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| To those who come here still for some odd reason, thought I'd let you in on a secret:
I have a new blog.
www.awkwardpreteen.wordpress.com
Hope to see you over there!
-Becca
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| Monday, April 6, 2009.
I can't recall, nor do I remember writing whether Renee is a nurse or a doctor. She is short with an enormous mane of brown, wavy hair, and she kinda has big lips. They looked chapped. (Though the other day I saw her at Walmart and they still appeared "chapped". I tried to look grown up in the store. Healthy. On top of my life. Puffed my chest out, exuded confidence whilst carrying a box of Life cereal. I doubt she recognized me, though.) She called me into the cubicle that is the phone booth to see if I wanted to talk about anything. What a generous gesture. I told her I was really hurt by what Toad said: that the world was on my shoulders, and it was my fault. She attempted to clear up his mumbo jumbo by explaining that it appeared as though I had a bit of a type "A" personality; that is to say, that, in her words, "say you're driving a car. If it gets off the road, you really have no idea what to do. You hadn't planned on it veering off, and you're unsure of what to do with the unexpected." I handle change poorly. It's not that I brought everything on myself, it was more that I didn't know how to deal with forks in the road. She told me, "you need to take strides! Learn ta smell da daffadils! Smell those dafadills!" She was serious, too. The phone kept ringing. She'd pick it up and immediately put it back on the ringer. Her gait was fixed on me, and in those moments I was the only important person in that ward. That made me feel good.
I can't wait to be able to listen to music whenever the heck I want. Despite the fact that my brain acts as its own Jukebox, I am ready to pick apart nuances of bass, drum, guitar, stringed instruments. . . I'm practically salivating over this thought.
I stood journaling over on the staff desk when Dustin, a tech who rubbed my noggin every morning when he took my vitals (it was endearing) came over and said real loud, " geeez!!! How do you have that much in your brain to write that much? I'd never in a million years be able to write all that."
I smiled, "well. I'm a writer. Plus, there's wayyyy too many characters here to pass up."
he cocked his head and retorted, "am I in there?!"
"Maybe. Maybe not." I teased.
He has a kind face and a presence that is non-threatening, despite his rotund muscles. His battalion was the first to enter Desert Storm in the 90's. He used to have nightmares every night, he shared with a group of us as he made a jug of iced tea.
"Now I'll get them, oh. . . maybe twice a year. I see a war movie come on, and I just walk outside--nooo thank you." He has a real Oklahoma accent. This, too, is endearing to me.
Group therapy tonight was really good. I saw community. I felt it. I thankfully missed out on the fairly lame "get to know you" activity, involving two truths and a lie. I think I was asleep when they were doing that. The bear in me hibernated just the right amount. Mmmmhmmm.
The leader asked if anyone had something on their mind about life, being here, what they miss, how their treatment is going, and the conversation was fascinating. So many people shared, and their wounds were held by a room of ordinary folks (except for maybe Grizzly man. And Darth was not present.). I even shared how I was feeling:
1. Thankful for Renee's perspective.
2. Scared about returning to "Bible College", homework, life. . .
Someone piped up and empathized how difficult college really is. That made me feel so validated.
A shy man discussed the voices in his head, and how he didn't believe the medicine works, and another woman who was elated at the thought of seeing her kids again soon.
Melissa, Mom W, Mitanjeli and Audrey all stopped by to see me. Mom and Melissa helped me form a game plan, an exit strategy if you will. Here it is:
1.schedule, organize, schedule, organize. Day by day plans of all I must accomplish will be made.
2.Maybe a heart to heart with Mark Scott (Dean of the school)
3.find (and stick with) a great therapist.
4.keep a keen eye on how the Zoloft is working.
I'm nervous about what tomorrow means: Freedom, or declined parole.
Goodnight, moon.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, April 7, 2009.
