Stall tactics

By Elissa Ely - The Boston Globe - Boston.com - Op-ed - News: "PART OF ANY new job is finding the bathroom. This one looked routine at first, though with accommodations for its psychiatric setting. There were nonbreakable mirrors over the ladies room sinks; the image returning to you was metallic and wavy, and looked as if it had a headache. Also, windows were barred to discourage impulsive jumping. It is all standard preventive policy.

But someone had put a large purple chair in the handicapped stall. It had been placed right beside the toilet. There it sat, tilted slightly back -- receptively, waitingly, listeningly.

The chair clashed with the block walls, yet managed to look restrained. It sat on wheels that could be pivoted to face away when necessary. It seemed to know it was not well situated, and to appreciate any forgiveness and all company. In short, it was trying to make no waves.

A purple chair might not be welcome in a place of traditional solitude. Yet I noticed, in the midst of the phone calls, appointments, and productivity units that any new job involves, that I was retreating increasingly to the handicapped stall. I found the chair strange, good company. It sat quietly while I was occupied. It asked for nothing, and never used the last paper towel.

In its presence I became oddly nostalgic. The chair reminded me of other strange but companionable bathrooms in places where I have worked.

There was the unisex stall in the staff room of the hospital where I first trained. It shared space with the lockers, and had been constructed so that one's shoes and much of the lower legs were in clear view of anyone retrieving their stuff. We would slam our lockers to mask defining noises behind the door, and everyone held to an unspoken code: the eyes never roamed downward.

One psychology intern suggested that the stall had been deliberately constructed as a stress test -- like those pressure interviews where a candidate is asked to open a window secretly nailed shut. My own solution was to wear black sneakers.

In the hospital where I worked for so many beautiful years after training, there was a single bathroom in the hallway down from the nurse's station. It opened with the staff key, and one was supposed to rap before entering to prevent social catastrophe. It happened to be right in the middle of a patient sitting area, a bus stop for those without privileges, and they kept vigilant tracks of its internal activity. ''Oh no," I remember hearing one patient say with authority to someone I could not see, ''you can't go in until Dr. Ely's done." I considered never coming out.

Some review their lives on mountain tops. The handicapped stall became that sort of summit, a place to recall the past and make peace with the future. The purple chair sat beside me in a listening attitude, neutral but not unsympathetic. As the weeks went on, it seemed to acquire more personality and to become less blank, as happens in any therapeutic relationship. When someone was already in there, I felt proprietary. We all want our doctor to love us best.

A situation like this cannot persevere forever. One day, without explanation, the chair was gone. Obviously, it had been moved so it could fulfill its higher function; gone to a place where it would have no reason to feel anything but appropriate.

The stall was full of space now. But the space was empty. It would be too much to say I felt lonely, but too little to say I felt untouched.

Once you have summited, it is hard to return to sea level. I found myself visiting less often, even when driven by natural forces. Now I am filled with nostalgia for the very item that had filled me with nostalgia.

Recently, I have transferred my attention to a ladies room on the first floor of the clinic. There is nothing unusual about it. Yet it seems to have potential.

Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist."