***Trigger Warnings*** This post discusses self-injury, cutting, suicidal ideation, and time spent in a psychiatric unit, reader beware
As mention in previous blog, I had an experience with
my OCD and OCD meds in 2014 that led to my spending one night in the
psych unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, CT. Before I begin
this story, I want to acknowledge that my experience is personal and I
do not intend to generalize the experiences of individuals who may also
have spent time in a locked unit due to mental illness. I also want to
recognize that this post may be triggering to those who have personal
experiences, direct or indirect with mental illness, psychiatriac
hospitals, and involuntary commitments. I want to make clear that I
sought treatment myself and made a conscious decision to spend the night
in the psych unit because I felt I was a threat to myself. Working in
the mental health field for several years, I know that my experience was
more independent and person-driven than others' experiences and I want
to acknowledge how unique my experience was. That being said, let's
start at the beginning.
I mentioned
in my previous post, that I was officially diagnosed with
OCD in 2012 and was treated with Prozac. By Fall 2013, I was on 60 mg of
Prozac a day, but also going through a break up, moving back in with my
grandmother (with whom I had/have a contentious relationship), and
transitioning to working full time as a school counselor in Bridgeport,
CT for two Catholic schools. By November 2013, I already felt I was
drowning and attempted to be proactive and inform my clinical
supervisor. Because I worked in a depressed area with little funds, I
was informed there wasn't enough money in the budget to hire the extra
counselors I needed to help offset the weekly influx of new students I
was assessing for high risk situations, including domestic violence,
child abuse/neglect, suicidal ideation, and self-injury. Each week, I
was flooded with dozens more students to meet with and assess, all of
whom would qualify as high risk and all of whom I was supposed to be
coordinating with the Catholic Charities clinic for follow up therapy.
Herein lies the problem, the majority of my students were Latinx and
Carribbean, two cultures that historically do not feel comfortable
seeking counseling, especially not for their children for fear of
Department of Children & Families (DCF) involvement, as well as
Immigration. In addition, most of the families did not have the means or
ability to drive their kids to and from counseling several days a week.
It was more convenient and most trusted for the children to see me in
their school. So, that's what I did. To my own demise.
By
Christmas break, I was more than burnt out. I was drinking a bottle of
wine and binge eating daily all in an effort to fall alseep and escape
reality. I would sleep until 2pm on the weekends, eat "breakfast" and go
back to sleep. I dreaded work, but worse than that, I dreaded not being
at work as I began to feel overly responsible for everyone's well-being
and safety. The Friday before Christmas break, I had barely walked in
my front door when the prinicipal of the school called to say I should
check my work voicemail. An irate parent had left a threatening message in regards to my reporting her actions THAT SHE REPORTED TO ME
to DCF. In this voicemail, she threatened to kill me so I felt
compelled to save the voice message. Somehow, I still felt "okay" and
"in control" of the mounting pressure and debilitating stress. When I
returned from Christmas break, I was met with the same unreasonable
demands, high risks check ins, and no aid from the mental health clinic I
was contracted through. My cancelling weekly supervision with my
clinical director due to the overwhelm of high risk families and
children should have been an indicator I was drowning. That and the fact
that I was actually drowning!
The following 2
months after returning from Christmas break, things went from bad to
worse. I was often at the school from 6:30am to 5pm facilitating calls
to DCF and STILL making mandated reporter calls on my hour-long commute home. While this didn't
happen everyday, it happened often enough that I was beginning to
unravel mentally. In the past, I had struggled with self-harm and I was
beginning to have thoughts of self-harm again, for the first time in
years. I was on 60 mg a day of Prozac, but often felt emotionally muted
and commented that I was unable to emote appropriately to the stress
that was happening to me. I was numbing myself with medication, food,
and alcohol.
By February 2014, my only escape
was sleeping. I slept all weekend and my grandmother didn't understand
or approve of my sleeping the weekend away. Even though I was 32 years
old, working full time (and then some), paying rent, and attending to
all my other adult responsibilities, my grandmother would come into my
room (her reason for "barging in" was "it's my house, so this is my
room") and demand I get up. Her reason? "I don't like it. I don't like
that you sleep all day." My response was: "I'm depressed." But, after some time, sleep wasn't an escape any
longer and the tiny "office" I shared with the school nurse, that wasn't
heated (in February...in Connecticut) seemed to be getting smaller and
smaller. My world was closing in around me. Everyday, my kids (students)
were having crises and I was only one person and I couldn't fix
everything. I was constantly afraid of my 8th grade girls killing
themselves or my 6th grade boys assaulting another student and somehow
it would be: ALL MY FAULT.
"All my fault" is
classic OCD symptomology. Feeling the full weight of real or perceived
responsibility is a crushing obsession to hold onto everyday. Even more
crushing is asking for help and being told "there is none." Thinking
about something traumatic or tragic happening to one of my students
"under my watch" made me so anxious and depressed, I began to concede to
this thought: "If one of my student's kills themselves, I'll kill
myself. I won't be able to live with myself. So I'll go too." Once that
thought became an option, it was somewhat easier to push on.
On
Wednesday February 26, 2014 I started the day like "normal", binging on
Dunkin Donuts and coffee while listening to NPR on my way into work. I
was still exhausted from the previous day and already exhausted from my
upcoming day. Around 7:30am, one of my 8th grade girls came in with a
crisis. She had been harming herself. More specifically cutting herself.
Instantly I was triggered. I remember thinking "I'm going to cut myself
when I get home today. I want to die." I barely held it together the
remainder of the work day. I wrote my hours and hours of notes (by
hand). I got in my car. I drove home, silent tears streaking my face,
numb and powerless. I walked into the house and cut my legs up. I don't
want to go too into detail about the self-injury itself because it can
still be triggering for me, but I knew I wanted to do more and I knew I
wouldn't be able to stop myself. And I scared myself bad. I called my
uncle and calmly stated "I cut myself and I need to go to the hospital."
He instinctively knew the cut was self-inflicted because when I climbed
into his huge pick up truck, he said "Yale Psych?" and I replied
"Yeah."
I approached the check in counter and stated "I cut myself. On purpose. And I feel like I'm going to do it again."
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