Well, today could be the day. Our room got transformed into a sauana and I curled into my cacoon for another two hours. It's eight now and I'm wondering if I should take a shower, call Mom, or try to eat something. Or all three. I want to watch the news, but it's a cock fight I don't feel like entering for the remote. Perhaps I'll ask staff what is going on outside these walls.
The parole board has deemed me fit to re-integrate back into society. I sat with all the high-heel clicking, man-woman suit wearing folk with their sleek black organizers and explained my plan 'o action upon leaving, and that I'm fine. That I will get further help.
Right now there is a frail old couple whose wife lacks patience, and it hurts my heart to hear them argue. "I'm supposed to just wait around for you?!" she yelled.
He didn't even look at her, too embarrassed to admit what he needed in order to be discharged himself.
"yes."
She's small and cynical. He's tall and lanky, and rickety. He's an alcoholic, and his wife seems so tired. Tired of many things. Her sighs are loud and intentional.
But here I am, with my friend at my side, waiting to be discharged, hopefully in time to make it to the last class of my day. Back to reality.
Though I feel they'd already deduced I was no harm to myself, I felt pressure in that meeting to present my case in an understandable and clear manner. I felt Toad was monitoring my eye contact, taking note of every time I fidgeted. He was charming in a group setting. Hmm.
So goodbye Darth, Grizzly, Afro, all the nice nurses, Toad, *Beth, the lady who said she smelled poo all the time, and the sad old couple.
It's been an adventure, and I don't know what is next, but I know it will take small steps. No giant leap for mankind. God is in the details, minute and gargantuan, and I need to listen and follow.
Listen and follow.
Farewell.
Philippians 3:13-14.
-Becca
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| Monday, April 6 2009.
All the women here dress in slacks and high heels, and walk fast down the hallway. Given that the hallway is short, I wonder why they are in such a hurry. Maybe they just don't like walking past patients rooms. It's pretty melancholy and all. The clickety-clack of their heels sounds so professional. So doctor-like. So...angry teacher-like. So intimidating. This place is buzzing with psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, nurses in training doing their clinical hours in the "psych. ward". All here from years and years of school to get a "DR" in front of their name; who study people like me for a living. By the time I'd been admitted Friday, most of these folks had gone home, so this feels different to me. I can't believe how calm the weekend was. I really feel like I'm being watched now. Better to go to all my groups for the day; don't want to appear reclusive.
Why I admitted myself boils down to this very day. This is my parol day. Am I ready? I must keep things in perspective.
1. I am loved, more than I know, and accepted (in my messiness) more than I ever realized.
2. I'm here to get well, so being truthful is the only way to accomplish healing.
4. I needed help in the first place. For me to act as if I never did would be slightly counter productive.
5. I am supported. And it will be alright.
Deep breaths...
I met with the one and only Toad. I was terrified. I felt like I was meeting the Wizard of OZ, knowing that he is the only way I could get what I wanted, but recognizing his power all the more once in his presence.
He was not easy to converse with, expressionless, and I felt he dissected every word to trap me, trick me. He's an attractive man in my opinion; a mix between Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford. He operates analytically, not emotionally. I am seen not as a person with feelings, but as a series of lines on a grid pointing to a solution. He tells me, "it's nice to meet you", without looking at me. He is filing papers. I'm shaking, but stick my hands under my butt to look less crazy (I'd rather look weird than crazy.)
He tells me that I've wasted my time here, that I'm squeezing my own life to death by trying to shove so many things into one little life. He tells me he will order some tests, but never promises to set this caged bird free tomorrow. As he's writing some script for the psychologist to analyze me via pen and paper test, he says, "we've got treatment team tomorrow so you'll need to bring somebody on your list."
My Mom phones at some point, and I try to talk to her about what The Jerk said to me. She agreed with The Jerk, and I felt like ripping the phone out of the wall, but then I'd look crazy. She agreed that I piled up too many things; too much work, too many credits in school. For the briefest of moments, I just want my Mom to call Toad a jerk. But I know she's right. I know I've piled too much on, but the fact remains that I react to situations I cannot control (or even that I can) in negative and destructive ways.
