the very concerned look on her face.

"What happened?", she asked.

"I hurt."

Apparently, she understood a little as she gently massaged some of the life back into my aching limbs. Again she asked, "What happened?"

"I hurt. Why?"

She said, "I don't know. Can you sit up and tell me what you remember?"

"Can I have some aspirin?"

"Sure, I'll be right back."

As she left, I saw her turn away quite a crowd gathered at my doorway. Swiftly, one of the other patients rushed in and said, "I'm sorry. I had to tell someone. You were moaning so loud that I thought you might be seriously hurt." Just as swiftly, she ran back out of my room.

I was still trying to put the pieces together when the nurse returned with the aspirin. I swallowed them and then asked if I could rinse my face. She was leery and asked if I would be all right. When I said, yes, she said, "Okay."

I used the time to try to piece together what had happened. When I came out from the bathroom, I asked if we could go out into the hall and sit and talk. As we sat, I tried desperately to reconstruct my day up to that point -- at least as much as I remembered.

I relayed my recollections to the nurse. Earlier in the day, the staff had taken some of the patients for a walk outside. During this walk, I had seen a bit of hair, apparently from the head of some child's doll. Something about this sight caused me to feel momentarily uneasy.

Since I was in the hospital for a sort of free floating anxiety that seemed to come from nowhere and then fairly quickly turn into severe suicidal depression, I just figured that I was having another of those minor anxiety feelings.

After returning to the hospital, I was fine until dinner time. Shortly after dinner, I belched with a slight regurgitation. The nasty taste in my mouth seemed to trigger a return of the anxiety. This time, however, the anxiety returned and continued to rise to the point of terror. I tried to calm myself but, I was overcome with intense fear. Slowly, the pain started to build and the suicidal feelings I had come to know so well swept over and totally engulfed me. I fought. I struggled with all my might to relax and calm myself. I walked the halls of the unit. I took a shower. I couldn't focus my attention on anything like reading or watching television.

I isolated and looked out the window of the darkened dining room while perched upon the wide ledge.

My efforts to distract myself from falling ever deeper into the pit of despair were useless. The lights of the city outside provided no distraction. The pain and terror continued to rise as I struggled with the ever increasing urgency to die before these powerful feelings consumed me. When approached in the dark by another patient, I quickly fled to my room rather than respond to their questioning of my strange behavior.

As I sat on my bed, rocking back and forth, I felt as though I was rapidly losing control and on impulse, I grabbed my coat and pulled it over my head. As I slowly curled up my body under the coat, I slowly started to lose track of reality. That was all I could remember until I heard the nurse calling me from far, far away.

As I told this to the nurse, I found the anxiety returning but, with her as an anchor to help me hold onto reality, I slowly started to recall what happened while under the coat. I still hurt and was very afraid but, the nurse assured me of safety and after all, I owed her. She had gotten me some aspirin. Trembling visibly, I began.

I was not yet three years old. I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom when I heard my mothers' footsteps coming closer down the upstairs hallway toward my room. I panicked. Quickly, I needed a place to hide. The barren room contained only a bare bed, bare white walls, a bare wooden floor and one plain dresser. There were no bed coverings and the sunlight brightly illuminated the stark room from a curtainless window. I had my teddy bear and clutching him tightly, I spotted my coat in the corner. Rapidly, I scurried quietly toward the corner and pulled the coat over my tiny body to try to hide.

I trembled as I heard the steps stop at my doorway. As her heavy steps banged in my ears, I tried my best to become invisible. She stopped just short of the corner. Suddenly, she ripped the coat from off me. Her face was a contorted mask of rage. She immediately noticed my bear. She grabbed one of my wrists with one hand and the bear with the other.

She dragged me to the hallway and as she tossed the bear down the hall, she shrieked, "I won't have any son of mine playing with dolls like a little girl!" With a quick twist of her body, I was suddenly elevated and airborne down the stairs. There was no banister or railing to impede my fall as I thumped heavily down the stairs. I landed in a broken, crumpled heap at the bottom.

Mom flew screeching down the stairs after me. A slight glimpse showed her face twisted ragefully. Her red, fiery eyes seemed as large as saucers and her mouth, just as red, was clenched into a tightly knotted ball of flesh. The image is so vivid that it is permanently etched in my memory as the single most frightening sight I have ever seen.

She screamed, at the top of her lungs, for me to get up. When I couldn't, she grabbed a fistful of my hair. She pulled me up off the ground and off my feet. Holding me by my hair with one hand, at arms length, she studied me contemptuously and shook me viciously until I was suddenly released and thrown head first against the wall. As I fell, crumpled to the floor, she started kicking me as hard as she could.

I tried to curl into a small ball but, I was unable to avoid the sharp, hard kicks. She connected with my head, back, arms, legs and stomach. All the while, she continuously yelled at me to get up. Unable to respond, she again picked me up with a single hand twisted in my hair. I was again lifted off the ground, shaken and thrown against the wall.

Over and over, again and again, the cycle was repeated with me being alternately kicked and then thrown head first into the wall. All the time, mom was screaming at me to get up. I was nearly unconscious when she finally tired of this and she seized my wrist, digging her sharp fingernails into tender flesh. With an angry twist on my puny arm, she started dragging me back up the stairs. My already battered head banged heavily against every step. At the top, I was dragged into my room and tossed limply upon the bare bed while mom went storming off down the hall to fetch something with which to tie me. She returned momentarily with some old towels and tied me spread eagled to the bedposts.

She left again for just a moment and when I glanced from my face down position, I could see her entering the room with 'the strap.' The thick, unforgiving leather of the razor strap raised severe welts from head to toe wherever it struck my backside. As she swung the heavy strap with all of her might, she hollered that if I dared to utter a sound, she would 'give it to me worse.' She constantly warned that I would die if anyone ever heard a sound outside of my bedroom window. She also threatened to make the punishment worse if I uttered a sound, made a single move to protect myself, shed a single tear or, even whimpered a single cry.

I lay there frozen, too scared to move or utter a sound as she beat and beat with the strap until she was too tired to swing anymore. At some point, mercifully, I passed out from the excruciating pain. I couldn't remember how long I had been left to lie there. It may have been days. I couldn't remember.

The next thing I knew, I heard a soothing voice calling to me from afar. It was the nurse gently asking if she could uncover me. She calmly restored the final piece of reality to my confused mind when she explained that I was not two or three but, thirty-three years old. I had just experienced my first flashback episode. I could now receive proper psychiatric assistance since I finally had a proper diagnosis -- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.