Life in a Nut House
You have a room of your own, three meals a day and all the tea you can drink. If you are not on section you can pop down the local shops for a packet of fags. Tele in common room and OT classes to keep you occupied. Nursing staff vary in attitude depending on whether you are freaking out or not. Always someone to talk to or play a game of cards with.
Rules are simple - arrive on time for dispersal of meds, always take your meds, do not ask about meds, any aberrations of behaviour will be curtailed with extra meds, if you need meds to sleep you can have them, if you want more meds you can have them.
Drawbacks-Other patients
They steal your clothes from the washroom, your cup from the cupboard and anything you happen to leave laying around. They watch the same video on the tele over and over again. They play chess like drafts and are sometimes incontinent on the seat you want to sit in. Some of them are a bit strange. Others keep you awake at night with their screaming.
On P Docs
Every time you go to see one they aren't there anymore and a complete stranger asks you questions. Sometimes you can't understand what they are saying cos they mumble and have strange accents. They have never read your notes so really you can tell them anything. I always rehearse in advance what I am going to say, depending on what I want to achieve. They have two maybe three stock questions which you can work on. The one about suicide can be adapted depending on if you want more meds or want to start coming off them. But coming off them is never an appropriate suggestion to make.They will always seek to reassure you that they have your best interests at heart. This is a little joke they like to have with you.
Crisis Team
So you are out of hospital and drugged up to the eyeballs. You take pills to help you sleep, pills to keep you calm and pills to relax you. So you lay on the sofa all day wrapped in a blankie watching but not absorbing day time TV. Every day two different people who you have never met before come into your home and give you INFORMATION for an hour. They ask you what you are thinking about. When you say death they shuffle awkwardly in their seats. They ask you are you eating, are you sleeping, and what are your plans for the future. When you ring them in the middle of the night they tell you are not alone. After two weeks they drop their support to once a week and then a phone call and then nothing.
Suddenly you are on your own with you, and you are frightened - terrified even. You are the last person you want to be left alone with.
Community Psychiatric Nurses
Mine was female (still is as far as I know). She was in appearance short and sweet. She gave me my "up the bum jobs". She would vary which cheek she used each month and I began to worry that, in time, my bum would come to resemble an overused pin cushion. After a couple of months she became disturbed by me returning to my blankie having let her in the front door and trying to catch up on my sleep in her presence and my tongue living a life of its own in my mouth. She stopped giving me Depo injections then and I was, and still am very gratefull to her. Guess she saved my life really.
more to follow.....
