Loony Bin, Exeunt…II
May. 8th, 2012 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
railentheLoony Bin, Exeunt II…
Things did not improve after the tea and stabbing session on the 30th. The voices came back, and in alarm I tried to contact someone—anyone—on my “if shit goes pearshaped” list. Not getting any response out of anyone, I called the crisis hotline. They directed me to a different line—the number I’d been given was for people one state over. …seriously, why they couldn’t have given me the right number was beyond me. It was right there. And I could WALK across to the other state, for shit’s sake.
After I’d mentioned chest pain—probably spasms and nothing worse—I had two choices: call an ambulance or they’d call one for me. I resisted. An ambulance was called for me. The paramedics arrived eventually, and their initial knock sent me to the ceiling. After I recovered, I opened the door—
A male paramedic veritably speeds toward me.
I bolt. Apparently dispatch did not tell the paramedics about my condition. I’m perched on the back of my couch before I know how I got there. I managed coherence long enough to ask for the lady medic before explaining. After a bit more difficulty—this time I wound up behind the couch, which is a neat trick since it’s nearly flush against the wall—I get out and am strapped to the stretcher, answering questions, explaining the problem and generally getting ready for the inevitable destination.
The first thing that I do while I have the chance is to send out messages to friends and family and work, letting them know that I was in the hospital. It’s a flurry of typing on my phone’s keyboard, blanketing messages out everywhere I can remember to send them.
Waiting in the ER, there are blood tests, coherence tests, and other stuff to be done. Again, it seems that dissemination of information isn’t going on, and a nurse makes the mistake of approaching me at speed, with palms…completely…visible. I’d’ve been out of the hospital entirely if I hadn’t forgotten how the doors worked in my panic. I scrape most of the skin off of one elbow and a knee when I trip over. I’m then blamed for my injury when I try to get some alcohol or iodine.
Intake is speedy enough, but since it was 1 AM when I got there, the whole process goes on until five in the morning. I explain my condition three ways to Sunday before I’m allowed to go to bed—and that not until my blood sugar’s been tested…before I called the hotline, I’d binged on sugary junk food: three cream-filled cakes, a chocolate bar with peanuts, two sodas, a coffee, sweet tea, juice. Apparently, even though I’m hypoglycemic, I nearly put myself into a diabetic coma on that binge, and they weren’t going to let me go until my blood sugar levels came down to logical normal levels (for me). I am then searched for contraband, ordered to hand over anything with long sleeves, or strings, or straps—I’m given a hospital gown and also ordered to ditch my headscarf. Apparently I’ve been placed on suicide watch—never mind the fact that I haven’t voiced self-harm thoughts.
I am exhausted. They allow me to sleep through a group-therapy session and breakfast. It’s somewhere around 12:30 that they wake me up for lunch.
I receive a roommate toward the middle of the day. She seems a nice enough person. The first thing that I realize about where I’ve been placed is that it’s higher security. My untrained analysis susses out potential diagnoses: major depressive disorder on this person; schizophrenic, there; antisocial tendencies here; impulse control and severe narcissism on this guy; and one severe autist who I’m sure is here by mistake.
The Inmates.
There weren’t quite as many people on the wing I was on this time compared to the last one, but that time they put me mostly on addiction/substance abuse watch (off-base for the most part; I HAD been bingeing then but I’m neither abusing drugs nor alcohol). This time, they’ve got me where the BIG cases go. And I’m in some…unique company.
The Creeper.
There’s one guy who I can’t quite place on the spectrum. He seemed to be under the impression that people would drop everything and do what he said—and if they didn’t he’d call his mom and she’d make them. He also wouldn’t listen to directions, was chronically insubordinate, and had a habit of shouting. First thought: oppositional defiant disorder.
I did not feel safe around this guy. Each and every time he passed me by, I would get a cold chill. And he liked to stand behind me, just over my shoulder. I made the mistake of looking behind me one of those times and got to see the fact that his hand was down his baggy sweatpants. I went out of my way to never say more than ten words to him my entire time there.
The Troll.
I use this term seriously—this one guy was a troll. He would go out of his way to foment disorder by egging on people whose frustrations were getting the better of him. He was so far out there that I never even had a solid theory on his condition—best guess: sociopath with bits of obsessive-compulsive behavior and terrible impulse control. He’d curse incessantly—not since Rocco from The Boondock Saints have I heard so many conjugations of the verb “fuck.” He’d also mutter under his breath at all times, in what might have been Italian or utter gibberish. At any rate he sounded quite a bit like Boomhauer from the series King of the Hill: you could make out every few words every so often, but most of the time you were SO lost. Best Guess: Not sure. I saw bits of OCD, mania, explosive rage, poor impulse control, and violent tendencies. Also, he was an ex-con. Did more complaining about being in the ‘bin than anyone, except maybe the Creeper.
The Roomie.
Nice enough lady, had my condition pegged at first trigger incident at lunch: apparently she’s been there, done that, and bought the T-shirt. Verdict: moderate depression, anger management issues and ‘the change of life,’ as the word “menopause” seems to be off-limits in the ‘bin. The last time I saw such explosive rage out of nowhere? Me.
