Noncompliant: A Sunglassed Elegy from Camarillo

The palms still stand. Crisp silhouettes against a hazy sky, tall as guilt and just as thin. They line the driveway in symmetrical grief, as if trying to offer shade to something that can’t be cooled. Everything here is sun-bleached and wind-chapped, held together by spiderwebs and memory. The breeze tastes like eucalyptus, and the air smells like dust that used to be skin.

The hospital is half-sunken behind them. Camarillo State. I haven’t said it out loud in years. There’s no sign announcing its name anymore, just “Authorized Personnel Only” hanging crooked on rusted hooks. The kind of warning that means please don’t remember this place exists.

I parked at the bottom of the hill. Didn’t want to drive all the way up. Didn’t want to make it easy to leave.

The buildings loom now. Stucco, decayed. Shattered glass twinkling like dirty stars in the dead grass. The windows are tired. The roofs sag like they exhaled and no one ever let them breathe in again. I step forward. Gravel crunches like bones under cheap sneakers.

The front doors are still cracked open. That’s new. They were locked the last time I came. Or maybe they just didn’t want me before.

Inside, the air shifts. No cooler — just heavier. A long hallway opens in both directions, covered in fluorescent lights that haven’t worked since the ‘90s. The walls are still painted seafoam green, the kind of color someone once believed was calming. Now it’s the color of institutional rot.

The linoleum under my feet has peeled like molting skin. The baseboards are scabbed with rust. Every few feet, there’s a framed quote or flier still clinging to the wall.

One reads:

“Patient failed to progress due to poor insight and treatment noncompliance.”
— Dr. H. Ling, 1983

Another:

“Observed crying in room for several hours. No intervention required.”
— Nurse Note, Jan 1974

And another:

“Washed hair for the first time in weeks. Responded well to praise.”
— Progress Note, 1990

I trace my fingers over that one. The ink is almost faded. But it still knows how to sting.

The waiting room is exactly where I remember it. Across the corridor. To the right. Past the nurse’s station where I once begged for someone to please, just let me go outside. My heart kicks as I turn the corner.

And then I see them.

Dozens.

Seated.

Silent.

Ghosts.

All of them in molded plastic chairs, the same chairs I used to count as a distraction from the screaming down the hall. They aren’t transparent. They aren’t floating. They look real — but not alive.

Every single one wears sunglasses. Big, dark, reflective. Some vintage. Some crooked. Some cracked.

A girl in a hospital gown rocks slightly, her mouth open like a word’s been stuck there for years.

An old man in slippers hums tunelessly into a Styrofoam cup.

An employee — her badge says “C. Alvarez, Social Work Intern” — crosses her legs and reads a file with no pages.

No one looks at me. But they know I’m here. I feel it, thick as heatstroke.

I don’t speak. What would I say?

“Sorry you’re still waiting?”

“You deserved better?”

“Me too?”

There’s one chair in the corner that’s empty. That’s the worst part. Because I know who used to sit there. Me. I’ve sat in that chair — at sixteen, twenty-three, and once again at twenty-seven when I thought healing meant starting over and not just hurting differently. The memory comes like a needle through gauze: My sunglasses were knock-off Ray-Bans. I didn’t cry until they kicked me out for being “too functional.” I swallowed my meds and my shame in equal measure. That chair is still warm.

“I didn’t come here to remember,” I whisper, throat dry.
“I came to see if I ever really left.”
But I already know the answer.
Because the ghosts still wear sunglasses.
And I do, too.

The ghosts don’t speak. But the room hums with the memory of things they were promised. Every few seconds, the overhead vent rattles. There’s no air coming through it — just sound.

And beneath that, the girl in the corner rocks back and forth, slow and mechanical, as if her spine is a metronome for someone else’s schedule. Her hospital gown is patterned with tiny green flowers, faded so badly it looks diseased. Her knees are drawn to her chest. Her arms are folded around them like a seatbelt she was told to buckle herself. The sunglasses she wears are cracked through the middle, the right lens missing. Her right eye is milky and unblinking.

She mutters, rhythmically:
“They said I’d be healed next week.
They said I’d be healed next week.
They said — ”
The sentence cuts off and restarts, stuck on loop. No one tries to stop her. No one tells her what year it is now.

A man with a shaved head and trembling hands flips through a National Geographic from 1995. Each time he reaches the end, he sighs and starts over.

There’s an old woman in a crocheted shawl scratching her name into the side of the chair with her thumbnail. The plastic is full of names. None of them are hers.

A teen boy with a court-ordered haircut whispers into a dead phone: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

None of them cry. Not anymore. They’re waiting for someone to call their name. But the receptionist desk has been empty for decades.

That’s when I see her. In the far corner. Third chair from the back.

Me.
And she’s still wearing the sunglasses.

Her hair is shorter than mine. Arms thinner. Posture collapsed like someone folded her in half and left her that way. She’s wearing the old state-issued socks — the ones with rubber grips on the bottom that were supposed to prevent you from running.

