Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I woke up slowly, wrapped in blankets up to my neck. I blinked and looked around and tried to roll over. This took monumental effort, and I didn’t get very far. I tried looking around. The room was spinning, and I moaned – the room was bare, white, small, and empty save the bed I occupied.

Someone was watching me through the window in the closed door. It opened and a nurse came in, kneeled down by the bed.

“Angel, how are you feeling?”

“What did you do to me?” I whispered; my words slow with the effort to say them.

“You were agitated and very distressed. We gave you medication to help you calm down.”

“What medication?” I slurred.

“Haldol.”

I winced. Haldol was a powerful anti-psychotic with strong sedative properties. It would probably be hours before I could even sit up. I closed my eyes, tired from the effort of looking around.

“Angel, will you drink some water?”

“I’m not thirsty.” She said something else, said my name, but I was passing out again.

I woke up hours later? The next day? I didn’t know, and I was scared. My head throbbed; my gut was painfully knotted. Drug hangover. I dizzily (is that a word?) got out of the bed and tried the door. It was locked. A face appeared in the window, and I jumped back.

“Angel, are you calm?” The nurse asked, security staff hovering behind her.

I thought about that. My mind was spinning, a million thoughts racing around, I couldn’t hold onto just one, I couldn’t finish a thought. Voices chattered in my head, whispers, screams. The one I’d heard before, the one telling me to get away while I still could, dominated the whispers and screams. I needed to pee.

“They’re already conducting experiments on you. She lied; it wasn’t haldol. They’re using you for drug experimentation.”

I started pacing. My whole body was wired tight, twisting, like metal around a piston, throbbing in my core. I covered my ears with my hands, uncovered them. I went to one side of the little room, then the other.

“Angel? What is it?” The nurse was watching me, studying my face.

“I want to go home. I have to go,” I insisted.

“Angel, we can’t let you go; you’ve been legally detained. We’re waiting for a bed to open in our acute psychiatric unit, and we’ll get you transferred up there. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I blinked and slammed my fist against the window. She jumped back.

“Please, Angel, try to relax. No one wants to hurt you; we’re trying to help you.”

“You’re lying! You’re lying!” I yelled, fear ballooning in my stomach, my mind chattering.

“I’m not lying, Angel. You’re safe, I promise.”

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“Okay. Can you be calm if I open the door?”

I nodded slowly, a buzzing appearing in my head. They let me pee while the bathroom door was open, 2 security guards and the nurse standing there. I was locked back in my room.

I went to the corner of the room and faced it, collapsing to my knees, covering my ears. I moaned and rocked back and forth, willing reality to change, willing this room to dissolve, willing myself into non-existence.

I’m not sure how long I kept myself stuffed into that corner. I didn’t feel good. My whole body felt heavy, like gravity was crushing down on me. The door opened and someone came in with food on a small paper tray. He set it on the bed, looked at me, and walked out while keeping his eyes on me. I heard the click of the door lock after it shut.

“It’s poison. Don’t eat it, its poison,” the voice said. I got up to pace again, ignoring the tray. I paced, breathing hard, my body tightened like a coil, ready to spring loose. Heaviness, tingling. Hours went by. A day. A night. I was not allowed out except to use the bathroom. A camera watched me from the corner. I was watched while I took a piss.

Another voice at the window. “Angel, we’re ready to take you up. Are you calm?”

I looked behind me toward them. Security and several staff were visible. “We’re going to open the door now, Angel. Try to remain calm, it’s going to be okay.”

I watched, muttering to the voice talking to me. The door opened and security came in with a wheelchair. I was instructed to get in it. Two security guards had positioned themselves at the doorway, wheelchair facing me, three additional nurses or MHTs right behind them. I stared at it.

“Angel, if you’re not able to get in the chair willingly, we’ll have to use restraint and medication. We really don’t want to see you back in restraints.”

