June 11, 2013

An Unintentional Rant

I've been avoiding writing a post mostly because I was feeling disappointed in myself, but I think I've gotten over some of that now. I ended up having to go to the hospital for a week because I didn't trust myself to stay safe anymore. I felt really overwhelmed, started getting a little bit self-destructive, and I felt like I was escalating out of control. So after a long conversation with my psychiatrist I agreed to go the ER for a psych evaluation. It was a horribly scary decision. She told me that she felt that I should go to the hospital but she left the decision up to me. I knew that it would be a much better and safer decision for me to go but it was still terrifying to make that call. I was scared to go home and be left to my own devices but I was also scared to go to the hospital because I felt like I was letting everyone down. I sat fighting with myself, trying to get myself to say "yes, I'll go", but all I could keep saying was "I don't know". I think it took me about an hour to finally break down my own wall and agree to go. 

I spent a whole day and night regretting my decision because of the horribly tedious and humiliating process of getting admitted to a mental hospital. The policy at my clinic SUCKS. I understand it. But it sucks. I had to take a two minute ambulance ride from the clinic to the ER that was literally ACROSS THE STREET. I had to give up all of my possessions and wear a beautiful hospital gown. Then it got really fun... I got to be on constant suicide watch... despite being there willingly. It's fun having a person sitting at the window, staring at you while you do absolutely nothing because there's nothing to do in the ER when all of your possessions have been taken away. It's just like the zoo!... but you get to be the zebra instead of the human. I received a lovely evil eye from the psychiatrist when I told her that I would rather go to a different hospital if I was being admitted as inpatient and was then treated like I was being a diva for even asking. I then got to stay there overnight and I even got to sleep for a couple hours before I was strapped into a fucking gurney, still in my hospital gown, to be transported to the hospital I requested in another fun ambulance trip. It all made me feel so good about my decision to go into the hospital.... They seriously need to do something about that whole pile-of-shit process. It reeeaaalllly didn't help my state of mind to feel that humiliated and exhausted. Most of the people that interacted with me during the process tried to be nice about it, but it was still a very dehumanizing process. Luckily the place that I requested to go to (and had a bed for me despite the whole, "They probably wont have a bed, but I guess I can try if you really want me to...") is very good about giving you as much control as possible in how you are treated while you are there.

I guess this turned into an unintentional rant. What I meant to say was that I actually ended up being very glad that I made the decision to go into the hospital for a little while. It helped me feel a little bit calmer and it renewed my motivation to use positive coping skills when I'm feeling hopeless and self-destructive. And I now have a lot of art to share because of it! 


 

"I HATE LIFE"
 
May 2013
This is something that I drew a couple weeks before going into the hospital. I just wrote "I HATE LIFE" on the paper and then made it into a design. I made the 'I' black, the word 'hate' red and the word 'life' green. I kind of see it all as roots and the 'hate' is growing out of the 'life'. There's so much interconnection going on but it also looks isolated at the same time. For example, the 'I' looks very lonely to me. I guess it reflects how I've been feeling alone and disconnected from my life. It kind of looks like it's off to the side, watching everything, but it only has one line to connect it to everything. And then the whole thing is surrounded by a grey fog that makes it feel even more lonely.