There but for the grace of you go I

It's been hotter than Hades here on the East Coast. Indeed, news reports are saying it's the warmest weather in over 100. Records are being smashed.

All I know, baby it's hot outside. So I stay inside, with a semi working air conditioner that is doing the best job to keep me cool. I can't complain. I have electricity. Parts of the East Coast are still without electricity, and other parts are suffering brown outs because the electric companies cannot keep up with demand.

It's all good.

I daydream a lot that I am in Antarctica. Or the North Pole. Someplace nice and cold. With penguins. And ice.  Can you imagine anything better for a daydream? (Hey folks, this is a G rated blog).

So I found myself at the local supermarket- a ginormous supermarket, getting a few things to eat and various important things like the dreaded toilet paper. Cottage cheese and fruit. It's too hot to eat anything heavy. Some cream for my coffee. Some brown sugar for my tea. A five pound bag of ice to stick in the bathtub and just try to cool off with.

Then I saw her when I was at the salad bar, making dinner for the night.  A woman in her sixties, Immaculately dressed, like she just came out of church, including the requisite church ladies hat in a lovely shade of fuchsia. Thinner than Kate Moss. And with a very strange look in her eye, she yelled at me "Who you staring at bitch"?

I didn't look at her, said a silent prayer that she would just move on. Again, she comes up to me, says a few words which I cannot repeat and spits at me.

I've never seen anyone spit on another human being, other than the now famous VH1 New York/Pumpkin spit episode. I thought it was something done in movies and soap operas, like slapping someone's face, or spilling a drink on someone at a bar.

I don't know what to say, I don't want to look up. The manager comes by. Again, she yells and curses out the manager. A stock clerk who knows this lady, comes over to her, and walks her away, her cursing out a group of people very loudly.

The manager hands me a tissue. Do you want to press charges? The police are on their way. Several other store patrons are pressing charges. I shake my head, no, and hand him my salad. I don't want it now. I don't want any of my groceries. I just want to go home and take a shower. I feel dirty.

"What will happen to her", I finally ask. He replies the cops will take her to the local ER. The ER will evaluate her- make sure she's not drunk or high. He thinks she is on something but doesn't know. "She's a regular", he states. "I've never seen her like this".


On the way out the the door, I see from the corner of my eye, a police car with the woman sitting in the back. I  can hear her cursing as I walk by, despite the windows being up.

Drunk or high. I hope for her case that is all it is. I'm afraid it might be worse- something wrong with her soul. Her eyes scared me when I took my brief glimpse in them. It was like her soul was missing. I've only seen that once before in my life.

I haven't slept since this encounter. It's not due to the heat- it's due to what I am afraid is happening to this woman. I'm hoping she was drunk or high, and released after 12 hours. I'm afraid she was taken to the ER, and is now in a mental hospital. I picture her sitting in a chair, doped up the gills on a drug cocktail like Thorazine,so she's restrained and not spitting. Staring catatonic at a TV screen. Lost in a universe of her own making, imprisoned in her mind.

I know what it's like to be cranky and miserable in this heat. It brings out the worst in me. Add to the mix, hot flashes, and I am beyond cranky. But not at a point where I will spit. Never there. How do I know this woman wasn't just over tired with the heat, hungry and feeling miserable. This might have lead her to a break where one brief moment she made some bad judgements and felt at the end of the rope? Couldn't they just give her a nice cold drink and calm her down.

I need to get dinner for tonight but it's too hot to eat. I'll have an iced tea and a pb and j sandwich. Perhaps tomorrow I will go to the store to get some fruit and since it's a small town, learn about what happened to this poor woman.

On the other hand, maybe I should go a few more miles down the road to the next closest grocery store. I'm afraid I don't want to know what really transpired.

See, how do I know that won't be me some day?

ETA: Big Thanks to Anthony at My Sick Mind for giving me the actual correct quote for the title. Anthony you rock!

A Brand New Blog Worth Reading

I've been writing about old psychiatric hospitals the last few entries, for the same reason that Santayana said to recall history. So it's not repeated.  So people when hospitalized won't suffer like our ancestors did.

