Group Therapy

Photo from The Forgotten Collection, by Travis Keyes
www.developingeye.photoshelter.com

The 8 chairs did not come to be in the room by chance, in fact it was the exact opposite. Each chair came to the group therapy room in a very deliberate manner. It was one of the only ways patients at the hospital for women who had succumbed to their nerves and the pressures of life that damage the psyche and play with the mind could express themselves. And since comfort was key to getting patients to talk, and since this new group would be comprised of some of the hospitals most severely afflicted patients the doctor needed a way to keep the agitated group calm and to perhaps gain extra insight into whatever faculties the women still possessed.

And so at lunch an hour before the first session was to begin Dr. Thompson told each of the women that they were to select a chair that would remain in the group therapy room and it would be theirs – a safe place all their own, one possession that no one could take from them.  The chair would become a place where for 45 minutes, four times a week, each patient could try to relax her mind trapped inside a body often stiff with anxiety and find a way to talk their way through the twists and turns in their lives that led them to reside at the Georgia state hospital for women who were declared, for a myriad of reasons, mentally unfit.

Sara heard the words the doctor said and mulled it over in her head but she was distracted by the sound of herself slurping at her hot soup, and the noise it made inside of her throat as she gulped it down hot, so hot she swore she could feel it burn in her ears. Sara had only 3 teeth in her mouth and all her meals were served as a soup-like consistency in a glass. But hot soup on her open gums was a sensation she had grown to love and in between her mind wandering from one sound to another in her own body she began to consider the options she had for seating in group therapy.

There was one place here in this dreary cavernous hospital where she was most calm, where she could lean back just a bit, close her eyes and enjoy the sound of own ears drumming in her head and the little click her 3^rd rib on the right side made when she took a very deep breath, and the prick and then delightful burn in her arm as the nurse began to draw the monthly bloodwork samples to check for pregnancy among the patients. It never took more than a few minutes in that chair with beech wood arms and the forgiving vinyl seat that cradled her as the needle stay under her skin and the throbbing began to get more intense.  The thought of getting to spend 45 minutes in that chair, reliving the delicate pain of each blood draw was such a distraction that even with only 3 teeth in her mouth Sara managed to bite her tongue, drawing blood. She sucked hard on it and ran her bleeding tongue over her gums, the slight metallic taste gave her an unexpected thrill and she stood up to go get her chair before anyone else thought to take it. She left her soup still piping hot in its glass.

Nadine huffed. She had participated in more therapy sessions in her life than she cared to recall. And now, at age 76, she was tired of reliving her past and talking about herself to new, young doctors every few years. Her joints hurt underneath several hundred pounds of bright white dimpled fat that covered her small frame. She knew she’d need a chair with no arms so that she could fit comfortably, one that would let her hips and thighs fall over the edges freely. And not one of those new plastic chairs that would make her ass and the backs of her thighs drip with sweat. A good sturdy, old-fashioned wooden chair with a  tall back is what she needed. Like the ones in the visitors room. She twirled her wiry white hair around her finger and pulled hard, several dozen strands came loose in her hand. She rolled them between her chubby thumb and forefinger and popped them into her mouth. Yes, the visitors chairs would do and no one would care if one went missing, since no one ever visited these forgotten women anyway.

Therese never said much. Group therapy wouldn’t  change that. She spent her days in the library reading. Hours and hours spent tracing the same line in the Bible with her delicate finger. Isaiah 64:6 “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” That’s all she ever read. One passage, for hours, each day, for years. The heavy wooden chair with its thick blue upholstery, the texture of it with its raised nubs like a perforated edge beneath her finger tips. She would run her thumb on her left hand over the edge where the fabric met the wood frame and with her right index finger she would slowly move from word to word hundreds of times in a day.   Each week day 15 minutes before the library closed (it was open Monday-Friday 9:00am – 11:00am) she would place the heavy, leather bound book back on the shelf, go back to her room and masturbate.

Sandra wasn’t in the cafeteria for the announcement about group therapy. She was outside in the gardens. A nurse told her the news and Sandra gently rocked in the summer sun and hummed a song that the nurse had never heard before. Sandra was not violent, or strange or a sexual deviant. Sandra had simply become detached. Blissfully unaware of the world around her.  Dr. Thompson did not expect her to make much progress at all by participating but she hoped at a minimum that Sandra would understand that she was part of a community and that there were people here to care for her. The nurse chose Sandra’s chair for her. A robins-egg-blue heavy plastic chair from the staff break room. She thought that Sandra, who spent her days rocking among the flowers in the garden, would appreciate something colorful in the otherwise dreary room where therapy would take place.

