Just Another Manic Blip

I take a prescribed Ritalin to prepare myself to study, to give me the energy to get through the remainder of the day. This last night before the final is the most important. I’ve had a whole quarter off, a whole 10 weeks plus winter break, because of my manic episode. It has given me time to finish a class that I took an incomplete in because I broke my wrist (but, in reality, it wasn’t so much the broken wrist, as much as it was my cracking mind that forced me to take the incomplete).

My dad comes home with food and the coffee I asked him to buy me. I start sipping at it and realize what’s happening. The ritalin is kicking in, the coffee is too. I’ve got too much energy racing through me. My thoughts are going off left and right like a firework finale. I’m agitated. I’m texting long rants to at least 4 people, I’m writing blog posts. I feel amped up, wired.

Sometimes these little mini-episodes happen to me. I think the Ritalin and coffee set me off. My therapist says that, since I’m so young, I may sometimes have episodes more like a child’s- rapid and short. And I do have these, quite often. I’ve also been told that these may happen when you’re stabilizing on medication. All I know is that they’ve always happened to me.

My day has been long. I had to wake up, go to psychotherapy, then immediately go to physical therapy, then immediately take my cat to the vet and then immediately start studying. But plans never go accordingly. I managed all the doctor’s visits fine, but it was the studying that threw me off. I tell myself I can relax a few minutes, but here I am- 5 hours later, and I haven’t studied. What went wrong?

Well, after the Ritalin and coffee kick-started me, I felt I had to run an errand. You see, I had an infection recently (of a nature I won’t describe) and I’m afraid it has come back. I already called the doctor to make an appointment, but I am impatient to know. I get the idea that maybe the drug store sells tests for them. I text my boyfriend, who manages a drug store, and he says they do sell those.

I figure maybe getting out of the house, getting the test, that’ll ease my mind. So I go, and I walk around the store, buzzing with energy. I look everywhere, my mind racing so fast it is hard to focus on the words on the labels. I feel lost but determined to find them on my own- which I do.

I get home and I read the directions, my eyes are glazing over as I read it. The words aren’t processing. I try to slow down. It takes a while, but I think I get how to do it. Which is ridiculous, I realize, because I used to conduct these same tests at my old job.

I come out positive, figures.

That’s over. But I’m still alive with energy. I realize it’s been long enough, the Ritalin has peaked in my system and I should be settling down, the coffee can’t possibly be keeping me this abuzz. It dawns on me that it’s the stress. The fact that I am unprepared for a test I had ample time to study for. I should ace this test (given all the time I had), but I know that I’ll barely pass it, if that. I was too manic over my break to study. I was barely able to do what I did. And now it is my last day- and I am so panicky that it set my brain off. The stress caused me to crack, to have a mini-episode.

I know I need to shower, that should calm me, right? Don’t they always say showers will calm your nerves? I hop in and the water pours over me. I put my hands to my face and run them back over my hair. It’s always this way when I’m manic- it feels like I’ve never showered before, the water is foreign. It is so bizarre. At first, it’s overwhelming, overstimulating. But then I get lost in my thoughts, consumed by obsessive thinking.

A thought pops out at me like a big red stop sign that’s been unusually placed in the middle of the road. I realize I am self-narrating. It’s a phenomenon I’ve never heard anyone else have or even describe, but I’ve never bothered to look it up to see.

Self-narrating is as follows: My thoughts have made a transition in their style. Instead of just thinking, I am writing a first-person story in my head. I am tracing my every movement, my every thought, as if I am writing it in a book. To put it simply, what you are reading right now is exactly what my thoughts are like.

It took me years to realize this is something I only do when I am very sick. I did it all throughout high school and never thought much of it, but I was also in an incredibly deep depressive episode. It wasn’t until my last manic episode, when I started self-narrating again, that I realized I had stopped for a while. It is now something I use to judge how sick I am. If I self-narrate, I am very sick or stressed out (although the two seem to go hand in hand).

I continue my shower, all while being obnoxiously conscious of my self-narrating. I wish I could write out what my self-narrating sounds like, but I can’t. It is literally what you are reading right now.

I may be a writer, but sometimes it is not by choice.

I step out of the shower and snag my towel. I put it to my face as usual, but I hold it there for a minute and let my tears soak into it. The moment passes and I continue on. I feel strangely calmer. Maybe it was the shower but I figure it was probably the Ativan I took before.

