My name is Screwloose. I am a young female, magenta eyed, teal coated, silver maned Earth Pony, aged 29. I currently reside here at Ponyville’s General Hospital in the Psychiatric Ward.
Most of my days used to be spent wearing my restraint jacket in a padded cell, or as my dear nurse and doctor friends call it, my calming room.
This is a tad embarrassing to say the least, but you see, I sometimes have the tendency to bark like a dog and chase whatever moves.
In some cases, with my erratic behavior I can hurt myself. But what’s more frightening to me is that I can hurt other ponies around me if I am not careful.
Of course I don’t mean to do this, I am not malicious, but it’s the darker side of me that I work hard to control everyday, and yet, even then, it can still manage itself out of me every now and again. This is why I still have time to spend here at the hospital.
With that said, I am not the mare I once was, far from it! My Doctors, Specialists and Nurses have helped me to come a long way with my treatment, and I am proud to say that I am barking less and talking much more! They even tell me that with a little more treatment and time, I will even be able to rejoin society again real soon! That is my fondest wish!
The thought of this possibility is what has kept me going! There is nothing in Equestria that I would love more than to be a fully functioning member of society! To succeed, and to reunite with my father on a level that we have never had together.
I will be writing of my past. I will speak of the time I was a foal, a filly, and of my early mare-hood. As well as my very first day in Ponyville’s Psychiatric Ward.
With this, I hope to provide insight into how far I have come over the past eight years of my life. Though I will never truly be fully rid of the sickness that haunts me, I know, one day, I will learn to manage and control it for good!
When I was a foal, I was nothing like the other ponies my age. I was born with my cutie mark! One little screw on each side of my flank. It would brand who I was going to be for the rest of my life.
Needless to say that my parents were amazed that such an event was even a possibility! This wonderment was such a rare occurrence that it got the attention of Cutie Mark specialists all across Equestria and even to the princess herself, Princess Celestia! Cutie Mark Researchers and specialists were speechless and new research had begun on the subject.
It wouldn’t take long after that before my unique ways of living would surface.
As a filly and into my growing years, I would run all around Ponyville at all hours of the day and night barking like a dog.
At the time, I really had no idea why I did it or how it all started, but dogs were my favorite animal in the whole wide world! I was, and still am obsessed with them, but my parents refused the very notion of ever having one.
However, this didn’t stop me from trying to be one! I would run around, go up to strangers and bark at them as loud as I could! I would chase cats, run after a pony’s wagon and do all those other things that dogs like to do, some of which I shall not mention here. The feeling that this gave me was unbelievable! I just felt so good, so free!
My mother and father had repeatedly begged me to stop, but I wouldn’t, I couldn’t! For me, it was as natural as breathing!
Of course, I was able to speak, just as any other ponies could, but to tell the truth, I was deathly afraid to, especially around ponies that I didn’t love or trust. For me, it was so much easier to deal with strangers in my life by acting out as a dog and barking at them.
My parents would take me to see the Psychiatrists as far off as Vanhoover and Manehatten for answers, though none ever said that they could pin point the reasons why I acted the way that I did. All they had said was that there was something very wrong inside my head and there was no telling how or why it all started and if it will or could ever end.
Looking back on that experience with what I know about myself now, that was a pretty sorrowful answer that they had given to us! It’s like they didn’t even care! Just because it’s a big city, it doesn’t mean they will be any better at figuring you out!
Before long, my parents had all but given up on me ever leading a normal life. They had decided to lock me in my room, hidden away from the public’s watchful eyes. They locked my door from the outside and barred my window, coming in mostly to clear my dishes and bedpan, give me a bath and spend some time with me every day.
Lots of the time I could hear them fighting through the crack under the space of my closed door, especially at night.
My father, always the caring and compassionate stallion that he was, defending me. Arguing to my mother that a parent’s love, understanding and time was all that was needed to overcome the sickness that plagues me. My mother, the more hard-hooved, black and white viewed mare that she was, had threatened that she would leave us if I wasn’t put into a mental institute.
They would fight for hours, almost every night while I sat in the corner of my room listening to it all, howling like a coyote to my bedroom ceiling above in agony hoping that they would stop.
This situation would eventually cause my parents to split from one another, my mother having given up on both my father and I had left early one morning and never returned. We still don’t know where she went and the police ponies still can’t find her. I suppose she just doesn’t want to be found, it's not her fault and I still love her.
