Documenting my journey through the mental health system

So, I haven’t been able to sing since I nailed My Heart Will Go On on the cruise ship. And I did nail it too.

My version of pneumonia started about a day after mom’s, when we got off the boat and made it to the hotel. I had puking, fever, coughing, headache. That was almost two weeks ago, and I’m fine except for a persistent and annoying cough. My throat is also sore and I can’t sing.

There are shows coming up. Chances for me to get on stage again. I have numbers lined up I really want to practice. There is Garland Pride coming up, a sort of neighborhood block party with drag and other events. There is an open mic cabaret show I want to attend. But if I can’t sing I’m fucked. And I haven’t gone this long without singing in a couple years.

Almost two years ago – that’s when I was really fucked up and got detained by the cops and they strapped me down in the ER. I spent a couple weeks in the mental hospital and felt very fucked up by the whole experience. I still have flashbacks and nightmares of that violent day. I don’t think they’ll ever really go away. The experience triggered even older memories and flashbacks of the first time I ever got detained, in 2014. That was violent too. I had quit my meds entirely and it took months, in the end, to stabilize. I had to put my life all back together after fucking everything up.

I’m bipolar and that’s never gonna change. Now I’m bipolar with PTSD and anxiety. I have a lot of paranoia that wasn’t present before. Is it good if I can recognize it? I certainly act on it – or rather, take a lack of action. I’m suspicious and paranoid of the entire medical and mental health system – it’s so triggering, and painful, and I see all these other patients going through such awful shit – I just don’t want anything to do with it. So, I made myself a DNI – Do Not Intubate. And I spelled out all kinds of things doctors cannot do if I lose capacity. I just don’t value life enough! I am quite frightened of police and courts and the power they have over the mentally ill and I want nothing to do with it. I don’t even want to see anyone at the VA outside Derek, the guy who oversees my meds. I do have to see him every six months or so. I don’t think my ever-evolving fear and paranoia will progress to the point I quit my meds – I hope I never lose that new insight. Despite the paranoia and distrust, I know I need the meds.

There was all that therapy, after the fact. DBT focused and part of the mental hospital’s intensive outpatient program. The VA paid for it and I was still pretty fucked up and paranoid but did that therapy in earnest. The therapist was good. I hope I learned something.