Becoming The Part - Chapter Seven

After the experience on the movie set, Robyn has been sent to a psychiatric ward and diagnosed with severe schizophrenia. She can’t comprehend if it’s all because she became too invested in her character that she started to believe that that life was real. It makes sense. She has been on her own since she moved away to become an actress when she was eighteen. She has always wanted a big, happy family that she can love to death. The movie and her character were the perfect life. Instead of living in her tiny, cramped apartment that is just one big room with a door heading to her bedroom, she lived in a beautiful two-story house. Instead of going home to an empty apartment and cooking her own meals, she would have a family around her and her mother, or the person she thought was her mother, would cook her favourite meal: curry. Instead of being isolated, she was loved. Or so she thought. She misses it. But she knows that it wasn’t real. She knows that there is nothing to miss because it was never her life.

Robyn is sat on her bed, looking out of the window. She can hear the birds chirping in the trees and the silence of the outside world. She thinks how peaceful and calming it is until she realises that the birds that are chirping have all the freedom in the world whilst she is stuck, alone in this place. The rumble of a few cars pass and she hears the footsteps of pedestrians getting closer. No wait, it’s someone in this place. Someone is walking to her room.

A kind-faced woman with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail opens the door, smiles at Robyn and then closes it behind her as she enters. “How are you feeling today?”

“You expect me to say something else than schizophrenic?” Robyn mumbles.

“Oh come on, dear,” the middle-aged nurse sighs, “you need to stay positive.”

“How can I stay positive when my whole world, or what I thought my world was, crumbled around me?” Robyn retaliates. “Have you ever listened to the birds properly?” Robyn looks out the window.

Her nurse sits down on the end of the bed. “I don’t think I’ve ever had the time to.”

“It’s quiet but they seem to make these cheery sounds. They always sound so positive.” Robyn states. “Did I have breakfast this morning?”

“Not yet, you’ve just woken up.” The nurse stands up from her bed and walks over to the trolley that she brought in with her, taking a tray from the top.

“It was mash potato yesterday.”

The nurse places the tray on the bed. “It was for lunch, yes.”

“I might read today.” Robyn looks at the tray dismissively.

“That’s a good idea.” The nurse smiles. “I don’t think I’ve seen you with a book in your hand since you got here.”

“Have my family visited?” Robyn asks.

The nurse sits down on the end of the bed again. “Dear, they weren’t your real family.”

“Do I still own my apartment?”

“Yes you do.” The nurse nods. “And it is waiting for you to come home so you need to eat up and look after yourself to make sure you get out of here.”

Robyn looks out the window again. “It’s quiet outside. All I can hear are the birds and maybe a couple of cars. I saw June yesterday.”

“Did you?” Her nurse smiles again, a kind, loving smile. “That’s good, I’m glad you two are getting along. It’s good to have friends.”

“I’m going to eat and then I’ll go see her.” Robyn picks the tray up and puts it on her lap, starting to eat.

“Good.” The nurse stands up. “You know where to find me if you need me.”

Robyn leaves her bedroom and makes her way into the communal area where many patients are interacting with one another and others are sat by themselves, either reading or taking part in activities.

She makes her way over to a girl about her age, sat at the piano and sits down next to her. “Hi June.”

June looks up, a neutral expression on her face. “Hi.”

June is a girl who was admitted around the same time as Robyn for alexithymia, a personality disorder where she is unable to identify and describe her emotions.

“I didn’t know you play piano.” Robyn says.

“I didn’t tell you.” June replies simply.

“So what can you play?” Robyn asks.

June doesn’t answer. She just places her fingers on the keys and begins to fluently play Seasons of Love by Jonathan Larson. Robyn sits contently listening to the music as she sings the lyrics along in her head. She’s taken back by how perfectly June is able to play it. It’s as if she isn’t even trying and her fingers are just guiding the way.

June finally comes to the end and takes her hands away from the piano. “I’ve never experienced love. I wonder what it feels like. I don’t understand it.” June frowns. “What does emotion feel like?”

“Well, when you’re scared, there’s this kind of tingle throughout your body, you become aware of your surroundings, there’s a cold shiver down your spine, your legs go weak. Have you never felt that?” Robyn asks and June simply shrugs. “Okay, well happiness. Happiness is this warmth in your veins, you know, you feel it all over your body. It’s like your heart has been lifted, you’re on this delicate cloud and it seems like nothing could bring you down.”

“So what’s sorrow like?” June questions.

“Sorrow is the opposite. It feels like your heart is tearing itself apart, you lose all the energy you had, your body becomes heavy, your eyes sting when you try to hold back tears.” Robyn explains.

“I’ve never cried before.” June admits. “It seems strange to me.”

“You’ve felt pain before, right?” Robyn asks. “Like a pinch in your leg or a cut on your arm?”

June nods. “Yes, of course.”

“Well that’s what it’s like to be sad. It’s that same feeling but in your heart, in your stomach, in your veins, throughout your whole body.”

“So you feel emotions in your body, not in your head?” June queries.