My father bless his heart would continue to try and help me every day in his own ways. But this was all too much for one pony to handle. Looking back now I understand that.
One day, when I was barking at the birds in the tree through my barred bedroom window, my door opened. There were two hulking ponies in uniform standing at the entrance, one was holding a restraining jacket. They came over to me and pinned me to the ground.
As I struggled, outmatched by the strength of the two stallions over top of me, I barked incessantly and fought hard to break free, all the while desperately looking for my father. There he was crying in my doorway.
I had no idea why this was happening to me, it was like a nightmare! They put a needle of sedatives into my flank and the world went dark and fuzzy.
The last thing I remember was the look on my poor father’s face as they dragged me away with them. The look of a tired old stallion about to go into deep mourning, it was the look of utter defeat and failure.
He said “I’m sorry my darling Screwy, so very, very sorry” as he wept into his sweater sleeve.
I suppose I empathize with him, after all, he did try his best. I love you too daddy.
When I woke up, it was dark. It took me a few moments to regain a little vision through the blackness.
I couldn’t move my front legs as they were bound to my chest in my restraining jacket to keep me from walking. I tried to chew my legs free through my jacket, but I couldn’t reach. There was nothing I could do.
I barked, and barked, and then barked some more, but it was dead silent, a silence that I had never known. The ringing in my ears and the faint echo of my bark’s aftermath were the only things that I heard. I was stuck like that until the next morning, engulfed in the void of utter darkness and deafened by the sounds of silence.
When morning finally arrived, I was still exhausted. I took a better look at the world around me. There was nothing but padding wall to wall and floor to ceiling, except for a single small window on the entrance that showed ponies walking by in a hustle, but I didn’t know any of their faces. I panicked and started barking as loud as I could muster, though I was very thirsty.
Then came a single sound. The door had opened! In walked a Doctor and two Nurse ponies by his side.
The Doctor smiled and said “Good morning Screwloose! How are you feeling today?”
I sat up and began to bark at him angrily. Not knowing where I was or why I was there. All I wanted was my father.
Despite my behavior, he had seemed to take it in good humor.
“Are you hungry at all? Would you like some breakfast?” He inquired.
I just barked at him again.
He said “well Screwloose, I am Doctor Horse and this is Nurse Sweetheart and Nurse Snowheart. You have been admitted into Ponyville General Hospital. We are only here to help you get better. It looks to me like you have had a pretty long, and tiresome night, so we will let you rest here for a while before we hopefully diagnose you and begin your treatment."
He paused and looked down at his chart. "I want you to know that we will only be a step away should you need us at any time, but for now, is there anything at all that we can get for you right now, food? Or water perhaps?”
I wanted to bark at them, but I was too weak and tired from the night I had just been through.
I meekly uttered “Yes, water please.”
Nurse Sweetheart quickly rushed out and brought me back some water. I drank that water as quick as I could. I had never tasted such refreshing, sweet water in all of my life as I had in that instant.
Doctor Horse took my cup back and said “Now then, Is there anything else that we can bring for you Screwloose?”
With my new found strength, I just glared at the three of them and started to bark as loud as I could.
He said once more, “Alrighty then Screwloose, you just rest here and call if you need us. We won’t be far. Nurse Sweetheart will come back in a little while to check up on you.”
Doctor Horse turned to Nurse Snowheart and said in a soft tone. “Meet me in room 12, in the eastern wing at 10:30. Rainbow Dash is to be discharged today and she needs a little convincing for one reason or another.”
The Doctor and the two Nurses left, and I was alone once more.
The hours rolled slowly on as I just sat there in puzzlement, the silence getting to me more and more. Looking back, It’s a wonder that I didn’t go even more insane with the way the room sounded, even though you do get used to the silence of an empty room in not that much time.
At this time, I really started to miss my father. He just seemed so far away from me. I couldn’t understand how or why he had abandoned me like that. Didn’t he love me anymore? I remember beginning to tear up and I started to howl at that thought, I was certain that I would never see him again.
After a little while, Nurse Sweetheart came back into the room with a wheel chair.
She smiled at me sweetly and said “Hello my little pony! As you know I am Nurse Sweetheart and I am here to take you to your first visit with the Psychiatric Doctor! I will just help you into your chair and we’ll be off to see her in a jiffy!”
Her voice was soothing and calm, but I wasn’t ready to return the favor just yet. I started to bark and thrash around in my restraining jacket, somehow ending up on my two hind legs and running right into the padded wall.
