Disclaimer from yesterday's post:
[As mention in previous blog (link here), 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 wrote down my uncle's phone number since I knew my phone would be
confiscated and told him I would call when I was discharged. He hugged
me and I held back tears, trying to put on a brave face. I headed to
the locked psych unit, a place I had referred so many clients and
families before and even called EMS for actively suicidal clients in
session. Two officers escorted me to the locked unit and asked if I had
ever been through this before. I answered, sheepishly, "No, but I'm a
therapist, so I think I somewhat know the drill." They confiscated my
phone, hoodie (because of the drawstrings), and my shoes. I was
given hospital slipper socks with grips on the bottom and a stack of
magazines. The psych unit was so crowded that evening, I was sequestered
to a stretcher in the hallway. My leg cuts at this point had dried over the cut up sock I used as a makeshift bandage before I left my grandmother's house. I asked several times for someone to give me supplies to clean my cuts, but it took hours before someone came to cut the blood-dried sock-bandage off my legs and clean me up. I knew I didn't need stitches.
My cutting was rarely deep, but always sporadic and spastic. I cut fast and non-discriminately, although somewhat discriminate since I only cut places that would be easy to cover up. For me, cutting was more about the pain after. The cutting itself was a means to an end. Cutting was a punishment. Days and sometimes weeks later, my cuts would still ache. I cut myself the most when I was a daycare teacher, because I was in a very abusive and controlling relationship, living hours from my family without a vehicle. When I cut my thighs, days later I would squat down to tend to one of my toddlers and I would feel the sharp, burning sting of the cut stretching over my thigh. It was a painful reminder that I deserved to feel hurt and punished.
While I waited, the hours ticked by. I estimated I arrived at the hospital around 6pm and by 11pm, I still hadn't been evaluated by a doctor. There was a young man, maybe around 19 or 20 years old, in a bay with a closed curtain. He was talking and laughing and screaming, carrying on whole conversations for which I was only hearing one side-the side being in his mind. A nurse checked on him often and the young man asked to leave. The nurse informed him his family was concerned about him and he was on a mandatory 72 hour hold (in North Carolina we call that an IVC-involuntary commitment). The nurse informed him he had threatened to harm his grandmother and then himself. The nurse spoke with familiarity and I imagined she knew this patient well. Overhearing this encounter made me feel selfish and privileged to have chosen to come to the hospital. Was this a pathetic excuse to escape my responsibilities? Was I really a threat to myself? Why was I here? The thought You're not crazy if you're afraid you're crazy kept repeating.
I hadn't emoted in any way, shape or form for hours. I absentmindedly leafed through magazines. After midnight, a doctor finally spoke to me and asked me why I was there. I told him about the self-injury and the fear of hurting myself again. In a monotonous tone I stated "I'm afraid the children I counsel are going to die and if they do, I'll kill myself." The doctor stated he wanted me to move to the crisis unit for the night and be reevaluated in the morning. Even though there was nothing physically wrong with me, I was transported by wheelchair down several hallways and rode on a number of elevators. I remember laying in the room I shared with another individual in a psych crisis and wondering How did I get here...how did it come to this? My dog, Chrissy, had died the previous year and from time to time I would swear I could feel her physical presence on the bed with me, typically at times I was distraught. I hadn't felt her presence in a while, although looking back it's possible her spirit tried, but I was too numbed with alcohol and food to feel it. That night, I promise you, I felt Chrissy's spirit on the hospital bed with me. I felt her body snuggled against my back in the same way she did when she was alive. I felt her warmth and I felt comforted.
I drifted off to sleep and when I woke up, I ate breakfast that was delivered to my room. I hadn't had my medication yet, because, as the nurse reported, "I think the doctor is going to make some changes." Mid-morning I wandered down the hallway to what appeared to be a vacant conference room and found some coloring pages and broken crayons. I busied myself with that for a while until the doctor was ready to speak with me. The mere question, "So, what's going on?" was all I needed to completely break down for the first time not only since I had been in the hospital, but in months. I began sobbing as I explained the unreasonable demands of my job, my anxiety over something happening to my students, my decision to kill myself should something irreparable happen to them. I cried so hard I hyperventilated as if I was remembering how to cry. The doctor was very kind and compassionate, although stated the obvious "You can't keep on like this, you'e too hard on yourself, you're putting too much pressure on yourself" all the things I have heard my entire life. But, for some reason, it resonated with me that morning. I was expecting and hoping for the doctor to write me a letter saying I couldn't return to work-ever. I was looking for someone else to take on the responsibility of making that decision for me.
After I let out everything I had held in for months, I immediately became aware and knew what I needed to do. Being a problem-solver has always come easy to me and in an instant I knew what I had to do. The doctor cleared me to go home and increased my Prozac to 80 mg daily. I called my uncle and he stated he would be able to pick me up after 3pm. I ate lunch in the hospital bed and napped some more until it was time to leave. With a clear head, I asked my uncle if I could spend the next couple nights at his house, understanding part of my depression and anxiety was the living environment I was in. I also called my boss (my mother had called him earlier that morning and told him I was in the hospital with stomach pain at my request) and asked if we could meet on Monday so I could discuss with him what's going on with me. He was supportive and obliging. I took two weeks off and shared with my boss (in so many words) that I was having serious mental health reactions to the work load and I needed to take all the PTO I had saved, effective immediately. I also advocated and stated before I returned to work, I needed to return with help. That the job I was doing was unmanageable for one person. Interestingly enough, it took less than 2 weeks to find additional help, even though I had been asking for 4 months.
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