“They’re nailing me to the cross”

The crucifixion expression associated with Thomas Birdsey recasts a moment of institutional restraint as persecution and martyrdom. Shouted during his confinement at Hatch, it reaches Dominick Birdsey as both a plea and an accusation, while the procedures governing Thomas’s stay show how little power his family has over the institution’s decisions.

The expression in the ward

During an after-hours confrontation, Thomas cries out that he is being nailed to the cross. Aides have taken hold of him, and Dominick rushes toward him, demanding that they let go. The staff prevent Dominick from intervening; the doors close behind Thomas and the aides, leaving the brothers separated at the very moment Thomas calls to him.

Thomas repeats the crucifixion image as he is led away, addressing Dominick directly. The repetition gives the expression the character of an urgent appeal: Thomas presents what is happening to him through a religious image of suffering, while Dominick responds as a witness trying, unsuccessfully, to reach him. The staff’s attention shifts to controlling the situation, and a guard restrains Dominick as well, describing him as more disturbed than his brother. The episode thus places the expression between two forms of institutional control: Thomas is taken behind closed doors, and Dominick is held back from following.

Emergency confinement and review

Thomas’s stay at Hatch began under a Physician’s Emergency Certificate initiated by a surgeon at Shanley Memorial Hospital. The certificate authorized fifteen days of observation to determine whether he posed a danger to himself or others. Lisa Sheffer explains to Dominick that the hold is court-ordered and that Thomas cannot be released before the observation period ends; any challenge would be a long shot. The legal timetable gives the family a concrete answer, but not the immediate influence Dominick seeks.

The later Psychiatric Security Review Board decision extends that loss of control. The board votes unanimously to retain Thomas at Hatch for one year, finding him potentially dangerous to himself and others, with another review scheduled for October 1991. Lisa Sheffer has asked for a review after six months instead. The expression’s language of being persecuted therefore sits alongside a formal system that treats confinement as a decision about risk, subject to periodic review rather than a release determined by family preference.

Public fear and institutional policy

The account of the board’s origins connects such decisions to the political climate surrounding mental illness. Jimmy Lane, found not guilty by reason of insanity after killing a child while on a supervised outing from Westwood, became the focus of public outrage and hostile media coverage. The case reinforced stereotypes that mentally ill people were dangerous, and the governor’s response included firing the commissioner and reorganizing the department. The Psychiatric Security Review Board emerged from that political aftermath.

That history gives the expression a wider institutional resonance without establishing that Thomas’s situation is the same as Lane’s. His words describe his immediate experience of being restrained; the board’s procedures, meanwhile, operate within a system shaped in part by public anxiety about the consequences of release. The gap between those perspectives is central: Thomas speaks in the language of personal suffering, while the institution records a judgment about potential danger and sets a timetable for reconsideration.

Narrative significance

The expression binds Thomas and Dominick in a scene where each is powerless in a different way. Thomas calls to his brother from within the staff’s control, and Dominick’s attempt to answer him results in his own restraint. The religious image makes Thomas’s suffering legible to Dominick, but it does not open the ward doors or alter the hold. Its recurrence across the confrontation turns a single cry into the scene’s governing motif: a plea to be recognized as a person in distress, heard against the language and procedures of institutional custody.