Tag Archives: Hospitalization

Daily Habits

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I haven’t been talking much about how I’ve been doing. I think part of that is shame. I feel bad for doing so well, comparatively to before, during such a tremendous and world enveloping crisis. I feel like if I was suicidal when things were more okay, I should be crushed right now under a grief so total that it should destroy me. 

 

But I’m not. I’m growing, I’m changing, I’m experiencing a spiritual awakening. This, I’m realizing, is not instead of the grief but because of it. If I had not managed to develop the coping skills and system that I did, when I did, I surely would have been obliterated by the weight of the world right now. It was a necessity of the moment. The seed was placed in enough darkness that all the potential work it had put in allowed it to sprout. 

 

Early on in the quarantine I wanted and probably needed to go to a mental hospital. I knew that it would reset my year without hospitalizations in order to get bariatric surgery but i was ready to do so anyways. Then I heard that they would place you in an isolated room in the hospital for 5 days to ensure you didn’t have symptoms before even bringing you to a unit. I have enough history with hospitals to know that those 5 days would not be care, they would be abuse. They would be a constant stream on regurgitating everything that was bothering me to any medical staff that wanted to know, over and over again. I knew I’d be without belongings or clothes, for my safety. I knew I’d be educating half the people who came in to talk to me about trans issues and how to properly refer to me and a lot of them still wouldn’t get it right. The more I played the tape through, the more I saw that I could probably do the good things that a hospital does at home and without having to experience all the trauma. 

 

I could create routine, regular meals, a study of psychology on my own as “group time.” I could work on the level that was appropriate and interesting for me, rather than relying on whatever was pulled out of the binder that day to go over. 

 

So naturally, I started watching YouTube. A quick review of “mini habits” and how having low expectations to check something off as achieved for the day often led you to do more, since it doesn’t paralyze you. Knowing that you only have to open the book and read two pages is much less intimidating than telling yourself that you have to read for an hour, but it gets you over that inertia burst, that hardest part of the task, which is starting. You may set up and start meditating for two minutes and find that 20 have passed when you are done. Learning this theory was a key moment in establishing something that could work for my brain. 

 

From there I wrote out a spreadsheet with a variety of things that I wanted to achieve every day. I put this in Google Drive so that I’d have access to it across any devices and lose excuses for tracking. My list is living and growing week by week, as I learn that I am capable of achieving all of these things every day and find my interests pulled in different directions, I expand more. I’m currently thinking about spreading about my “reading” section into workbooks, philosophy, art, education, and psychology but I haven’t done it yet. 

 

I made a section below the list with each day, asking the same questions:

Daily gratitude?

Synopsis of the day?

How did you work toward your goals?

 

In this way I created little classes for myself and I started to modulate the inputs to my brain. I began putting in better stuff. Instead of focusing on all the bad in the world and on the news, I began to learn constantly and feed myself with motivation, inspiration, and the seeking of a better, healthier soul. 

 

Things like meditation and watching TEDx talks, stretching, chores, taking meds, and attending to Activities of Daily Living, those are a good place to start. Add more as to your interests and skill sets. I watch a lot of educational videos and have started reading again, I can’t believe I had forgotten how much I loved to read. 

 

It’s not perfect. I had a panic attack yesterday that left me non-verbal and in tears. I spent most of today in bed. But I still managed to knock out my daily habits, and that’s more than I can ever say I did when in that sort of state before. I would have done something harmful to myself. And I didn’t.

 

Astonishingly the suicidal thinking has abated to a level I’ve have no memory of ever being this low. It still comes, in the rough times, in the critical times, in the times when it is a worn groove that requires conscious effort to jump out of. But not having it be constant, drumming, persistent, always in the back of my mind? I feel lighter. It’s easier to exist. My mind is friendlier to be with, and ultimately that’s the goal, because your mind is the one and only companion you’ll have for every moment of your life. It’s a lot better when it doesn’t want you to die.

