On MH, hospitalisation and recovery
Jan. 12th, 2018 11:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annwfynA random thing.
I found this old blog entry on my admission to hospital today.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1376282.html
I uploaded a bunch of G+ entries to dreamwidth a while ago (roughly in order, ish, attributed to some random dates. Although I think it did all happen in April-May 2014) to make sure they were recorded for posterity. I’m sort of glad I did. And I realized I’d documented that whole thing and it was actually moderately interesting to read again. Maybe other people might find it so. If you don’t, please skip. If you’re remotely interested in a blog about a week in a psych ward, then read on.
Is it just me, or was my writing then slightly bizarre? Am I making this up? I just am not sure why I was so perky and energized on no sleep and a hospitalisation? Also, I missed out the bit where I went into hospital as an ‘informal patient’ because it would save the doctor the paperwork of sectioning me.
But I do rather miss industrial strength clonazepam.
Other entries detailing that stay:
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1376609.html - useful information on the Maudsley Hospital in London.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1376996.html - my second night in the hospital. I remain dementedly cheerful.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1378153.html - I think this is a reference to my meeting with the psychiatrist on the Monday where he explained that actually, I wasn’t going home, and while I was a voluntary patient, that was highly negotiable. And I wasn’t going home. This was bad. Discovering that I was allowed take out, however, soothed my extremely tormented soul. I am going to say here, for the record, that NHS food is appalling, that the atrocious pseudo-organic substance I was fed in the Maudsley was one of the most physically unpleasant experiences of my life, and is the reason I genuinely feel a stab of fear whenever I hear any newspaper article that suggests that fast food and the like should be banned from NHS premises to promote healthy eating, because I really fear for long term patients under such a tortuous regime. NHS catering is an abomination and should, frankly, be banned under the Geneva Convention and I’m surprised it hadn’t been.
Ahem. This is a tangent. But an important one. Also, if you or a loved one are ever admitted to hospital for more than a night, please bear this in mind and prepare accordingly.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1377024.html - this is another meeting with the psychiatrist. I don’t think it went well. Apparently my role playing of a sane person was flawed. Make up and black and grey clothing is not enough. Bear this in mind next time you’re trying to negotiate your release into the community.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1377299.html - CIA lady! I remember her vividly. I have often wondered about her and hoped she got better and got out one day. Also, I remain very grateful that the Maudsley Hospital has private rooms with locks for psychiatric patients. I am deeply unsure about how safe I would have been on a ward in that place.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1377935.html - my first prison fight! I think this entry is definitely my trying to gain some kind of control of the situation through writing about it. I remember actually being genuinely very scared - CIA lady was moderately unsettling, but this one genuinely wanted to cut me. She was pretty detailed about it. I remember feeling then as if I was drowning – the psychiatrist wasn’t letting me out, there did seem to be a possibility that I’d actually be here longer term, and I had no idea what kind of road map existed for ‘life after a psych ward’. I definitely didn’t believe that a proper job, and marriage, and a normal life was plausible. I just felt as if I was sinking deeper and deeper into some kind of confusing and disorienting ocean and I didn’t know how to make myself swim.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1378803.html - more adventures. And CIA lady, who was quite lovely at times. I hope she made it through, somehow. And the woman looking for Sarah, who was dead. My legal name at the time was Sarah* and I remembering vaguely wondering if she knew something that I didn’t. Maybe I was dead. It didn’t seem entirely implausible at the time.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1378856.html - the good meeting with the psychiatrist! Although, as I recollect, the Home Treatment Team then said ‘nope – high risk’ and didn’t take me for another couple of days until I could grovel convincingly at someone else.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1379212.html - and this is, genuinely, the last day in hospital. Mostly memorable as Jez and Matt Elliott came to collect me in black suits and shades. I saw them coming up the staircase to the ward as I stood outside the nurses station with CIA lady. It was like a slow-mo cinematic moment as I leapt forward, trying to shout “noooooo” to get them gone before she saw them.
I failed. She saw me walked out of hospital by two men in black suits with shades. I think Matt even had his phone earpiece still in his ear as we went. I’m sure her psychiatrist cursed my name after that.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1379707.html - and finally, the last entry. This is my assessment at home by my care co-ordinator from the Home Treatment Team who are basically the best thing ever. The Home Treatment Team (as I’m sure many of you know) are there to look after people who would normally be in hospital and are considered a bit too high risk for the community, but are just safe enough to not put in a secure ward. Someone comes round sometime between once and twice a day to feed you medication and check you’re OK and bundle you back into hospital if you show signs of getting worse.
It’s basically the NHS using your home as a hospital ward. You still are fed your meds twice a day and asked questions that they tick off. But in home, with proper food and a proper bed and far fewer death threats. For me, it was magical. I honestly have never felt such relief before or since.
Of course, that day really marked the start of another journey – the four months off work to get sane, then the relapse three months later, another bout of illness where I narrowly missed hospitalisation, and then after that, the very slow climb back upwards. The move to Glasgow, and, eventually, the progress to my current state where I’ve had one full episode this year and my CPN describes me as ‘highly functional’. I’ve even been a case study for a Scottish NHS campaign about ‘what recovery means to me’ (which I, of course, followed up with a brief mixed manic episode. But shush).
But it’s nice to remember, in some ways, that although things were awful back then, they did get better. I got better. I made it. And I’ll stay hopeful that I can always do that again. It is never over until the fat lady sings.
*Sally is a traditional abbreviation. You probably hadn’t heard that before. It’s because it’s a totally insane abbreviation and I don’t know what my parents were thinking either.
