The last morning ...

Monday. The last morning I spent at the pych unit. Because it was the day before Christmas we were allowed to sleep in. I was awake early though. All I wanted was to meet the psychiatrist so I could finally leave the unit. I packed my bags, took a shower, got my meds, had a cup of tea and smoked plenty of cigarettes. I wasn't home yet and I was afraid that something might go wrong.

I was fetched right before lunch. J told me that the intern psychiatrist, T, was going to hold the meeting. T is a really young and innocent looking doctor. He can't be older than maybe 25. And he had been following around J all week I was at the unit. He asked the usual questions: if I was suicidal, what my plans were, if I had any impulses. I told him that I wanted to be at home for Christmas and that I basically didn't want to be at the hospital anymore. It was kind of cute to see how he kept looking at J, for affirmation. They promised me once again that they had contacted a neurologist and that I'll most probably hear from that person after the holidays. Then they told me that I was always welcome back if I was getting any worse. Well, one thing is for sure, I will not get back to THAT unit. I felt so unwelcome there. The staff there was cold and didn't seem to care at all. There was no warmth at all and everyone was just minding their own business. More than once, when I asked for help, I was told to go and bother someone else. If I ever get to the point where I feel the need to be safe at a hospital, I will refuse to be admitted to that unit.. But let's hope that I'll never have to spent some time at a psych unit again.

I grabbed my bags, hugged my room-mate and went down and waited for my husband to fetch me. Such a relief! I came back home, sat on the bed and cried tears of relief. Being at a psych-unit is not a holiday. It often worsens your problems. And just because there is "professional" staff doesn't mean that you will always get help when you need it. Honestly, I am not even sure if it is a safe place. I found pins on the bathroom floor that I was able to self-harm with. I managed to almost strangle myself with a cable in the middle of the day, on my bed. But: you might be lucky to get to a place with one good soul, one person that loves their job, one person that you feel you can trust. That can make all the difference. And in whatever situation you are: don't ever trust professionals blindly or you might end up with ECT or bad side-effects from meds. I wish there were more good souls working at mental hospitals and psych wards. Sometimes it just feels like the perfect meeting-place for sadistic idiots.. But as I said: as long as there is one good person, you might get the warmth you need!

The weekend - almost at home

Saturday. On weekends the patients of the psych-unit are allowed to sleep as long as they want, or can. For me that meant 8 a.m.. Five hours of sleep was definitely more than I had gotten the nights before. I took a shower and made myself ready because I was allowed to stay at home on Saturday and Sunday. You know, before they let you leave the psych unit altogether, they let you test a night at home and see if you can handle being in the outside world amongst healthy people again. So even though I wasn't sent home on Friday as planned, I was supposed to spend two days and one night at home. 

I had a long chat with one of the nurses before I left. I had met that guy at another unit before and he is quite funny and loud. He gave me my meds for the day and we had a little argument because he didn't give me all the sedatives that are on my list. But it really didn't matter because I have all those meds at home as well anyway.

My husband came to fetch me and we went home. It always feels a bit weird to come home when you have been at the hospital. I was afraid that all my old feelings and impulses would catch up with me but they fortunately didn't. We wrote a grocery list for Christmas and my husband was really happy when I told him that I would follow with him to the supermarket. I can't stand shopping, my social anxiety always acts up in supermarkets. But it went well, we did A LOT of shopping and when we got home I was totally exhausted. I cuddled with my cats for some time and then took a nap.

The rest of the day was spent in front of the TV, watching movies and trying to feel safe at home. I actually got a good night's sleep in my own bed. When I woke up in the morning I knew that I wanted to be at home and not at the psych unit. That was kind of the moment when it turned for me, when I realized what I wanted something again, when I realized that I'm better and don't need to be at the hospital anymore. And then my legs started acting up and I was a total mess. I cried so much, I didn't know what to do. So I came back to the psych unit crying and told them that I needed to see a neurologist now! But nope, the nurse (no clue who she was, never had seen her before and she wasn't even wearing a name-tag) told me she could contact the on call psychiatrist but that's all. I took a sedative and waited. It only took an hour this time and a young doctor arrived. He, of course, couldn't help me. I had known that before but the nurse has insisted on calling him. All he could do was to write down a note in my file that I once again had been cryng out for help because of my restless legs. 