The Big Bitch.
The first thing I noticed about her was the fact that half of her head was shaved, and the other half she had a badly-colormatched weave sewn in. The woman’s easily five times my size in both weight and height, and does not seem to understand that just because someone has stopped eating, they might not have given up their plate to the first comer. Wild outbursts, unpredictable, prone to telling outrageous stories that were completely unverifiable. Best guess: schizophrenic. There had to be something else, but this was the obvious one. A drama queen with no sense of what is and is not appropriate. She immediately begins to eye me with suspicion when she notices that my hair is real and that I derive enjoyment from magazines that are more word than picture.
(Remember this…it’ll come up later.)
The Major Depressive.
She kept to herself and didn’t participate in groups much. Had a habit of not finishing meals, and bailing on groups with an “I can’t do this” attitude. Often would give them to the Big Bitch. Spent most of the time wandering around.
The PTSD patient.
That would be me. I’ve gotten worse in the month since my first trip to the ‘bin, what with the voices and a startle reflex/hypervigilant state now on par with a shell-shocked soldier from the war. Increasing anger at the ineffectiveness of treatment has made me incredibly volatile—wild, pendulum-like mood swings have set in, making me go from being “DUDE EVERYTHING IS AWESOME” to “just fucking kill me now already k?” in a single hour sometimes. Being around this bunch…is not going to help me. A later revelation that the hotline had lied to me about being able to check myself back out after the threat has passed was a lie causes problems later on.
Doctor’s In…
My first visit with one of the doctors—or was she a social worker? I can never keep people straight when I’m in the ‘bin—resulted in an unexpected change: an increase in the pill I’m certain has been causing me to hear things and forget things, for one; this is followed by taking me off of one pill and putting me on another one.
This one’s an atypical antipsychotic/antischizophrenic. It is also used off-label for PTSD…but all I see is the fact that I’ve been put on something first created to treat schizophrenia. When I ask, I don’t get much of an answer.
Perhaps predictably, I don’t react well. I rail at the doctors for pumping me full of drugs and demand to be let out—of course, this doesn’t happen. What doesn’t help is a remark from the whitecoat I’d just seen insisting that I be more patient with treatment and that it ‘doesn’t look like I want to be out of this condition.’
I haven’t felt rage like that since…well, all I remember was it was high school.
I’m this close to having my degree, a few credits off, and I’m stuck here sitting in a corner in the loony bin using a hospital gown as a handkerchief taking notes in crayon and watching my mind rot. Death by hyponatremia—essentially drinking enough water so that it kills you—starts to look good. But I’m lazy and stay down.
I wind up spending most of the next two hours curled up on the bathroom floor of my room, not wanting to deal with anything out there. I fall asleep there, and after a while, apparently the doctors had to start looking for me. They found me, eventually—but I wasn’t leaving the room. It took a different doctor—one with actual tact—to talk me down. Deep breathing and drugs, deep breathing and drugs—this was all I was getting from people and I was sick and tired of hearing it. I was set into a different group starting the following day.
It’s then that I realize that though this is one of the area’s best mental wings, it is not equipped for my condition.
Stiff as a board.
I wake up the following morning with spider-claw—the new med they’ve given me has rendered my right side one stiff brick, with the muscles in my hand stuck in this crab-spider claw shape. It takes quite some time to recover. Another pill is added to the mix—an anti-cholinergic that’ll stop the twitch-twist-stiff the other stuff causes—and also treat the nervous tic I’ve picked up in the face.
I wind up having to spend time apologizing to nurses I’ve ripped into—the team that day is the same one from my first trip, and they couldn’t believe it was me having that rage episode—I’m usually so quiet and subdued there that me and rage returns a critical error in their minds.
Dysfunctional Illiteracy.
I’m surprised to discover that three of the people up there with me can’t read. I wind up dealing with a not unsubstantial crowd over my shoulder—bad for me—who seem to think that the ability to read is some form of sorcery.
Disconnects.
I messaged friends and family when I was first admitted, looking forward to potential supportive visits from family members and friends. While my friends showed up and were highly supportive, my family never showed up to visit me, nor did they call—not even once. The familial snub does not go unnoticed; I’m forced to rethink family ties, since this time around they DID know where I was immediately.
Friends are more willing to see me through, bringing me passable clothing, things to read, and snacks—and a Snuggle bear (as in the mascot for the fabric softener) because I can’t exactly keep Sanity Kitten with me. I can see where I stand now more easily.
Disorder.
This wing of the bin is loud and violent. Phone calls are usually going, with much slamming of the receiver and loud cursing. One of the loudest is my roommate, who is having to deal with what are now very public fights with family over the phone about timing of drinking, spending money on alcohol that could be used to visit, and other things. It often produces a violent spell and then a loud, sustained crying spell, very publicly. Dealing with this makes me incredibly nervous. Not as much as the Creeper standing behind me with his dick in his hands, but still.
The Explosion.
