“Murderers, terrorists, cultists. Do you have any qualms about spending time in an environment filled with fine folks like these?”
“No,” I answered.
This was the first thing the recruiter said to me, after the initial courtesies. Quite the introduction, right?I remember thinking about his imposing stature. He was tall, built like brick and protruded an aura that, for lack of a better description, reminded me of concrete. In the moment this got me thinking that maybe he hadn’t always enjoyed the relative hands-off nature of recruitment, that maybe he once worked behind the walls. I learned later that many, of the same character, used to seek out the thrill the job provided. Young, eager men with something to prove, either to themselves or others. When the mostly mundane day-to-day business started to bore them, when they never really got the adrenaline they came for, they changed tactics. The young men would come in with their finger on the trigger, ready to fire, antagonising the patients until they finally snapped. Usually, this led to what my father would call “some good ol’ fashioned fisti-cuffs”. Of course, this was a calculated move. The laws of the industry strictly prohibited abuse of patients, but due to high security concerns and sporadic violence, self-defence was both taught and encouraged. You see where this is going. After the those incidents, the “aggressor” would likely be sued for damages by the caretaker, which in most cases was the one really responsible for the altercation. The worker would get their settlement, a months pay usually, and some paid time off to go with it. The patient would be further indebted, making rehabilitation an ever greater task. A flaw of the system.
But I get ahead of myself. By now you’re probably wondering what this line of work is, and no, it is not corrections. My guess is that many on this forum originate from the States, and to my knowledge there is no direct comparison. The closest thing to what I do would be called forensic psychiatry by Uncle Sam. I’ll explain the basic machinery of the operation with some convenient exposition, in the words of my recruiter.
“This is not a prison. I will make myself clear, this is not a prison,” he said as he scribbled something on a piece of paper, “a prison is a place where you put stable people, out of sight, out of thought from the public.”
He turned the paper towards me. It depicted, I guessed, the structure of the organisation.
“Take notes, if you want. This is not really that important,” he said.
I copied the hierarchy before me. Boxes with arrows pointed to other boxes. Your typical flow-chart, containing the names of different governing bodies within the institution.
“When an ordinary Joe kills another Joe, it usually boils down to one of three different motives: greed, envy or to hide a secret, or something. Basically, the killer has something to gain from removing the victim.”
I nodded. He was certainly more interested in this part of the interview.
“Obviously, there are revenge-killings and the like, but in those cases the perpetrator gains some sort of peace. Or at least they think they will.”
In an alternative reality, this man would probably make a killing on Broadway. Suddenly the monotone, disinterested voice transformed into something else, filled with artful pauses and strategic stressing of words.
“But there are other ‘motives’, and excuse the cliché, far more sinister ones. These are much harder to grasp. Have you seen Mindhunter?” He asked.
“Yeah, I think so. Jonathan Groff, right?” I answered.
“Exactly, very talented actor. Also great in Hamilton!”
My suspicions were confirmed. The man was definitely a fan of the arts.
“In the show they discuss the difficulty of understanding crime in the twentieth century. Suddenly, there are killings for the sake of killing. No rhyme or reason to it, except the disgusting satisfaction the murderer feels,” he continued.
“And those are the people you treat here?” I asked.
“Those are the people we treat here. Call them what you want. Mentally ill, koo-koo in the head, demonic. Officially it’s the first one,” he paused for a second, “I call them evil.”
My first couple of weeks went by fast. As a caretaker, your day consists of, among others, mopping the floors, preparing simple food and generally being a social beacon for the patients. This means regular card games, watching TV and just chatting with all the interesting characters. Of course, this is all second to security. To achieve this, a set of rules is given to each employee, which is to be strictly obeyed. These rules are, unlike many of the ones I’ve seen on this forum, not supernatural in nature. They are not strange, and make a lot of sense when you work with the institutionalised. Outside of the control room, we would always walk in pairs. Under no circumstance should you turn your back against a patient without a coworker watching them. Don’t wear jewellery or other things around your neck. Always count the utensils after lunch. You know, common sense.
There were other rules you had to follow on the outside, as well. These included a total lockdown of all personal social media. “Set all your profiles to private, remove any profile pictures and make sure there are no ways for strangers to find your personal information” and by personal information, they mostly meant your address.
The rules were there for a reason. The patients all had access to phones and computers (during allotted time), which in turn could access the internet. Imagine that you’re in a game of “7” at a table with some coworkers and patients. That is good, you’re normalising the environment for the patients, which is one of the key elements of rehabilitation. Now, imagine that you have a good hand. You play two aces and a jester in the fourth elimination round. This means the person to your left immediately loses. They are out. Now, let’s say that you broke some rules. Maybe you bet money on the game, and let the other patients in (gambling with patients is a big no-no). Poor John to your left just lost some cash. You walk away, proud of the win, with some extra capital in your pockets. In the meantime, John is scouring the internet. He finds your Instagram-profile and notices that it is public. He sees pictures of your significant other, perhaps your children or maybe your parents. He promises one of your coworkers a large fortune if they plug their ears during phone-time. Now, he is free to contact any potential “friends” on the outside. So finally at the end of the day, when all your loved ones lay silently in bed, they come creeping through the night.
My recruiter told me plenty of stories to scare me into following the rules. Many of them were concentrated on the in-house rules. He told me how fast the necklace of a coworker had become his demise. He told me how one of the nightly workers had gone for a piss, alone, and how by the time the remaining workers had reacted to the alarm, he was already unrecognisable. These didn’t frighten me. That’s what I signed up for. The ones he told afterwards however, did.
