When you are on the crazy floor, your atheism takes a vacation. You are visited by chaplains who are constantly shoving the Bible at you as if it’s going to do much for you while you are bonkers. I actually got religion while I was in the weirdo ward, but then I realized I was delusional still, because I had thought some other weird things on par with believing in God. Matter of factly, I thought I was God. Fortunately for me, I found a patient who thought he was Satan, so it all seemed to make sense. He had a huge indentation in his skull that made it look like he could have had a horn, so this bolstered his case in my opinion. I told him to go a little easier on everyone from here on in, because you were all having a terrible time of it out there on planet Earth.
Anyway, I left the ward somewhat religious.
(There’s a great story of friendship behind this fragment, I met another Ron with the last name “St. John”. Coincidences like that happen in mental wards all the time, especially when so many who find themselves put away give a nom de guerre at intake. We were like Lennon and McCartney, razzing the other patients and just having a great time of it. But he decided to leave AMA, because he thought that something he sent to Janet Reno might have gotten him in trouble, and I might have been part of the plot to entrap him. I said a lot of nasty things to him, which was probably mean seeing as how he was at least or more crazy than I was. My ex-wife and my son were in the ward too. Twenty days passed before I got a grip on reality and begged to go home.)