mental health system
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My god, the flashbacks. I’m having so much PTSD right now. Have been for hours. I just go right back there, back in restraints, back in the manic panic, back in the fear and anger. I can feel the heavy, sick grogginess of chemical restraint. I wish I could move past this but sometimes I…
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Emotion regulation continued – in DBT therapy, attending to relationships fosters improved emotion regulation. This relates to last week’s emotion regulation core concept – building positive experiences. The therapist talked about the two extremes – the dialectical opposites – in DBT. There’s being too open, no boundaries, and then the other end, rigid boundaries, isolationist…
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Week four of IOP and probably one of the more important modules, at least for me, is about to close tomorrow – Emotion Regulation. I have really struggled with some of the concepts and incorporating them into daily life. One exercise involved drawing concentric circles and in the inner, writing the emotions we do not…
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“How are you doing?” “I’m good, I’m good. I called my brother; I need his help. I can’t do it alone anymore. I don’t know what I’m going to do about my living situation. I want to move out. I think I’ll move out.” “How about the meds, any side effects?” “Just from that artane…
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I’m trying not to live in the past. I know I bring it up a lot, these flashbacks. I can’t help it. The memories are powerful and paralyzing. 10 years ago…even those memories are powerful and immobilizing. I’m not sure how to move on. I got out two months ago and sometimes it’s like it…
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I’ve been experiencing an upswing, an increase in hypomanic symptoms. I am not lost in the sauce yet, but I am hearing voices every day if I don’t take a PRN seroquel for it, and my libido is insatiable despite meds commonly known to kill sex drive. In my psychologist appointment with Dr Black this…
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My first few days in the hospital passed in a blur, a fog of medication adjustments, sluggish pacing, and intermittent crying. I felt most suicidal, yet safe. At least that’s what I reported in my daily nursing assessments. It’s a strange juxtaposition of feeling – that given the chance, I would kill myself, yet in…
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I still remember quite clearly my first morning in the hospital. I woke up after restless, fitful sleep, in which I was frequently startled awake by room checks. I just wanted coffee, so I went to the dining room. The kitchen would bring a large carafe of coffee in the mornings and it would be…
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After a couple weeks of seeing Dr Black, I was starting to shut down and sink deeper and deeper into relentless depression and despair. My PHQ and GAD scores couldn’t get any worse. I was calling off work a lot, unable to face anyone or function within the limits of the job description. I made…
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 