Dangerous People

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Today I went to the Community Mental Health, ready to raise hell(unfortunately she wouldn’t let me record the conversation though and I really believe it should have been), as I had been advised to, and got some differing responses than I did last night at the psychiatric urgent care. They claimed to have never told them that they wouldn’t authorize services, only that I needed to go to an emergency room no matter what. If that was the case, I can’t imagine why personnel from Pine Rest, who are in a private and unconnected system from both CMH and Pivot, would have brought up and mentioned that I had been authorized to go to Pivot once and not showed up. He shouldn’t have known that and would have had to have been told something of the sort for that message to get relayed in any way.

I asked the woman I was working with today to imagine what it was like to already feel like you should die, that you aren’t worth treatment, and hearing that you’re being punitively prevented from seeking it out because you’re bad at treatment. The kind of treatment that you need to get better at the things in life that prevent you from being good at treatment.

She said today that if I had called back last night they would have told me the same thing, just go to an emergency room. And that if anything like that happens again(which she called “basically an ‘f you.’”) to call the CMH directly and get clarification.

Last night, no part of me wanted to call and talk to the on call person who had apparently made that decision about me.

I’ll admit that I’m a vulnerable person. I’m fairly easily manipulated. Easily lied to. Every person on this whole process also has their own motivations and interests in covering their own asses and the ass of the organizations they work for. I don’t know who to trust. I don’t know if I should contact the Pine Rest people and find out the name of the CMH on call person from that night. I don’t know where to go from here.

I do know that I’m in a safe(r) place now. The mental health system is fucked and it’s taken me 10 years in it to learn how to see where the problems are, to advocate for myself. For instance, at my intake today, I was asked to sign a blank belongings inventory, before they had even completed the work of looking through my belongings and listing what would be kept on the sheet. I didn’t do it and it wouldn’t have affected me negatively to sign in advance because I have played the hospital game so many times that I don’t even buy pants with strings in them anymore, but let me tell you, when you are a vulnerable individual, all it takes is just one staff member finding something they like in your stored belongings and “forgetting” to put it on your inventory. A pre-signed empty inventory could be a disaster for someone with, say, a sentimental knife or jewelry. I also had the right to be there while they inventoried my belongings and they didn’t inform me of that or ask.

 

I guess what I’m saying is that I’ve learned enough now to know that I’m giving up an enormous amount of power and dignity when I make this decision of hospitalization. Every time. Every time is a chance to be re-traumatized or experience something cruel or outlandish and it seems like nearly every experience I’ve had in the mental health system has involved that.

 

I think a lot of it really feels like gaslighting.

Go to the Emergency Room.

Get stripped of all your belongings. Yes, even your phone. You got people worried about you? Well, they get to leave messages to your locker. You’re a danger to yourself and dangerous people don’t get phones.

Get stripped of your clothes. Sometimes even your underwear. Sometimes they’ll have you do a naked squat to show you aren’t smuggling anything. You’re a danger to yourself and dangerous people don’t get clothes.

Depending on where you are, you’ll be watched non-stop either through the window, a camera, or a security person in the room. If you’re lucky, you might be allowed a family member or friend as a sitter. You will have to be monitored everywhere you go. Sometimes this means bed alarms. This always means someone else in the bathroom with you. You’re a danger to yourself and dangerous people don’t get privacy.

You’ll get to re-explain everything that’s wrong with you at a bare minimum of six times. This means what’s happening in your life, medical background and health management you currently are in, meds, feeeeeeeeeelings and “What brings you in today?” You have to hash out your pain, your struggles, your limitations and weaknesses, again and again and again. Get reminded of how much crap you feel like, again and again and again. To strangers. Anytime they ask. You’re a danger to yourself and dangerous people don’t get personal boundaries.

You’re in gown. In a too small bed. You can see the blood spatter on the blah floral curtain. And the doctors and nurses and phlebotomists and social workers all come in and stand towering over you and imply “I’m sorry that you’re feeling this depressed, but it’s wrong to feel that bad and people aren’t supposed to be like that and we can fix you, we can make you better.”