She came over to me with her cheerful demeanor and said “Now, now you silly pony, we’re not going to get very far if you keep acting up like that! Just easy does it into the chair now dear.’ As she padded the seat with her hoof.
Somehow this seemed to work on me. Be it a sense of trust, or be it from complete exhaustion, I calmed right down and let her help me into the chair.
She giggled and said “Very good dear! Now, let’s get going to the doctor’s office sweetie!”
Nurse Sweetheart gently rolled me out of the padded room and I had almost fallen asleep by how calmly she moved me. It was like riding a cloud ferry into Dreamland.
We had arrived at the Doctor’s office for my brief examination. She was a tiny little pony with a very curly mane. She was kind of cute in her own way.
She smiled as she greeted Nurse Sweetheart and I. “Hello Screwloose! My name is Doctor Nursery Rhyme and I will be taking a look over your past behavior to help me to better understand what you are going through, and how we can begin to try and help you. Doctor Horse has given me the medical records of your behavior as well as your medical history, and I think it’s safe to say that you sound like you may be suffering from some sort of Schizophrenia.”
Of course this was all over my head at the time, and if I’m being truly honest, it still kind of is. All I could focus on right then was the White pony with a stylish purple mane and tail, and her white cat outside of the office window. I started to growl and then unleashed a bark loud enough to take the roof of the hospital completely off, or so it felt like!
Doctor Nursery Rhyme seemed unmoved, she just observed me and took notes in her little book, all the while Nurse Sweetheart was trying frantically to calm me down.
Doctor Nursery Rhyme just set her book down on her desk, looked at me and said “Yes, it would appear that this may just be the case for you Screwloose. This was very helpful.”
She turned her chair towards the office window and gazed out.
She signaled Nurse Sweetheart over to her with her hoof and said “For Celestia’s sake! I just don’t know how in Equestria they would have missed this! This poor girl and her parents went all over for years to the supposed finest Doctors and Specialists in Equestria, and none of them could even clue into this possibly being Schizophrenia? What are they paying these ponies for?”
As they continued to talk, I had continued to bark until the white pony and her cat were out of sight.
After this little episode was over, I just remember feeling weak and lightheaded. The doctor’s office started to spin and the voices of Doctor Nursery Rhyme and Nurse Sweetheart became muddy and inaudible. The room then went black, I must have fallen asleep as I don’t remember how I got to my next destination.
I awoke in a cold and clammy sweat. I could see that a couple of hours had already rolled by me at that point, as I noticed that Princess Celestia had already begun lowering the sun for the end of the day.
I was alone once more and strapped into a bed, not a very comfortable bed, but a bed just the same.
My restraining jacket was removed, and I was dressed in a sort of white night gown. I was so relieved to have gotten rid of that tight jacket and out of the confines of that padded room.
I had hardly spent any time awake when Nurse Snowheart came in with a tray full of hospital food.
She said in a crusty voice “Okay, dinner time for you Screwloose, dig in!”
She unstrapped my upper body so I could sit up and eat. It was food alright, but it didn’t look very appetizing. It really didn’t matter to me at the time, I was starving!
Having refused breakfast that morning from Doctor Horse, my last meal was home cooked daisies and hay burgers from my father the night before, I was ready to chow down! There were peas, potatoes, and a red gelatinous cube of some sort.
The Nurses still won’t tell you what it is, even though I have been eating it for the past eight years that I have been here. If they did tell us, I’m sure I would never want touch it again! That said, it’s not that bad, but it’s no slice of Sweet Apple Acres’ fresh home made apple pie either! I just pretend that it’s cranberry sauce at Hearthswarming Eve’s dinner.
I had eaten my meal so fast that Nurse Snowheart hadn’t even left my room yet. I barked at her a couple of times which made her jump a little. She turned around at the doorway and in utter shock noticed that my tray had been all but licked clean.
“Your one heck of an eater kiddo!" She chuckled "One heck of an eater!”
She strapped me back into my bed and took my tray away with a little smirk on her mouth.
Night time rolled around smartly, the sun having dipped over the hills and replaced with a big, beautiful full moon that I would have loved to howl to. To be honest, laying there in a bed trying not to howl to the full moon at night was one of the hardest things I had to endure at the Psych Ward.
My door opened, it was Nurse Sweetheart who had come in to make her rounds.
Stopping into my room she said “Good night dear.”
She turned out the light and walked over to my bedside.