I just took another sedative and got a bit fuzzy in my head. My legs were still terrible but at least I wasn't as anxious. I even talked a bit with the other patients. You know, they had put up a plastic Christmas-tree at the unit and the tree was in silver. And about everyone was complaining about the colour of the tree. Yeah, Christmas at a psych-unit, can you imagine that? Poor souls!

The rest of the evening I spent studying Russian and chatting with my room-mate. I tend to get quite chatty from benzodiazipines. I think they make me let my guard down. So I might have just babbeled on and on and my room-mate was irritated. But in my head we were both chatting. Haha. I took my Zoplicone, watched some Dexter and fell asleep around 2 a.m..

Day Three - no goodbyes yet

Friday. I didn't get much sleep during that night either. I had nightmares and I woke up in the middle of the night and threw up because I had a panic attack. I was still a wreck and spent all morning in bed, crying. I was so sad and scared. I was scared because I was going to be sent home. I just didn't feel like I would be safe at home. I was still suicidal and at the same time I realized that I had to start fighting. 

My room-mate had her meeting with J and she told me that he seemed to be in a good mood. You know, I was totally convinced that he would send me home. He had said he would. I had the meeting quite late, it felt like he was avoiding me. I had already packed my bags and basically only waited for him to discharge me. But he didn't send me home! He had talked with the staff and from what he had heard, he didn't think I was ready to go back home yet. I was quite relieved. I mean, I hated being there but I knew I wasn't ready. He told me that he wouldn't let me switch units, that I'm not allowed to have a choice when it comes to these things. He also said that he had heard that I don't feel like we get along. But according to him, a patient and a doctor don't need to like each other. It is his job to help me and we should have a professional relationship, no matter if we like each other or not. I really respected that and was quite shocked that he actually brought that up. He also tried to explain what he meant with that I don't have a personality. He basically meant that I don't know who I am and where I am in my life, where I am heading. He thinks I'm lost and kind of lost touch with myself. He might be right about that. Since my mental illness had gotten worse, I questioned everything about myself. My life-long goals now seem unreachable. I have lost touch with myself in the sense that I don't know who I am right now. I knew before who I was and knew who I wanted to be. But now I don't even think who I can be, I am stuck in the now, without any real sense of identity. I have been eaten up by my mental illness, it's not like that I am my mental illness, it is more like that I am nothing anymore since I have become ill. So how do I actually find back to myself? Will I ever be able to find myself again or will I be lost in nothingness forever? Oh, and we talked about my restless legs and spasms and how much that is contributing to my current state of mind. He decided to contact a neurologist for me so I could get a proper examination and the right meds. He knows me and how sensitive I am to medication so he didn't want to just give me something. I was really grateful for that because damn it, this nerve-spasm/restlessness is really destroying my life!

My husband was really disappointed that I wasn't coming home. He had basically just waited for me to call him and tell him to fetch me. I am really not all that open to him when it comes to how I am feeling and what has been going on at the hospital. Just a few days ago he had threatened me to leave me because he couldn't take my suffering and inability to fight anymore. So I didn't want to make things worse by telling him the total truth. He came to visit me in the evening again. We even went out for a walk. But my legs gave in, they were shaking and I had to sit on a bench for 15 minutes before we could go back in again. So terrible! 

I spent the night studying. I had fallen behind so bad! So I had to write a short paper on Nietzsche's perception of history and I actually managed to do that. At a freaking psych unit. Someone should give me some credit for that! I had taken all my sedatives that day so I was pretty calm  when I went to bed. Well, apart from my legs, they were driving me crazy! I watched some Dexter-episodes, took my Zoplicone and actually fell asleep before three a.m.!

Day two - still not better

Thursday. I woke up way too early but my restless legs and my anxiety didn't want to let me sleep anymore. I tried to read, listen to music, distract myself. I didn't want to be at the hospital. I felt like a total wreck and all I wanted was calm and peace in my body and my mind. My husband called me to let me know that his phone had died (he was at his sister's so he called from her phone) because my mum had been calling him all morning long to discuss how she should do with the Stockholm-trip. I didn't get it, I told her I didn't want her or my sister to come because I was in a really bad state. I was at the hospital, how did she think I could handle them visiting me? I really felt like it was a lack of respect. So I went on Skype and videochatted with my mum. I told her that she couldn't come, that my husband couldn't deal with it all either right now. It just wasn't the right time because our life was in chaos. She tried to explain to me that my sister and her really needed to get away from Germany. They were both really down because of the divorce and all the tension and intrigues in the family. I got that but I suggested that they could travel somewhere else. Anyway, she saw that I was doing like shit and basically just said that she will discuss it with my sister. I don't get why I had to be the one solving problems, I was in a bad state and I barely had any energy left to keep myself alive to begin with.

