Something of a personal post. I apologize, and I'm sticking it here, in my own highly defunct journal thread so's not to sling it all e'rywhere.
Anyway. I'm just going to say Trigger warning, because I feel like any post of this nature should. And I'm just going to say 1-800-SUICIDE if you're in the states and need someone to talk to, or whatever your international equivalent.
It really had been a long time coming, and I was spiraling out of control, for want of a less melodramatic and better term. I'd been acting all kinds of crazy for months...Hell, it's probably been at least 18 months, and on a self-destructive bent that was just building steadily into worse and worse consequences. I spent a lot of time verging between retreating completely from society and friends, and a good bit of time just being an ******* when I was feeling social, because, goddammit, if I was going supernova, I was going to have to take everyone and everything else down with me. I was completely irrational. I was full of anxiety, depression, misplaced anger, periods of deep shame and denial...a total mess. How I "functioned" in society with maintaining a job and/or not being locked away for some manner of stupidity is beyond me. I went to 'talk to' people, and got varying diagnoses, but damned if I ever took a single pill prescribed to me. I'd have moments of, "Oh, I'm going to fix this," and that would last all of a day before I'd go about doing the exact same goddamn thing. It was pretty overwhelming, and its being a destructive cycle did not escape my notice. When I wasn't busy destroying everything I touched, I was depressed, anxious, and overwhelmed with everything. Kind of like being trapped in a, dare I say, "Maze?"
Anyway, I'd thought of suicide, I'd maybe do something stupid and self-destructive, and then just keep on...keepin' on. People must just have thought that I'd acquired a sudden case of
asshole-itis, because no one really ever said, "Hey, I'm worried about you," and since I wasn't driving drunk, PHYSICALLY hurting anyone else, and was still keeping a job, I figured I was more or less all right, or that it was maybe going to fix itself.
Wednesday, I'd decided to end it all. Something in me wanted to talk to someone, maybe see if anything was reparable. I called tons of contacts in my phone, but it was really late so there were no answers. I had a bottle of Tylenol, GIANT bottle, dumped on the floor in front of me. I called the last number in my phone, my "best friend," who I'd not spoken to in weeks, and who shares a phone with his girlfriend - who never bothers to tell him when I call. Weirdly, this time, he answered.
We were talking, everything was going fine, but I couldn't say why I'd called specifically, what I was considering, or anything. I thought maybe it was a sign, as superstitious as that sounds, and was feeling like maybe things weren't that bleak, because he'd answered, and that meant that things were going to be all right.
No dice. He then drops the bombshell that oh, by the way, his girlfriend had a falling out with people, so they were packing up and moving across the state in a week. Needless to say, I did not handle it well. I also did not act tactfully, nor did I consider anything that any rational human being should, e.g. that he clearly loves his girlfriend and wasn't doing this as a personal slight to me. With everything else that had piled up and led to this night, that was just like being slapped.
I went off on a vicious tirade about the girl, accused her of all sorts of baseless nonsense, and generally freaked out. All without mentioning why I'd called in the first place, or what was really going on. He got pissed and hung up. Again, understandable. He had no idea what was going on. And I was being a lunatic.
His girlfriend then texted me from the phone and was like, "You're toxic. Never call this phone again."
"Gotcha. Consider it done." I texted, then scooped up handful after handful of Tylenol and shoved them into my mouth, swallowing down amounts I'm not even sure of; suffice it to say, it was a lot. I walked out of my house, and decided I was going to just keep walking until I dropped, but something in my head kept saying, "Really, now? Like this? After everything, you're just going to go like this?"
After about a mile. I just stopped, dropped down onto the sidewalk, and realized my phone was still in my pocket. As were my cigarettes and lighter. I lit one, and called 9-1-1. (Emergency Services, for those not in the states)
An Operator answered, and I very calmly explained what had happened. They asked my location, and I gave the location of the street corner at which I was seated. They instructed me to stay on the line until help arrived, and I did. They kept asking why, and I kept saying, "It was just too much," and that was about the best answer I could give. About five or ten minutes later, a cop showed up, to wait with me for the ambulance, and presumably to administer any first responder help if needed. He asked me the same things as the operator, and I told him the same: It was just too much.
