DBT
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In July 2024, I was violently detained and hospitalized for suicide and later, completed an Intensive Outpatient mental health program as the year ended. I remember that during the program, I was quite anxious about the upcoming holidays because I was not living in my house. Every day, I wrote here and in a journal,…
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The fundraiser flyer has been released, and I shared it all over my newly created Instagram as well as my Facebook. I brought in a lot of business to Nyne at the drag show two weeks ago, and I’m hoping to get everyone to come out again. More than before. This fundraiser is a big…
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This weekend marks the close of the Winter I quarter. Monday begins Winter II, and an official halfway point towards this master’s degree. There is Spring 1 after that, and the last time I will have two classes at a time. I will have only one per quarter starting Spring II. I will be finished…
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“What do you think Dr. P? Did you imagine me capable of this?” “How about you, Shirley? – you were the one who told me to take classes again.” I think about them sometimes. The staff and other patients in the hospital with me. Shirley was a nurse who dealt with my sleepwalking, gave me…
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There is a construction zone around 4th avenue, and I must detour on my way to work. The mental hospital is on my route to work, so now instead of driving by it, I drive with it looming in front of me. I don’t know that I will ever get over it. I have a…
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All Hallow’s Eve…and patients are off the hook all around me. The only day I work this week at Sacred Heart – and I’ve got sad cases, chaotic cases, all of it boiling down to the violence of our hyper capitalistic living. What people do to cope is incredible…like the 30-year-old girl dying of liver…
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I’ve caught up on my meds. I’m feeling rather turbo charged despite a lack of sleep and living on mostly chocolate the last few days. The PTSD symptoms are still ever present. I saw a rust-colored car and immediately felt short of breath and my heart beat faster. Rust is the color of the elopement…
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I’ve been reading a book popular in psychology circles and recommended to me by numerous doctors and therapists. The Body Keeps the Score, by Bessel Van Der Kolk. It’s thick and complicated and right up my alley. Triggering, too. He’s talking about the patients in psych wards and hospitals in which he’s worked. Talking about…
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So sensitive to noise. Every crash and bang startles me. Reminds me of the mental hospital, all the cacophony and slamming of doors. But I’m getting through it. The meds deaden my response. I’m not cycling so hard. I have short lived mood swings, especially if I miss my meds even one day. That did…
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Things are bad at home. There was a fight…and I’m not sorry but I still feel like shit. I never called names, I felt instead like I was defending myself. But she’s so good at positioning herself as the victim and me some kind of evil abuser. Who knows, maybe I am. And I don’t…
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 