I was talking to myself. Randomly, random subjects, my racing mind unable to finish a thought or the sentences my brain sent to my lips. I got in the chair, I was taken to the acute care psych unit and deposited in my new room. I paced feverishly by myself, unable to slow down. A doctor came to see me.

“Angel? Can I come in and talk to you?”

I whirled to face him as he came in. He kept a safe distance. I was continuously whispering, rambling, conversing. “What are you going to do to me?”

“What are you afraid of?”

“You’re going to do experiments on me. Drugs, more drugs. Psychological experiments. See what happens when I do this, or that. See what happens…” I turned away, muttering.

“Angel, I don’t want to do that to you. I want to know more about what brought you to us. We need to start you on medication right away.”

“It’s time to die. Time to leave. Time to die. Time to leave. Move on in transition. They’re waiting for me. It’s time to go, time to die…”

The doctor watched me as I paced, unable to stop talking. He left and someone came in to let me know it was time to eat some dinner. I peered out the door. There was an open layout, with some tables and chairs where other patients were about to eat. “It’s poison. Don’t eat it.” So, I stayed in my room, talking nonsense. It felt so important.

“Take your shirt and tear it in two. Use the strip to tie around your neck, hang yourself.” The voice commanded. I took off my shirt and ripped it in half. I forgot about room checks, forgot where I was. I knotted it around my neck and attempted to hang myself from the bathroom door. Just then, staff came in for a room check. I was desperately trying to choke myself to death.

“Oh my god,” and then, “I need help in here!”

Staff poured in and grabbed me, yanking the shirt piece off the door’s top corner. I fought back, throwing a punch wildly, kicking, yelling at them to get off me. I got in a few good blows, staff attempting to duck my flailing fists. I have had some training in that department.

“Get the restraints,” someone said. I was tackled and held down, screaming. They wrestled me into bed and strapped me down while I fought and cursed. They left me alone in there and I talked to the voice in my head, telling it I tried, I tried to go in the only way I could. The door opened and someone sat in the doorway in a desk chair with a computer, typing notes and watching me. I talked to myself, to the voice, unable to stop.

“You can’t even kill yourself, you are so inept,” the voice laughed.

“Angel, do you need some water?” The nurse stood over me, holding a cup with a straw. I ignored her, staring and muttering to myself. She sat there all night while I laid there, occasionally struggling to get loose, wide awake, refusing medication to help me sleep. “Don’t take the pills, the pills are poison,” I said to myself. I spent the night strapped down, moaning, struggling occasionally and crying. The nurse, or MHT, attempted to offer me water periodically. Checked the restraints. Tried to offer medication, tried to reassure me but I could barely hear them. Horrid visions in my dreams made me scream and I couldn’t roll over or cover my ears. The screaming…the screamers never quit, filling my ears with their banshee sound. I woke up, crying, the nurse trying to talk to me but I was inconsolable. I tried to shift and turn in the bed but I could not get far. I would try most of the night, shifting and pulling, yelling and crying throughout. I had been low, but never quite this low, the bedrock of a massive hole, dug even deeper with the jackhammer of psychosis. The waking nightmare, at least for me, leaves a scar of remembrance on the brain.

That morning the doctor came. Two nurses followed.

“Angel, I’d like to let you out of these restraints and talk. Are you calm?”

I barely heard him, just the voice. “Calm, calm…I’m fucked, you fucked me…” I muttered. The doctor nodded to the nurses, and they took off the straps. I got up, stumbling, backed into the corner. I felt cold and shivered. I didn’t know it yet, but my neck was red and raw.

“Angel, what happened last night?”

I didn’t respond. He said some other things I barely registered. I glanced his way periodically, his curious gaze steady on me.

“I’d like to start you on some medication. You’ve had two suicide attempts in what, three days? Four? We’re really worried about you, and I’m sorry you’re feeling this way. You also have not eaten anything since before arriving in the emergency room. In fact no one knows when you last ate something.”

“No drugs,” I insisted. “No drugs. You can’t make me.” My voice was hoarse.

