Patient 00102

At the Mental Institute of South California we often do things a little backwards. In this case, everyone assumes our patient is dead. We'll call this patient Emily. And in all my years of working, I've never ran across a case quite like hers. According to her Documents, her death was faked because she owed too much money in taxes and if she was put in the nursing home, the County would never see it's money.

Emily was brought here as part of an experiment. We know according to the facts that Emily had a family history of mental disorders and she lived a very thriving lifestyle as a child. What seemed to be the "trigger point" was the passing of her father. Her father was her supportive figure. He took care of her and the house and all the family business. With his passing being so sudden, she would have this feeling of Abandonment that would continue for several years.

We also know that when her father passed, Emily kept his corpse in the house for three days. During which, she proceeded to tell all the gossiping church ladies, the minister, and even the local doctor that her father was still alive. Almost as if ignoring the simple fact that he was gone would bring him back. However, after three days the court ordered for her give up her father’s dead body so that he could have a proper burial. This, in my opinion, burying her father was the proper thing to do.

Emily then hit a period of Depression. The courts sending letters wanting to collect taxes, the church ladies are gossiping about her, and all the while Ms. Emily does not know what to do. She simply locks herself away from the rest of the world. Her only social interaction with anyone at this time is an uneducated servant. Months pass and no sign of Ms. Emily. Until she sees a man, that I'm going to call Jack, working on the road in front of her house. Instantly Emily fell for Jack. A tall, dark-haired man, with a Northerners accent was hard to come across in her small town. But Jack was a homosexual and wasn’t really interested in Emily in any other way but as friends.

But with the pressure of old age starting to taunt Emily and the rumors about Jack with the younger lads at the bar swirling around, they decide to get married. And unfortunately Jack didn’t know he was marrying a crazy woman that saw their arranged marriage as more of a romantic partnership than an investment. She quickly finds out that Jack is only in it for the money. So she poisons him, with arsenic to be exact. And since she wasn't a liked member of society no one ever came to check on either of them. She practically got away with it.

When we got the call from the sheriff to come get Ms. Emily we were both nervous and excited. Never had anyone kept a person’s corpse in their house for forty years without anyone ever noticing. And our Institute would be the first to fund an experiment on the traumatic impacts of abandonment on Women in the United States. Ms. Emily has been with us now for almost four years.

Today is the day Me along with three other colleagues get to decide if Emily gets to go back out into the world, or if she's stuck here another four years until her next reevaluation. I started by asking a few simple questions: What’s your name? Where are you? What do you like to do? How have you been? Just simple questions to ease the tension in the room were all I was wanting to begin with. But then, she looked up at me with this wild glare, tilted her head to the side and screamed “When will you let me go you crooked bastard, my husband is going to come looking for me! And when he finds me, I hope he kills you!” 

And with that I politely grinned, rubbed my beard, and said “Ms. Emily, I’m sorry but you’re husband passed away over forty years ago, so why are you here?” she looked at me really confused as I stamped DENIED on her pamphlet. Ms. Emily was taken by the officer with force back to her nice padded room, where she later died that night of a heart attack.