With that in mind, I am pleased to announce that long time activist Jonathan Dosick has started a blog, Civil Rights in Psychiatric Hospitals.  

I am breaking one of my cardinal rules, I don;'t promote brand new blogs having been burned by brand new bloggers I start reading and they stop blogging after a month or so. If you are a blogger and you want on my blog roll, my requirements are 1. You gotta be blogging for three months, and 2, I have to like reading you. I don't have to agree with you but I have to enjoy reading you.

Jonathan has been an advocate in Massachusetts for a very long time. Here is Jonathan's mission: i snded in dis

We must address the continuing climate of disrespect, coercion and disempowerment that we see daily at inpatient facilities. This is carried out in the name of patient safety, but is grounded in discrimination, ignorance and the relentless pursuit of Profit.

The hospital lobbyists who furiously oppose our efforts claim that State authorities should not dictate clinical care - but their dismal record regarding basic patient rights shows that they need oversight.

In the mental health system, why is 'clinical care' so misunderstood? Why, in the name of 'proper clinical care,' are basic civil liberties and the dignity of so many violated so brazenly?

This is one not only do I enjoy but it's a must and should be on our blog rolls. To stay in the loop about what goes on and how to change it. Because Jonathan is an awesome activist. It's tough to read, but a little bit of knowledge goes a long way and might come in handy for a loved ones hospitalization. Not every hospital is bad. But so many ones are and with so many budget cuts, a little knowledge does go a long way.

More Hell on Earth-Norwich Mental Hospital

I have been trying for over a year to find this clip and put it on my blog. The best I can do is this Hulu Clip,  it starts at the right counter, and it finishes at counter  31.11.

From Life After People, Second Season, episode Crypt of Civilization. We need to know about these things so they will never happen again.

I bring you Norwich Mental Hospital, otherwise known as Norwich State Hospital for the Insane, in Preston and Norwich, CT, USA
Clip contains triggers

Eta: I apologize about the ads.

mania-and a week to ten days hiatus

Dearest Readers,

I look at so many of you as family, it hurts to write this. As of now, I've flipped into mania. Real bad. Cannot sleep, and some real bad side effects..... won't go into now.....pdoc worried, friends in real life worried, hospital has been called I am fighting going in cause I don't wanna go, no one will take care of kitteh, but if  I don't go in in the next few days voluntarily, I shudder to think of going in involuntarily and what will happen to kitty. The only good news is it will be a diff hospital.

So I am going on hiatus for a few days I don't trust myself to write- I am writing, but I cannot post what I've been writing.... Not here, not on FB.... I'm scared shitless. I don't wanna go. I wanna try to sleep a good 12 hours get better by my own......

Anyway , comments are not going to be watched. Play nice.

Scars On My Soul- (Rewritten) Or Why I Killed My Muse

"I have scars on my hands from touching certain people. Certain people, certain events have all left scars on my hands. " - JD Salinger

As I look back at my life, I feel a kinship to Salinger’s Seymour Glass. A grown up who would have been Holden Caulfield, had Holden not been suspended in time as a teenager. And one day when the pain of being with people, the agony of being different and feeling things stronger than others got to Seymour, he took a gun and went gently into that good night.

I hope when I do break I am stronger. I guess I am lucky, when the time came to break, I bent like a flower that bends with the rainfall.

I’ve been thinking a lot about people lately. About the good ones I ‘ve met and the bad ones. The evil ones. Yes, I have met pure evil, those that wished to hurt me by raping me, or beating me to an inch of my life. And all have left scars on my soul, like Seymour’s scars.

I was in the hospital during December 2002 , and in December 2007. I’m in an IOP program after both stays and now, 2010. I’m supposed to be getting better, getting stronger. It’s hard. Last weekend I just wanted to destroy, to curl up in the bathroom and die. A few weekends ago I went to the train station and looked at the trains. But I didn’t jump. Or feel like jumping. It was if the act of train-spotting was enough. Indeed my carapace seemed to get stronger with each passing train. I finally left several hours later, went home, and slept soundly. I hadn’t been able to sleep, so the P-doc gives me Seroquel. That was the first night since then I slept without anything stronger than a glass of warm milk.