She isn’t rocking. She isn’t twitching.
She’s just… still.
But I know it’s me.
Because she’s holding the same scar on her wrist.
Because the sunglasses she wears are the cheap pair I brought in from the gas station across the street, the ones I kept insisting were “not a fashion statement” even though they were.
Because her lips are trembling the same way mine did the night I gave up pretending I could “journal my way through it.”

I kneel slowly, like I’m approaching a sacred version of myself that might shatter if I’m too loud.
“Hey,” I whisper.
“It’s me.”

She doesn’t flinch.
She doesn’t look up.
Her hand is clutching something in her lap — an old manila folder with my name on the tab.
I don’t have to ask what it is.
I already know.

My chart.
My file.
The record of who I was when I wasn’t considered a person. Just a patient ID, a string of DSM codes, and a log of “episodes.”

I slide onto the floor beside her. The linoleum is cracked beneath us, peeling in spots like dry skin.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly.
“I’m sorry I left you here.”

She still doesn’t answer. But she opens the folder. And inside? Blank pages. Hundreds of them. Empty intake forms. Progress notes with no text. Medication logs with the columns still waiting to be filled. It hits me harder than any diagnosis ever did. Because this place — this system — never really recorded us. It observed us. It categorized us. It contained us. But it never heard us.

Suddenly, everything cracks wide open. I blink, and I’m back there. Or maybe I never left.

•••

The air smells like soap and sweat and the scratchy cotton of hospital sheets. A fluorescent light flickers above me. A therapist stares across the circle at me, her arms folded like a defense.

“You’re too emotional,” she says, scribbling something down.

“You interrupt others too much.”

I try to explain. Try to tell her I just wanted someone to listen. That I’d been quiet too long. That silence felt like dying.

She adjusts her glasses and tells me I need to work on my self-regulation.

Another flash.

I’m screaming. Three pairs of hands slam me onto a mattress. A needle in my thigh. Velcro cuffs on my wrists. The words “for your safety” said like a spell meant to justify harm.

The lights blur.

The ceiling spins.

And then… stillness.

I’m swallowing pills. Not because I believe they’ll help, but because refusing them means a note in the chart that says “noncompliant.”

I ask for therapy. They increase my dosage.

I ask for my notebook. They take away my pen.

I cry in the shower where no one can hear me. I scream into a folded towel. I memorize the pattern of ceiling tiles until I know it better than my own name.

It comes faster now. Memories like floodwater.

The boy next door who used to hum Madonna through the wall.

The girl who braided my hair when no one else touched me.

The janitor who looked away when I had a panic attack.

The group facilitator who said,

“You have to want to get better.”

As if I didn’t.

As if surviving this place wasn’t proof that I did.

•••

I’m back in the waiting room. The ghost version of me is still holding the file. Still looking down. I lean forward and touch her hand. It’s cold. But it doesn’t pull away.

Behind me, another ghost speaks. I don’t turn around, but her voice slices clean.
“You weren’t a person here.”
“You were a chart.”

She steps closer.
“And we were all just… numbers with diagnoses.”

I nod. My throat tightens.

The ghost of me finally lifts her head. The sunglasses slide down her nose. I see one eye. Bloodshot. Wild. Wounded. But still here. And it’s enough.

The girl who is me — the ghost of myself — lets her sunglasses slide all the way down her nose. One eye exposed. Then both. No explosion. No thunderclap. Just the weight of it. Like grief sitting in your lap.

Her eyes are not eyes. They’re screens. Not glowing. Not graphic. Just soft flickers, quiet images — like a slide projector behind smoked glass.

In one, I see myself at seventeen, in a group room full of adults who don’t understand me, saying nothing as a social worker asks, “How do you think your behavior affects the staff?”

In another, I’m holding a paper cup of medication I didn’t want, staring at the wall, while someone says, “She’s improving. She’s compliant.”

And then —

Her sunglasses fall into her lap.

And the room changes.

Across from me, the girl who was muttering — “They said I’d be healed next week” — goes silent. She takes her sunglasses off. Her face is pale. Soft. A little sunburned.

And behind her eyes —

I see her locked in a quiet room, biting the inside of her cheek, blood blooming like a secret.

I see the nurse walking by, not noticing.

I see her writing “fine” on her mood chart just to get out of group.

I see her getting discharged.
I see her three days later, in a bathtub.
Alone.

A young man near the window — couldn’t be more than twenty — lifts his sunglasses like they’re made of lead. His eyes flicker to mine.

Behind them:
The moment he reached out to touch another patient’s hand.
The staff dragging them apart.
The note that said “inappropriate sexual behavior.”

He was lonely.
Not dangerous.
He never touched anyone again.

Another ghost. A woman with perfect hair, glossy and frozen in time, removes her cat-eye sunglasses.

Behind her lids:
A thousand family visits that didn’t come.
A priest holding her hand, promising her if she behaved, God would forgive her for “hearing voices.”

She never told anyone again when the voices came back.
She died in her sleep.
But not peacefully.

One by one, they remove them. Dozens of ghosts. Dozens of stories. All tucked behind dark lenses because the living never wanted to look.