Carole was in her 50s, she woke each morning and bound her breasts tight to her body. Her thick hair never grayed and was still raven black. She cut it close to her scalp.  Her fingernails were cut painfully short and for some reason long ago she began to pluck her eye lashes, so much so that they eventually stopped growing back. This left a strange openness around her vibrant green eyes.  She was abrupt, passive aggressive, she could start an argument with anyone over anything and she was paranoid.  She sat alone with her back to the group  and heard the announcement about chair selection. She never bothered to turn around. It simply wasn’t necessary. And she knew immediately which chair she’d take: Dr. Thompson’s desk chair.  Nothing would make Carole happier than having that bitch have to scrounge for a new chair and to have her sit and watch session after session while Carole carved obscenities into the chair’s arms.

8 women would need to select chairs but 9 would be participating. Holly’s chair had been picked for her years ago when, after finding her in bed with another man her husband beat her so severely that she was left paralyzed. She found herself a ward of the state after husband abandoned her just 2 days after she was released from the hospital. She sat for 4 days, alone, in her own filth in her wheelchair in her small home in the backwoods of Georgia. No phone, no electricity, sweltering heat. She was covered in mosquito bites after a wind blew the screen door open. In her wheelchair now she appeared to be in good healthy but she suffered from seizures which were becoming more frequent and severe. She looked forward to group therapy, it would be a welcome distraction to the monotony.

At the far end of the table in the cafeteria with her hair in a bun, Justine stared at a couple dancing in the corner that did not exist outside of her own hallucination-plagued mind. A schizophrenic since 22 years old her mind conjured fantastic imagery within the hospital's walls which gave her a strange kind of freedom over the other patients. Although she was heavily medicated to avoid violent outbursts she often found herself with pent up energy and liked to wander around the forgotten areas of the hospital, especially the attic over the east wing. It was only accessible by a narrow and twisting  staircase found in the back of a utility closet. There in the attic were chairs—one of which she’d use for therapy. It would smell of age and humidity and would creak whenever she moved and it had one leg shorter than the others so she’d be able to creak and rock her way through each 45 minute session and this made her happy.

The last 2 chairs would belong to Jillian and Olivia.  Jillian had long ago ceased to exist and instead like a chameleon would latch on to someone whom she admired and she would mimic them, follow them, absorb them, stalk them. She’d practice speaking  like them, spend hours in the mirror  perfecting the mannerisms that make us each unique and she’d steal them away from whomever she was fixated on.  Jillian had attached herself to Olivia when she arrived at the hospital and for the first time in her life, the object of her adoration, the woman she chose to become did not object. In fact Olivia loved the attention, the constant feeling of eyes on her. She played this cat and mouse game with Jillian, purposefully adding lisps in her speech one day where before there had been none, sneaking peroxide and bleach and dying her light brown hair blonde just to watch Jillian squirm for days trying to figure out she too could dye her hair. And when she finally got her hands on the right supplies the mixture was so strong that she burned her scalp, her hair broke off and drop that got in her left eye caused permanent damage to her vision.

For group therapy they would need matching chairs. They walked together, after lunch, holding hands, and entered the meeting room where families receive the results of their loved ones mental exams and where they find out if they can leave behind the damaged burden that was once mom, or wife, or sister, or aunt. Here is where Jillian and Olivia would find their identical chairs.

At the first group therapy session each person brought their chair and they arranged themselves in a semi-circle; Sara, Nadine, Therese, Sandra, Carole, Holly, Justine, Olivia and Jill. Dr. Thompson stood. Group Therapy went on for 26 months, 448 sessions. 5 months in, Holly suffered a violent seizure during group. Falling from her chair and striking her head, she died a few days later. Her chair was never moved from its place. Nadine too passed away quietly in her sleep one night. No one ever moved or used her chair either.

And this is how 8 mismatched chairs and a wheelchair came to be in the center of this forgotten room…at least that how it happened in my imagination.

A very special thank you to my friend Travis Keyes for permitting me to use his amazing photographs as inspiration and guidance for my overactive imagination and for encouraging my writing. See more of his photos at developingeye.photoshelter.com.