Chapter 8: Thursday morning, Mischa

Editor’s Note:
The next document is an extract from the journal of Mischa Doeple. Published with permission of the Doeple family.

Thursday, December 2nd.

So Thursday has started off pretty normal – if you count being locked in the psycho ward at a hospital as normal. I can sit in my room or I can wander around the open area that they use to keep us inmates entertained. Such joy! I think I’ll sit here and write nonsense in my journal.

She sells sea shells down by the sea shore.

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

Can you can a can as a canner can can a can.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

They can see me writing in my journal and I’m getting approving smiles for doing that. Later on, I’ll probably get in trouble for writing nonsense. Not bad trouble, just frowns and scowls and gentle directions to “do the right thing.” These people don’t shout at you like normal people but they all have a wicked scowl. And have you got any idea how awful always having to do “the right thing” can be?

They watch me all the time. Whatever I do and wherever I go they watch me. If I start to do something wrong, they look at me. They don’t shout or anything, but they give me this death look, that wicked scowl I mentioned. If I keep doing the wrong thing they stop me.

They have a pretty simple threat.

If I don’t toe the line, I go back into that bed with a tube up my nose and a tube into my arm and a tube up my girl-parts and a diaper around my ass because I was too weak to even use a bedpan and a monitor next to my bed that told them exactly what I was thinking – I mean, sure, it was monitoring my heart rate and blood pressure and so on but isn’t that exactly what a lie detector test does?

It was awful. The tube up my nose went down the back of my throat and into my stomach. They pumped slime directly into my stomach which was the weirdest feeling ever. The tube down my throat was horrible and it hurt when they put it in and it hurt when they took it out.

The tube to catch my pee was worse and having them fiddle around down there while they put it in or adjusted it or whatever was totally humiliating. Not to mention having to use a diaper and have one of them clean me up and change the diaper. Ugh! I don’t want to ever go back to that so I do what they tell me, no matter how much I hate it.

I wish I was a goat – a mountain goat that lives way away from any people. They get left alone with nobody staring at them all day. All they eat is grass. I tried eating grass once. It wasn’t that bad – juicy and stringy but it tasted okay. It was better than the food here. If a mountain goat gets sick, it crawls into a little hole and dies and all the other goats leave it alone. Nobody pokes it and prods it and sticks tubes in it and locks it up in the ward for psychos.

Breakfast was awful. It tasted disgusting and I could feel each revolting mouthful forcing its way down my throat. I can still feel it there in my stomach, pushing out against my skin. It made me want to vomit. But one of the Nazi Nurses sat there and watched every spoonful go into my mouth. And I swallowed every awful bit of it because I don’t want to go back to being fed through one tube and peeing out another.

After breakfast I spent a couple of hours lying on my bed, trying to recover from breakfast. The Nazi Nurses kept checking up on me but when they saw I was lying there, they didn’t try to talk to me or anything so that was a relief.

At 9:45 they made me do my exercises – the physical part of my torture. They bring in an expert but I don’t know why. I’m not very strong so it doesn’t take him very long before I’m wiped out. He must get very bored watching me do one push up before collapsing on the floor for a while before I try another one. I got up to 10 squats today, which is more than yesterday. I’m so pathetic.

Then he got me to stand on this balance board thing. The aim is to have both ends of the board off the floor at the same time so that I’m balancing. It’s hard but I can do it. Today he made me stay balanced while we threw a tennis ball back and forth. That made it harder. It was like a real challenge. My legs were trembling from trying to stay in the middle. I don’t know how standing on a balance board and throwing a tennis ball is supposed to fix me but I do it anyway. Mostly because I don’t want to go back to that bed.

After that, I spent another couple of hours lying on my bed, trying to recover from my exercises.

The shrink came to see me at around 11:30. He’s the chief Nazi here. It’s his job to make sure the nurses are all torturing me properly. Then he sits with me and tries to act like he’s friendly. Hah!

He tells me to call him Dr K. Like I’m going to call him anything.

So the shrink came and sat on the spare bed in my room and he asked me how I was doing so I told him, “How do you think I’m doing?”

And he said, “You look a little stronger today.”

So I said, “Nng.”

And he said, “Are you feeling stronger than yesterday?”

And well yes, I did feel a bit stronger but like I’m ever going to admit that to him so I said “Nng” again.

Then he said, “Are you warm enough? We have the temperature in here turned up by a couple of degrees. We can turn it up more if you need it.”

So I said, “You could always give me more clothes.”

All I get to wear are these spandex shorty shorts and a spandex halter top that’s pretty much like a sports bra. It’s a straight spandex band that hugs around my chest. All it does is prove to everyone who sees me that I have absolutely no tits whatsoever. The only way I could be more naked would be if I were naked. Okay, I know bikinis can be a lot smaller than this but I’m nowhere near any swimming pools so they don’t count.

And he said, “Why do you think you are dressed like that?”

So I said, “Because you hate me.”

And he said, “Try again. Why do you think I wanted you dressed like that?”

So I said, “So I can’t hide extra weights in my pockets when you go to weigh me.”

And he said, “You were doing that at the group home, weren’t you? You were cheating when your carer tried to weigh you?”

I stared back at him – like I was going to admit to that.

“Did you do the same thing with your aunt?”

So I said, “No, she didn’t notice anything was wrong with me. She never tried to weigh me. She’s a loser and an alcoholic. I never want to see her again.”

And he said, “You don’t have to worry about your aunt right now. You’re here in the hospital so that we can look after you. You will not be seeing her while you’re in here.”

Then he said, “What other reason do you think I have for dressing you like that?”

So I said, “I don’t know. Maybe you like perving at my bony arms and legs and my skinny ass.”

Then he said, “I’m not the one who needs to keep seeing those bony arms and legs of yours.”

That’s when I figured it out. He wanted me dressed like this so I would keep seeing how skinny I am.

Before being in the hospital, I’d practically perfected the art of getting dressed without actually looking at myself. With my usual clothes being so loose and baggy, I could pretend there was nothing wrong with me. I knew I looked awful but I could pretend everything was normal. Now that all I’m wearing is little more than a bikini, I can’t hide it from myself. Every time I move I catch glimpses of myself. And they have a full-length mirror beside the door of my room. No more pretending for me. Every moment of the day I’m reminded about what I did to myself. I turned myself into a walking skeleton. What a loser.

So I said, “I’m amazed you aren’t keeping me completely naked.”

He shrugged and then he said, “That would be even more effective but you are only thirteen. It would be illegal and immoral and unethical for me to keep you naked. I’m confident that having you dressed like that will have the desired effect.”