Tag Archives: medical

Hey look a Coronavirus blog

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It’s really stupid, what got me writing again. It’s a psuedo-scientific journal of my rat colony’s behavior over time. But it made the keys clack. It reminded me how it felt to put sentences out in the world. So I thought I’d say a few things about coronavirus and mental health.

Right now we’re in a world crisis and I am calm. I am hopeful. I am ashamed for being calm and hopeful. But I am compassionate with myself because I know that this calm, this energy that I’ve received, is from having played out so many worse situations in my head, day by day, minute by minute.

With coronavirus, people who are mentally ill lose major coping outlets in quarantine. They’re flat out closed, inaccessible, or inadvisable. They may lose access to therapy. Anyone goes a little loopy when cooped up for a long time, but when you’ve already got a disorder that hates you and your life and your joy working against you, it can be hell. Check on your friends. Really check on them, press harder. If they just say they’re okay, ask again, gently. Pressure builds without a vent and social contact allows us to release a lot of emotions. We suffer without each other.

I have anxiety and depression, so not only do I imagine the worst case scenarios, I kinda want them. When a semi comes up close to my car and I can feel the draft of it and the space between the wheels would fit my car just right if only I yanked the wheel and then…I imagine everything that would happen next. All the horror. All the trauma. All the unnecessary guilt. The urge goes away.

It’s a weird place to be, to be a vulnerable person in a pandemic, be deeply suicidal on a regular basis, and somehow still care about getting it. I thought I might’ve had it because I had a connection to a positive case, but my symptoms could have had to do with my ear infection going rogue or something. I want to die without clogging up a hospital bed for 15 days. I don’t want to be more of a waste on the system than I already am. .

I see a disturbing number of people flat out not caring, or being racist, or denying what’s going on. But here’s the thing: people you know will die. People you care about will die. And lots of people that you apparently don’t give a damn about will die too, because of your reckless callousness and total disregard of the common good of society. There’s a line that gets used a lot that I’m gonna try to remember right: “I don’t know how to convince you to care about people.”

That’s it. That’s the end of it. That’s absolutely all of it. Do you care about others enough to make a sacrifice for a little while, hide out in your house and do as much nothing as possible. Please catch up on your home projects. Watch those educational YouTube videos, maybe learn sign language or something. Make art. No such thing as good art or bad art, you aren’t competing, you’re playing as a human person, put emotion into it. Read. Nap. Do absolutely nothing at all and appreciate the deep relaxation. But remember that what you’re doing is caring. Caring about the weaker and more vulnerable, reassuring that those lives have value.

They tell me that humans live to 80. If this goes on for 6 months or the 18 that was projected, it’s still a blip in your existence. This will be the past soon. And you’ll be able to look back on it and think of all the craziness and be totally detached. But not everyone will have that luxury. A lot of people will die. A lot of people will have permanent lung damage. We are paying for poor decisions in blood and the bodies will keep on stacking up as this progresses.

Don’t be a disease vector. Act like you already have it and need to protect everyone else from getting it from you and you’ll be about on the right track. And please, please, please, just stay home.

Deaths of Despair

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In response to this article: https://time.com/5606411/millennials-deaths-of-despair/

 

Go ahead
and tax
the alcohol,
like that
wasn’t part
of the plan
anyways.
Make the
prescription drugs
harder to
get for
pain patients.
Ramp up
so called
abuse monitoring.
It all
suits the goal.
Think about
making it
“affordable”
to get
health care
as if
any one
of us
had the
unique opportunity
to decide
whether we
could afford
our illnesses
or afford
our fates
or afford
ever having
been plopped
on this
damn planet
in the
first place.

If this
is your
solution to
deaths of despair,
you are
showing your hand.
You don’t
understand the
depth of despair.
And you’re
likely one
dealing it.

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.

Grape Powerade

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The grape Powerade
hit my tongue
and I wasn’t
hit with taste
but with memory,
long nights
in July heat
on the second floor
of an old factory,
packed in zany socks,
white heat,
and scorecard metal,
blades singing electric
and metallic
and I was hit with grief,
the truth about my crooked back
and my escapist knee,
and wicked obesity,
truly now,
wholly now,
holding me
back from a thing
I want to do,
the memories of sweat
and smiles
and jokes
and dominance
and fear
and fury
and a gentle stomp
that I’m not
capable of anymore
because I’m afraid of breaking
and now I’m breaking
and I think I’m ready
to go under the knife.

