The Russian Patient

When I was escorted in my capacity as Buddha to the nearest psychiatric hospital not far from Amsterdam, I honestly expected a more royal approach towards my condition: Champagne, private plane, a couple of bodyguards, etc.

Instead I was injected with something into my ass, slept for three days and woke up to the camera staring at me in my room. I was proclaimed as insane, apparently in a psychosis.

Very disappointing, agree?

But it didn’t stop there. There was this psychiatrist who told me that I was mad and was insisting on some sort of medication, making me suspicious as to what exactly I was doing in the hospital, and on top of it, psychiatric.

I tried to resolve the confusion in regards to my presence at the mental facilities during lunch.

It was actually not that bad: some soup with meatballs, and salad. There were five of us: me, two members of staff and two patients.

And so I asked for wine.

“We don’t have wine here, we are in the hospital,’’ one of the nurses told me.

Mhh, I thought, that was weird.

“I understand about the patients, but what about me?’’

The nurse looked at me pensively and then replied:

‘’You are also the patient.’’

This was troublesome to hear, since I had arrived to the hospital in my role as Buddha, in order to heal the patients. Did they expect me to do it all for free, and on top of it, without some alcohol?

Very suspicious, extremely! And so I decided to plan my escape. There was no way I would remain at the hospital since it implied that there was something wrong with me.

Can you imagine?

That was the beginning of my psychiatric journey (from 2003), about which I write in my book, called ‘The Russian Patient’.  It took me twenty years to write it, a book that waits for her readers.

I am looking for a well-established, traditional publisher to help me to publish it.