denokandafaran | Maniac: One Woman's Story of Survival / Tales From Briarcliff

Behind the stone walls of Briarcliff, time had no meaning. The days themselves seemed to exist in a kind of perpetual twilight. Life there was just a series of numbing cruelties and humiliations, all masquerading as something else.

I was in the third week of my confinement, and a storm was coming. The nor'easter of '64 that brought so much devastation with it, and for me, something else, something far more savage even than nature.

Oliver Thredson was, to all appearances, a kindly figure, fatherly in his manner. This face he showed the world, this face of sanity and benevolence, that was his real mask. Underneath lurked the real Oliver Thredson, an unspeakable monster.

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How long had it been? 20 minutes? 20 hours? 20 days? In a windowless room without a clock, time felt like a luxury I couldn’t afford. I reminded myself that any moment now, my time could end, and all the minutes I could extract with my lies and my shows of affection and empathy could slip through my grasp like sand through my fingers. CLICK! CLICK-CLICK! The fluorescent lights flickered on. Adrenaline coursed through my body. My muscles tensed. My heart pounded through my chest. His appearance was always unexpected. I came to believe he was always watching me, waiting to catch me off guard.

But this time, there was more than one coming down the basement steps. Another woman -- her hands tied behind her back -- staggered in front of him. She stumbled down the steps and landed hard on the tile floor. She looked up at me, and it was as if I was looking in a mirror and saw my own despair. That’s when he turned to me and said, "Say 'Hi' to our new toy."