I’m annoyed with myself, I realize I am going to have to write this out before I can start on my studying. Sometimes the thoughts in my head get so built up that there is a pressure, an ache to get it on paper. It is not a want, it is a need. This is also something that only happens when I am very sick. In high school, during my depression, I would write obsessively. I was un-medicated then and if you ever look back at my writing, it is painfully obvious that I was a very sick teenager. After I was medicated, the writing stopped becoming a need, and soon faded into a past habit.

But I was inspired to start a blog and ever since then the need to write has engulfed me. When I had my manic episode, I not only wrote many long blog posts, but I also started writing a “book.” By the end of my episode I had over 60 pages of a single-spaced word document written. I believe that translates into easily over 100 pages of a standard size book? I’m not too sure though.

I am still not completely stable after that episode. I get these little spurts of mania, other times I get depressive lows. They happen almost every day, I am always a little up or a little down. But today I had an especially strong high.

And it is only now that I have written this out that I feel calmer. There is still an agitation residing in my heart. If I didn’t have to study I would be out, shopping or maybe hanging out with a friend. Just doing something.

Sometimes mania is described as feeling extra happy. But unless I am euphoric (which is brief but welcome), I am never happy during mania. Instead, I am incredibly agitated. It is not fun, it is frightening. I want it to stop, but at the same time I never want it to end- and I have no idea why. But that word- happiness- it does not define my mania. It does not belong in its definition. Euphoria may, but happiness does not.

Mania is incredibly uncomfortable.

But now… now that the thoughts are on paper, I can rest a little easier. I can study, I hope. All that remains is proof-reading this, closing the laptop, and sitting down with paper, pen, and notes.

I can do this. I can do this. I can pass this class. I won’t let my bipolar stop me. I will not fail, I won’t risk my dreams of becoming either a psychiatrist or psychologist be stopped by the fact that I had a manic blip in my day.

I can’t fail.

And it is that fact- I can’t fail- that drives me to feel such madness.

-Quinn

How About Using Another Disease Sometimes?

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Every now and then, a well-meaning giver of feedback in a support group tells a distressed and uncertain newcomer that her illness is “just like diabetes”. You don’t think twice if you have to take Metformin or insulin to treat your condition goes the argument. So why balk at psych meds?

Just today I saw a writer in The Guardian put a slightly different twist on the analogy:

We wouldn’t accept misinformation about diabetes being widely circulated without correction so why should we allow it for bipolar and other mental health conditions?

I live with both bipolar disorder and Type 2 diabetes. Let me start out by saying that the treatment for the two diseases is alike in some ways and very different in others. It is true that I have to take medication for both. Exercise helps both conditions. But as a diabetic, I have to keep checking my blood sugar, test my toes for loss of sensation, and examine my feet for lesions that could lead to amputation. An optometrist checks my eyes every year for retinopathy. Eating right is critical. Diabetes is a chemical condition, but the story about bipolar disorder is more complicated than that despite what the pharmacy reps tell our doctors. So the analogy goes only so far.

If we want to concentrate on the medication angle and false information angle only, why use diabetes all the time? I have other comorbitities that require regular medications such as my heart condition which I treat with anti-cholesterol drugs and blood pressure pills. Thyroid conditions have more in common with bipolar disorder so why don’t we use these parallels? Vary the example. And be very aware of how diabetes and bipolar disorder aren’t alike and how our oversimplification of the root causes of bipolar disorder is wrong.

Arguing with the God Within

Near the end of Ingmar Bergman’s classic Winter Light, the troubled minister who is the film’s main character, can’t decide whether to hold the 3 o’clock service or not. His day has been especially depressing because he gave counseling to a parishioner who subsequently committed suicide that very afternoon, he fought with his mistress, and he has the flu. The church sexton, a disabled survivor of a railroad accident, talks to him about the part of the Gospels which he has been reading, the Passion.

Jesus, the sexton reasons, didn’t suffer all that much on the cross. Why, the janitor goes on, he personally suffered more pain in his life than the four hours that afflicted Jesus and his pain was probably much worse. No, the crucifixion is not the most important segment of the Passion. Think of the Garden of Gethsemane, he says. The Last Supper is done. The disciples who have accompanied him have no clue about what is about to happen, so they go to sleep. Jesus is all alone, so he kneels down to pray. And what does God the Father say to him? Nothing. God is silent. And that, the sexton reasons, is the most terrible ordeal that Jesus endures.

