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locked away at the Priory, melting into mine, GH makes the public eye with his. On our group TV, there’s a flicker of him being interviewed about his first big film. He seems drunk. “What,” I say to my anorexic pal, “a fool.”
    She snorts. “I wouldn’t kick him out of bed.” She doesn’t have the strength to kick.
    I also snuck in a disposable camera.
    This turns out to be not smart, as patients begin to act out. One woman shows up to see me with burns on her cheeks where she’s set fire to herself with a lighter. I put my camera away. I use up the film taking photos of myself in my bed, proto-MySpace pictures, cheeks sucked in, lips pouting. I’ve noticed it since in Lindsay Lohan’s and Britney Spears’s self-portraits: they always suck in their cheeks and pout no matter the circumstances, seemingly unaware that it’s the scars, not the cheekbones, that catch the light in their Twitter posts.
    After a week, I’m still fuzzy, but boredom is starting to creep in around the edges. In art therapy I paint a picture of young Rod Stewart and title it
Rod the Mod!
I cannot tell you what possessed me. He means nothing to me, but it is a good likeness. The art teacher makes a big fuss and says it’s very revealing. I feel sorry for her. The middle-aged dad draws the telegraph pole he cannot stop climbing. It means everything to him. She moves past it quickly.
    The pills they have me on leave me catatonic for much of the day. It feels like I’m moving in mud. Mum says my eyes are rolling back in my head. “Maybe,” I agree, and think about how much I like circles, and Kandinsky, and then visiting hour is used up and she leaves. Because I’m a suicide case, after lights-out, they check on me every five minutes. A few days before I am let out altogether, my mum is allowed to take me into London for a Saturday visit. We go to the movies,
Erin Brockovich
, for which Julia Roberts wins an Oscar whilst forgetting to thank Erin Brockovich herself. Can it be true that I ride the tube back to the hospital alone? I know that I look people in the eye until they have to look away. There is an element of being so frightened of myself that I’m gratified to find I frighten the public at large. I am allowed out after two weeks, diagnosed as a rapid cycle manic-depressive, which is to say, instead of six months in bed then six months raving, my mood changes wildly within an hour.
    I don’t think the Priory was especially helpful, beyond giving me a forced vacation from life and debts it would take many years to pay off.
    GROVELANDS PRIORY HOSPITAL
    INITIAL TESTS & ASSESSMENTS                                £300.00
    (Charged once on an admission in addition to bed fee)
    DAILY BED FEE—Standard                                        £325.00
    DAILY BED FEE—High Dependency                           £355.00
    DAILY CONSULTANT FEE                                           £45.00
    (A daily fee charged by your consultant for retaining clinical responsibility for your care. Although the consultant is responsible for your care throughout your stay, they may not see you every.)
    The daily bed fee covers accommodation (single room with bathroom), basic nursing care, duty psychiatrist and junior doctor cover, medication, treatment programme, and all meals.
    A deposit of £3000.00 is required on admission, followed by £3000.00 weekly thereafter for the duration of the admission (please see “Financial Requirements for Self-funding Admissions”
).
    ADDITIONAL CLINICAL CHARGES
    (Billed where appropriate)
    Initial Consultant’s Fee                     Charged per consultant
    Special Nursing                                                        £26.00
    (Charged per hour in addition to the Standard Daily Bed