Documenting my journey through the mental health system

Last night during an abbreviated shift with no patients, I revamped the library/TV room. I tore it apart – reorganizing books, puzzles, games, and coloring books/pencils and putting it all into new places and throwing away a lot of junk. I cleaned the little computer room which is a room inside the library room – confirmed the computers still worked and turned everything on. I cleaned out the whole place. There is dedicated cupboard space now for all the games and next to that, arts and crafts type things. We found puzzles in every nook and cranny – tossed a third of them and put all the rest on a dedicated shelf. We tried to hook up the DVD/VCR player but were unable to get it to work. The TV works and has cable. We found the remote. We plugged in the old boombox but the CD player doesn’t work. However, it has a tape deck and we found a lot of cassettes among the CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes. That was where it kinda stopped – someday, I’m gonna have to go through every one of those movies and CDs and cassettes and get rid of a lot to make room for newer stuff. There are still DVDs and CDs hanging out on the TV stand without their cases. Otherwise, the library room is completely revamped, at least until someone can figure out how to get the DVD player to work. There are SO many DVDs, some of them really good movies. Right now all those DVDs are useless. There are a few DVD players in the TV stand to choose from. There were also two small radios. Now everything is organized except those millions of CDs/DVDs.

I have a library at home. Then mom made it her room, then she wouldn’t use it anymore. All the floor to ceiling shelving and all my books are still there. I have books coming out of my ears. There is a bookshelf at the end of my hallway, and it is half full of books. All very old books. I have shelves on my wall in my room, and they are full of books. I have a tall corner shelf full of books. There are two bookshelves in my living room fully loaded as well. And I read a lot. Tonight, with only 5 patients, I’m going to be reading the book I’ve been slowly working on awhile – The Body Keeps the Score. About trauma leaving its physical markers on you, making us crazy and borderline and requiring extensive therapy to work past.

I wrote that book and feel such a paranoia and trauma from everything I went through that now I think, never again – no matter how bad things get. Don’t go back.

I’m ordering some author copies from Amazon because I’m going to leave one in the library here at the VA. There is also a coworker at SH who wrote a book of poetry so she’s giving me a copy and I’m getting her a copy of mine. Luckily author copies are fairly cheap.