I went into the hospital on December 4 back in 2002. I didn’t want to go, I was given an ultimatum from work. It was like they put a gun to my head. "Hello Susan, well, you can either go to the hospital or you can get the sack. Which would you prefer?"

Let me backtrack. The human relations department gave me the ultimatum because it got so bad one night. I couldn’t jump in front of the train. I couldn’t be Anna Karenina. I didn’t have access to a gun -I had tried to purchase one to no avail. That left one method I never tried, namely because it frightened me. But the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem so bad. So one night in early December, when the pain was so horrible I couldn’t take it anymore, I took the belt from my green chenille bathrobe and an old kitchen chair and I went outside to find a nice sturdy tree in which I could hang myself. I found one, tied the belt like a noose around my neck and the tree branch, hiked it up, stood on the chair, and said a small prayer, looked at the moon and kicked the chair away.

I remember looking at the moon and how pretty it was, and how this didn’t hurt like I thought it was, it was very peaceful, like going to sleep. And I fell asleep ... And woke up with the branch on the grass, myself on the grass. I had failed and even worse, I had wet my pants. Talk about ignominy. I was totally abashed, ashamed, and I felt like a three-year-old who didn’t want their mommy to discover what they did.

So I went into the hospital. First I went to the local hospital’s emergency room. I was greeted by a nice older woman in her sixties who offered me a peppermint Life Saver as she typed my vital information into the hospital’s computer. Name, age, sex, social security, etc. She asked me how I felt right then, I said I really wanted to hurt myself. She asked me how I would do it in her office, I came up with several different ways. She looked at me. "You’re a pretty girl," she said. "Why are you in so much pain"?

Then two security guards came and got me and put me in a little independent room in the emergency room. Gave me one of those gowns that doesn’t cover your backside. I was given a chair to sit down, a blanket, and one of the guards stayed by my door for seven hours while the emergency room on call doc looked at me, a couple of nurses looked at me, and finally the doctor from the mental hospital came. During the time, I was treated to a turkey sandwich, which was delicious, and a carton of skim milk.

When the hospital doctor came, he asked me a few questions and then told me I better get dressed, I was going to be admitted to the other wing of the hospital. Two orderlies then came and got me once I was dressed and transported me to the mental care unit which is about three miles away, in the country.

About the hospital stay, what can you say, other than as hospitals go, this was a nicer one. My last hospitalization I had no insurance, so it was in the State psychiatric facility. This was more of a country club in comparison. The doctors were nice and I was medicated on different meds. But I was still suicidal. All I thought about when I wasn’t sleeping was how much I wanted to die. This perplexed the doctors. Surely the lithium, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and all the other meds should be kicking in. I got worse. I started to see things that weren’t there. No worries, add a bit of Geodon to the mix, and Seroquel to calm the OCD that was developing. Everything will be OK soon. Trust the doctors.

But I was still suicidal. The nurses were watching me, on a one on one suicide watch, a record they said for the hospital. Fifteen days into the hospitalization with nothing getting better, I had been seen by a panoply of doctors and they sat down with my parents and decided that perhaps ECT might get rid of the depression.

Forms were signed, and a week before Christmas I got my first electroshock treatment. I had a total of six altogether. I had problems with my veins and had to get a PIC line put in to help make the treatments easier. The treatments left me feeling woozy, when they were done, it was difficult to get dressed again and try to remain "normal". I would try to eat my breakfast, but I just wanted to sleep. The first treatment left me in agony, I could count every one of my muscles. I remember in tenth grade biology class that a human has over 600 muscles. I felt every one of them that day. I couldn’t move. It was agony.

Only one other person close to my age was getting the treatment. We would hold hands as we waited on our gurneys as we heard the others getting shocked and waited our turn. The others were senior citizens. They looked at the young man Charles and I with understanding and pity. We were so young. Several told me their stories - they were depressed because their spouse of 50 some years died, or a child died, or a grandchild had been murdered. One lady had a husband at home who had Alzheimer’s and she was depressed over his care.

