you all know I went off the grid these last few days and it should come as no surprise that I would be candid enough to share my experiences. This is intended for knowledge, entertainment and for my own self awareness. I am not at liberty to "have to" discuss what I am about to divulge to you, but in true "miss mobe" fashion, I feel it only fair to bring you the truth...and humbly hope you see it for what it is and learn from it...
Tuesday I had a routine visit with my psychiatrist where we talked about the past and present and future as we always do. We discussed several things to include my ongoing fascination with suicide which is something that has been an integral part of my life since early childhood. I even joked about it with him and laughed as having thoughts about it is better than doing it, or worse, taking my kid along for the ride. The joke was how far I had come from wanting to off her and I to just me. Now I know there has been much media attention to mothers who off their kids lately and this did not stem from them. As I have stated in a previous blog I can empathize with them, though I don't agree with them having no options, as I once entertained the idea myself when I had found I had no community and support system. I "USED TO" worry about what would happen to Lobo if I DID do the deed and deduced that if I ever got that backed into a corner, I would take her with me. She was small and couldn't fend for herself and it was something I ONLY THOUGHT of and never acted out or tried to do. So there I was explaining this to my respected, yes by me, psychiatrist along with the laundry list of things that have brought the suicidal thoughts to the forefront again and he told me he wanted to Baker Act me. I agreed knowing that I was in a bad state and needed some TLC to get me through this time and back on track. I did not act on my thoughts but do dwell on them time to time and the urge to think about it was too prevalent to focus on things I should have been focusing on. I didn't put up a fuss. He gave me the option to wait until the following day so as to get my affairs in order and look after my kid so long as I could guarantee to him I wouldn't be alone. My brother was home and being a nurse understood where I was at and was a little put out at the untimely-ness of my deluge and still stepped up to the plate to look after my kid and my affairs. On Wednesday morning after a long nightmare-full evening, he drove me to the hospital. I had called ahead to my doctor's office as I was instructed to do, so they can alert the ER that I was coming...and then the system failed, yet again.
I want people to know what is wrong with society and government and lawyers and ex spouses and so on to include the healthcare system, so now I will give to you, via several blogs so as to not flood you, my account of what happened and how the system is not designed to fix anything. This is a journal I kept in the nuthouse and things that transpired during and after, here at home and there at the facility:
4/20/11
couldn't sleep last night knowing full well the uneasy and unsure that lies ahead. The last time I checked into a mental health facility was a disaster. I tossed and turned for hours on end and pain was my constant companion. I awoke at five in the morning to a still "dead" house devoid of activity and fell back to "nightmareland" shortly thereafter. By ten o'clock it was game on and I proceeded to shower and gather my things and assign my affairs to my brother. Lobo had inherited the next few days off because I was riddled with guilt and did not want her to face the taunting of the other students while she grieved my temporary loss from the household. So my little princess helped me get ready and with tear-stained eyes told me she loved me and to get better and I left. It killed me, to hear her say she loved me knowing I still had these ideas of not wanting to exist killed me well into the evening. It's eleven at night and it still kills me when I think of the look of hopelessness on her face. I am glad though, because it fuels me to want to get this right this time. I'm just not sure I can as I have no faith in the system. Now my brother had driven me to where I am now after I notified her father that I was away and that her still had his visitation access, and the psychiatrist's office. Oddly enough I was told and supposed to have been Baker Acted but my doctor seeing that I went agreeably and willingly, saw no need to do so. We got to the hospital at noonish this day and it took forever to get to triage. Like all places there were no chairs in the waiting room for fat, sexy bitches with "all too wide" hips so I borrowed the security guard's chair without sides as there was no one on duty at this time. Twenty minutes later he returned with a trainee in tow and made some sniveling remark and both chuckled then he approached me and gestured to vacate his seat. He was rude, by any standard and though he hadn't stuck up his middle finger, he might as well had for his demeanor was that of a typical "rent o cop" in that it went straight to his head. Needless to say the disabled, mentally unstable, middle aged female patient yielded the seat to an irascible, no-count, bald-headed (not that it's a crime) asshole with a patch and not a badge!
It took another fifteen minuted before triage got their shit together and brought me and my brother to the back of the ER in a hallway and started asking me routine questions. She took my vitals and asked me why I was there and I retold her the conversation I had with my esteemed doctor and how it was his wishes that I be Baker Acted. I did not know at the time I wasn't going to be. Some fifteen people kept coming in and asking me why I was there and my stress level was reaching its limits as they should have all known per the triage assessment. They all asked the same thing over and over as if a collective mass of ignorance had struck all the medical staff dumb. I was led to a bare room with two gurneys and placed there under the watch of a CNA who would continually ogle me and lear at me like I was a criminal for needing help. She insisted I wasn't allowed to wear my street clothes and and that they weren't good enough even when I got upstairs to the ward but felt it was okay for an obese disabled woman with two hospital gowns on that were too small and looking like a clown was appropriate. I refused and told her unless you can find a suitable gown that covered my ample self I would remain clothed as per my right and if they didn't like it they can "force dress" me if they dare. Thye knew they weren't messing with someone without a brain and they knew I knew they knew it. It is routine for vagrants and drug addicts looking for three hots and a cot to claim suicidal to get a meal and a bed. I don't want a meal but the bed I have resigned was a good idea.
People think that because you are depressed that you must be uneducated, stupid, lazy, whiny, with poor hygiene and a death wish. The truth is sane and well to do people of high intelligence and education get depressed. They get to where they just cannot take anymore gut punches from life and either want to, try to or succeed at ending their grief by any means necessary. I have wanted to die since I was a little child. Life wasn't good to me and I have thought about and/or fantasized about the world without me in it or how I would do it. By my own hand or others and even thought about other's deaths as well. People just don't get how "UN" unique that is. All creatures dwell on their mortality or death and humans have had one of the greatest fascinations with it. Look at the media and arts and literature and all else human. We look for more macabre ways to provide the "shock and awe" of the final blow.
So. after a conversation with the ER Behavioral specialist, a likable dark man of decent height with a little of grey pocking his tightly cropped facial and cranial hair, I was given over to "Ativan" to calm my nerves and affording me a little rest. I personally think the intention was for me to sleep as I was crying and not the least bit hyper or uncooperative. I do recall the CNA assigned to watch us "deadbeats" trying to wake me for food and a urine sample. I had no food to offer her and wasn't in the mood for the day's "hot toddy" (chuckles) seriously though, who wakes a depressed mental patient just given drugs to make her sleep to ask her for piss and if she wants to eat? Adding to the frustration of not being allowed to smoke or write, the latter for fear I will stab someone or myself and the former because of lighters and the hospitals "NO SMOKING" policy just enacted for patients, guests and staff. Those are really my only two major luxuries in life and she was acting as though I was withholding the urine sample for cash and I didn't need to go. I hadn't eaten or drank all day and no one offered prior to that time either. We are now well into almost seven pm by now! I can't go when I am stressed, tired, sleeping and dehydrated and I was all four! I hadn't ate all day because of my nerves and had only drank around eight ounces of water in the morning with my pills...*tbc.~mobe's love to her all and her all to her loves.
* for those not in the know "tbc" stands for 'to be continued"
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