Documenting my journey through the mental health system

I had been in the acute care psych unit – a smaller 8 bed unit for acute crisis cases – three days. My 5-day hold was nearly up, and you guessed it – the doctor petitioned up to two weeks. I paced nervously in my room, slowly descending deeper into madness. I conversed with the voices in my head, no longer sure if they were actual hallucinations or not. The doctor had tried conversing with me, but I had shut down and turned away from him. I remember aching and longing for a cigarette. 40% of the world’s cigarettes are smoked by the mentally ill, however, only about 12% of the world’s population is mentally ill.

“Soon you’ll generate an algorithm for profit building. You’ve become a prisoner of a secret experimental group.”

“I can’t get out, I tried. I tried different ways,” I was saying.

“You will probably never get out once they extract the necessary data from you.”

“What data?”

“Whatever they want to generate a profit building algorithm. They took your blood.”

A social worker came to see me, but I didn’t really engage. She asked if there was anyone I’d like to call, anyone they could call for me. I had no emergency contact on record. No one knew where I was except one of my brothers, and no one cared.

“Call my boss,” I blurted. I forgot I once had a job. I didn’t know if I had that job anymore. I had just stopped showing up, like I stopped my meds and grad school and everything else. Didn’t matter anymore.

Someone came for my vital signs. Wanted my weight. I had dropped to 106 pounds and was severely underweight. I’m not short, I’m 5’7. Not towering, but I needed to weigh at least 130 or so.

I turned my shower on. I didn’t have my hygiene bucket or towels or anything, but I didn’t care. I stripped naked and sat on the shower floor, soaking under the hot spray. Water comforts me. The nurse who was my 1:1 for safety offered me some shower products, shampoo, conditioner, bar soap, etc. I was naked but didn’t care that she saw me. I washed up and stayed in there, soaking for close to an hour. Every few minutes the nurse peeking in on me.

After the lunch I refused, the doctor came back with at least 5 or 6 other staff, MHTs and nurses. They carried restraints and made sure I could see them.

“Angel, this is it. Last chance. You’re very, very ill and you need this medicine. Some of it is the same as the medications you were taking before. Please take it willingly. If you’re not able to do that, we don’t have any other choice but to place you in restraints for injection administration.”

I had backed up into the corner of the small room and started to cry. “Fight them! Fight them!”

“I can’t…” I whispered back. “There’s a lot of them, they’re gonna tie me down…”

“Those drugs will put you into a nightmare coma. They will cut you open and harvest your organs when they’re done with you.”

“Angel, is the voice talking to you right now?” The doctor asked.

I nodded.

“What is it saying?”

“That you want to put me in a coma and harvest my organs.”

A few of the nurses looked at each other. The doctor nodded slowly. “I promise I don’t want to do that to you. We all want to help you. You’re very ill, and you’re having a lot of symptoms of psychosis. We can help you, Angel. Please, let’s not go back in restraints. Take the medications.”

“I wanna die,” I sobbed, feeling very much like a cornered animal.

“I know,” the doctor said very gently. “I’m really sorry you’re going through this. But we can help you, Angel, let us help you.”

Crying, I took the little cup and despite the voice telling me to throw them on the floor, I put them in my mouth and swallowed them. I was terrified of being tied down again. There was a heavy dose of anti-psychotic, an anti-depressant, an anxiety medication, and a mood stabilizer. The nurse asked me to open my mouth, and I did, and she checked that I swallowed them. A nurse stayed in my doorway, watching me as I collapsed in the corner of the room and cried bitterly, afraid.

I cried myself to sleep in the corner. The first real sleep I’d had since the drug-induced one with haldol in the psych ER. Back then, medications like vistaril for anxiety and sleep had a stronger effect on me. I was very drowsy. I was woken by the nurse babysitting me, offering me dinner. I gaped at it, still struggling to process reality. I was very hungry, but also queasy and so anxious my stomach was knotted up. The voice was strangely quiet.

“Is it poison?” I asked. The nurse heard me and answered instead of the voice.

“No, no, definitely not,” She assured me. “It’s normal cooked food. Please eat, Angel? You are so thin.” She set the tray on my bed and retreated to her place in my doorway.

I studied it carefully. It was pot roast with carrots and potatoes. Normally I liked pot roast. I tried to detect signs of poisoning. I took a tiny bite of the meat, trying to taste any poison. I couldn’t detect any. I managed to eat a few bites, but gave up after that, my stomach protesting violently. I became fearful it was really poison.

“HAHAHAHAHA LOOK AT YOU, YOU’LL GET SLICED UP NICE.”

I gasped and jumped at the loud voice. The MHT watching me noticed. “What is it, Angel? Are you okay?”

I definitely had no appetite. I shuddered and went back to huddling in the corner of the room as she watched me curiously.

The next couple days passed in a drug induced fog. Forced under threat of violence to take the pills, I took them. The doctor kept encouraging compliance and tried to educate me on the meds I was taking. Asked me about the voices. Encouraged me to go to groups and eat my meals. Drink these big fattening milkshakes that came on every meal tray. But my stomach was so queasy and twice I vomited. Said after I showed some improvement in symptoms, I could be moved to the general psychiatric unit that adjoined the acute care one.

The meds were very slowly drawing me out of mania and madness. Very slowly. My court day came and went. I was too incapacitated to attend, and my stay had been court ordered up to two weeks. The doctor increased the dose of the anti-psychotics I was being given. It made me sedated and slow. I shuffled from meals to groups. I wasn’t talking to myself as much, or to the voice, because I couldn’t hear him as much. I called to him, in my mind. Where did you go? But he didn’t always answer. I took the pills. I paced less and slept more. I wasn’t eating much, but it was enough to keep them from pestering me about it all the time. They checked my weight every other day – not gaining but not losing. I was assessed daily for suicidal ideation, hallucinations, safety. My room was checked frequently. My bedding replaced with an anti-suicide blanket after my first night’s hanging attempt. It seemed I was never allowed to keep regular sheets and bedding in the mental hospitals in which I’ve been a patient.

“Angel? Why don’t you come out and have lunch with us?”

The nurse poked her head in my door, smiling. I had little resistance under the influence of the drugs and numbly got up and shuffled to the open doorway, peering out at the common area. I sat down gingerly, for the first time truly seeing the other patients there. They stared at me. I stared at them.

“Dude, are you okay?” One asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully.

“You were really losing it,” he said exuberantly.

“Chris,” one of the nurses warned. “That’s not a nice thing to say.”

“It’s fine, it’s true,” I muttered groggily and nibbled slowly at my turkey sandwich.

I was assessed each day. I admitted wanting to die, thinking of suicidal plans and means. I didn’t care anymore, and I never had much filter. I said I was completely defeated, imprisoned, and had no choice in anything. I just wanted to die. They kept me on a 1:1 status, a nurse or MHT near me at all times, even if I was using the toilet.