Documenting my journey through the mental health system

My fourth, maybe fifth, day in the hospital came. The meds had slowed me down significantly. I was pacing less, groggy and sedated. I suppose that was the goal, get me to slow down a little. I was hearing the voice less but he did still pop into my head to remind me I was a prisoner in a for profit system geared toward experimentation and profit building. That voice distressed me and I sometimes cried quietly to myself, huddled in my room, begging him to shut up.

“Kill yourself.”

“I tried that, they tied me to the bed.”

“Can’t even kill yourself right.”

“They make it kind of hard in the hospital.”

“Angel? Who are you talking to?” The doctor had come in my room. It was late morning. I had been dozing off and on since vital signs at 6am. Refused any breakfast – I was never a big breakfast eater with the exception of my time in the military but that was after formation and PT and by then, one has been up for hours and feels starving. I was lying on my side in the fetal position, wrapped in my suicide blanket to hide from the cold. It was summer, the end of June, but the AC was strong and my weight loss left me feeling cold and weak. I didn’t bother sitting up.

“No one,” I answered guardedly.

“Is it the voice telling you to kill yourself?”

It bothered me he guessed that and so I just nodded.

“Do you feel safe in the hospital?”

I nodded again.

“Are you making any plans for suicide?”

“Sort of,” I admitted quietly. “I think about dying all the time. I want to die.”

“I know,” he nodded sympathetically. “We’re going to keep you here in the acute unit awhile longer. Keep taking the medications. I’m increasing the anti-psychotic, hopefully we can get those voices to quiet down. It’s risky, but I want to increase your anti-depressant as well. Your manic/suicidal mixed episode may well develop into mania with increases in anti-depressant medication but I think the risk is worth it. Why don’t you take a shower today? Come out of your room for a bit, we have some groups and art therapy coming up.”

I huddled in my blanket. “Okay,” I whispered, tired and defeated, no energy to be defiant.

I was greasy. My hair was badly tangled because I never bothered to comb it after soaking in the shower a few days prior. I always maintained my hair long after exiting the military, keeping some length even when I got a haircut. It was really long because I had let it go in the several months leading up to my detainment. My nails needed clipped, my face badly needed a shave, my lips were chapped and white, my skin translucent and peeling from dryness. With effort, I sat myself up. The order for me to be watched as a 1:1 had just been lifted that morning so I had a little privacy for the first time. They still did 15 minute room checks. An MHT came in to give me some shower supplies. “Do you need any help in the shower?” He asked.

“I think I’m okay,” I said. “I’m just moving really slow.”

“That’s okay, take your time,” he said reassuringly.

I showered slowly and methodically, eventually sitting down from drug-induced exhaustion. I was checked on frequently, the MHT asking how I was doing, me responding “okay” softly. I changed into clean hospital pajamas, I remember they were light blue, like the scrubs the VA provides patient care staff if they want them. No I don’t use them for obvious reasons. He let me clip my nails with supervision, but I didn’t ask to shave.

I had trouble combing my hair. It seems like it took forever, and I only had one of those little black jail combs to work with. My curls were stubborn, my arms got tired. But when it was done, I recognized myself a little better, even felt a tiny measure of accomplishment for getting cleaned up. The staff praised me effusively.

“Angel, you look great!”

“You look so much better, how are you feeling?”

“I don’t know,” I answered softly, not able to speak much more than a quiet slur. I didn’t know it, but they were having meetings about me. I went from manic and buzzing and yakking at myself and the voices and pacing frantically to slogging sedation, shuffling from one place to another, my head down, half asleep.

They sat me at a table and gave me some blank sheets. There was a bucket of colored pencils – a novelty item in a psych ward. I sat and the rec therapist said to come up with a word, any word, to describe our greatest strength and draw it out. I couldn’t think of anything. I felt I had no strengths at all.

“I think you are stronger than you know,” she said to me. “Why don’t you pick that? Strong.”

So I drew the word out in bubble letters and started coloring it in. I don’t have a knack for drawing so I figured I’d make the word look nice with lots of colors. I dozed off in mid draw, the rec therapist gently bringing me back.

After rec therapy, I collapsed in bed, exhausted from the shower and therapy and the effort it took. I slept hard, not even waking up for room checks, till dinner when I was woken and brought to the common area tables to eat. I had little appetite but I nibbled at the salad, the chicken, the steamed carrots. I ate more than I thought I would, slower than the other patients. No voices told me it was poison. I asked.

After dinner I attempted to make sense of the detainment paperwork from the court. I had two sets – a copy of the initial detainment paperwork from the MHP who saw me at the VA – which felt like a million years ago – and the more recent copy of the petition for up to two more weeks that had been already granted, probably while I was in seclusion. I tried to retrace the days and realized I’d been in the ER for two days and two nights (over half of it chemically restrained on haldol while strapped down) at Foothills before that for one night and half a day, and before that in the VA ER for two days and one night. All about five days. The paperwork detailing my need for additional time was damning.

“Respondent has stated he lost everything and no longer has any reason to live. Reported removal from his graduate school program. Stopped taking his medications. Endorses SI and intent. Suicide attempt at Foothills stabilization prior to being moved to Sacred Heart. Respondent became combative and physical and chemical restraints were required. Suicide attempt after admission to ACPU, respondent became combative and physical restraints were required. Disheveled, paranoid, auditory hallucinations present and delusions of persecution.” The paperwork even quoted things I had said. “‘They want to do experiments on me.’ Respondent has been med non-compliant for several months and will likely be court ordered to take medication.”

It went on and on like that – detailing my time in the ER in which I’d been restrained, physically and chemically. It spoke in several paragraphs the reasons I was placed in seclusion – on my court date – and the mania driving me into madness hour by hour, day by day. It spoke at length of my need for more time in the hospital, and that the doctor and treatment team recommended further involuntary psychiatric treatment. It even brought up past hospitalizations at 3 south. I cried softly to myself. I would never get better. Just then a room check.

She asked if I was okay. I nodded, sniffling, and asked what time it was. I also asked for a notebook or journal. I suddenly remembered I liked to write and had not written anything in the time I’d been detained. She brought me a composition notebook, a staple for any psych patient. I started writing, trying to piece together the last several days, trying to keep track of the time. I was given more medication, and I fell asleep with my face pressed into the open page, the small flexi-pen lost somewhere in my anti-suicide blanket. Time moves so very strangely in the psych ward.