Were Have I Been?

I have always been very upfront about my life and my struggles with mental illness. The reason I haven’t posted recently is that I was hospitalized and have been focused on my mental health. Today’s post is a snippet from my latest short story Minute by Minute, Hour by Hour which is about my hospital stay. I share this with you as an idea of what to expect if you go to the emergency room suicidal or in dire straits. It is a window into another world (“where the sunlight doesn’t shine”).

Minute by Minute, Hour by Hour

The Story of My Sixth (Yes Sixth) Stay in a Mental Institution

Night One:

I hate emergency rooms. Even before I was rushed there, wrists bleeding, five years earlier, emergency rooms made my skin crawl. There were people screaming, people crying, little girls clutching their mother’s hands, a broken cluster of frightened languages….people in pain. I hate emergency rooms.

This occasion at White Plains when I informed the triage nurse that I was suicidal was no exception. She led me past crowded hallways where sufferers pleaded with the doctors and their creator for mercy. She took me to a quieter part of the ER. My mom followed but when my dad made to come with us the nurse held up a hand. “One visitor per patient” The door swung shut separating us.

yellow-dressing.

She led us to a small room. There was a hospital bed and a yellow dressing gown that looked almost clownish. It mocked me. The room was absolutely empty but for a TV and one chair. “Please change and then we can proceed,” Here it began. The lack of privacy. The humiliation. I understand why they need people to wear hospital gowns except this gown was the most complicated contraception imaginable. My mom struggled to figure it out until eventually a nurse came in and had to help us. I stood there, half-naked as they buttoned me up. I wasn’t even allowed to wear my bra. They also took my phone but I was ahead of the game. I copied down several phone numbers- my psychiatrist’s, my boyfriend’s and several friends. I will say this for White Plains…they work fast. In the next ten minutes, they had taken urine, done blood work, and an EKG. I spoke to the ER doctor briefly and then longer to the on-call psychiatrist. My mom waited outside.

“What brings you in today?” she asked. To her credit, she seemed to genuinely want to know.

“I’m not sure. Everything feels kind of detached. I haven’t really been sleeping and today I got really mad at my dad. And I’ve been…promiscuous,” I whispered this although I didn’t think my mom could hear through the hospital walls. I had been through this before. When I was twenty-one after suffering from auditory hallucinations, paranoid delusions, and severe mood swings I had been diagnosed as bipolar one with psychotic features. Now I was on a cascade of pills, didn’t have a 9 to 5, and couldn’t finish college after almost killing myself in my dorm room. Let’s just say I have a flair for the theatrical.

The psychiatrist took some more brief notes and left. I waited with my mom, then my dad, then my mom again for the next five hours watching Dr. Pimple Popper on TLC. At one point, they had missed my usual five o’clock medication dosage and I began to get a little antsy. The enormity of what I was doing fell on me. I was voluntarily going to a place where I would be screamed at, frightened, and have very little privacy. Welcome to mental institutions in modern America.

The voices were back, getting in my head that I was “evil”. I did my standard “crazy but self aware” thing where I put my head between my legs and began rocking back and forth, whining softly. “Can’t you give her some medication?” my dad asked, not angrily, rubbing small circles on my back. “I mean doesn’t this seem kind of cruel?” he said. Finally, they came with my medication and with the news that at nine o’clock I would be transferred from here to St. Vincent’s. Out of the frying pain…into the asylum.

I liked my One-to-One at White Plains. Her name was Jen. She told us she liked being an emergency room nurse and she was good at it. She wished me luck when the handsome EMT loaded me into the ambulance.

It was a brief ride to St. Vincent’s. I made small talk with the EMT but inwardly I was wondering what St. Vincent’s might be like. I had only ever been to New York Presbyterian, one of the best in the country. Now I was heading into the unknown. They unstrapped me and I sat in the chairs waiting with my parents until they separated us and lead me upstairs for my first night there.

Once I was upstairs, a nice nurse named Debbie and another nurse took my vitals and asked me several questions about why I had come to the hospital. Then they had me strip down to examine my body. It's called a body map. There was a diagram and Debbie drew my scars on the miniature person. I have numerous scars on my legs from picking at scabs and of course the faint scars on my wrists from my previous suicide attempt. They also mark down any tattoos but I don’t have any. Then they took me to my room. My roommate was already in a sleep so deep it resembled a coma. But sleep eluded me. I lay awake, another sleepless night. I didn’t have my Pooh bears and I didn’t have my music. I was finding it impossible to relax and was winding myself up. I began to hear voices again, this time they were telling me to rip my eyes out. It was horrific and I went to the bathroom. I’m not sure why I did that but I lay on the floor and began sobbing.

In a little while I heard my name. It was the two nurses. By this time, I was hysterical. Debbie crouched down next to me. I was incoherent but I conveyed I was hearing voices again. Debbie gently took me to the nurse’s station. She gave me a Haldol (an antipsychotic) and a Benadryl to help me sleep. She also handed me a small pencil. “Catherine is an avid writer,” she announced to the other staff. I had told her I loved writing. I appreciated that she remembered this detail about me. As I walked back to my room, I heard one of the techs whistle. The Benadryl kicked in and the next thing I knew it was six am and they were waking me up for blood work.

I want everyone to know I am feeling much better but I have a long way to go. It’s a difficult time in my life right now. I’m really grateful for everyone’s support.