Two blogs ago, I talked about being really stressed out- not much has changed. In that blog, I listed everything stressing me out, including trying to be good enough for my friends and a road trip. The road trip went really well. I got to my biological siblings and my adoptive family and some old friends- all good stuff. I really had nothing to worry about, but I’m just always anxious about not knowing exactly what to expect. Anyways, I’m still not good enough for my friends, but at the same time, that might be a good thing, because I’m not sure I can trust them anyways.
In that same blog, I talked about the last three Januarys and the difficulties I’ve had, each year. This is a blog I wrote originally on February 5th and kind of a follow-up on that:
It’s been a whole year since I was discharged from my last hospitalization. That hospitalization was bittersweet. I went in due to severe depression and anxiety, suicidal ideations, refusing to eat, and not taking my prescribed medications. I was committed, involuntary hospitalization. By that point, I had realized that even if I went voluntarily, they’d put down involuntary, because of my history.
My first week in the hospital, I avoided all eye contact and cried, a lot. The only time I really spoke, people barely heard me, because I didn’t have the energy to speak up. I continued to eat as little as possible and argued with the nurses and doctors about food. When I finally did eat, I forced it back out of me, purging and then sitting on the bathroom floor crying. I took anything and everything I could find that was sharp enough to cut my skin. I’d sit in my bed, covering my stuffed monkey’s face to protect him from the pain I felt. I’d fallen so deep into my own depression and didn’t plan to find a way out. Instead I thought about ways I could end my life inside the hospital, or ways to escape the hospital, only to end my life.
Lost in my head and harming my body, the doctor thought it’d be best to put me in the Intensive Management Unit- IMU. This is where the really, really sick people go. Most- no, all of the people in this unit were far sicker than me. They were so out of touch with reality. I guess I was in a way, but I was there due to my self-injury and lack of care for my body. I was in this unit for about a week. The rules were stricter. No going to my room for one hour after each meal. I had to stay in sight of the nurse’s station. I wasn’t allowed to go to groups until I’d gained some sort of trust. I had to be weighed daily. Once I was allowed to go to groups, I had to be escorted.
When they weren’t creating new rules for me, they were threatening me with isolation and feeding tubes. Most of the threats were BS, but my goal was to be released so that I could end my own life. I didn’t really hide my plans; I was open and honest. I didn’t want to be anywhere and I didn’t want to be alive. I had no future (I dunno if anything’s changed on that subject). I was hopeless and horrified of that fact. Eventually, the meds kicked in and I started to come out of my darkness. It was supposed to be a good thing, but it made me realize how afraid I was of the other patients. I won’t go into detail, but I did not feel comfortable and was terrified of the men in IMU.
Because I was eating and starting to level out emotionally, as well as not feeling safe in IMU, I was moved back to the normal adult psychiatric unit. I had my court date, where they found me incapable of making healthy decisions when it came to my medical care. They put all my decision-making into the doctor’s hands. After my court date, I was there for about a week and a half more, while they tried to decide what to do with me. Through a lot of pushing and contemplation, the decision was made- I was going to give Gateway, a shot. I’d be going to therapy, DBT, seeing a doctor, and spending most of my days in some sort of long term day treatment-type thing.
A year later, my court-order has ended. I haven’t been to an actual therapy session in several months, and I’m still going to Gateway. A lot has changed- my circumstances have changed, some of my thoughts have changed, and I have a few new dreams (dreams and nothing more).
