Memoir

Call me P.J.

I sing of mania and madness.

To tell the tale is hard.

(But it is funny. Much of humor has the seed of trauma.)

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I had my own special cell. I didn’t know that my door could be opened to go to the bathroom in the adjoining room. I assumed it was locked. So I just pooped in the corner.

Doc: “Don’t poop in the corner.”

I wanted out. I thought there might be a secret code inherent in the building infrastructure. If I could figure it out, I’d be free. The only thing in my room was a metal bed bolted to the floor. I pushed all the bolts, hoping one of them would be a button and Presto! the walls would fall down and I could run free.

I took off the mattress cover and noticed that it was half pink and half blue. Weird, I thought. I saw the mattress was pink side up. “Maybe if I put it blue side up (since I’m a boy and boys like blue) and then laid down on it, the ceiling would open and I would float up, up and away, like in James and the Giant Peach.”

No luck.

Next, I took the mattress off the bed and saw it kind of looked like a giant keyboard: metals slats fused to the frame. Maybe I need to play a melody that would open a secret door in the room and I could jump into the door down a slide that led outside. Oh, how I wanted to be outside in the fresh, clean Northwest air!

I decided to see if I could lift one of the metal slats. I could! And as it dropped back to its original position, it made a huge gong-ing sound, one I could hear even without my hearing aids. It was beautiful and loud and felt so good vibrating on my feet. I felt absolutely certain this must be the way out.

I proceeded to play a scale, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and was about to try Heart and Soul when a doctor and nurse came in and said:

“Do you understand people are trying to sleep around here?”

I just gave him a blank look. I was devastated. I thought for sure I had found an escape. Why would there be a bed with such musical capability in a psych ward?

I was born in Eureka, California on January 30, 1978. In Humboldt County: home of very tall trees and some stinky small ones.

My dad came into my cell.

Dad: “P.J., do you know why you’re in here?” His face looked as one in sheer terror and bewilderment. Obviously, he didn’t know how or why the hell I was in there either.

Me: “No.”

Dad: “Do you know how much your mother loves you?” I sensed my mom was in incredible pain and confusion, as we all were. I just gave him a blank look. A lot of my responses to questions were like that at the time. The questions didn’t really register at the time. My mind too busy trying to figure things out, like how to get the fuck outta there! I’ve got to show the world my secret! I’m on a mission from God! (Just needed a tux ala Blues Brothers). “P.J., the doctor told me you pooped in the corner over there. Don’t do that.” He proceeded to give me a list of things to do (absolutely the last thing on earth to tell someone in the clutches of extreme mania): “Number One! Don’t poop in the corner! Number Two! Cooperate with the doctors and nurses! Number Three! Take all your medicine! Number Four! Eat! Number Five! Communicate! Number Six! Be a nice guy!”

Um, okay, Dad.

Later, my dad told me of this dream he had while I was in the ward. He had rounded up all the badass Ramey cousin boys -- John, Scott, Paul, Brian, Wade, Willie and my older brother Josh. Loaded them up with Rambo-style gear and they went blitzkrieg on my psych ward: they were going to get me out, come hell or highwater. The SEALS operation that got Osama had nothing on what these guys accomplished!

I smiled.

I could totally see that. My cousins and I used to play KUSA together when we were little: Kids United States Army. We made index cards with our rank and name on it. You were either the commander-in-chief or a private. We took turns being Top Dog and Bottom Dog. We made obstacle courses in the backyard and used Lazer Tag guns. Later, when I was older and Josh moved on to other things like playing drums and studying books, I recruited our neighbor Aaron into KUSA. Later, Aaron went on to fight as a US soldier in the Middle East. He was part of a group that operated spy drones. I like to think it’s all my fault. He came back from that and wondered WTF we were doing over there.

More soon...