Delirious With Sputum

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I had a doctor’s appointment.
They gave me antibiotics.
It’s been more than a month
with this sinus infection
but I just kept hoping
I was gonna kick it.
But I’ve been in pain
and I was already there
for something else.
I winced when she
touched my neck.
Later that night
I massaged it,
and panicked when
I felt how incredibly
large and swollen
my lymph nodes were.
As I caressed,
tension released,
and I started coughing.
Delirious with sputum,
I researched
what was happening.
Turns out
lymph node massage
is a thing.
I massaged
until my skin
felt loose.
My double chin
had been storing
extra human goo.
I poked and prodded
the result,
staring at myself
in the mirror.
Was I manlier
with my skin
hanging loose?
And then I pulled
on myself,
enough to
tear my heart,
enough to
rip a seam
where I had
sewed myself together.
I often joke about
being 23 weasels
in a human suit
(It’s supposed to be 24.
Oscar is on FMLA,
he’s working through some shit.
It’s why I limp
unexpectedly sometimes.).
I pulled at the corners
and I saw behind the mask tonight.
The pilot, he feels trapped.

What I’m capable of

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I can taste my skull
When the mint begins to rot
At the inside corners
And the edges of my teeth.
I can can feel my tendons
Gently sliding through
Stroking past each other
Buried in the meat.
I can sense my skin
Bristle under the sun
I can feel it augment
Tingle like it’s bugs.
I can think my brainmeats
Writing on these words
Making all new thought heat
Burning just for fun.

A bit of medical advice

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I feel like people grow up learning that doctors and dentists and such are authority figures, because as children we are small and they are adults and specialists and it breeds an unhealthy mental relationship. If you ever are belittled, or don’t feel safe or listened to by a medical professional, you need to advocate for yourself. You can get other referrals. You can fire them. They are not your superiors because they went to school for a long time. YOU are the expert on your symptoms. You are a goddamn grown human being with worth and value and they are too. You are EQUALS. Remember that. You are not inferior to someone with more education. Your sickness doesn’t affect your inherent worth and value and shouldn’t affect your treatment.

Kidnapped

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Coming out of depression isn’t like a fog lifting or a flower blooming. That’s entirely too romantic. It’s more like a bright light, but it’s only just spiking through, it’s mostly dark, you’re tied up. Rough. Burlap and rope tied around you, left alone to figure out your confinement and your freedom. Everything is rough and cold but it’s a real feeling. You take inventory, try and figure out where the pain is worst, try to piece it together with a memory stunted by sedative. Bones creak and scars are measured. Checkmarks go with traumas as you remember the things that you agreed to when you weren’t a qualified advocate for yourself. You’ll pay for those for the rest of your life. You were kidnapped by depression. It owns that part of you. It’ll always creak behind your thoughts. But today you’ll get to wonder if this chance at freedom is real.

Dreaming

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Dreams are very powerful for me. I have vivid, imaginative dreams, a woven tapestry of realities and falsehoods that make me question everything when I wake up. A drinking dream shatters me. Dreams catalyzed my coming out process. A dream is how I knew I was pregnant.

It’s not something I talk about often. But it’s niggling at my soul, a little catch in the back of my mind. It’s a hurt that’s coming back after being repressed, so that means it is time to process it.

Vulnerability is a risky dialectic of connection and rejection. I know that there is a chance that saying what I have to say will bring closeness and help to salve an old wound. There is also the chance that I will alienate people and start battles I don’t want to get into.

Ultimately, however, the decision comes down to whether there’s someone else out there that might read this and find some peace from it. And so I move forward.

In 2010 and 2011 I was going to school and living in Grand Rapids with my boyfriend at the time and one other girl. I was a shitty roommate to her and I regret that, since she and I had planned to move in together and my boyfriend just kinda never left.

One night I sat bolt upright on the goddamn futon, having had a dream that I was pregnant. I tried to remember when my last period was. I asked him, he didn’t know either. We hustled to a grocery store and got several pregnancy tests, and the first one came back positive almost instantly.

I couldn’t have a child. I am not meant for child rearing. Especially not as my life was. Especially not as my descent into alcoholism was going.

But I didn’t have health insurance. Or a spare $900.

So I turned to the internet.

I don’t recommend anyone try to induce a miscarriage or self abortion or whatever you want to call it. I combined three or four methods and hoped and prayed.

Vitamin C stings. Parsley tea smells like horse piss.

But it worked, over several days. I started to bleed. And bleed. And bleed.

I felt nothing but relief then.

It hurts now.

Sometimes I think about the child I might otherwise have had. Somehow I imagine a boy, and I’m pretty damn sure he’d have curly blonde hair. I wonder about the way things might have gone with my boyfriend/ex husband, who wanted children later on. I question whether I would have cleaned up my act, whether I could have saved a few years of the depression institutionalization yo-yo. I know this sort of thinking is useless though.

Not much can keep me safe from my own insecurities though. About what this makes me, whether I’m a good person. You can be pro-choice all the live-long day and still struggle with internalized hate. I feel so alone. I don’t know anyone else who’s done this, because no one talks about it. So I stay inside my head with all my thoughts, and they percolate into vile piles of self loathing, and little story lines for dreams.

I take a prescription medication now though, one that prevents dreaming. I also have an IUD.