I’m moved several times during my stay. The nurses finally realize that it’s a BAD idea to have the PTSD patient bunk with someone even more unstable after something ludicrous happens.
Remember the Big Bitch? (BB for short hereafter?) Well, she was having a bad day from jump, and it just kept getting worse. She happens to be one of the illiterates, and doesn’t get jokes unless they’re either really simple or jokes she’s heard from the voices in her head (you could hear her talking back to them several times a day). Supper comes around and everyone’s ready to eat. My roomie makes a joke about the one cushioned chair in the lounge, which BB has appropriated. (I’ve sat in that chair a few times—it’s not all that much better than the other ones.) BB doesn’t get it, takes it as an insult. I try to lighten the situation but it doesn’t work. The conversation continues, and I try to focus on my plate. Major Depressive leaves the room to wander around often, coming back for a bite before more wandering. BB hunts her down and asks for the food. The plate is declared open season, and Roomie and BB go for it.
At the same time.
Oh, shiza, I think, beginning to see a good reason why my mind insisted I sit by the door.
“I want that.” I should mention now that BB’s voice is big, booming and mannish. You can hear it on the OTHER wing, the one more queued for addictions.
The next thing happens almost in bullet time: Roomie pulls a face, and ever so gently lobs the butter she’d tried to grab over to BB’s tray.
Nothing happens for a few seconds. Time speeds up. Then: BB sweeps that side of the table off, knocking all three trays to the floor. She stands there seething for a while before Roomie leaves, screaming bloody murder about BB. The nurses have to talk Roomie down and sedate-and-seclude BB. We’re all questioned, then, and as I explain what I saw—BB comes after me, gets in my face, cursing me out. I hover over my plate to keep her from trying the same shit with me—if she wants at my plate, she’ll have to sweep a good chunk of my anatomy out of the way first, and I’ll be thrice-damned before I let this—this defective—try that bullshit with me. She tries to lie about my involvement (or lack thereof) and I wind up quoting Biblical verse at her. It kinda intimidates her off of me.
It’s an hour or so later that I’m sitting in the lounge still, stuck between waiting for BB to be cleared out of my way and going to incredibly scary Roomie now—the conflict between the nurses, those two, and Security is too much for me to take and I stay there, not wanting to be re-triggered a third time that day.
It was then that the doctors realized that putting the PTSD patient in the same room as someone even less stable is a Bad Idea, and I get moved to a private room. This is met with much resentment from BB, who now glares at me whenever I pass by—or when I’m sitting somewhere she happens to move—or when I say something to someone else about anything at all—or when she passes my new, private room. I camp in my room, feeling unsafe, until my friends visit—and she continues to give me the evil eye when she sees me. I swear, every time she looked at me, I hear the ominous Koyanisqaati chant.
Later in the day during snacks, the Troll tries to start another fight…but it backfires, as he’s managed to finagle a bit too much medicine and succumbs to drugged insensibility. The Creeper is sent home, and I feel marginally safer than before.
Exeunt.
I am released the following day; the medicines have been altered—most of them just bigger—but no one has examined my head for the mechanism behind the weirdness in my memory/cognition; the theory that we’re working on right now is either absence seizures or something called dissociation—of the mild amnesia/fugue variety. Only the voices are medicated out of my head. My friends insist that I spend the weekend over their place—to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn’t lose grip of reality after being discharged.
Things have gotten a bit better. I’m slowing myself down yet again, trying to be careful about what I do, where I go, how I do things…I really don’t want to wind up in the ‘bin a third time. I never thought I’d wind up there a second time. I don’t need a repeat.
But there is ONE bit of good news.
I BEAT THE ARCANE LABYRINTH, BITCHES! SNUGGLE WUGGLES IS NOW MY PET.
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YOU ARE INSTANTLY VIRTUALLY GLOMPED BY WHAT APPEARS TO BE A SPOTTY BRITISH GIRL
Date: 2012-05-08 04:23 pm (UTC)I'm so glad to hear you're out of there. *MORE HUGS*
I'm sorry I couldn't be of any help during this hell but please know that I am thinking of you and I do worry about you when these things happen - if I weren't half a world away (although my geography as we've discussed is at Laguna level so it might be closer to a quarter of a world away) I would try my best to help you through this. *HUGS, HUGS, HUGS*
P.S. Booyah! You tell that adorable piece of snuggly wuggly 10 foot monstrosity who's boss!
D'aww, everybody, thanks. <3
Date: 2012-05-09 12:12 am (UTC)Of course, I still feel like a damned fool because I've wound up letting myself get into a situation where I'm now on something classified as an 'atypical antipsychotic,' but maybe all of these damn chemicals are what my brain needs right now. Lord knows it's broken enough as it is without me trying to convince myself that I'm full of crap.
(Oh--the sword you get when you beat Snuggle Wuggles is LUDICROUS. You get extended EX and Assist absorption afrter you complete the Death Strike set.
Except the armor's all level 1. The sword's level 100. So you're squishy as hell. But you build EX and Assist so fast that even GABRANTH can use assists as a practical part of his strategy.)
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