Leaning over my bedside and whispering softly in my ear she said “I know how tight those straps can be, so I will just loosen them a smidge.”
She must have trusted me quite a bit for this to happen, either that or she knew I was running on fumes.
”There you go my dear, pleasant dreams.” She said sweetly.
As I gazed through the bars out of my window at that full moon on that cool, clear summer night, I really missed my father’s company. He would always be there every night and tuck me into bed. Sometimes he would even stay with me as I would fall asleep. In my loneliness, I cried into my pillow while humming my favorite lullaby he would sing to me for comfort until I eventually drifted off to sleep.
Only an hour or two had passed by when I awoke suddenly to the jarring noises of alarms and hysteria. I shot up like a bullet in my bed, the loosened straps no match for my sudden spike of energy.
I looked at the door and saw the dark silhouette of a pony rushing by with others giving chase close behind. I felt my canine like urges to give pursuit nag me like never before! I got out of my bed as quick as I could and burst through the door without even opening it!
The mysterious pony had run out of the hospital, and it wasn’t long before I had caught up with the other ponies giving chase, who I soon found out were the night watch pony, Doctor Horse and Nurse Sweetheart.
I loved it, and even now it excites me to think about it! With the cool night air running through my tangled mane and my adrenaline at an all time high, I started to bark in hyper active fashion!
The light from the flashlights illuminated the culprit just enough for us to keep a consistent pace behind!
We ran, and I barked and we ran and I barked some more! I was free and it was wonderful! This was what I lived for! I get chills just thinking about how much fun it was!
Ahem, I beg your pardon, this is why I still have a ways to go yet before I am ready to go back to the world.
Well, after a little bit, we had finally caught up to the culprit and I’d felt like a blood hound that had just tracked down a master criminal!
I later heard through the mill that this pony had only broken into the hospital just to steal somepony else’s slippers. Why anypony would ever want to steal somepony else’s slippers is beyond me, and they called ME the insane one!
Anyways, we had her cornered, there was no getting away! I loudly barked at her a couple of times more before the night watch pony flashed his light on me and sternly told me to get back to the hospital.
He started to chase me, but I had out run him and the others back. It didn't take long before the word of my liberating, yet brief escape had already reached the ears of those who didn’t share my enthusiasm. Even Nurse Sweetheart was reprimanded for loosening my bed straps. It turned into not so much of a fun time after all.
I didn’t spend a night back in my own personal hospital room for quite a while. How long? Let’s just say that I know how many squares of padding a padded room consists of.
This situation had left a bitter taste in my mouth, I didn't mean to get my Nurse in trouble. It was the first time I had ever seen the direct cause of my actions affect somepony negatively. Of course looking back at how I would act prior, I realize that it was all fairly negative because of the way I acted.
I went to bed that night with a new determination, to try my best to follow the orders of the Doctors and Nurses. The only way out into the normal life that I craved deep inside was to do as they said, and so, I did.
As my time went on in the hospital, thanks to all of my appointments with Doctor Nursery Rhyme and Doctor Horse, and my newly found determination, I started to improve.
Little by little I started to act more pony like. I have stopped my barking for the most part, I have also stopped chasing everything in sight, I’ve started to learn how to act in public and I even get to spend lots of time with my father!
He comes to visit me any chance he can and he always tells me how very proud he is of the progress I am making!
In spite of a slip up here and there, I am also proud to say that I do believe I am truly on the mend! I hope that in a couple of years, I will be ready to help out at Ponyville’s dog shelter!
Doctor Nursery Rhyme’s rehabilitation program has gotten me in touch with a pony named Fluttershy! She sounds like such a lovely pony too! I can’t wait to meet her and to start my new life helping all of the dogs in need!
At this point in my life, I can honestly say that the thought of helping our local dogs in Ponyville thrills me much more than barking and acting like one!
In conclusion, I would like to thank the all of kind ponies here at Ponyville General Hospital who never stopped believing in me and what I can accomplish, I love you all, and I thank you!
To my beloved father who is always there for me, even though I know it was never easy for him, Thank you so much for everything you have ever done for me! I love you most of all!
It is my hope with this that I have provided enough insight into how my life was, is and all of my hopes and dreams for the future.
Also, I hope that this may help other ponies to find the strength and inspiration to overcome the obstacles and challenges that they may be facing. Know that with the right help and support, you will persevere, and you will succeed! Celestia only knows, if I can do it, you can do it too!
My name is Screwloose, never give up on your brighter tomorrow!
