Last Friday I had some kind of psychotic episode and checked myself in to the hospital where I stayed until this afternoon.
It happened out of nowhere. One minute, I was fine. The next, I was cutting up my left arm and chest. Well, I was doing it, but I didn’t want to. It was the first time since January/February that I felt the presence of “them” (the creatures/voices). They kept sending me severely self-destructive thoughts, and I was afraid that I’d die if I didn’t put myself in the hospital.
Contrary to popular belief, these kinds of events aren’t extremely melodramatic (at least in my case). I very calmly showered and put together a backpack full of things for my stay before my mom got home, and then we went out to get something to eat, since we knew we were in for a long night in the emergency room.
We were in the ER for six hours before I was finally admitted. We spent about an hour and a half in the waiting room, and the rest of the time in a room. My mom got the worst part of that, cos although I was having a shit ton of blood taken and nurses prodding me every so often for whatever, I was in a bed; she was in a chair. We eventually turned the TV on in the room and that helped pass the time.
Honestly, a lot of it was severely humiliating. One of the nurses cleaned my wounds and wrapped them and I felt like such a fuckhead. To me, I hadn’t hurt myself, it was them, but I knew on some level that wasn’t the truth and I’d done it to myself. Then I talked to a doctor about my hallucinations, with my mom sitting to the side of me. I stopped even saying that I could tell the difference between real reality and my reality because I thought it was just complicating everything. Even if I can tell that things aren’t real real, I still respond to them sometimes; it’s like watching a 3D film and screaming when something “jumps” off the screen, though you know it’s not really going to harm you. So I sat in my bed gesturing madly and doing my best to describe my “creatures” (I had to do this so many times during my stay). I felt like such a crazy fucker and I kept imaging how I would feel if my mom and I switched places and I were witnessing all of this from my daughter. We kept being asked about a family history of mental illness and we had no real answers. I’m the first person to really be diagnosed with anything. So while we’re sure there’s a history of something, there’s nothing concrete. My mom’s uncle killed himself, but her dad died (of natural causes) when she was a baby, so we don’t have details of why he committed suicide.
Eventually, I was put in a hospital gown and wheeled up to the ward, which made me feel even worse. I found out later that I’d been Baker Acted by the hospital for about a day (because I’d come in through the ER and they apparently do this to anyone they feel needs it). I signed myself in as a voluntary patient my second night there.
The last time I was at this particular hospital, I was sixteen and put in the juvenile ward. I always feared the adult ward because my dad used to work there and only ever had horrible stories of patients committing suicide or having to be severely restrained. I’m not really comfortable going in to massive detail about everything that went on while I was there though, for two reasons; the first reason is that I don’t want to think about some of it and the second reason is because it makes me feel like I’m turning this all into some kind of show for entertainment. It’s not that I think all of you view it that way, it’s just how I feel about it in general. I kept thinking of all the people who’ve only seen mental health facilities through movies like Girl, Interrupted or One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and think it’s all really awesome and crazy people are really interesting and something to aspire to be. When the patients from these films are standing right in front of you, it’s not entertaining anymore. It’s fucking sad. A woman came in last night who was dealing with severe psychosis, and she was put in a geri chair to restrain her. She slid out of it once and was sitting on the floor. Her hair was disheveled and she barely spoke. I kept watching her and thinking about she was someone’s mother (the son or daughter had called earlier asking how she was doing), and how upset I would be if that were my mother sitting there.
Anyway, it wasn’t all bad. I’m doing better now than I was a few days ago. This is the second episode like this that has happened, so I doubt it’s the last time I’ll have to deal with this type of thing, but I hope next time I’ll have the good sense to call someone before I cut myself.
The social worker who held one of the groups this morning said she liked how I talked about my mental illness how a diabetic talks about managing his or her diabetes. I had some good conversations with some of the other patients as well. After one of the group meetings, a woman came up to me and said she’d been diagnosed as schizoaffective as well and we talked briefly about that. Another woman who was in her 50s talked to me about cutting.
I suppose the only difficult thing I felt through all of this was that nobody else much knew what I was talking about when I’d describe my situation. Most people associate cutting with depression, but I’m not depressed, and my self-mutilation wasn’t spurred on by self-hatred in any form. I mostly only deal with psychotic symptoms anymore, but because I’m so competent, it’s hard for people to really believe me. I’m really polite to staff members as well, which further screws me, probably.
Anyway, it’s good to be home, and thank God I didn’t have to stay locked up through Christmas. My meds were upped and that seems to be going all right so far, so hopefully it stays that way.
Posted by K. - Living with Schizoaffective Disorder 
Posted by K. - Living with Schizoaffective Disorder 
Posted by K. - Living with Schizoaffective Disorder 
