Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest Read Free Book Online

Fee)
    ECG                                                                  £96.00 each
    ECT                                                                £211.00 each
    Physiotherapy                                       Charged per session
    Ambulance/Transport                           Charged per journey
    Nurse Escort                                                    £19 per hour
    X-rays & Scans                                  Charged per procedure
    Family Therapy                                       £85.00 per session
    Discharge Medication                                       £10 per day
    ADDITIONAL PERSONAL EXPENSES
    Newspapers/Magazines etc.                      Charged per item
    Telephone calls                                                24p per unit
    Guest Meals (tickets available on Reception)
    Main Meal                                                         £7.50 each
    Snack                                                                £3.50 each
    THERAPEUTIC LEAVE                                       DISCHARGE
    1st and 2nd night
—Charged full daily fee Before 2pm
    No Charge
    3rd night away
—Charged half daily fee 2pm–6pm
    Charged half full daily fee
    Subsequent nights
—no charge After 6pm
    Charged full daily fee
    The Admissions Secretary or Accounts staff will be happy to advise on all accounts of these fees .
    My first night back home, Dad is doodling in felt-tip pen on pages of the
National Enquirer
. He looks up from his work and says, “I would like to stay home all day and draw mustaches on pictures of Britney Spears.” Spears is still young and desirable, not yet Blanche DuBois in Daisy Dukes.I hope his mustachioing her so close to my exit from the psych ward did not doom Britney, by ink, to the same fate.
    There is a Priory doctor I am compelled to see as an outpatient. I don’t remember much about him, but I have all his bills. I have his follow-up letters where he doesn’t know my name or my mum’s name but he sure is trying to get my money. I imagine it as a chapter in a Helen Gurley Brown book: “A
modern girl pays for her own psychiatric treatment.”
    Almost immediately, I want to get back to my apartment—even in my state I am enough of a New Yorker to know that it’s a steal I oughtn’t let go. I want to get back to Manhattan. And I want to get back to Dr. R. I call him from my parents’. We speak for half an hour, long enough for him to decide he doesn’t like the drug the Priory put me on. Depakote, too 1950s—though that seems fitting to me, throwback girl that I am. (Maybe I’m on the same drug as Bettie Page! I think. I’m still to some extent excited by my madness.) Later I will find out that Dr. R is an exceptionally gifted psychopharmacologist, which is why his initial miscalculation hurt him. He gets it right next time. For now it’s just his voice on the phone that helps stabilize my mood.
    MAY l6, 2008
    Nine years ago, Dr. R saved my life. Because of him, my parents got their daughter back. We are forever indebted, and eternally grateful for the gift of his presence in our lives. Over the years, I teased him about being a terminal optimist. Thank goodness he was one; I rode on the coattails of his faith and enthusiasm for a long time
.
    I will carry Dr. R with me always. I will strive to emulate his kindness and poise, especially around those who are sick and suffering, as