I just knew I would lie down, electrodes placed to various parts of my body and when it was over I could have a glass of cranberry juice. The cotton mouth I would experience was not akin to the type of cotton mouth you get when you drink.

My last treatment was the day after Boxing Day, December 27. I personally stopped the treatment against the doctors wishes, I felt my brain was being destroyed. I went home on December 28. On December 30, my beloved cat Cleopatra died. She was 16. I had her for 15 ½ years. About my despair on losing her I still cannot bring myself to write. I miss her, I think I will always miss my gray darling. She was my best friend. It hurt me that I was so fragile from just getting out of the hospital - and now this.

I started an outpatient program at the hospital right after New Years. Nine thirty till two thirty. Some of it was good, but a lot of it I found to be not helpful. I was still weak from the ECT, I had problems recalling simple things. I did not know it at the time, but I had damage from the treatment, I lost a lot of both long term and short term memory and at least 20 IQ points, which still, til this day has not returned. Ask me who the president was, I knew it was President Bush, but I thought it was the father, not the son. I thought it was a decade or so earlier than what it was. There were gaps in my thinking, I knew something horrible had happened on September 11, but I couldn’t recall what it was, despite the fact I knew people who died on that day. I would sit in group therapy, something which even when I am well, I have to admit I am not a fan of. I don’t have the personality type to be an effective patient for a group setting. I am too much the introvert. And that part of my personality was coming through loud and clear. I was not participating, or commenting to the other people. I couldn’t eat during meal times. I cried a lot. I asked to go for one on one counseling and was told the insurance company wanted me in this type of atmosphere.

Finally after six weeks I was discharged. I had made no progress, and the worst thing was I could not write. I realized I had to take the bull by the horns, and could not stay passive in my recovery. I had to be active.

I found a support group via the NAMI website that is about 10 miles away. It meets every Friday night. I would like to say I go every Friday but I am not that diligent. I go every other week. I went back to work. This was the hardest thing for me. My brain is barely functioning, and I am still suicidal. Some nights I still go to the train station, and look at the trains, thinking about jumping. But I don’t. I’m in recovery. Sometimes I think of OD’ing on my meds, but I don’t. I’m in recovery. The feeling is strong. I try to stay afloat. It’s two steps forward sometimes, three steps back. I’ve developed bulimia again, something that I haven’t had since I was a teenager. I have OCD now, in little snatches, and at work a mild case of paranoia. The Kinks sang "Paranoia, will destroya", and I just have to keep saying to myself, it’s all in my head. The suicidal thoughts will go away. It’s all in my head. The thoughts about wanting to hurt myself, all go away, I am in recovery.

Right now I have to go to work and make sure I stay afloat. I am in recovery.

I learned I have some real good friends who stood by me when I needed them. I had other friends who I lost because it was too much for them to deal with. I miss them terribly and blame myself, even though I know no one is to blame. I guess when the chips fall you learn who really do care about you. And for them, I have to get strong again.

I adopted a new cat, Holly, in February. I couldn’t take living by myself without something in the apartment. She’s a young cat and we are becoming fast friends. I still miss Cleo. But there is room in my heart for two cats.

****
I slept like a child. I dreamt that night, of the flying dream I haven’t dreamt since childhood. I must be getting stronger. I soared to the heavens, that must mean something.

Heavens. And Hells. The inner turmoil that comes with being up and down. A few years ago a friend, told me I wouldn’t get better unless I accepted that I have bipolar. At the time I didn’t want to accept it, I loved the highs and the lows gave me creativity. The problem was the lows were getting lower and lower and I was starting to embrace suicide. My attempts were becoming more lethal. But I didn’t want to be compliant. I didn’t want to take my meds, they were taking away the highs. I didn’t realize they were also giving me the crashing lows. The side effects were making me miserable. I was playing with fire and getting burnt. My life was hanging on by a thread. I can see that now. I didn’t need meds or alcohol to help me deal with my moods, I was getting high off of being high and low. The highs made me feel like God. The lows made me feel like a tortured poet.