“Well Angel, we can. Because you’re detained, a court order would allow us to medicate you, even if against your will. So, I really hope you will take the medication, the alternative is more restraints and injections.”

“The food is poison.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He told me.”

“Who?”

“The voice in my head.”

“You’re hearing voices?”

“Yes.”

He wrote some things down, said something to the nurse at the doorway, regarded me again.

“I know how powerful they can seem. I want you to know the food is safe, no one wants to hurt you or cause you any harm. Will you try to eat something today? I know you must be hungry. You are literally starving.”

I really wasn’t hungry. I felt so much pent-up energy, wound up tight. I wanted to walk. I got up just then, heading for the doorway, and walked out into the common area.

“Angel where are you going?” The doctor asked behind me. I paced. Paced up and down, muttering and talking to myself, to the voice. The nurse stayed near, watching me at all times. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had been made a 1:1 and would have a staff person near me 24 hours a day. What an awful job that must have been. I was a difficult patient. To this day I get severe anxiety when I am the staff for someone’s 1:1 at the hospital in which I work. It’s almost always because of dementia, these are old veterans, but it still triggers deep seated trauma I carry around. I hate doing it.

Someone brought me a little cup of pills. My ever-present nurse or MHT strongly urged compliance. I looked at them a long time, the voice insisting they were experimental drugs. I poured them on the floor and skipped away.

The doctor came to see me again. I was spinning in circles in my room, the motion felt comforting, the centrifugal force in my head and in my blood felt like soft waves of water, like I was floating.

“Angel, I heard you didn’t take the medication I prescribed. I really want you to try. If you can’t take it tonight, we’ll have to consider the next step. I really don’t want to have to order you back in restraints, but, if necessary, that’s what we’ll do. The medication will help you feel better, more like yourself. I really hope you’ll take it tonight.”

I paced outside my room again, talking loudly to myself and the voice. The nurse watching me tried talking to me, walking alongside me from a few feet as I couldn’t hold still. Told me there was some lunch available, wasn’t I hungry?

I looked at the food. It didn’t look right. The chicken was the wrong shape and color, the salad was the wrong color, the brownie for dessert appeared to be looking back at me. “Can’t you smell the poison?” The voice asked. I shook my head – exactly right, it didn’t smell the way it should. I turned away from it, pacing back down the short hallway, in and out of the doorway to my room, the nurse trailing me and writing notes while keeping a safe distance. The other patients watched me curiously while they ate, asking other staff if I was okay. I had so far ignored them, barely registering the presence of other patients thus far. This may have continued until one of them pulled my hair.

In retrospect, he was messing around, trying to just say hi. But I whirled around, shoving him as hard as I could. I shoved him so hard his body knocked over the table behind him. The smack of his head against the table was so loud. Staff sprang upward, directing patients back to their rooms while descending on me and the patient now on the floor, yelling in pain. I stood there and watched him sputter, that voice talking to me, telling me he was an experimental agent, but I wasn’t sure what that meant. “That was crazy. How fitting for the psych ward!” Staff grabbed me, dragging me toward the seclusion room and shutting me inside. I pounded on the window in the door, where a few nurses watched me. “I didn’t do anything anyone else would not have done!” I yelled. “Let me out!” They did not let me out.

I paced in that room, wringing my hands and fists. It was tiny and I could only make it three steps before turning around and heading for the opposite wall, slamming my hands on it, going back to the other wall. I quite literally bounced off those walls, over and over.

“Angel?” I turned toward the voice at the door’s window but didn’t stop pacing. “Angel, listen to me.”

It was the doctor. (One thing I can’t remember was his name). “Angel, you’re manic. I know you’re scared, hearing voices, and confused. We had to put you in seclusion because you were a danger to yourself, and now a danger to others. I have a medication to help you calm down, are you willing to take it?”

I paced. Muttered, fisted my hands, unfisted, fisted again. “Angel, look at me.”

