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…Continued from Part IV
September 21, 2024
Once the Emergency Department stabilized my blood pressure, a nurse walked me down to a wing of the hospital which I dubbed “The Holding Area.” It is specifically a space to hold mental health patients until a room can be found for them at an inpatient facility. The nurse brought me to a massive set of locked, swinging doors, and left me with a security guard who frisked me before unlocking the doors. We stood inside this empty 10’x10′ space (which reminded me of those airlocks you see on shows with spaceships) while another security guard opened the other set of locked doors. I was passed off from 1 security guard to another (which again reminded me of a prisoner pass down in a sci-fi flick) and I was frisked for a second time.
Standing in front of the door, I could see the main area which was sparsely filled with a round table and some chairs underneath a TV that had nature scenes running in the background. There were some coloring supplies on the table. To the right of this were two bathrooms and a shower. There were individual rooms with doors in an L-shaped layout (with the milieu in the middle) and towards the back was a long see-through glass where the medical professionals monitored us. All the other walls were bare concrete.
I was taken to one of the empty rooms which was just big enough to have a single bed (bolted to the floor). There were 1-2 feet of space around the bed, and it looked and felt like a prison cell, which I dutifully paced around and around and around. Because of a migraine that started in the ER, I kept the light off and didn’t play the TV which was hanging uselessly on one of the walls. I literally sat, slept, and paced in the dark for the next 24 hours. I was technically allowed to mill about in the center room, but between my migraine and my depression, I just wanted to be alone. I was also afraid of the other patients, to be honest.
Every time I had to pee, I waited and waited until I couldn’t wait any longer and finally had to use the facilities. This was because I was petrified going to the bathroom since the bathrooms didn’t have locks and anyone could walk in on you. This was made worse by the fact that there were several large, tough men who had been brought here against their will. Another patient that I later met said that there was a man who yelled across from his room to hers all night claiming he was going to come in her room and rape her. Our rooms also didn’t have locks.
The nurses behind the glass didn’t do anything to mitigate either issue.
One of the worst parts about this holding area was that the nurses all seemed at a loss of what to feed me because of my gluten issue. At one point they gave me a salad, which I began eating with the lights off. I was having a hard time spearing lettuce with my paper utensil, so I turned on my light so I could see better. The salad had a deep dark, furry mold growing on top of it and I couldn’t help but gag. I am not making this shit up.
At one point a doctor interrogated me and pronounced me unfit for living amongst normal humans (that’s what it felt like) and told me that if I didn’t agree to go to an inpatient facility, then they would force me to. I numbly just nodded my head. I didn’t care, so long as it was anywhere but here.
I mused darkly that even if I had not wanted to kill myself before I got in here, this place would have pushed me to that edge. I felt like a trapped animal. A crazy person that they had to hide away. A prisoner. I wished that I had just been allowed to die. Why would they save me if I was to come to this place? What was the point? There were no clocks and of course I didn’t have anything on my person except for my scrubs and my cat slippers. I had no idea what time it was or how many hours I was there, and so I kept on thinking, “This is forever. I’m going to be here forever.” I fervently wished that I was more skilled at killing myself and I thought that next time, I’d make damn sure this wouldn’t happen again. If I ever got out.
I cried a lot in those 24 hours. If I wasn’t curled into a ball on the bed, I was pacing around and around my cell/room. When I got tired, I’d sit on the floor in one of the corners of the room and rest my head on my knees. The one thing I kept on thinking about over and over and over again was this dog named Rupert. I had been seeing a man I met on Match.com about a month before I drove up north, and he had this dog who was just honestly, the best dog I had ever met. Rupert looked like a smaller/mixed version of a Great Pyrenees, and he had the thickest, softest fur I could just bury my face in. For whatever reason, he seemed to really love me, was very protective of me, and had comforted me when I went through one of my seizures. Thinking of David and Rupert were lifelines for me in this place that I would have honestly lost my fucking mind (or what was left of it) in.