I was hurting myself by not wanting to get well. It was a joke to me, so what if I was off work on medical leave for eight months? I got to write everyday. I slept till nine and wrote till midnight. I could be a hermit and isolate. And I had those lovely demons that only I could hear. My Muse.

I realize now my Muse is killing me. His sweet siren song was destroying me as surely as Odysseus had to chain himself to the mast to hear the sweet mermaids sing. The mermaids were singing to me, their songs weren’t waking me up as I drowned in the madness of my mind. Instead, they were causing me to drown in my own made lake, the route I was going was taking me more and more into the inner workings of my mind. The dragons I was fighting, self pity, self despair, fear and loathing, were winning. I was on a one way course to Hell, literally and figuratively.

It’s been hard to realize the things that you love the most can hurt you. And thus, I finally killed my Muse. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. To this day, I remain Muse-less. I wish I had one again.

Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing

Sometimes I feel like I can't even sing (say, say, the light)
I'm very scared for this world
I'm very scared for me (say, say, the light)
Eviscerate your memory
R.E.M

Why bother? Watching the evening news, i just don't understand. Tensions in the Middle East mounting, most likely a war next year. Every day another story of a mother or father murdering their children. Or a boyfriend murdering their girlfriend. Children in parts of the world, all parts going to bed hungry. Commercials on TV asking you to sponsor a hungry child. Another commercial for Polar Bears. Our Boys and Girls coming back from war and nothing there to help them once they arrive back here. People abusing animals.Tiger isn't a hero anymore. It's all too much.

My mother and I were watching the news and what made me even sadder than I was, was how she was talking about how almost everyone writes a book nowadays, what is the fine line between fiction and non fiction?

This brought up the discussion of my novel- I told my mother it is a NOVEL. I will send it out as a novel, even though most of it is true. Mom had just read a book about prison and she was upset about strip searching. I just looked at her and said, they do that at every hospital I have ever been at.

She looked at me and almost cried. No....

"Oh yes, and it 's the most horrible thing, evasive as hell. They do a body cavity search". She didn't believe me. I continued, "yes, they put you in a room with a nurse and another woman, they tell you to strip down to your bra and panties, then they remove the bra, one woman is checking out the bra to make sure there is no contraband sewn in, and the other one is checking your boobs to make sure there is no contraband there. Then they hand the bra back to you, you put it on, and they tell you to remove your panties and it's like having a gynecological exam, they stick a finger inside, and they check your rear end too." She got upset and said why?

Easy, I said. The second time I was at that hospital a girl OD'ed because she snuck sleeping pills up in her privates. They were finding the drug addicts were putting drugs up there or their rear ends.... And yes, it's humiliating, it's really humiliating. I am sure it's worse though for a guy.

Last night I dreamed of J- I had not dreamed pf him since he left over 3 years ago. I woke up in a cold dead sweat. I dreamed of Absinthe, something i have never had, but i feel like the girl in painting.

I want to sing again. i want to pick up my clarinet and wail hitting that high "F" in Tchaikovsky's 5th- and play jazz. Pick up a guitar with my surname on it- and play til my fingers bleed.

I want to be able to write, write write until my fingers bleed and my nails have all broken. I just don't know how to anymore. I have more ideas floating around in my head than I have in years, I just... I just.... I want to be great. It's all I got, it's my only dream. And I feel like I am that guy who gets to the Olympics, breaks his leg and comes in last with his father. I may be down and out, but I will cross the finish line. As he was dying, baseball great Tug McGraw signed a baseball for my father. "You Gotta Believe". I believe this. I will get my groove back. I just need patience, and that is something I have never had.

The Last Leaf, Part One

I was in the hospital two years ago, in November 2007. It still seems like yesterday somehow. I was depressed, but I was also on a seven med cocktail. I knew my brain was broken, I had spent the entire year doing major volunteer work with my local DBSA chapter, arranging for two "A-List" speakers to come to our struggling group, working on major hypomania, and a spell of extreme mania over the summer. Now it was November, and my brain was trying to come down from the high, and in doing so, was turning against me as it continually flashed suicidal images and thoughts in my head, much like the subliminal words and pictures put in movie theatres back in the Fifties for soda and popcorn.