“Not that long ago, we had a new caretaker joining the team. He was the perfect candidate, in many ways. He seemed to genuinely care about giving the people inside the opportunity of a better life,” he fiddled with his pen as he talked.
“He was everything we expected of him, and more. Outside of doing all the things he was supposed to, he went the extra mile. One evening, when my shift was ending, he came to relieve me. He had brought bread, freshly baked, for the patients. They adored him. I mean who wouldn’t, he baked fucking bread for them…”
This was the first, and only time he sounded truly personal during the interview.
“He didn’t deserve what happened to him,” he said.
In essence, the poor fellow had become too close with the patients, and one in particular had taken up a special interest in the new worker. For her, he was more than a guy paid to be there. For him, she was someone in need of treatment. I’ll make up names for them to protect their privacy. I haven’t read much Shakespeare, so this is probably way off thematically, but let’s call them Romeo and Juliette.
Juliette was in need of around-the-clock supervision, unlike most of the other patients. The poor soul suffered from a plethora of illnesses, many of which caused her to harm herself. The unit tried different methods to alleviate her pain, but none worked. Senseless medication, restricting her motion (fancy term for tying someone to a table, basically) and isolation. Her file is horrifying to read, since the measures taken resemble something out of an 1800’s asylum. Imagine the chock of the caretakers when she suddenly stopped after one conversation with Romeo.
After that, Romeo would become an integral part of Juliette’s plan of care. The psychologists saw how much better she had become and recommended daily interactions between the two. Everything was swell.
Sometime later, Romeo approached the man who would later become my recruiter and told him that she had made advances towards him. This was standard procedure, since relations between caretaker and patient is strictly forbidden. Following protocol, Romeo was transferred to another unit and all contact between the two parties were to cease. Juliette was devastated. My recruiter told me that they had to stop her from hanging herself four times in the following week. She would remove the covers of her bed and tie them together, fashioning some sort of noose. It went so far that they had two place two caretakers in her room, while she slept. Just imagine having two people constantly observing you, robbing you of any privacy.
After the initial outburst, she would slowly become better again. But something was off, I’ll let my recruiter tell it in his words.
“It was like she stopped existing. Like she dissociated or something, or whatever you call it. Sure, she technically got ‘better’, but she also became someone else entirely. The shrinks remarked over her miraculous recovery, but they, of course, didn’t see her day-to-day. They didn’t spend any time with her outside of the monthly talk they would have with each patient. They didn’t notice how… weird she really behaved.”
By this time of the interview, my recruiter was somber, to say the least.
“Legally, we can’t hold anyone here if the shrinks decide that someone is healthy. So, she was let go. They bragged to our superiors of the unlikely rehabilitation.”
The rest of the story ended in predictable tragedy. Juliette would start roaming the perimeter of the compound during the mornings. Personnel that noticed described her as “prowling” and “on the hunt”. Romeo was warned, but seeing as she didn’t break any laws, nothing could be done. They just told him to be careful.
An air of uneasiness had spread throughout the unit when Romeo failed to report for his shift a third straight day. The sightings of Juliette had also stopped by this time. “Coincidentally”, as my recruiter remarked. One early morning when Romeo’s shift had ended, he made his way to the car. He must have gotten sloppy. He was told to watch for any unwelcome pair of eyes that might be watching. Maybe he was extra tired when he first got to work, because somehow he had forgotten to lock his car.
I later found the file written by the first responders. Here’s the description of the scene, edited for brevity.
“Officers [redacted] and [redacted] went to do a welfare check on [ROMEO] at the request of a coworker. They arrived at [address] by 10:47. When no one responded at the the door, the two officers kicked in the door after reporting a weird smell emitting from the house. Inside there was blood on the floor. The two officers called for backup and continued searching the house. At approximately 10:54 they entered the bedroom. Inside they found several limbs laying on the floor, and the body of [JULIETTE] on the bed, fully intact except a large, vertical cut from pelvis to throat. They found the head of [ROMEO] inside the cavity of [JULIETTE]. When paramedics arrived at the scene, both were declared dead.”
So, again, I’m not scared of what happens at work. I always have colleagues watching my back. It is when I leave the relative safety of work and go home to my empty house that I’m scared. I have patients that, despite my best efforts, harbour intense hatred towards me. That is why I follow the rules. I always follow the rules. But by dear God, I think I fucked up.
I have a patient under my care that is, to say the least, difficult. In the beginning of this text my recruiter mentioned cultists. This patient was probably the reason for that inclusion. He was deep into what can only be described as Lovecraftian horror. Old Gods, stalkers of the night, human sacrifice, you name it. He would scrawl weird symbols on the walls of his room. Sometimes it was written in his own blood, sometimes feces. Either way, it was a mess to clean up.
I don’t know what made him attach to me in the way that he did, but I know that it was an awful experience. He used to tell me that he “would get me”. Why? I can’t say. Sometimes people with illnesses just do things for the sake of it, like the serial killers of Mindhunter.
I didn’t worry, at least until he threw his semen at me. Fuck, it was disgusting. Humiliating. But most importantly it was derivative, I mean, didn’t Silence of the Lambs already do this?After that I could hear his whispers during all the waking hours. I started noticing shadowy figures slowly creeping around the edge of my house at night. I couldn’t sleep. At the start, both my superiors and the police took it seriously. But even when they restricted his outgoing calls and placed double guards on him, it didn’t stop.
Some time later I got tagged in a photo from a friend’s bachelor party. I messed up. That was all one needed to find me. So, I did what I had to do.
I hope I can be forgiven, but it was self defence. Taught and even encouraged.
Sorry, I have to go now, my allotted computer time is over.