What the hell happened to the Heathens? Is this still a dog blog?
Yes it is. With my PTSD diagnosis we are training Baldr (the husky/lab/pit mix) to act as my service dog. After we get through the Notes From the Ward section (which is entirely skip-able if you are not comfortable with a recounting of what gave me medical induced PTSD) we will go to the on going training of Baldr Heathen. This blog will also contain reading suggestions as well as links to local laws regarding service dogs.
With that in mind, grab a seat, grab a coping mechanism, and lets begin.
Introduction and day 1:
Allow me to preface by saying that yes I did need help. I had made a plan to kill myself, yet snapped before I had planned and made a half-hearted attempt about a week before I’d intended to end my life. A lot has been written about the subject of suicide so I do not intend to explore why I decided to end my life, nor do I intend to get into the politics or morals of suicide. What is relevant to this essay is that on May 14, 2014 I left my office intent on walking until I dropped dead on someone’s front lawn or found a blind enough turn in the road to walk into traffic without cars being able to stop before hitting me. I’d texted my husband the password to my computer, told him I was sorry, and started walking.
My boss left work looking for me. She talked me down and got me into her car and took me back to the office. My husband had called the police. They were waiting when we got there. I confirmed what my husband had told them. That sealed my fate according to my state laws. They called the local Crisis Center. I was given the option of going with the social worker of my own free will, or being slapped with a ticket and being taken there in the back of a police car. I got into the social worker’s car. I was numb, but my husband and I were broke so I knew he couldn’t afford to pay for my ticket.
The Crisis Center is a sort of free range emergency room. You need to be let in by two employee/volunteers. The doors lock, both of them, there’s no way in or out without being let there. The patients who have already seen the doctors are in the same room mingling with those who haven’t been admitted yet. It’s a holding pen for the mentally unstable until a bed opens up at a real hospital. I arrived there at about 1 or 2 in the afternoon. I was left in the waiting room until about 4pm, I’m not sure of exact times as there were no clocks.
Then I was interviewed by a doctor. They tried to force my husband away from me, but I was not facing that inquisition alone. We were taken to a small, white, concrete room with a table and chairs that were bolted to the floor. So began the perpetual questioning. “Why are you depressed?” “Why did you want to die?” “Do you regret your actions?” Over the course of the next week I’d lost count of how many times I had to answer those same questions. They asked if I was willing to be admitted to seek treatment. I said no. I asked for out patient treatment. They asked if I’d be willing to take medication. I stated I would not.
They sent me back into the waiting room.
By about 6 or 7pm they pulled me back into the tiny room and told me I was being involuntarily admitted. I was to remain trapped in Crisis until there was a bed opened at the nearest hospital. I refused, I’d agreed to out patient. They told me I had no choice. My husband and I requested I be taken to the hospital closer to my house, instead of the one a half hour drive away. They said they would try. To my knowledge they never even called. My husband asked to be called when I was moved to the hospital so he would know where I was. He gave them his cell phone number and went home to get me clothing, my hair brush, and a few other odds and ends. I utterly shut down and refused to speak.
It was here that I began to be treated like a particularly slow child. The nurse only spoke to me in tones reserved for toddlers who don’t want to take a nap. He came by every few minutes shaking a little cup with some pills in it. I’d already refused medication, repeatedly. He wandered off, then came back a few minutes later. I credit being numb with the fact that I did not attack him. I was offended, both by his tone and treatment, and by my commitment.
My husband returned with my things and to sit with me until visiting hours were over. We couldn’t get a straight answer as to when visiting hours ended, apparently it was when the nurse said they were done. My husband asked how long I was admitted for. We were told that I was there for at least 72 hours, and I’d need a court order to get out after that. But I’d need to prove in court that I didn’t need to be there any more. I started crying.
By this time my back, which I have chronic pain in to begin with, was screaming. I was in tears. Normally I took 600mg of ibuprofen and 500mg of extra strength tylenol every 4 hours to manage my pain. Since I’d been in Crisis I’d been given one 600mg ibuprofen tablet. I’d asked for what I normally take, they refused and sent me to lie on a thin, hard hospital cot. My husband was sent home, since he wasn’t allowed in the rooms where the beds were. He swore he’d meet me, wherever I was, first thing in the morning.They also denied me my cane, as I could have used it for a weapon. They went through my things and took my chapstick. No idea why, the nurse who took it didn’t even know, she only knew I couldn’t have it.
They moved me at 2am, staggering and clinging to the walls into an SUV with police glass between the front and back seats. They took me, not to the hospital my husband and I had requested, but to the one over half an hour from our home. I tried to have my husband called like he asked, but they brought me my cell phone number, not his, and told me that was the only one they had.
When we got to the hospital I was forced to stand, back pain be damned, so a security guard could frisk me and wave a metal detecting wand over me. They thankfully gave me a wheelchair to take me up to the ward itself. I was taken up a back way, though locked elevators that required a key card and passcode to open. For good measure they took me up backwards so I couldn’t see what floor I was going to be on. All too soon the nurse turned me around and I saw what was to be my new ‘home’.
If you have never seen the inside of a psych ward count yourself lucky. I have visited prisons where the inmates were treated with more respect, and had more lax security. The walls are bare white or beige, with florescent lights hanging from the ceiling. Their cold, clinical light only serving to emphasize the emptiness. Because I was brought in at night the whole place was half lit. Providing alternating patches of light and dark. It looked like something out of a horror film. I never understood why so many horror stories took place in asylums. Now I know. The whole place stank of antiseptic and despair.
I was wheeled into a room. The stereotype. The room everyone pictures when you say ‘asylum’. Here it was called the ‘quiet room’. It was a ten by ten cell. There were no windows, save those in the door so the one inside can be watched. The walls, floor and ceiling, were coated in beige rubber. The door itself was a foot thick and coated in the same rubber, save where the window was cut. In the exact center was a green rubber cot bolted to the floor. With restraints attached. I have panic attacks when restrained. To the point where I got in that room and began hyperventilating. It was stifling, claustrophobic, terrifying.
A female nurse came in and told me to strip. She had to do a visual inspection and catalog all tattoos, piercings, cuts, bruises, marks, ect. To do so I needed to stand naked in that beige hell, under security cameras. Otherwise they would sedate me and do it anyway. I was terrified of what would happen if I was sedated in that room, so I did as I was told. Utterly humiliated, exhausted, and afraid. And still I was spoken to as if I were a toddler. I was given a hospital gown as yet more people went through my things.
I was triaged again. My blood pressure was taken and again I was asked the same questions. “Why are you depressed? Why did you want to die?” Again I answered. I also reiterated my objections to being given medication, as well as my discomfort with group therapy due to my hearing problems. I was told that neither of those would be a problem, and I could refuse whatever treatment I was uncomfortable with. I asked how long I would be there. I was told that I would see the doctor in the morning, and they couldn’t keep me more than 72 hours without a court order. I asked for out patient, explaining that I am uncomfortable in hospitals. I also, again, explained my back pain, telling the nurse that I could not sleep on hospital cots and be expected to walk. They reiterated that I’d see the doctor in the morning. They wheeled me into a different room and left me for the night.
I cried until I passed out.
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