I was scared and chagrined when my little stuffed panda was removed by the nurses, and I was strip searched before I was allowed into a pair of sweats and slippers. I told them to just take my sneakers, if they removed the shoe laces, they would have to cut leather and I would be out a pair of shoes. The nurse understood. A few minutes later, I was sitting on the bed assigned to me, crying into an old yellow T shirt with the image of Spongebob on it,rumpled up to serve as a makeshift stuffed animal and tear catcher.

I had a lovely, lovely roomate. An elderly woman, in her eighties, suffering from major depression. She was inconsolable about the death of her husband, someone she had been with over sixty five years, most of her entire life. She was a vibrant person before her depression hit her, hit her hard. She was involved in her church, had raised children, and was a grandmother and great grandmother. And she had volunteered for years with her church, ministering to those at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital.

Her minister came one night to visit with several women from her church. They were going to pray, and they asked me if I would like to stay and pray with them. I replied, yes, but I do not have a bible. No worries, sit next to one of the ladies with one. I felt good as the matronly lady made room for me, and gave me a hug. I needed that hug. I had never prayed like that before, but it was the right thing to do at the time, and I felt so much better.

I would spend hours in the bed. I wasn't depressed, but there was nothing else to do. This time, the hospital had been re done, pumped with money from Big Pharma. The TV being left on 24/7 was no more, it was only on from 6-11 in the evening. The rooms were sumptious, as luxurious as the Hyatt a few miles away. But there were no talk therapies, no breaks for the smokers- even if you don't smoke to go outside for five minutes an hour to get some fresh air. There were 30 people on the ward. 21 of them were getting ECT, and I thought of it as a production line. I tried to read the book I had brought in with me- a book by Ben Elton- and just couldn't concentrate enough to read. There wasn't anything to do, and even the monotony couldn't be broken by a smoke break, just to go outside, because the facility was now smoke free.

I would sit forever in a sterile, non-descript faux hotel/industry chair and look out the windows, watching the leaves fall. And as I watched the leaves, gorgeous in their hues of brown, orange and red, fall from their tree, I had a feeling of doom. The birds stopped coming, the squirrels too. Snow came in flurries, and I just watched sunrise after sunset from the chair, until I stuck to the plastic coating and shuffled off to night meds and bed.

(Part Two coming).

Scars on My Soul- My experience with ECT.

(Written in 2002, re written Feb 2008)

I have scars on my hands from touching certain people. Certain people, certain events have all left scars on my hands. " - JD Salinger

As I look back at my life, I feel a kinship to Salinger’s Seymour Glass. A grown up who would have been Holden Caulfield, had Holden not been suspended in time as a teenager. And one day when the pain of being with people, the agony of being different and feeling things stronger than others got to Seymour, he took a gun and went gently into that good night.

I hope when I do break I am stronger. I guess I am lucky, when the time came to break, I bent like a flower that bends with the rainfall.

I’ve been thinking a lot about people lately. About the good ones I ‘ve met and the bad ones. The evil ones. Yes, I have met pure evil, those that wished to hurt me by raping me, or beating me to an inch of my life. And all have left scars on my soul, like Seymour’s scars.

I have been out of the hospital since the end of December 2002 . I’m in recovery now. I’m supposed to be getting better, getting stronger. It’s hard. Last weekend I just wanted to destroy, to curl up in the bathroom and die. A few weekends ago I went to the train station and looked at the trains. But I didn’t jump. Or feel like jumping. It was if the act of train-spotting was enough. Indeed my carapace seemed to get stronger with each passing train. I finally left several hours later, went home, and slept soundly. I hadn’t been able to sleep without Seroquel since I got out of the hospital. That was the first night since then I slept without anything stronger than a glass of warm milk.

I went into the hospital on December 4. I didn’t want to go, I was given an ultimatum from work. It was like they put a gun to my head. "Hello Susan, well, you can either go to the hospital or you can get the sack. Which would you prefer?"