“Kind of.” Robyn sighs, trying to find a way to explain it. “Emotions kind of create this response in your body. Like you can associate each emotion with that response. So happiness is that warmth, sadness is that feeling of being torn apart, fear is that cold shudder, anger is kind of a burning sensation in your veins.” Robyn looks at June. “Has nobody explained this to you before?”

“They’ve tried.” June replies simply.

Robyn nods and they sit in an awkward silence for a moment, neither of them knowing what to say. “Can I ask you something?”

“Mhm.” June nods.

“How do you know what’s real and what isn’t?” Robyn asks.

June thinks about this for a second. “I don’t know. I guess it’s just obvious. Like if I have a dream I know it’s not real because it was so bizarre and I remember waking up. I know what’s real because I know that it’s justified as normal. Anything that seems out of the ordinary is either my imagination or a dream.”

“Then how come I can’t tell the difference?” Robyn furrows her eyebrows.

“I guess it’s because you have hallucinations that seem so real to you.” June shrugs. “I’m not sure. Why can’t I feel emotions? It’s hard to explain.”

“I suppose.” Robyn says. “Can you do me a favour?”

“Sure.”

Robyn looks out the window, quite distant from the rest of the room. “Let me know when something is real and something isn’t.”

“Of course.”

Robyn is sat on one of the couches, reading a book when her nurse walks over with a small cup and a kind smile on her face.

“Time for your medication.” She sits down next to Robyn.

Robyn puts the book down and takes the cup from the nurse, pouring the pills out into her hand, popping them into her mouth and then sipping at a bottle of water.

“Remember you have one-to-one therapy this afternoon.” The nurse reminds her.

Robyn nods, taking one last sip of water and then hands the cup back to her nurse. “Three o’clock, right?”

“Yes, that’s right.” She smiles. “If all goes well, you might be able to go home soon.” Then she stands up and leaves Robyn to read her book.

Robyn enters her therapist’s office at three o’clock and sits down in front of her desk. “Hi, Nancy.”

“You seem in a better mood today.” Nancy smiles. “So how have things been going since our last session?”

“Alright.” Robyn nods. “I’m not getting as many hallucinations or delusions anymore. But sometimes I do find it difficult to tell what’s real and what isn’t. And sometimes I find it hard to keep up a conversation or stay motivated.”

“Well, that is completely normal. The good thing is that the medication is working and your symptoms are becoming less severe.” Nancy says. “When was the last time you had a hallucination?”

Robyn thinks back to her hallucination a couple of nights ago.

She was lying in bed, ready to go to sleep when her door creaked open. She sat bolt-upright as a dark figure entered her room.

“Who are you?” She questioned.

The figure slowly turned around and took his hood off. “You know who I am.”

“No.” Robyn shook her head. “That wasn’t real. It was just a film.”

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t exist.” He said. “Or that people like me exist.”

“Why are you here?” Robyn asked.

He walked closer to her bed so that he was stood at the foot of it. “To explain why you are just like me.”

“I’m nothing like you!”

“Oh but you are.” He smiled that menacing smile. “Who do you think killed the receptionist at the hotel? They said they saw you leave and another figure come from the opposite corridor. But you tampered with the CCTV to make you look innocent.”

Robyn thought about that night. She remembered how the receptionist had given her a dirty look that she didn’t like. She remembered how everything seemed blurry after that. She remembered how the anxiety built up in her veins as she questioned whether she did it.

“And how do you think I escaped from prison?” He asked rhetorically. “Because you let me out that time you came to visit me.”

Robyn had a flashback of her visiting him in the prison. How she had shouted at him, telling him that he was sick. But she thought she left after that. She didn’t. She slipped him something under a crack in the glass. A key maybe? Yes, a key. A key that she had taken off one of the guards discreetly.

“So you see,” he smiled, “you are exactly like me. You live off chaos and destruction. You think that it is inhumane to kill another human being. But you have been doing just that. You killed your neighbours by calling them over to help so that you had more time to escape. You killed the receptionist at the hotel because she gave you a look that you didn’t like. And you killed your brother by trying to prove that you are nothing like me instead of saving him.”

Robyn shook her head. “No. No, none of it was real. It was just a film.”

“That’s what you think, anyway.” He said. “How do you know that’s not just another one of your delusions? Maybe believing that it was all fake helps you to deal with the guilt pitted deep in your stomach. Look at where you are. You’re imprisoned.”

“I see.” Nancy nods. “Well you were right; it was all a film. You have nothing to worry about. There isn’t a murderer after you, you didn’t kill anybody and you’re not in prison.”

“I know.” Robyn looks down at her hands, the indents of her fingernails still visible in her palms from that fearful night.

“And it’s good that you know.” Nancy smiles sympathetically. “It means you are getting better.”

“When will I be able to leave?” Robyn looks up at her therapist.

She hesitates, trying to find the answer. “Well, if everything keeps getting better at the rate that it is, then I don’t see why you can’t leave in the next month. But that is only if you keep taking your medication and attending these appointments with me.”

“I will.” Robyn nods. “I promise.”