Documenting my journey through the mental health system

My voice is still gone, and it hurts to swallow. Which sucks.

Shows are coming up. I went ahead and agreed to Garland Pride singing and have until the 22nd to get my voice back. I’m calling my doctor when I get off work. There are also shows the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of the month and the Spectrum Singers – whom I have fundraised for – begins their next season the end of August. I am so anxious and stressed about my lungs and throat. Every time I try to sing it catches in my throat. There’s gotta be something they can do. I don’t have a ton of hope. It’s not that I don’t trust the VA – I trust them more than anyone. It’s just I don’t have much faith in medical science for the things that ail me.

I am also quite defeated when it comes to this graduate program. I’m almost done, all my classes are done – I just have to do the Applied Practice Experience for two quarters. The trouble is finding a place and time. I tried and tried to establish communication with the owner of Nyne bar, where I perform and have fundraised – to do something there. But it just never happened. So I thought about my job at SH, could I do it during work hours? The director of the program warned me about that, said historically employers expect a separation of some kind, so my APE hours would have to be totally separate from my actual job. Basically there’s no way to cut this – I’d have to quit one of my jobs to have an actual APE experience and be able to finish the program. Apparently, the APE, over the two quarters, is more intense than initially thought. I’m not afraid of the work itself. I got this far, picking away at it a class at a time. I’ve invested a lot, and even got SH to give me some money. I talked to the director about a remote option – and there are only 4. Two require additional fees.

The most promising is the Tricounty health district up in Northeastern Washington. Everything would be done remotely; I’d have to get quite comfortable with that and that has been its own challenge. I emailed them and let my advisor know. Now all I can do is wait and think.

SH has been the reason I’ve come as far as I have. I think it helped me process things, by being exposed to things, and just having something to do that’s real nursing and not just long-term care. My mental health was so fucking fragile when I got hired two years ago. It was two years ago to the DAY that I was sobbing into a pillow at Inland Northwest Behavioral Health, the mental hospital in which I’d spend nearly two weeks. Of course, that’s when the court appointed social worker came in to assess me and I told her to leave me alone. When I got out, I was traumatized and paranoid and I’m still really paranoid, but I know how to live with it. I took on the job at SH (I was initially detained at Deaconess, a different hospital. If that ambulance had just taken a different turn and taken me to SH, things would be very different. I don’t think I would have taken the job). I made friends there; I have a good night crew there. I’ve seen so much, I have a front row seat to all social ills. I got promoted rapidly and do more things. I see blood and guts and help patients not die every fucking night. Med/surg is wild like that. It’s just a little of everything, and patients are always coming and going, there’s no one living there with rare exception. At the VA I am having a hard time because it’s more long-term care, I have a lot of guys on hospice living here or they are 100% service connected which means they qualify if they want to move in and stay. Yes, that means me someday. Only the 100 percenters get to live here if they’re not actively dying. All vets regardless of service connection get hospice care. It’s crazy to me that I’ll work for 20 years in the very place I’ll likely die. Maybe I’m having trouble dealing with that.

I don’t want to leave either job right now. Not for a temporary thing like two quarters. It’s hard enough to cope. Each day I have a predictable routine because I gotta go do this nursing bullshit. But I’m no fool…I was going to quit after the program. I was going to quit…it can’t be maintained for years and years and I know that. If the remote option for the APE doesn’t work out, maybe I’ll be quitting sooner than I thought.