Finding the right support.
We try to forget about all the times I was turned away. All the times I got stuck in between with seemingly nowhere to turn. We have been turned away from help because I wasn't sick enough, because I was too sick, because lived the wrong place or because I ran out of eligibility. We have knocked on doors of hope only to be told they couldn't be opened for us for one reason or another. We have spent painful time waiting at home on packed lists; with Mum being the one burdened with having to learn how to care for me and me feeling like I was ruining not only my life but hers and my families too. I prefer being in hospital or in other people's care, because not only do they know more of how to help but also it takes away so much guilt. Home is supposed to be where I am loved and supported, but not where I am put under hospital protocol and my family is subject to all the horrible things this illness makes me do. It's not their fault I am like this as much as it isn't mine.
A journey of finding peace in hospital.
Alone in my room, I look at my list of things to do each day. I tick off the things I have done, fill in my food diary, and decide study and my training diary can wait until tomorrow when I am not so tired. Curling up in bed, I am lonely, but that's okay. I am in the process of learning to feel safe in my own company; to love myself through all the struggles I have, and to not fight back against the waves of emotion that come and go. Yes I am living in a psychiatric hospital, but that is okay. I am where I need to be to feel safe enough to explore where I am at in life. I have the support and tools available to make the difficult task of completely opening myself up and facing my true self possible. I sit with my loneliness, recognising that what I am doing is hard, and that although the pattern I had gotten into of denying my feelings seemed easier in the short term, over time the denial will lead me away from who I am.
The wondrous truth of Electroconvulsive Therapy.
Finishing up on the bike I head to my room and shower, again marvelling at how a task that drained so much energy not long ago can so quickly become part of my normal routine again. At 12:30pm I head down the hall to the treatment room, ready to go in. Despite it being my third time now there is still a sense of anxiety about the process, the seeming seriousness of it all. For such an incredible treatment, the fact that they aren't even sure how it works induces both apprehension and wonder in me. I also start to worry about how much my memory will be affected this time, what I will forget next. Already I can't remember the names of anyone new I meet, and I find myself all too often walking into rooms and in the middle of doing things not knowing why. Still, I'll take that over how I used to feel.
A day in life at a private psychiatric hospital.
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'.