Sarah Vaughan is Not My Mother: A Memoir of Madness by MaryJane Thomson Read Free Book Online

I had found a true friend, someone who really cared about me. I was coming out of the stupor of heavy use of heroin when I met her at Narcotics Anonymous and she offered a sympathetic ear. I had just left my boyfriend, a heroin addict. I spent my days being with Rose and writing letters to Jesus Christ. Narcotics Anonymous encourages the use of a higher power but it was a concept far beyond my addled brain. I do wonder what my psychosis would have been like if I had never read a Bible. I don’t think it’s a bad book, but I do believe it can be somewhat misinterpreted if you read it when psychotic or using heavy drugs.
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    I go through to the dining room. I’m twenty minutes late and it’s only a quarter full. I look at dinner, beef stew and trifle, and don’t fancy either, so I make myself a coffee and grab some brown bread. My fruit has been washed and is sitting in my room. I am thankful to God for Waris washing the fruit. It’s not something everyone does. I grab a tomato, remember I don’t have a knife to cut it with, and go to the dining room and ask Molly for one.
    â€œHere you are, angel. You know I love your singing, I think you sing from your heart,” Molly says.
    I feel flattered. I’m not used to people commenting on my singing because normally I do it in my room with the door shut. I more or less just sing to make up words and live out the fantasy in my head.
    The knife is plastic, so I can’t do a lot of damage with it. I cut the tomato in my room and make a tomato sandwich. I take it into the lounge. Nora is there; she’s brought in her bed and pushed it up against the corner of the room
    â€œHey bro,” she says. She’s sniffing glue out of a plastic bag.
    â€œYou all good?” I say.
    â€œYeah, I’m all good. Just waiting for Shortland Street . How long you been in here?”
    â€œAbout three months,” I say. “I think they’re observing me. They keep mentioning diagnosis, but I’m fine. I don’t need the pills they keep filling me up with. How long have you been in here?”
    â€œAbout a week. I’m only being observed, should be out soon.” She speaks very softly; her voice sounds slightly mutated. She seems very dreamy and sleepy. I don’t ask for any glue, not my type of thing. I see it as just killing brain cells and it doesn’t seem to be making her overly happy.
    I stare out the window at the clouds. I scope the window but it has a bar that prevents it being opened fully. No point in running away anyway: I’m under Section, which means if I escape I just get brought back in.
    As I stare out at the cloudy evening I start pondering my lost dreams. It frustrates the hell out of me that I can’t escape. It seems that every time I am planning on getting anywhere in my life I get chucked in here. I could be in America on a beach strumming my guitar right now if it weren’t for being picked up by the cops all the time—never mind needing a visa and money.
    At one stage I had it all planned. I was going to get a holiday visa and live on the beach and busk for money, or strip. I’d done a brief stint of stripping in my early twenties and it was pretty easy money. For years and years I have been planning my next move, but then I get unwell, make impulsive decisions and go off on a tangent.
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    I start talking to my voice. Rose says, “You don’t need to escape: I’m coming in to get you. But you need to text me and let me know you’re in here.”
    â€œBut if I’m speaking to you don’t you know?”
    â€œYeah, but we need to do it properly, person to person.”
    I’m starting to get angry. “Well, I don’t want to ring, not after the last conversation, and besides I don’t need to be rescued. I can get out of here myself.”
    The voice won’t let up. It’s relentless. “But you are sick. I need to take you to