Let me backtrack. The human relations department gave me the ultimatum because it got so bad one night. I couldn’t jump in front of the train. I couldn’t be Anna Karenina. I didn’t have access to a gun -I had tried to purchase one to no avail. That left one method I never tried, namely because it frightened me. But the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t seem so bad. So one night in early December, when the pain was so horrible I couldn’t take it anymore, I took the belt from my green chenille bathrobe and an old kitchen chair and I went outside to find a nice sturdy tree in which I could hang myself. I found one, tied the belt like a noose around my neck and the tree branch, hiked it up, stood on the chair, and said a small prayer, looked at the moon and kicked the chair away.

I remember looking at the moon and how pretty it was, and how this didn’t hurt like I thought it was, it was very peaceful, like going to sleep. And I fell asleep ... And woke up with the branch on the grass, myself on the grass. I had failed and even worse, I had wet my pants. Talk about ignominy. I was totally abashed, ashamed, and I felt like a three-year-old who didn’t want their mommy to discover what they did.
So I went into the hospital. First I went to the local hospital’s emergency room. I was greeted by a nice older woman in her sixties who offered me a peppermint Life Saver as she typed my vital information into the hospital’s computer. Name, age, sex, social security, etc. She asked me how I felt right then, I said I really wanted to hurt myself. She asked me how I would do it in her office, I came up with several different ways. She looked at me. "You’re a pretty girl," she said. "Why are you in so much pain"?

Then two security guards came and got me and put me in the emergency room. Gave me one of those gowns that doesn’t cover your backside. I was given a chair to sit down, a blanket, and one of the guards stayed by my door for seven hours while the emergency room on call doc looked at me, a couple of nurses looked at me, and finally the doctor from the hospital came. During the time, I was treated to a turkey sandwich, which was delicious, and a carton of skim milk.

When the hospital doctor came, he asked me a few questions and then told me I better get dressed, I was going to be admitted to the other wing of the hospital. Two orderlies then came and got me once I was dressed and transported me to the mental care unit which is about three miles away, in the country.

About the hospital stay, what can you say, other than as hospitals go, this was a nicer one. My last hospitalization I had no insurance, so it was in the State psychiatric facility. This was more of a country club in comparison. The doctors were nice and I was medicated on different meds. But I was still suicidal. All I thought about when I wasn’t sleeping was how much I wanted to die. This perplexed the doctors. Surely the lithium, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, and all the other meds should be kicking in. I got worse. I started to see things that weren’t there. No worries, add a bit of Geodon to the mix, and Seroquel to calm the OCD that was developing. Everything will be OK soon. Trust the doctors.

But I was still suicidal. The nurses were watching me. Fifteen days into the hospitalization with nothing getting better, I had been seen by a panoply of doctors and they sat down with my parents and decided that perhaps ECT might get rid of the depression.

Forms were signed, and a week before Christmas I got my first electroshock treatment. I had a total of six altogether. I had problems with my veins and had to get a PIC line put in to help make the treatments easier. The treatments left me feeling woozy, when they were done, it was difficult to get dressed again and try to remain "normal". I would try to eat my breakfast, but I just wanted to sleep. The first treatment left me in agony, I could count every one of my muscles. I remember in tenth grade biology class that a human has over 600 muscles. I felt every one of them that day. I couldn’t move. It was agony.

Only one other person close to my age was getting the treatment. The others were senior citizens. They looked at the young man Charles and I with understanding and pity. We were so young. Several told me their stories - they were depressed because their spouse of 50 some years died, or a child died, or a grandchild had been murdered. One lady had a husband at home who had Alzheimer’s and she was depressed over his care.

I just knew I would lie down, electrodes placed to various parts of my body and when it was over I could have a glass of cranberry juice. The cotton mouth I would experience was not akin to the type of cotton mouth you get when you drink.

My last treatment was the day after Boxing Day, December 27. I went home on December 28. On December 30, my beloved cat Cleopatra died. She was 16. I had her for 15 ½ years. About my despair on losing her I cannot bring myself to write. I miss her, I think I will always miss my gray darling. She was my best friend. It hurt me that I was so fragile from just getting out of the hospital - and now this.