I turned toward the knobless, latchless door. I must have looked crazed as I glared back at him through the window. Days since a shower. A week? My eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, crying, and rubbing at them. My hair hung in strings and tangles. My lips chapped; my mouth dry. I was dehydrated, hadn’t eaten in days. I was dying.

“Please, Angel. Let us help you. This medication is mild, and you will feel better, I promise. It’s just ativan, you’re already prescribed it. If we open the door, will you be cooperative and take the medication?”

I nodded slowly. I was scared, it was true. “I don’t feel good.”

“I’d like you to back up to the wall. Stay against the wall, and I’m going to open the door.”

There was a clang as the lock was turned and the door swung outward. The nurse came in with a pill in a little cup. I looked hard at it, trying to figure out what was real – was it poison? The voice insisted it was. I swallowed the pill before I could grab onto any of the racing thoughts in my mind. It was the first time I took any medication willingly in what would become a long two week stay in the mental hospital.

I was kept in seclusion for several more hours. The whole day. The ativan made me stop pacing and I huddled in the corner of the little room, muttering to myself. I laid flat on my stomach, the little room lurching. Once in awhile I got up to watch out the window, my hands pressed against the glass to steady myself. I was positioned near the nurse station. A nurse or MHT frequently looked in at me, writing notes each time, sometimes talking to me, offering water. I drank some water, 2-3 staff blocking the door while the other handed me the cup. The voice was strangely quiet. That night I was allowed out, brought back to my room, and restrained to my bed by one ankle. I protested this strongly.

“Why? Why are you doing this to me?” I sobbed, pulling my leg, my ankle held tight. The ativan slowed me down, slowed my speech, slowed my temper.

“Angel, it’s for your safety. It’s not a punishment. The doctor does not believe you are able to keep yourself safe. There will be a nurse at your door for anything you may need. We’re going to make sure you’re safe and comfortable tonight.”

I continued to cry and sob, despair at my hopeless situation becoming overwhelming, filling up the core of my body, expanding and crushing. I laid on that bed and wept for most of the night, it felt like. Off and on, bits of fitful sleep interrupted by my own bouts of crying, frightening dreams, and voices yelling at me. Screaming in my ears.

I overheard them talking about me at shift change in the morning. They were right at my door, the next 1:1 sitter coming on.

“He’s so manic. He’s hearing voices and talking to them, talking to himself. Very suspicious and paranoid and believes medication and food are poison. He tried to hang himself his first night and the doctor ordered an ankle restraint for his safety. He was violent with another patient and spent most of yesterday in seclusion. We are still trying to convince him to eat and take medications.”

When the doctor came in, I was wide awake on my side, jittery and getting weaker with constant manic movement and lack of any food for days.

“Good morning, Angel -“

“You did this,” I growled, yanking on my leg tied to the bed. “Why are you doing this to me??”

He sighed and sat down on the chair used by my 1:1 staff person. “Angel, you were very unsafe yesterday, to yourself and others. That patient was hurt and very upset. But this isn’t a punishment, only your safety in mind. I knew you would be angry, but because of these huge safety concerns, the treatment team and I knew it was in your best interest. We can take it off now.” He did so, unlocking it with a little key. I backed up to the head of my bed, hugging my knees.

“I want to go home,” I muttered, tears flooding my eyes.

“So you can kill yourself?”

Cheeky bastard. I eyed him, he held my gaze, and I looked away.

“Will you take the medication this morning, Angel? Have some breakfast?”

“I don’t want your pills.”

“Do you remember what I said about that, Angel? We can legally force you, it’s in your best interest. I really don’t want to force you.”

“Leave me alone,” I muttered and turned away, ignoring him talking to me, rocking back and forth. I closed my eyes and hummed familiar songs as they played in my head. I laid on my side, shaking, hugging my knees, occasionally humming.

The nurse hovered at my doorway; brought me food I did not eat. My mania persisted unmedicated, and I was unable to see reality properly, unable to make any decisions, and unable to calm my racing, overactive mind. Voices chattered, screamers screamed, and I rocked back and forth, alternately covering my ears and rubbing my tingling face.