The ambulance arrived a few minutes later, and I was feeling legitimately weird. I can't describe the feeling otherwise. I don't know if it was the Tylenol, the nerves, fear, or what, but it was this horrible, darkly surreal feeling - I wasn't hallucinating, but I imagine the feeling would be horribly similar to the way I'd feel if I were really to be trapped inside The Black Lodge in Twin Peaks.
I was given a container of activated charcoal and instructed to drink, which I did. I don't remember a lot of the commute or arriving at the hospital. They wheeled me straight through a full to capacity emergency room, and I said something like, "No...we have to wait," and one of the EMTs was like, "If we wait, you're going to die."
I vaguely remember being in the hospital and people crowded around me, pulling my clothes off and putting me in a hospital gown, holding my arms and legs down and sticking a bunch of needles in me.
I woke up a few hours later, dazed and still surrounded by people, (now in the ICU) and the doctor was in there. I felt positively queasy, and feverish, and tried to move and they kept telling me not to. My blood pressure was appallingly low, and the doctor was explaining that I was hooked up to a Tylenol antidote on my IV, and that my Tylenol level was at 300 or something, when the "dangerous" level was considered anything 100+; a person taking Tylenol normally might be at 10-30. I kept saying I was sick, and I needed water. They brought me water and sat me up and said I was going to vomit. They got a container under my chin just in time, and jet black liquid flew out of my mouth and nose. The nurses gasped. The doctor may have, too.
"Charcoal," I muttered in explanation, and continued puking.
They took blood from me to test my Tylenol levels every four hours. I refused any visitors and phone calls, and over the next 12 hours, my blood pressure and pulse rate were great. My liver, fortunately, showed no signs of damage, but I was still on a clear liquid diet, i.e. disgusting broth, green Jell-O, and Sprite. There was also a nurse in my room with me 24-7, because I could not be left alone for one second. Social workers and psychiatrists were constantly in and out of my room, circling like vultures for that moment when I could be considered medically stable enough to be moved to the "Behavioral Ward."
About 30 hours in, my levels were good to go, but they advised they'd still be monitoring me and taking blood work during my stay just to be sure, and they sent me off. Before I left, I was finally willing to speak to the people in ICU, and had a really nice nurse who wasn't much older than me. She and I were chatting about our love of Sherlock, and she was really cool. When it was time for me to go, she was the one - along with the mandatory security guard escort, who had to run me over with a metal detector - who accompanied me to the ward. She very kindly told me that everything would be fine, that she knew it would be. So, they took me into this frightening part of the hospital with garish Victorian brocade wallpaper to starkly contrast the sterile, clinical environment it framed. All of my my items, including clothing and cell phone (not that I'd been wearing the clothing since I'd been there anyway) were taken from me and locked away. I was told that I was on lockdown, and didn't get my normal clothes back until the doctor damn well said I could have my clothes back...okay. They were a lot nicer about it, but that was the subtext that I took away from it.
I was shown my room and the recreation room, which contained a television; some magazines (honestly, where do hospitals even getting those circa 1985 National Geographics?); some crossword puzzles and sudoku puzzles; and a few books (Nora Roberts; John Grisham).
I chose to go to my depressing room (one prison-esque twin bed; one tiny dresser; one imitation leather recliner with stuffing coming out of it) and lie on my bed in misery. They brought me toiletries and my new clothes - blue "pajamas" they called them, and some warm socks, which I actually took home with me. The attire was eerily similar to:
I refused to socialize. I completely shut down. I still refused calls and visitors, and actually signed forms stipulating that NO ONE was to be allowed to visit me, and that the only information given could be that yes, I was a patient, and a message taken and given to me. I was not in a place where seeing anyone familiar would be good for me, and I was afraid I'd completely melt down.
