A day in life at a private psychiatric hospital.
On this journey through my experiences (of which many, many people have similar), I am going to outline two very different days I have experienced in private hospitals, as well as comparing this to the public system. All up I think I have lived in various hospitals for about 7-8 months of my life, though I don't remember all of them. Todays is from a crisis admission when I was severely depressed and unable to engage in the help and therapy available. The one next week will outline a day three years later when I admitted myself entirely voluntarily to get some support and space, using the therapies available to their full potential. I think it's valuable for people to know what it is like to live in a hospital out of necessity, but also that many people in hospitals would seem entirely 'normal' and well to an onlooker. They just need a safe space of support for while to gain skills and process their struggles. I don't want to put anyone off from reaching out for help or add the the misconceived notion that hospital is only for the extremely incapacitated. These places became my home for months at a time, and I wouldn't be here without the love, care and support offered in them. It's not ideal of course, as the world is beautiful and there to be experienced, but it is also never a weakness to require the extra help for a while.
Day 1: Major Depressive Episode
How Darkness Feels.
When your mind is nothing but a tangle of thoughts and you've lost the motivation to speak.
When getting up before noon and taking a shower is your achievement for the week.
When words have lost all meaning and you can no longer make sense of time.
When your mind is so full it's empty and you're only just managing to rhyme.
When you sleep for twelve hours straight and still don't have energy to get out of bed.
When a meal out with a friend is enough to fill you up with dread.
When every single simple action comes with the question 'What's the point?' and you never have the answer so you close yourself off to the world and just wish you could crawl into a little hole and die because you know the world will be a better place without you.
Then, you kind of know how I feel.
~ Simone Brick 2014 ~
A torchlight shines through the door and into my face again, just like it has every 15 minutes for the whole night. Part of me wants to tell the nurse to piss off and leave me alone, while another quieter part is grateful for the knowledge that someone is there. I won't ever be left alone with my thoughts for more than 15 minutes. As much as I sometimes want to, I can't harm myself. That is both scary and comforting. I count the minutes until the next check, and this routine continues as I lay in bed for the next few hours. feeling nothing. I don't have the energy or the motivation to get up and do anything, but I can't seem to fall asleep. In the short gaps of time in which I do fall into a fitful slumber, I dream of death.
Finally the nurse comes in, opens the curtains and tells me its meds time. I force myself up and out into the line of patients waiting to have our wristbands checked and our small cup of pills handed to us. When it is my turn they check my number, hand me some pills and watch me take them. Another box on my long med chart ticked. I wander straight back to bed, having been 'compliant' purely to keep the nurses happy and off my back for the day.
Back in bed I lie there knowing time is passing but I'm not sure how much. Eventually I am asked if I went to the dining room to get breakfast. Nope. Then I am asked if I am going to the morning therapy group today. Nope. My nurse is clearly at a loss for what to do so he comes and sits with me for a bit, asking questions like how I feel or if anyone is visiting today. I say I feel nothing. That it's like I'm seeing and doing everything through a thick cloud of fog, so thick it takes energy just to have my eyes open. He suggests a shower and I decide that will be my mission for the day.
I look at the short list of tasks my friend helped me write on my whiteboard. Shower, go to at least one group, eat three meals and three snacks, talk to someone, be creative. I've already failed on the food front, and the rest of it seems way too long and daunting to all get done in one day, but I think I can shower. I'm not entirely sure the last time I managed even that. I see no point still, but it will keep the nurses and my friend happy. They will feel like I'm getting better.
Once I finally undress, stand in the shower for goodness knows how long, and then put back on the same pyjamas I got out of, I'm exhausted. Yet with the help of a fellow inpatient I manage to trudge my way to the dining room and line up for lunch. Frittata, salad and rice followed by apple pie and ice cream. I eat it, unable to taste the food and wondering why I am bothering. It's 1pm now, and the next group starts in 30 minutes, but I need a nap.
