The duress button

I approached the door. The pair of keys clipped to my pants jingled as I grabbed the master key that opened all internal doors, ensuring first that no one was lurking behind so that any plans of escape were thwarted. Such was the story a couple of weeks ago, unbeknownst to the medical student who innocently unlocked the door without checking. Someone had sneaked past and had ran all the way to the market nearby and bought himself a coffee at the hospital cafe. Yay, ten points to the crazy. It gives me hope; that their intelligence at least is still preserved.

Bleary-eyed and some totally blank, they mile around aimlessly. Some turn to approach me. I walk fast and smile briefly at those I made eye contact. He was dressed too warmly for the weather. A thick overcoat hung over his shoulders and his long beard was grizzly. His demeanor haphazard, he stood in front of the counter. Upon seeing me, he courteously mumbled something incomprehensible that I took as a greeting and he nudged the gate open for me and smiled crookedly. "Are you the doctor?" he asked in a slurred voice.

Maybe we have been unawarely desensitized by movies and books or maybe I possessed some innate ability to take in and quickly store away things that are seemingly out of the ordinary human experience and fit it in into a pocket of normality. Maybe being a medical student, what is often seen as extraordinary and abnormal is considered part and parcel of our lives. Surely cutting open the skull of a cadaver with an electric saw does not count for normal but I am sure I felt nothing of fear or incredulity at doing such a task. The job has to be done is my rationalization.

It's hard to confront; this amalgam of human weaknesses. Sure enough, if you probe deeply, the cracks in humanity show themselves quite clearly in these dingy wards that you begin to fear that human society has completely fragmented that nothing could possibly save us from the inevitable madness.

Nothing fazes me anymore. This detachment I feel must be a defense mechanism that I have perfected time and time again. Perhaps more so in this rotation, I need this more than ever.

I felt my heart sink during a tutorial as the consultant went on insensitively about schizophrenia. I could feel tears coming but I wasn't sure if I was relating to personal experience or it was because the consultant dished out the cold hard facts like a Japanese chef expertly throwing food at his customers. Here, splat on your plate. Dead centre with all its pieces intact.

It wasn't too long ago that my sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Then, I used every possible explanation I could think of that pointed to something other than biological. I think a part of me blamed my sister's circumstances and the wretched event that precipitated it. But now in retrospect, I began to see the missing pieces that have been there all along and I question myself why I never saw it before. And that was like a bucket of cold water, the cord pulled unwillingly by yours truly.

I began to examine the vicissitudes of my childhood and teenage life. The stressors; all of which had key elements to tip my life into uncontrollable madness. I began to wish I was older, for I am at the age where schizophrenia peaks in girls. The consultant's words resonated in my mind; everyone here has a 1% risk while siblings of patients have a 10% risk of getting schizophrenia. Oh if he only knew. I became a bit paranoid. I feared that I would hear things I shouldn't hear and see things I shouldn't see. I began to be paranoid about being paranoid and unbeknownst to me, my womanly cycle was reaching its final days and the upheaval of my hormones threw me into a frenzy of truth seeking and biting everyone in my way.

Why, why, why. Why did it happen to her and not to me? Is my time coming? I started praying for things I took for granted. Not all the things doas are usually about; kuat iman, panjang umur, jodoh baik, buka pintu syurga dan jauhkan dari api neraka etc.

I started praying for the preservation of my mental health.

Ya Allah.

How incredibly powerless one must feel to lose all control of one's mind especially at such a young age. Sure people get diagnosed with cancer and all things final, but imagine losing your mind. Your dignity stripped away prematurely during a time, when one is trying to find one's place in society and have only begun to define the aspects that make him or her be. The quest for sense of self is cut short so early that like a domino effect, it perpetuates into depression and anxiety for the rest of their life. They lose their place in society as functional human beings. What about marriage, babies and jobs? Where does that all fit I wonder or will it ever fit. How do you console someone that their life as they knew it is gone - that they never return to what they were before. How do parents and siblings grieve for what was?

With the alarm securely clipped to my waist, the presence of the duress button on the alarm that will call all staff within my vicinity to my aid - it is a stark reminder to me of the fragility of the human mind. I see them and try to imagine how they were before they lost it. I see the lady with the stringy hair and pink bathrobe as a young lady in her black cocktail dress all dignified having dinner with her lover at a restaurant. I see the nineteen year old boy; his arms crossed and his manner defensive as he evaded my questions about his attempted suicide - laughing with his mates at the local pub. Then I see my sister and I remember a lot of things.

I've stopped taking my presence of mind for granted. How precious, our minds.

Kids please don't do drugs ok. And alcohol, smoking and pot and crack and all that crap. And parents, please take care of your kids. And you, please take care of yourself and others around you.