One of the first things I experienced was another patient in the ward having a meltdown. He had been in there 24 hours already, and desperately wanted a cigarette. His delirious tirade ultimately ended in his emergency contact being notified, and authorizing him being tranquilized. That really steadied my nerves...
Social workers and psych nurses came into my room frequently, and asked the same questions over and over. It was tedious.
Q: Are you in any physical pain?
Me: No.
Q: Are you currently thinking about trying to hurt yourself?
Me: No.
Q: If you do think about it, will you contact us?
Me: Yes.
I sulked. I was in a state of horror and disbelief, that it amounted to my being unable to move or do much of anything useful. I showered and put on my fancy PJs, and crawled into bed. More nurses. More social workers. More of the same question game. I slept, and had a dream that my coworkers were in there with me. The dream didn't paint the place in less a hellish light.
The next morning, Friday, I was awakened at 7:00am, ate breakfast, and stayed in my room. I still wouldn't go into the activity room or leave my room at all. At around 9, I was summoned by the psychiatrist, and taken to her office.
Psychiatrists scare the piss out of me. They have two facial expressions:
Completely blank and unreadable horror
and
Politely upset on your behalf
Fact.
If they do crack something of a 'smile,' it is only a slight variation of the first look, to almost trick your brain into thinking of it as an encouraging human emotion. Almost.
And guess what I did? I cried a lot, gave zero useful information, and got hyper-defensive when I gave one nugget of information that led to a follow-up question. She can't have been thrilled, but I'm sure she wasn't surprised either. She said something about medicine, and I interrupted and was like, "
FUCK medicine. What are you even diagnosing me with? How can you talk about medicine without knowing what's wrong? I haven't given you
anything and you're throwing medicine at me. That's like some guy coming into the hospital in a basketball uniform, so you're immediately like, 'Oh, basketball player. Torn ACL.' and send him into surgery without even doing an ultrasound."
I was dismissed from her office.
Spent the rest of the day brooding. A social worker gave me a notebook and pen, which I used to write all of the loopholes I could find in my patient agreement, and since I was pretty certain the psychiatrist wasn't going to discharge me willingly, I knew that in the morning, Saturday morning, my 72 hours of mandatory hold at the hospital (which didn't have to be actually spent in the psych ward) would be up, and that I could not be held without consent barring court order - and it was going to be a Saturday, so they couldn't get said court order.
I still refused the activity room; there weren't really 'group sessions' going on, because there were only four people on the ward, and three of us refused to leave our rooms.
After a nurse tried to helpfully let me know that the doctor was just trying to help, I broke down crying again, and said that I hated the doctor and didn't want to see her again. Another nurse came in later, and I was like, "I'm only on a 72 hour hold, so they have to let me leave tomorrow," and she was like, "The 72 hours doesn't apply to weekends. The same doctor IS going to be here tomorrow, and she can release you, because that would be 72 hours assigned to the same doctor, but she is the only one who can release you on weekends."
With horror, I went over that little nugget on my copy of the Behavioral Ward agreement that I signed, and resigned myself to being trapped in there until Monday.
The doctor dropped off two workbooks for me: Stress Management; Overcoming Depression, and I skimmed them before writing furiously in my notebook for hours. I went through and made a douchey list of things she'd covered, and why I didn't answer, everything from, "I didn't like the implication of that question," to the very dramatic, "It's the difference between empathy and sympathy. You can get that a person's suffering, but unless you've experienced it first-hand, you can't really say that you truly empathize."