And behind every pair of eyes —
The panic attack no one de-escalated.
The moment of self-harm that went unnoticed.
The bruises from a restraint that went on too long.
The birthday that passed unmentioned.
The paper that said “low risk” right before they died.

Each memory hovers in the air like vapor. Flickering. Shimmering. Unspoken. Undeniable.

A janitor ghost stands in the back of the room, mop in hand, sunglasses removed.

In his eyes:
The bodies he cleaned around.
The ones who stopped showing up to group.
The ones who never left notes, just quiet absences.
The way no one said their names again.
He wipes his mop on the floor, even now. Still trying to make the place look clean.

And then — the intern. C. Alvarez.
The social work student with a clipboard that’s never had real paper.

She takes her glasses off slowly, like it hurts. And in her eyes:
A session with a girl — maybe me, maybe not — who finally says,
“I don’t want to die, but I don’t know how to live.”
And she doesn’t know what to say back.
She says, “Well, let’s work on some coping skills.”
She writes it down like it’s enough. It wasn’t. She failed her internship. Then took a job in finance. She died in a car crash ten years later.

I am shaking. I didn’t come here to cry. But my sunglasses are still on. And every ghost is staring at me now. Eyes uncovered. Stories told. Waiting.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t know how bad it was. I didn’t know you were still here.”

No one responds. They don’t have to. Because this isn’t about them needing answers. It’s about me finally looking.

I reach up and take off my sunglasses. And immediately, the room floods with light. Not sunlight. Memory. It pours from my face. Slides from my skin like vapor off dry ice.

And in it:
The time I begged to see my dog and they laughed.
The girl who offered me a marker to draw a tattoo over my self-harm scar.
The nurse who said, “You don’t seem like the kind of girl who ends up here.”
And me. In the bathroom. Sitting on the tile. Whispering to myself, “You’re not a person. You’re not a person. You’re not a person.”

The sunglasses in my lap shatter. And it is quiet again. But not empty. Never again empty.

No one speaks. But the room is louder than it’s ever been. Because now, every ghost is visible. Every face. Every story. Every pain that was once charted in euphemisms and silence and “doing better” when they weren’t.

None of them vanish.

They don’t need to.

They just sit together — seen.

That’s the miracle.

That’s enough.

I stand slowly. My knees ache. My chest feels scraped raw. Like memory hollowed me out and filled me back in with something real. The broken sunglasses still rest in my lap. I don’t need them anymore. I don’t think I ever did.

Across from me, the ghost version of myself — the younger me, the girl I left behind — folds up the manila folder with my name on it. She tucks it beneath her chair. She looks at me. And for the first time — she smiles. It’s small. Wobbly. But it’s hers. It’s mine.

And I realize:
I didn’t just come here to see if I ever really left.
I came to bring her out with me.

A breeze stirs through the waiting room. Not cold. Not dramatic. Just… cleansing.

The girl who used to rock back and forth begins to hum. Not the looped mantra anymore. A melody. Soft. Like rain hitting linoleum.

The boy with the National Geographic closes the magazine and hands it to the man beside him.

The intern— C. Alvarez — sets down her clipboard.

And one by one, they reach out. Hands touch hands. Elbows brush. Knees knock together. They don’t vanish. They connect.

The ghosts don’t need to go.

They just needed to be real again.

I walk toward the door. The one I first came through, years ago. The one that used to lock behind me. It’s open now.

And as I pass beneath the frame,

I hear it:

“We remember you.”

Not a threat.

Not a plea.

A blessing.

Outside, the sun is too bright. Southern California always overperforms when you’re grieving. The palms still stand, stiff and golden, casting their long shadows across the parking lot like they never stopped guarding something sacred. I sit on the hood of my car. The air tastes like eucalyptus and heat and the edge of relief. I breathe. It’s not easy. But it’s real.

I’m real.

And they are too.

All the ghosts in the hospital wore sunglasses.

Now?

They wear nothing but the truth.

Author’s Note & Dedication

Camarillo State Hospital opened its doors in 1936 in Southern California and remained operational until its closure in 1997. For over sixty years, it housed individuals with mental illness, developmental disabilities, and those swept into its care by a society that often didn’t know what else to do with them. The institution was massive — at its peak, home to more than 7,000 patients — and its legacy is a complicated one: a mix of early innovation, forced treatments, silenced suffering, and systemic neglect.

This story is a fictional elegy, but it is born from the very real histories of those who passed through Camarillo and many other facilities like it. It is about what happens when we stop seeing patients as people, when behavior is treated instead of heartbreak, and when the label “noncompliant” becomes a silencing spell cast over someone trying to survive in the only way they know how.

To the patients, past and present:
I see you. I hear you. I believe your story, even if the world didn’t.
May your ghost be given the dignity you were denied.

To the mental health workers who show up daily in settings that echo Camarillo’s halls:
May you never forget the human being behind the sunglasses.
May you learn to read between the lines when patients can’t find the words.
And may you continue to be the change this system still desperately needs.
Because 1997?
Wasn’t that long ago.

📣🖤

— Missy Matchstick