After an all too short nap I am chaperoned by a nurse to the group room to at least attempt to participate. But I can't, my mind isn't taking in the information and I end up sitting in the back corner of the room unable to think. I am empty. I leave after just 15 minutes, satisfied that I tried, and return to bed. Having been out of the room brings on a feeling of anxiety I do not have the energy to deal with, so my nurse brings me more medications and I lie there, waiting for the numbness to kick in.
Next on my list was spend time outside my room and talk to someone. I kill two birds with one stone by heading to the courtyard for a cigarette. In the courtyard, cigarettes in hand, is where all the patients congregate and 'socialise'. It's an odd way to find comfort, in shared misery while all of us know that the cigarettes we smoke are the somewhat approved way of making sure our existence on this earth is shorter. I happily participate, having lost all motivation to keep myself healthy when this most recent cloud came.
Here, among people that understand and nurses that see this every day, I don't have to pretend. I don't have to smile and put on a show to keep others happy. I don't have to ever say the words 'I'm fine' to prevent the looks of worry and pity that do nothing to help and everything to make me feel like a horrible human being for not being able to deal with life. I am able to make friends with the people here, laughing as we smoke and try to form circles with the smoke as we breathe out, then minutes later crying in the corner on my own without anyone batting an eyelid. That's normal here. Good even, it shows that somewhere inside me I'm feeling something. My friend sits beside me in silence then when I'm done whispers, 'I wish I could cry again'.
I make it through half a pack of Marlboro Reds, putting each one out on the thin skin of my lower leg and foot. I do not even consider the fact that this is harming myself, I am merely thankful for the feeling of connection to my body and the moment it provides.
The rest of the day I spend sitting or lying in bed. At times doing nothing, at times reading or trying to write poetry and draw. Mum visits with Maya, who is allowed in my room, and the sense of calm and love Maya brings envelops me for a short while. Soon though, they are gone again and it's just me in a cold room staring at a white wall.
My mind starts to come up with ways to escape this existence, not that I have many options here. As part of the admission process they take away all cords, sharps, plastic bags and literally anything that could cause harm. It is a humiliating necessity to have your entire luggage searched top to bottom in front of you, looking for contraband. Here, the door handles are specific ones that can't hang anything off them, the shower curtain is attached by magnets, and all hooks are flimsy and struggle to hold up the weight of a dressing gown.
But this is good. I am safe from my own mind and actions here. I am also less of a burden on those I love. Well, I am safe for the most part. My mind is creative in its escape plans, but I know I can tell the nurses when it is doing that if I want to. Sometimes I manage to open up, tell them I want to discharge myself and give up. Be free. At other times I let the thoughts form and play about in my mind, becoming solid plans. But here, surrounded by other people fighting similar battles and seeing their progress, I feel less alone. I can recognise that I am not the only one in this position, and I wouldn't want any of them to act on these thoughts. So I take a deep breath and as night falls again, I hold on to the hope that one day it will be me walking out the door actually ready to face the world again. One day.
Push-Up Challenge Day 8 - 235 Push ups for the men that all too often try to go the battle alone and in silence. Of the 3128 suicides documented in 2017, 2350 were male. That is a scary statistic. Do what you can to create space for the men in your life to be open and honest about life's ups and downs. Starting the conversation is an important step in spreading the message that it isn't weak to speak up. In the current landscape it actually takes a lot of strength to do so. I hope we can create more and more places where that isn't the case - it shouldn't take courage to speak about what we all go through, it should be normal and the more it is treated as such, the more these statistics will improve. Please consider donating to the Push Up Challenge at https://www.thepushupchallenge.com.au/team/the-power-to-push-on to help Headspace in the amazing work they do to help reverse the trends in all mental health statistics.
If you're a male that is struggling and looking for a safe place to talk to others, you can go to https://mensshed.org/
https://mensline.org.au/
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/who-does-it-affect/men
Reach out, it's worth it.
Still We Rise.