TRIGGER WARNING: Content covers topics of self harm, suicide, hospital environments and family issues.
As I mentioned in the previous post I recently spent six days in a psychiatric hospital. It wasn’t my first time, but I hadn’t been admitted for two years; not even after my last serious overdose in October. It was quite a shock to me as I felt I had been doing really well. It’s been almost a year since I started working for the NHS again and I had recently been promoted. Looking back on it, finding out I was unable to complete my nursing degree, having to deal with my dad coming in and out of my life again and realising that my life maybe isn’t taking the route I wanted it to, were causing a lot of emotional turmoil. It was all bubbling under the surface and I desperately tried to ignore it again. Favouring to focus on the light is fine, until you start ignoring the dark. That’s when it takes its opportunity and strikes. Suddenly I found myself feeling hopeless, which angered me. “Nothing is going wrong so why do I feel this way?”
I noticed I was spiralling down and sought support from A&E and mental health teams. After a while they assessed that I was unsafe to stay at home. My partner and I waited for a little bit of time for the crisis team to find me a bed. Within a couple of hours they rang to say they had found me a bed and I was admitted to the mental health assessment unit at our local hospital. Having been there before I packed my essential items. A wash kit with a roll on deodorant, enough clothes for 3-4 days and some activities like fiction and puzzle books. I knew if I was staying longer I’d be able to ask my partner to bring in extra.
When I arrived at the hospital it was about midday. We were let in through the airlock (two sets of doors where one will only open when the other is fully closed) and made our way around the assessment unit. We were greeted by a support worker who took my things off my partner, to be searched. Unfortunately he wasn’t allowed to come in with me as it wasn’t visiting hours. I remember feeling really fragile and lost as I waited outside the nurses office to be shown to my room. A staff member showed me to the communal lounge to await the nurse who would be completing my admission paperwork with me.
In my experience there is always something about psychiatric hospitals that I find hard to explain. There is a clinical feel with all the chairs made out of fake leather and plastic. The floors always smell of disinfectant and the lights in the corridor never go out at night. Everything you see in there is anti-ligature; there are no proper door handles, there’s nowhere to hang clothes, in the assessment unit there aren’t even toilet seats. The mattresses are not unlike crash matts you might have used at school for gymnastics. You each get your own room, but toilets, sinks and showers are shared. I would recommend flip flops if you don’t want to chance getting athletes foot or a verruca (maybe I’m a bit paranoid).
After the support worker had asked me a few questions about what had led to me being admitted and took my vital signs, I was left again to my own devices in the communal lounge. There were a few more patients milling about now, either watching bad TV, pacing in the corridor or falling asleep in their chairs. A few people sort of smiled at me and one asked if it was my first time in. As a general rule other patients tend to be really nice and supportive. I met a few people I found it really easy to talk to. Unknowingly, people with BPD tend to group together in these settings. There was a small group of us (about 6), that sat together at meals, spent time colouring and speaking about our life experiences. It’s important to note that whilst you feel a strong connection you shouldn’t try to be friends outside of hospital. It’s best not to be in contact because it’s all too easy to get sucked into someone else’s troubled life, rather than focussing on your own health.
Overall my stay was fine. I won’t say it was good, because in that sort of environment it’s never really going to be enjoyable. You’re there to be kept safe and to be helped to move through your crisis. I have to be honest when I say that sometimes when you get admitted, everything seems to get worse for a while. After having the courage to ask for help you often find yourself trapped in an environment that isn’t conducive to the healing process. On most short term wards there is little to do and activities are hard to come by due to funding.
For the first few days I was quite unwell. I felt like my life was falling apart again. I had suicidal thoughts and thoughts of self harm filling my world. I barely cried because I had got past that point. I watched the girls around me whose arms were covered with scars and bandages. I could see in their eyes what I felt too; society has never been kind to the sensitive. We were broken, but also it gave us a strength. The things we had gone through as children were things most adults hadn’t had to face.
No comments:
Post a Comment