One staff-member convinced me to try and eat some lunch. So I went into the dining room, filled a glass with water and waited for my microwave-meal (yup, we are getting microwaved food at the hospital, at least they had a vegetarian option) to get ready. But then I got a really bad panic attack. I just ran out of the room. I couldn't be there and I most definitely couldn't eat with all the other patients. So no food for me. I had another breakdown after that. I tried to find someone to talk to but the staff was having lunch and I didn't want to disturb them. I saw one nurse that I knew from the unit, L, and asked him if he had a minute. I felt bad because I was sure that he was on his way to lunch but I needed someone to talk to. I just cried and cried, I was shaking and I was desperate. I just couldn't see how they were supposed to help me at that shitty unit, I wanted to be transferred to the other unit. I just couldn't see how anyone could help me with my problems at all. At the same time I was really afraid that I was going to be sent home the next day because J had decided that. I just wasn't stable enough to be at home. L went to talk to one of my contacts, the nurse who is friends with my friends. I waited for 15 minutes but no one came back so I went to my bed and just stared at the wall.

I eventually asked for a sedative because I started to lose it again. Th nurse told me that she couldn't do anything about switching units at the moment. In the early afternoon I had to switch rooms though because there were some new incoming patients. I came into a two beds room which was nice. There wasn't anyone in the other bed yet so I had a few hours for myself. I closed the door, hid under the blanket and waited for the sedative to do its thing. I tried to eat dinner. They had allowed me to eat a few minutes after everyone else so I wouldn't have to face another panic attack. I didn't eat much but at least something. 

My husband came and visited me in the afternoon/evening. Visiting hours are between 5 and 8 p.m.. As I didn't have a roommate yet we stayed in my room and talked about unimportant things. I didn't want to deal with our issues, I didn't want to know if he was going to leave me or not. I tried to be cheerful and I was really happy to see him. I tried one of those bloodpressure meds for my restlessness and spasms. It felt safer to have my husband around when I tried it. I'm just so scared of side-effects. It didn't help me and after an hour it almost felt like it has made it worse. I also got a bad asthma attack from it. So nope, that med wasn't working. It made really sad because I needed help with the restlessness and the spasms so bad!

My husband left at 7 and I decided to try and study a bit. I felt a bit calmer because of the sedative so I thought it would be good to try and do something productive. But I couldn't focus at all because of my legs and arms and then my new roommate arrived and my social anxiety set in. You know, I felt like I didn't want to disturb her so I tried to breathe as flat as possible, tried not to move around too much and to be as invisible as possible.

R, my favourite nurse from the other unit, came over later that evening. That was so damn nice of him! We hugged and I just told him what was going on and why I was at the hospital, how J had treated me again, my restless legs, my stupid therapist, the fight with my husband, the suicide thoughts. It all just came out of me like a waterfall. He listened and tried to calm me down. It was so good to see him, to be able to talk to him. He really makes me feel safe and calm and always reminds me of that I'm worth something. I don't know why, but he has high thoughts of me, he thinks I'm capable of a lot of things. And whenever he tells me that I somehow believe him. Every nurse should be like R!

A new patient had arrived, an autistic woman with her carer. She was really upset because, well, autistic people can't really deal with a change of enviroment. So she freaked out and threw fruit and chairs around. It was quite scary and some of the other patients got panic attacks and even one staff member started to panic and just left the unit saying "a person like that shouldn't be at a unit like ours". I somewhat agreed with her but honestly, where else should you put an autistic person with depression? So the whole unit was wide awake and many people were scared. I just felt sorry for the autistic woman!

I took a sedative later that evening because I just knew that I needed a proper night's sleep. My new roommate was really nice but I could see that she was doing like shit so I kept quiet. I just didn't want to bother her. I watched a few episodes of Dexter and had some hot chocolate. I talked to one nurse that I knew from the other unit, a lovely Polish lady who really loves her job. I took my sleepingpill. I couldn't fall asleep, I went to have a smoke a few times, I cursed my legs and watched another episode of Dexter. At around 2 a.m. I could finally close my eyes.