My cousin came to visit me again and she was equally appalled at the conditions of the “holding area.” I felt marginally validated. It didn’t feel so dark and scary when she was with me, and for that I will be forever grateful. She told me that I should really see this time as a chance to get away from everyone and everything and get clarity on what I want to do next. So, when I wasn’t thinking about Rupert and wanting to escape prison, I asked myself, “What do I want? What do I really want?” What I really wanted was to have my family back, to pretend that I hadn’t brought up the need for change, to pretend that I was ok. Since this was just a fantasy, what else did I want? I really didn’t know.
September 22-October 3, 2024
Around midnight, a security guard came to escort me to the back of the hospital where I was transported in another ambulance a few minutes down the road to a sister facility associated with the hospital (an unbelievable $1644 to ride 8 minutes). More security guards met and frisked me while a male nurse who I could barely understand communicated that I was at an inpatient facility where I was going to stay indefinitely. We took an elevator up to the inpatient ward and some other nurses gave me a flu shot, made me strip off all my clothes, and offered me new scrubs. Surprisingly, I was given my own room and bathroom again, and while minimalist, it was infinitely more comfortable than prison had been. Too tired to think, I fell into bed and fell asleep immediately…
Until I was woken by a nurse telling me it was time for meds. I groggily stumbled out into the hallway and cringed back into myself when I saw other patients mingling about. I was the only one in scrubs and I was definitely the only one without a bra. I immediately felt self-conscious and wished to be invisible. Like so many other times in my life.
“Hi, what’s your name? You must have come in last night” said a perky, dirty blond with British-style teeth.
I mumbled my name and she said, “Don’t worry! This is a really nice place, despite the fact that we are legit in the looney bin” she squeaked out the loony bit part while giving a conspiratorial wink. She was literally bouncing on her toes.
“All the staff are great. Except that one right there” and she pointed a bony finger towards a nurse who yelled over, “Hey, Y___, don’t be harassing the newbie!”
Oh great, I thought. Happy people.
We all piled into a room and gave our numbers and adjectives for the morning (this must be an across-the-board mental health practice?). When it was Y____’s turn, she gushed, “I’m a 10! I’m so excited because I’m escaping the coop tomorrow!!” and she flapped her arms and danced a little jig. I honestly didn’t know whether she was this crazy before they put her in here, or if this was just the result of too much mental health treatment. Most of the others also had high scores, so when it came time for me to answer, I felt like I was ruining the mojo when I mumbled that I was a 3.
“What is your describing word?” the therapist asked.
“Depressed” (for so many reasons!) and I said “because I have no future.”
I couldn’t fathom how everyone was doing so well, when I felt so miserable. Granted, everyone else had been there longer than me. And it turned out most of them discharged the next day, which was unfortunate for me since they were really a fantastic group of people. Don’t get close, don’t get close was pretty much my mantra for the rest of my time in there so I wouldn’t make friends and then get hurt when one of us left. I couldn’t handle any more emotional distress.
The only thing I knew about psych wards and inpatient facilities were the horror stories I had heard from other people. And Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Turns out, not all mental health facilities are awful. Mine actually ended up being an amazing place to heal and I kept pinching myself to make sure I was actually alive. It felt like Someone might actually be looking out for me. The staff were very kind and I appreciated how competent they all were. No one mixed up my meds, no one seemed worried at my medical conditions or mental health concerns, and no one acted unprofessionally. The other patients were all very respectful (minus one fight that erupted between 2 women who entered the facility at the same time and apparently knew each other and were already feuding before the hospital).
Best of all, I saw a nurse, a social worker, and a psychiatrist every day. They were all helpful, but especially the psychiatrist. He was actually the one who had created the program at this site and has been in the field for over 30 years. He wanted to prescribe Zoloft for me, but after multiple conversations and then a chart I created that showed all of the mental health meds I’ve been on with their dosages and side effects and effectiveness level, he listened to me. He put me on something new, an old drug that would hopefully help with my depression as well as pain and sleep. He also put me on sleep meds. It was amazing how much better I felt with a good night’s rest.
