mental illness

  • This Time is Different

    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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  • DBT Maintenance

    DBT Maintenance

    A lot of firsts this week. A first week at work back at my house. A first night back at Sacred Heart with a new commute. I drove by the mental hospital as there is no avoiding it and forced myself not to look. Every time, I have to force myself not to look. It’s…

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  • Emotional Labor

    Emotional Labor

    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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  • Environmental Context

    Mental health, or lack of it, always occurs in concert with the environment. They are intertwined. It’s difficult to be well adjusted if the environment is negative or unhealthy. There are certainly worse times in which to have lived, and worse places to live, but it feels like normal life hangs by a thread. Democracy…

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  • Just Existing

    Just Existing

    Sometimes I am just floating, going through the motions, not sad or depressed or manic or anything. I exist in a state of melancholy. I use work to cope. I’m working 9 days this week, and I realize 9 days is more than a week but that’s just what it is. If I didn’t have…

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  • Clinging to Life

    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.…

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  • Untitled post 2168

    Every time I drive to work, I have to drive by the mental hospital. In the beginning, this was a major trigger for me and required I sit for a minute and let the panic dissipate before heading in. So many flashbacks and so much anxiety. Now I drive by and try to reframe it…

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  • Have I bit off more than I can chew? Honestly…probably. I’m working two jobs. I run a rental property. I’m trying to take care of and slowly restore a house. I support my mother. And my manic ass applied to grad school when I got out of the hospital and I got accepted. I start…

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  • Futility

    Futility

    I can’t slow down my mind. The anxiety is absolutely palpable. The light fixture is installed and my desk moved into place. My mother bitched about the flooring restoration and all kinds of other things while I was there the last few days. I try to let it roll off me but the truth is,…

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  • Death is on my mind lately. I am surrounded by it. It walks the halls of my hospitals, and I swear I can see the reaper the moment a patient dies. I’ve had two patients die on me this week. I have another circling the drain, but he’s a full code and the family won’t…

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