Maybe he's testing me. . . Maybe he's waiting for me to snap or something. What is he looking for? Does he want me to say to his Jerk Ford Face that he's made me feel like I heaved the world onto my shoulders?
As Anderson writes, I need to keep moving, keep breathing. Stay alive.
Most of these groups have been such bull crap. Particularly this one, though I'm giggling a little bit. We are watching a VHS about weed in the 90's. Did you know they made monkey joints to test the phsyiological effects of marijuanna on primates? Neither did I. Good thing I've viewed this VHS. My knowledge base has just expanded. I know I'm being watched, monitered by the nurses doing their clinicals. They have their little clipboards writing crap. I'm trying to look interested.
Time with the psychologist was good. She possessed far more empathy than Toad. She let me tell her my story of why I'm here, instead of needing a 30 second Reader's Digest version I had to give to Toad. Dr. Sadowsky still talked like a professional and less like a therapist, but I certainly felt more comfortable around her. It sounded like I'd be discharged tomorrow.
whew.
I took a test with 350 questions that she'll score and give me feedback on. It left a lot of room for interpretation, which concerns me. I hope my honesty doesn't come back to bite me in the butt.
I thought I'd have a lot more therapy here, other than group therapy. I didn't get to tell anyone my whole story, only sound bites of hurt. Upon discharge, I'll be set up with a therapist, which most staff here believe will be the best thing for me.
I'm watching a ball game in a psych. ward. Go Cards.
Still, it's pretty beautiful, even if my environment is less than ideal.
Visitors will be here in about an hour and a half, and I am so looking forward to that. I make all the other residents jealous because I have visitors every single day.
To be continued. . .
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| (I've decided that Visitors part deuce wasn't enough to devote in a whole post. Perhaps I will go back and revise, but for right now I am simply compiling my journal entries from my time here.)
Sunday, April 5, 2009.
Last night, Debra, my Night Nurse came into my room saying, "what are you doing asleep??? It's 9:30!" she was very perplexed. I sat up, grinning, stretched my limbs and replied, "ah. 'Cus I can." She sat on my crunchy cardboard bed, tilted her red frames and inquired about the medication change. She warned me that there was a chance of weight gain on the Zoloft--though it would be fairly immediate weight gain. That scared me, and I suddenly remembered a conversation I'd had more than a year ago with my dorm Mom.
I sat cross-legged, arms folded. I distinctly remember defiantly answering her, "I will NOT go on anti-depressants if they will make me fat. I'd rather be skinny and unhappy than fat 'n happy." This was resolved when I realized that my mental health was more of an immediate concern than my weight.
This morning, Darth appears to have gained some composure. She looks people in the eye. It's nice to see *Beth, and not just Darth.
Nope.
Scratch that sentiment. Darth has returned. Shame.
I finally succumbed to my smelliness and took a shower. Found out it's timed. Get in, get out. Or you take a cold shower and the water eventually just shuts off.
The lack of control I have here bugs me. I resonate to a slight degree the boys I oversee who have no control over much of anything in their lives. But then I recant the empathy I feel when I remind myself that they put themselves in a locked-down facility, and have lost the right to any control or privacy. But ME? I volunteered to have no control. And it gnaws at me a bit.
But, the cool thing is, ABCL lets me straighten my hair. Only because I'm voluntary, so I run less of a risk of anything dangerous happening. There are no mirrors anywhere, so I find an outlet that faces a metal box that holds paper towels. It's my makeshift mirror, and I feel pretty proud of discovering this.
My roommate smoked a cigarette in our bathroom. She told me to keep it a secret. She pees more than I do, too. Which is incredible considering the size of my bladder. She drinks more water than I do, though. She wins.
I met for a second time with Dr. Collins and confide in him that it is rather relaxing sleeping, reading, journaling, wandering, but that the world waits outside. Homework, relationships, my role as an RA. Nothing external will have changed. He asked how I felt about it: STRESSED I say.