We had sessions during the week with an occupational therapist, a chaplain, and a music therapist. We also had lots of coloring/artsy sessions, which I abstained from. If we were lucky, we got to go outside in the courtyard with all the flowers. Mostly, we had a lot of down time. I felt like I was the most popular girl in school when I received phone call after phone call every day from my loved ones. Despite this, I also felt…ashamed that I worried them so much and undeserving of all the attention. My mother-in-law came to visit me, as well as two of my cousins and two of my friends. To be honest, I felt a little overwhelmed at the all the love showered on me. It was a lot of love. I mostly felt like I was still trying to play catch up with everything that had happened. It honest-to-God baffled me that so many people were so relieved that I wasn’t dead.
I made some decisions while I was at inpatient. I decided that I didn’t need to take any of the furniture from my house after all and I would cancel the movers (who ended up being a scam anyway and stole $1200 from me). This was primarily because I figured if I broke down just stepping inside the door, then I didn’t need to be looking at anything that reminded me of Adam or my cats or my home. I decided that I would move down south so that I could be closer to my mom and sister (friends and family invited me to North Carolina and Pennsylvania too). I also decided that even though I am not ready for another long-term relationship, I wanted to give David a chance. I decided that I still have so much to work on in myself, and I still needed help if I was going to make it.
Adam never did come to see me or call me. I did tell my mother-in-law that I didn’t trust myself around him, and we all agreed he was a huge trigger for me. So I was thankful that he respected my wishes in the hospital. However, he never did try to see me again or let me know that he was glad I wasn’t dead. I felt like I wasn’t worth the time to him, despite being together for 12 years, and I hurt like I did with all the other things he said and didn’t say.
October through November, 2024
I was in the hospital for 13 days before I was let go. The doctors and nurses believed I was safe enough to be out in the real world again, but my anxiety remained at a steady through-the-roof level. When my mom picked me up, I still couldn’t string hardly two words together and I felt as fragile as a flower petal. The fact that she was with me bolstered my spirits, and I knew she would take care of me if anything happened.
I decided to basically move in with David. It allowed me some freedom to still feel like an adult, and it helped me not feel like such a burden on my mom. Staying with him was comforting and comfortable, and despite our differences, I did really care for him too.
The very next day after we drove down, I went to the hospital and asked to be evaluated for PHP. Ironically the person who assessed me thought that I didn’t qualify for it, and I lost my shit right in front of her. I reiterated my story in tears, both angry and terrified that I wouldn’t get the help I needed. Why did everything have to be so hard? Why was getting help such an affair? The tears and the trembling seemed to do the job (though the fact that I had to get that upset about the whole thing was just stupid and a waste of energy).
This PHP had similar hours to the other PHP I attended, so we met from 9 am to 3 pm. However, that was where the similarities ended. We didn’t have specific psychoeducation sessions here. Honestly, we just talked. The entire day. It was like being in Process Group at the last PHP, except thank God, there was more variety in the ages, experiences and backgrounds of the group members. The first two weeks were really rough for me though. It was hard for me to share in a group setting, and I was frustrated with feeling like we weren’t really doing anything. My friend told me she had the same issues when she was in IOP earlier this year and she encouraged me to stick it out. So I did.
The therapist who led the morning sessions was Jon, and Carlee, the nurse, led the afternoon sessions. They had polar opposite personalities and their therapy styles were vastly different, but they worked well as a balanced team. Carlee mainly facilitated check-ins with each of us, where we would “check-in” about how we were doing and what stressors we were struggling with. She asked a lot of questions and proffered practical solutions/homework assignments that helped us work on our specific issues. Kojo, the psychiatric nurse practitioner who worked with me once a week, was amazing too. He listened to my concerns and we collaborated on my medication management. He was willing to think outside the box for me and he put me on a stimulant (Adderall!) which sounds weird because I don’t have ADHD. He was hoping that the stimulant might elevate my always-low mood. And it did. What’s more, the Adderall lowered my anxiety better than any of the other anxiety pills I’ve been on. It considerably helps me with not feeling so overwhelmed all the time, and I feel capable again when I’m on it.