I found this old blog entry on my admission to hospital today.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1376282.html
I uploaded a bunch of G+ entries to dreamwidth a while ago (roughly in order, ish, attributed to some random dates. Although I think it did all happen in April-May 2014) to make sure they were recorded for posterity. I’m sort of glad I did. And I realized I’d documented that whole thing and it was actually moderately interesting to read again. Maybe other people might find it so. If you don’t, please skip. If you’re remotely interested in a blog about a week in a psych ward, then read on.
Is it just me, or was my writing then slightly bizarre? Am I making this up? I just am not sure why I was so perky and energized on no sleep and a hospitalisation? Also, I missed out the bit where I went into hospital as an ‘informal patient’ because it would save the doctor the paperwork of sectioning me.
But I do rather miss industrial strength clonazepam.
Other entries detailing that stay:
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1376609.html - useful information on the Maudsley Hospital in London.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1376996.html - my second night in the hospital. I remain dementedly cheerful.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1378153.html - I think this is a reference to my meeting with the psychiatrist on the Monday where he explained that actually, I wasn’t going home, and while I was a voluntary patient, that was highly negotiable. And I wasn’t going home. This was bad. Discovering that I was allowed take out, however, soothed my extremely tormented soul. I am going to say here, for the record, that NHS food is appalling, that the atrocious pseudo-organic substance I was fed in the Maudsley was one of the most physically unpleasant experiences of my life, and is the reason I genuinely feel a stab of fear whenever I hear any newspaper article that suggests that fast food and the like should be banned from NHS premises to promote healthy eating, because I really fear for long term patients under such a tortuous regime. NHS catering is an abomination and should, frankly, be banned under the Geneva Convention and I’m surprised it hadn’t been.
Ahem. This is a tangent. But an important one. Also, if you or a loved one are ever admitted to hospital for more than a night, please bear this in mind and prepare accordingly.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1377024.html - this is another meeting with the psychiatrist. I don’t think it went well. Apparently my role playing of a sane person was flawed. Make up and black and grey clothing is not enough. Bear this in mind next time you’re trying to negotiate your release into the community.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1377299.html - CIA lady! I remember her vividly. I have often wondered about her and hoped she got better and got out one day. Also, I remain very grateful that the Maudsley Hospital has private rooms with locks for psychiatric patients. I am deeply unsure about how safe I would have been on a ward in that place.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1377935.html - my first prison fight! I think this entry is definitely my trying to gain some kind of control of the situation through writing about it. I remember actually being genuinely very scared - CIA lady was moderately unsettling, but this one genuinely wanted to cut me. She was pretty detailed about it. I remember feeling then as if I was drowning – the psychiatrist wasn’t letting me out, there did seem to be a possibility that I’d actually be here longer term, and I had no idea what kind of road map existed for ‘life after a psych ward’. I definitely didn’t believe that a proper job, and marriage, and a normal life was plausible. I just felt as if I was sinking deeper and deeper into some kind of confusing and disorienting ocean and I didn’t know how to make myself swim.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1378803.html - more adventures. And CIA lady, who was quite lovely at times. I hope she made it through, somehow. And the woman looking for Sarah, who was dead. My legal name at the time was Sarah* and I remembering vaguely wondering if she knew something that I didn’t. Maybe I was dead. It didn’t seem entirely implausible at the time.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1378856.html - the good meeting with the psychiatrist! Although, as I recollect, the Home Treatment Team then said ‘nope – high risk’ and didn’t take me for another couple of days until I could grovel convincingly at someone else.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1379212.html - and this is, genuinely, the last day in hospital. Mostly memorable as Jez and Matt Elliott came to collect me in black suits and shades. I saw them coming up the staircase to the ward as I stood outside the nurses station with CIA lady. It was like a slow-mo cinematic moment as I leapt forward, trying to shout “noooooo” to get them gone before she saw them.
I failed. She saw me walked out of hospital by two men in black suits with shades. I think Matt even had his phone earpiece still in his ear as we went. I’m sure her psychiatrist cursed my name after that.
https://annwfyn.dreamwidth.org/1379707.html - and finally, the last entry. This is my assessment at home by my care co-ordinator from the Home Treatment Team who are basically the best thing ever. The Home Treatment Team (as I’m sure many of you know) are there to look after people who would normally be in hospital and are considered a bit too high risk for the community, but are just safe enough to not put in a secure ward. Someone comes round sometime between once and twice a day to feed you medication and check you’re OK and bundle you back into hospital if you show signs of getting worse.
It’s basically the NHS using your home as a hospital ward. You still are fed your meds twice a day and asked questions that they tick off. But in home, with proper food and a proper bed and far fewer death threats. For me, it was magical. I honestly have never felt such relief before or since.
Of course, that day really marked the start of another journey – the four months off work to get sane, then the relapse three months later, another bout of illness where I narrowly missed hospitalisation, and then after that, the very slow climb back upwards. The move to Glasgow, and, eventually, the progress to my current state where I’ve had one full episode this year and my CPN describes me as ‘highly functional’. I’ve even been a case study for a Scottish NHS campaign about ‘what recovery means to me’ (which I, of course, followed up with a brief mixed manic episode. But shush).
But it’s nice to remember, in some ways, that although things were awful back then, they did get better. I got better. I made it. And I’ll stay hopeful that I can always do that again. It is never over until the fat lady sings.
*Sally is a traditional abbreviation. You probably hadn’t heard that before. It’s because it’s a totally insane abbreviation and I don’t know what my parents were thinking either.
Black suits & shades
Date: 2018-01-12 04:43 pm (UTC)I see what you mean about the writing being ever so slightly off, though it totally passed me by at the time. Somehow, back then, it all seemed a lot less serious from the other side of the country (while at the same time being appropriate level reaction from the medical staff... I'm not sure how both made sense). I am very glad you made it out the other side and I want to say that we did do Alton Towers in the end (was it that year?), which was lovely.