Ending that sentence was the precise moment that I realized I’m in an abusive relationship with the mental health care system.

Maybe more accurately it makes me realize I think I have a process addiction to mental health care but it just makes me feel so good(when it’s not hurting me).

I’m anti-psychotic right now.

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I had a really good day hanging out with a friend and running errands in preparation for a planned on trip to the psychiatric urgent care. Once there, they wouldn’t help me. Apparently the CMH wouldn’t authorize treatment because in the past I had been authorized for Pivot and not shown up. I wracked my brain for when this might have happened and the only time I can figure is right after my car accident, when I wanted to go in because I could feel a spiral coming on and figured I could do a 2 for 1 on my Emergency Room time. The ER let me go with the instructions that Robert Brown Crisis(not Pivot but its sister) would call when a bed opened up. I missed a call from a number that was listed as Unknown, and they didn’t leave a message, leaving me no way to respond. They absolutely dropped the ball and now I come along months later and say to somebody that my suicidal thoughts are getting unmanageable and they say “Sorry, you miss appointments, you don’t deserve treatment.”

Can you imagine what that feels like?

When your depression already tells you that you are a drain on government resources and are better of dying? That it’s almost your civic duty to get off the damn disability payroll by offing yourself?

How many times do you offer someone treatment when they reach out? *

One time?

Three?

A dozen?

I’ve been hospitalized 21 times so far.

I’ve had CBT, DBT, ECT, REBT, IOP, month long rehab, gestalt therapy, and I’m working on family therapy and EMDR as well as digging into trauma. I could probably think of a couple more if I really tried. I’m a heavily therapized individual.

I remember one time in IOP(Intensive Outpatient, basically sobriety night classes) that he had been to rehab 27 times before it stuck. At that point I was a lot earlier in my career of crazy, and I thought to myself “how could you not give up?”

I know now.

You don’t have a choice.

You keep on marching, slogging, because a little taste of hope is all you need to get hooked.

I thought it would be convenient to die tonight.

My zines are printed and could be available at the funeral.

My friend had all the paperwork about how I was feeling and witnessed the whole thing.

It would’ve been a great headline for that brand spanking new psychiatric urgent care. Might help make some changes in the system.

I was ready to be a martyr for the mental health movement.

But you’re supposed to live for spite, you’re not supposed to die for it. Don’t punish yourself.

I jerked myself out of those thought loops. I thought to myself “You know better. You can choose to stop indulging in this.” And it was indulgent, it was mopey down the to core, I could practically feel my chin inside my chest.

I reminded myself of the good things in my life. Of the good things that I believe I may still have coming. Then I realized and complimented myself on having rerouted my Inner Critic/pity party so effectively. I’d also like to think that my activism will mean more if I’m alive.

Later that night I realized that maybe the reason I was having a good day for today despite enormous setbacks in a few arenas and a shoddy one other days despite them being relatively innocuous is that I didn’t take the antibiotics I was supposed to for my tooth. I’ve had full blown psychotic reactions from antibiotics before, but usually only the very strong single dose ones, and this was just a standard course of penicillin. Then I realized, slowly, shakily, with more of a sense of fear and power than I have ever felt before, I could account for at least three of my hospitalizations being very close to rounds of antibiotics. I have a variable now. Something to test. I can maybe get records from the offices of places that I’ve stayed, and from my primary care physician.

Also, my healthcare provider called and asked if I wanted to be a part of the Spectrum All of Us research program, and as a person who is transgender and on a lot of medications, I believe I’m scientifically valuable so I’m excited to have that appointment coming up. I’m going to share my hypothesis.

 

 

 

ECC84699-4E60-427A-8B86-78AFC0B584FA*Every time. Any time. It’s so scary to reach out and so much of the mental health system is like “oh, you have a problem?” WHAP! and when you are consistently punished for reaching out, you stop doing it. Remember that you’re dealing with people who are tender.