I appreciated the afternoon sessions, but I really began to value the morning sessions. We didn’t “just talk” like I thought we did. Jon was a master of infiltrating our conversations with cognitive behavioral therapy. Someone might say something, and he would steer it to a topic that we could all benefit from. Again and again, we talked about how our behavior stems from the way we feel, and the way we feel is determined by the way we think, and the way we think comes from what we believe (about ourselves and the world). We can’t truly change our behavior or our feelings until we change the way we think and believe. I’ve been in a LOT of therapy, and I think one of the reasons why it hasn’t helped me more is because I didn’t just need an attitude adjustment…I needed a paradigm shift. Traumatic things seem to pile one on top of another with me, and while I try to sift through the heap to process through one trauma or another, it is often too overwhelming to focus on any of it. More and more often I felt myself feeling so defeated, feeling like I had no control over my life or my circumstances, and expecting myself to fall short because I already had the dice stacked against me.
For my whole life, I’ve struggled with feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy. I think a lot of that stems from my dad leaving us and from growing up in a very strict, conservative Christian environment, and these core beliefs have stayed with me and affected how I view myself and how I interact in my relationships. Jon worked really hard with me, with us, to change this perspective about ourselves.
And now, for the first time ever, I feel like I have the capacity to love myself and be kinder to myself. I have finally begun to believe that I am just as important as any other human being. I am realizing that I am perfectly imperfect, working hard on being kind to myself, and not judging myself so harshly (this sounds like such a stupid, no brainer way of being, but it is incredibly hard for me). I am practicing setting boundaries in my relationships and expressing my emotions and challenging my cognitive distortions (personalization, all-or-nothing thinking, catastrophizing – all of which I have discussed in other posts). Even though I have my fair share of trauma, and I have legitimately had terrible things happen to me several times over, I am learning how to not have a victim mindset, to be a more active participant in my life, and to accept the things that I cannot change with grace and dignity. I felt like I had one epiphany after another in PHP and at this point, I feel the best I’ve felt in a long, long time.
December 2024
I was sad and worried to be discharged from PHP, but I was able to step down to half days in IOP. IOP didn’t provide any grand insights, but it did gradually wean me away from support and it helped me see that yes, I am capable of living my life again. The past three months have not been easy:
- I’ve moved for the 30th time.
- I’ve adjusted to living with David, who is very different from me in most ways.
- I’ve dealt with continuing and annoying issues with the Disability process.
- I’ve been unable to sell my house in Maryland, which would make the divorce proceedings easier and more final.
- I’ve had an enormously difficult time switching over cars, registration, licenses, insurance, doctors, records, divorce proceedings, bank accounts, bills, etc. from Maryland to South Carolina.
It has been ridiculously hard. Throw in a few scams by a moving company and a collection agency as well as my often constant body pains, and everything just seems more difficult than it should be. Everything always takes longer than it should (should statements are another cognitive distortion that I am working on!). I am slowly but surely getting things taken care of though, and I am beyond grateful for not having to work a 9-5 on top of healing right now.
Adam is still a huge trigger for me. Seeing a text from him or pictures of Chew Toy and Fatty, or of our old calendar… collaborating with a real estate agent to sell our house and my divorce attorney about hearings canceled and rescheduled…and talking about money matters with Adam still, to this day, send me into a tailspin, a meltdown state. I feel like Sonali Deraniyagala talked about in her memoir, Wave: “I am loitering on the outskirts of the life we had” together. Grief overwhelms we when I feel like “I’ve been expelled” from my former family. Grief over losing him and my home and my cats makes me “wild inside”, and it still takes over me and renders me a useless pulp of tears and gulping sobs. In these moments, I always worry that I am going to regress, that I will be overwhelmed with feelings of hopelessness and helplessness again.
I remind myself that healing isn’t linear though. It is ok that I have good days and bad days. There will be days that I dip low on that graph, but so long as my low days are still in an upward trajectory, I am doing just fine.
I am healing. I can see it in the diminished negative self-talk, in the shortened time it takes me to bounce back from a meltdown or an episode. It’s evident in the way that I think and what I believe about myself.
Essentially, 2025 is a new beginning for me. It’s a chance to start over, to do better and be better. I am a survivor. I am stronger than I think and more resilient than I feel. Here’s to moving forward!