It was absolutely pointing blame everywhere but at me. I was reading over it, and planning how to work some well-placed jabs into the next appointment, when I really thought about it and realized how ridiculous I was being. If I wanted to get better, I was going to have to take responsibility, admit that people weren't deliberately trying to hold me down, and really make an effort to take in the blame and work forward. The other people had just been trying to help me, and I got hyper-defensive because I was incapable of really acknowledging the faults for what they were, actually addressing the issue head-on, and trying to fix it. I read through what I'd written again, and realized that WOW. I had really been a grade A douche-nozzle. If I had to stay in the ward, then I had to stay. They didn't ask me to be rude to the doctor, who was just trying to figure out what was wrong so that she could help ME by trying to use her professional experience and knowledge to find something that could help me out. They didn't ask me to refuse going into the activity center and doing something else to occupy my mind and pass the time. That was all me.
I played over the session in my head, and cringed. I thought about what she'd asked, and how I should have responded. I thought about what she'd tried to offer as solutions, and even did a lot of my workbooks. They actually left me alone after "lights out," because they saw I was working on them, and that was very kind of them. That night I dreamt of Alaskan Malamute puppies and living in a colony of tents in trees.
When I woke up in the morning, I ate my cheese omelette, fruit, and yogurt, and was feeling much better. It really was clarity, and that time to myself in what had seemed an adverse situation had allowed me to become more zen about the whole thing. I had previously been stressing about staying until Monday, because I'd have to miss work. Instead of panicking and thinking, "THEY'RE doing this to me. I'm going to get fired!" I was realistic, and calmly thought about how I wouldn't get fired, and that they'd give me a doctor's note. Even if they kept me until Tuesday, God forbid, I'd still have a doctor's note, and everything would be fine.
I was anxious for the doctor to come in, but the nurses told me that since it was Saturday, a kind of 'overtime' the two psychiatrists alternated, she wasn't exactly required to come in at any specific time, so long as she afforded enough time to see each patient - four of us. She showed up a little before one, and went to her office.
I ventured into the activity room, and watched the Florida game. I talked basketball with the nurses. I met the other patients: The gentleman from the night before, who was now completely calm, even friendly; a quiet girl who'd also attempted suicide and had only been there since Friday; and a paranoid schizophrenic who was presently being weaned with seizure medication so they could start her on a new medication. She wasn't quite with it, and kept telling us of her visions in the night of a white crucifix that went from room to room.
The nurses and I were extremely into the basketball, joking about how low-scoring the Louisville game was, and just in overall good moods. The guy was called into her office first, and discharged. Then, the quiet girl. She'd have to stay, because she'd not yet been there 72 hours. The girl who saw the cross went next, and she came back saying that the doctor said she still had issues to work through before she went home. I imagined the same would be said of me.
The Louisville game was almost over (it had just started, actually, when the last girl came back) and I was finally thinking, "Damn. I must have really pissed her off yesterday," and assuming that she'd left for the day. A few minutes later I heard her go into my room trying to find me, then she came into the activity room and took me to her office.
I was much cheerier this time, and answered all of her questions completely. I embellished on things I'd been vague about the day before, and didn't cry. I was very calm, although a few things were still kind of tough to talk about...especially since I'm not one for actually TALKING about problems aloud. I usually just try to process. I told her as much. I told her that I was really upset after the previous session, and that I'd been irrational and blamed her, and then I realized that I was just doing that because I was seriously pissed off at myself, and couldn't accept the responsibility. I told her about writing the lists of things that I wanted to talk about, and realizing that, hey, this is stupid, and this isn't productive. She asked if they'd given me a sedative or anti-anxiety medication. I told her truthfully that they hadn't. She cited my refusal to take medicine. I told her I would take it. We talked about that for a bit, and I asked some questions about the side effects, which were quickly answered. I agreed to go to follow-up appointments, gave my work schedule, and she'll be getting back to me on Monday about the specific times. Also got a script for Citalopram.
She ended up discharging me. Overheard some chatting with the nurses, doc, and social worker about how I'm really a "sweet girl," which is apparently the general consensus when I'm not being a raging lunatic.
I'm getting better.