"Right now I have no bills, no mortgage, no mundane details of life to worry about---just this moment, this mission." (Anderson Cooper, Dispatches From the Edge, 133) MEAL TIMES. There was a Mexican man here for a few days that was supposed to be on a 72 hour suicide watch. He had gold teeth, and seemed like the happiest man in the world. He conversed with everyone around him, joked with the therapists, and used his boisterous voice to his advantage. I think they bought his act and let him leave after only a day and a half of being admitted. There were grumbles from the residents. I grumbled myself.
(is that all I have to do? Be more social?!)
Proof that short-term facilities care about stabilizing you, then shooing you out the door.
In fact, during my stay, I spoke with therapists, social workers, and psychologists about the immediate things that were inducing stress, but none of them ever poked around to deduce why these things envoked stress. What the root of anything was. My self-injurious behavior was never discussed, and "family history" was something I learned most therapists do only when I began to see one weekly once I was discharged.
Anyways.
Meal times.
Sometimes I would give the Mexican man my food. Because he could shovel it in. We didn't really have to be sneaky about it, only had to be sneaky with *Rachel, who was an overweight woman who seemed on the verge of becoming comatose, who just stared. And shook. She was diabetic, but I always slipped her my sherbet. She split the side of her mouth open, "thanks," without looking at me directly. It made me giggle everytime.
Meal times were interesting. You didn't have to eat, but like I said, it was noted when you failed to show up. (dun dun dun...) there were four round tables in a very cramped room, so there was no "secluding" yourself. I sat at the ladies table most days, where my roommate would complain about Toad, and about there being no "damn salt. Only miss DASH." Those round tables had tear stains on them some days. Some would talk about missing their kids, and how they never should have taken all those pills, that their husbands are having a hard time trusting them now, that they just want to get back to normal life, but they don't know how to do that, what it looks like, exactly. I listened and tried to choke down chicken that looked like overcooked halibut.
The conversations I encountered and got to listen in on were some of the most vulnerable I've ever heard in my entire life.
To Be Continued. . .
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| Saturday, April 4th, 2009.
I can't quite figure out what the most embarrassing thing is about being here. Is it the fact that when a flashlight wakes me during night checks I'm reminded of what I do at work? Or maybe it's the locked-down feeling. I can't leave if I wanted to. Though, since I'm voluntary, I am permitted to take a short walk outside these walls with a psych. tech. Oh joy of joys. Besides the obvious connection to my job as a psychiatric tech, I'd guess it's that everything this semester came to such a climax that I needed to be protected from myself. That feeling is both terrifying and humbling.
Darrel, a disproportional man (smaller on top and bigger on the bottom) who wears purple clogs (to match his purple scrubs of course), knocks on my door to let me know I have visitors. I jump up, like a puppy looking to be adopted, and exit my room to see Mitanjeli, Audrey, and Kristy signing in the guest book. The excited puppy in me wants to run in their direction, but stop myself because I remember where I am. I grew anxious and embarrassed by my appearance, shoelace-less and all.
Nonetheless, I hugged them tightly. I tried to joke about my time here, telling them all the stories I'd created in my head, and made a special point to discuss Darth Vader (she's about, wheeling in the hallway again. That sedative did not last long.), only because I needed to hear laughter. I needed to see their eyes grin. I starved for talk of normalcy; dorm life, the weather, devos, relationships. . . anything but me.
There are only three visitors allowed per person here, and another one is coming to see me. I say goodbye to Mitanjeli and Audrey, who promise to be back tomorrow. I believe them. I don't grasp why they love me so much to subject themselves to seeing me in here, but I believe them. I hugged them and soaked in their words: I'm so proud of you. I love you.. . . "
While I visit with them, my Mom calls. I'm overwhelmed by the influx of care and concern that's enveloping me right now. I ask my sweet Mom to call back later. Too bad Darth has been hogging the pay phone. Darth Hog.
To Be Continued. . .
Part deuce of visitors will be up tomorrow.
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