medication
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Don’t look. Don’t look at the mental hospital. Don’t look at the signs in Sacred Heart pointing down the hall to the psych unit. Every fucking day, triggers and flashbacks. Even flashbacks of the future. I take my meds religiously. But my sleep meds are quickly losing their power. Even the Ativan is just not
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Today is my birthday. I’m 40 years old. I am amazed I’ve made it this far. I never would have imagined I’d make it to 40. But here I am, scarred but alive. My mother made me a special dinner to take to work. We are trying to get along. I’m soaking up this break
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My brain is churning with thoughts. I have an internal monologue; talking to myself but not out loud. I converse with the voices in my head silently. I’ve finished the first quarter of grad school. Mostly – I talk to one of the teachers in the morning to get more guidance on the eportfolio. Turns
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I feel like a fool sometimes. Taking on grad school, taking on this other job, moving back into my house. Everything compounds. Everything is a lot. And I have so many intrusive thoughts and feelings. This job. I don’t really need it, but I want it. A sick part of me insists on the exposure
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My mind is a swirling mess, so many anxious thoughts and visions of the future. So many triggers in my world despite my best efforts to mitigate them, to manage them, and use the therapy, so much therapy. When I want to sleep, I’m wide awake. I take the Gabapentin, Vistaril, Melatonin, sometimes Ativan. Force
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What a painful night. For some reason, nightmares during the day. At work I’m exhausted and surrounded by screaming patients, patients in restraints, staff who need too much from me, and haunted by memories. I’ve tried to focus on work, to distract, anything. The memories come unbidden, untriggered, and then they are exacerbated by that
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Slowly and methodically, I’m going through my small house and clearing a lot of things out, and cleaning a lot. My mother is not as clean as she thinks she is so it’s been a whole spring cleaning style endeavor. I enjoy it, I can meditate while I do chores and look after the seven
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T-minus one week and I’m moving. Well, mostly. The move date is the 19th. I have to call movers in the morning. My brain is a frantic mess of preparation. I keep imagining problems where there may be none. I think of scenarios that haven’t happened, when it comes to living with my mother, and
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What a wild ride. I always send out a little prayer into the universe, to whoever is listening (probably nothing and nobody) but I do it anyway, hoping for a chill shift. Hoping there’s no one in restraints, a million admits, crazy vitals, and the like. But it has been an interesting and intense shift.
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 