Documenting my journey through the mental health system

When I got to work tonight and saw my assignment – ED psych (emergency department) – my heart sank. It’s another one of those things that can happen – getting floated around the hospital. Usually, they use float pool staff but if they’re all busy or don’t exist, they tap the next available staff. Still being pretty new, I knew it was only a matter of time till it was my turn to be floated. But ED psych??

Ten years ago, I was hauled into that very ED and strapped down when psychotic, hearing voices, and suicidal. I had not taken my meds in months. I tried to fight and run. They shot me with Haldol and kept me locked in a little room for a couple days before a bed opened up in the main psych unit. I tried to hang myself when I was moved there and spent that night in restraints.

I have written a lot about how this new job is very triggering, but I want to stick it out. I’ve talked about the things I do to mitigate the panic and sense of despair when I am confronted with things like the busy ambulance bay next door, or patients in restraints, or general screaming on the unit. Besides question my life choices, I’ve learned I have more in common with these patients than I do coworkers. Sometimes I feel like such a fraud, hiding in plain sight, a secret nutcase only a few bad circumstances away from going right back into that psych ED, and revealing to all what a fraud I was the whole time.

Seeing the unit again was absolutely bizarre and surreal. My heart hammered in my chest, and I remembered that urge to get away. I felt it again. Not much has changed.

I remembered it, the locked doors, the paint, the blue scrubs for patients. The written schedule on the wall by the nurse station. And I was behind that nurse station.

I am not an MHT. I am not an MHT. I am not an MHT.

I’m just a CNA. I’m quite adept at rehab and hospice. I have a degree in psych, and I pursued a masters in social work for a minute but it was all wrong. I can’t do it. I’m not a Mental Health Technician. I’m a nurse assistant.

I dissociated, my only last resort option to stay functional. They showed me around behind the scenes the place they didn’t know I knew. Where the snacks were, where to get a warm blanket, where the staff bathroom was. And then Yanna came to me, my unit manager. She works late into the night every month or so and tonight happened to be that night. And she knows my history.

“I saw you were down here, and I had to come see if you were okay. If we need to, we can switch you out.”

I blinked and didn’t know what to say. Then I just rambled.

“I don’t want to be someone who can’t do it. But I just don’t know. I don’t want people to hate me if I can’t do it. It’s not the patients, it’s the place. It’s so weird to be here. So surreal. I don’t know. I don’t know.” I kept saying that – I don’t know. Felt like an idiot but I really was in a borderline state of panic and trying to keep it together.

“I already asked if the other aide could switch you out. She said she didn’t mind.”

So, I nodded, my panic alleviating briefly. “Yes please,” I caved, for a minute choking on my words. I capitulated.

“No one is going to think less of you. Or think you’re not a good aide, or not a team player. And I have the power, regarding your reasonable accommodation request, to decide where you will not float. I’m going to put down that you absolutely cannot go to the psych ED in the future.”

That is the same accommodation I have at work at the VA. I can never float to the psych unit there, as I’ve been a patient there three times. I had also largely given up on my accommodation request but even if it did go through, even if they said I didn’t have to work with patients in restraints, then I’d still be right where I started – floating down to the psych ED.

Yanna rescued me. Saved me. Literally came down and physically got me. I am not sure what I would have done if she didn’t come get me. I guess I would have fought and clawed my way through the night, the internal turmoil a secret to all, left with a breathless flashback and anxiety for days. But I know this is not sustainable. I have a history, and it haunts me.