I started an outpatient program at the hospital right after New Years. Nine thirty till two thirty. Some of it was good, but a lot of it I found to be not helpful. I was still weak from the ECT, I had problems recalling simple things. Ask me who the president was, I knew it was President Bush, but I thought it was the father, not the son. I thought it was a decade or so earlier than what it was. There were gaps in my thinking, I knew something horrible had happened on September 11, but I couldn’t recall what it was, despite the fact I knew people who died on that day. I would sit in group therapy, something which even when I am well, I have to admit I am not a fan of. I don’t have the personality type to be an effective patient for a group setting. I am too much the introvert. And that part of my personality was coming through loud and clear. I was not participating, or commenting to the other people. I couldn’t eat during meal times. I cried a lot. I asked to go for one on one counseling and was told the insurance company wanted me in this type of atmosphere.

Finally after six weeks I was discharged. I had made no progress, and the worst thing was I could not write. I realized I had to take the bull by the horns, and could not stay passive in my recovery. I had to be active.

I found a support group via the NAMI website that is about 20 miles away. It meets every Friday night. I would like to say I go every Friday but I am not that diligent. I go every other week. I went back to work. This was the hardest thing for me. My brain is barely functioning, and I am still suicidal. Some nights I still go to the train station, and look at the trains, thinking about jumping. But I don’t. I’m in recovery. Sometimes I think of OD’ing on my meds, but I don’t. I’m in recovery. The feeling is strong. I try to stay afloat. It’s two steps forward sometimes, three steps back. I’ve developed bulimia again, something that I haven’t had since I was a teenager. I have OCD now, in little snatches, and at work a mild case of paranoia. The Kinks sang "Paranoia, will destroya", and I just have to keep saying to myself, it’s all in my head. The suicidal thoughts will go away. It’s all in my head. The thoughts about wanting to hurt myself, all go away, I am in recovery.

Right now I have to go to work and make sure I stay afloat. I am in recovery.

I learned I have some real good friends who stood by me when I needed them. I had other friends who I lost because it was too much for them to deal with. I miss them terribly and blame myself, even though I know no one is to blame. I guess when the chips fall you learn who really do care about you. And for them, I have to get strong again.

I adopted a new cat, Holly, in February. I couldn’t take living by myself without something in the apartment. She’s a young cat and we are becoming fast friends. I still miss Cleo. But there is room in my heart for two cats.

****
I slept like a child. I dreamt that night, of the flying dream I haven’t dreamt since childhood. I must be getting stronger. I soared to the heavens, that must mean something.
Heavens. And Hells. The inner turmoil that comes with being up and down. A year ago this webmaster told me I wouldn’t get better unless I accepted that I have bipolar. At the time I didn’t want to accept it, I loved the highs and the lows gave me creativity. The problem was the lows were getting lower and lower and I was starting to embrace suicide. My attempts were becoming more lethal. But I didn’t want to be compliant. I didn’t want to take my meds, they were taking away the highs. I didn’t realize they were also giving me the crashing lows. I was playing with fire and getting burnt. My life was hanging on by a thread. I can see that now. I didn’t need drugs or alcohol to help me deal with my moods, I was getting high off of being high and low. The highs made me feel like God. The lows made me feel like a tortured poet.

I was killing myself by not being med compliant. It hurts to say that now. I was hurting myself by not wanting to get well. It was a joke to me, so what if I was off work on medical leave for eight months? I got to write everyday. I slept till nine and wrote till midnight. I could be a hermit and isolate. And I had those lovely demons that only I could hear. My Muse.

I realize now my Muse was killing me. His sweet siren song was destroying me as surely as Odysseus had to chain himself to the mast not to hear the sweet mermaids sing. The mermaids were singing to me, their songs weren’t waking me up as I drowned in the madness of my mind. Instead, they were causing me to drown in my own made lake, the route I was going was taking me more and more into the inner workings of my mind. The dragons I was fighting, self pity, self despair, fear and loathing, were winning. I was on a one way course to Hell, literally and figuratively.

It’s been hard to realize the things that you love the most can hurt you.

During this time one of my best friends, Chris Brown, died tragically in a car accident. I miss him terribly. It is with love that I dedicate this article to him and his memory.