Agnostic that I am, I still value the Gospels as a guide for understanding the suffering that is happening in my life. But what I would give for a silent God at times! In the void, my depressions fill the emptiness with the voice that is the worst of the Old Testament combined with Catholic guilt. I call this my inner god — a false god to be certain — because its primary purpose is to torment me. My illness exists, according to this voice, for the purpose of punishing me. But therapist after therapist has asked me What have I done that is so terrible that I deserve this constant hammering at my self-esteem? I can throw out a number of things, but they are all trivial compared to the actions of some of my peers who feel no shame for what they wreak against others. Surely there should come a place where my penance is over? But no matter what amends I make, the god inside me continues to berate me and declare me worthless.

One reason why I value my manias is that they shut down this voice entirely. Only my own ideations occupy me — obsessively. My thoughts race from project to project, propounding desperate philosophies that enthrall me more than methamphetamine. The evil god, the blasphemer against my happiness is put to death and does not rise again until I crash. Then for more than forty days at a stretch, the god assaults me with shame.

For the depressed and the anxious, the silence of God is a scream.

“Could it be the medication?” -My mom

My parents have always been against me being medicated. When I was 17 my dad refused to sign for me to have medication, so I had to wait till I was 18. And then I had to be financially supported by them, but my mom reluctantly agreed after a GI specialist told her I needed to see a psychiatrist (that’s a long story for another time)

Whenever I would say I feel [insert negative feeling here]. My mom would always reply, “Are you sure it’s not the medication.”

Well one night I came home from a support group. I didn’t have the willpower to eat with the group afterwards. I told my mom this as I shaking. I was stuttering. I leaned against a chair and told her I needed to eat because I hadn’t eaten all day (and plus, I only ate a couple grapes and stuff the day before).

I was having really bad anxiety, and anxiety doesn’t let me eat. It doesn’t let me eat until I feel sick and weak. It doesn’t let me eat until I am seeking professional help for the extreme weight loss. It doesn’t let me eat because when I try, I will vomit.

My mom started suggesting foods, I looked in the cabinet. And it came over me. Just the thought. 

I ran into the bathroom and my mom got up and followed me, “Oh Quinn.” It was her disapproving tone. It was as if she was saying, “Why are you letting yourself get so worked up over literally nothing?”

I thought she would understand because my dad has anxiety. But as it turns out, our anxiety is very different. He gets mad and he might overeat. I get withdrawn and I might vomit.

My stomach was empty, so I was spitting up bits of stomach acid. I was crying.

My mom held my hair back and asks me, “Do you think it could be the medicine you’re on?”

I laughed. In between my gagging and spitting, I laughed at her.

I bitterly spat some bile into the toilet and told her, “No, it couldn’t be.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I quit the meds.”

That was a changing point for her. When I was done, we sat down, and she gave me a piece of toast to munch on. I couldn’t eat the whole thing. But I told her the truth- I thought the medication (Zyprexa) was making me depressed- so I quit it. But as it turns out, the medication was the only thing holding my anxiety back. And quitting it cold turkey without a doctor’s supervision was very dumb of me.

It turned out to be a very symbolic moment. After I explained all this, she offered to go get the medicine for me, so I could take it right now. I nodded, told her where it was, and took it when she returned.

My anxiety levels went back to normal over the next day or so. But there was another occasion where she showed that maybe medication isn’t the worst thing for me.

During my recent manic episode, I told my mom I just could not take the increased dose of Zyprexa, I just couldn’t make myself do it (because part of me wanted to stay manic). I told her the doctor suggested I give the pills to her, and she could dose them out to me. But I hate when other people have control over my medications, as I feel I know better than they do, so I didn’t give her the meds. As a result, I only took the increased dose on two different occasions, and it made me very depressed. I felt bad walking into the psychiatrist’s office and explaining that I just couldn’t take that dose, I was manic (but I was unable to explain that part of me wanted to stay manic), and it made me too depressed to handle. Ultimately, I asked my psychiatrist just to put me on something new. And she did. And that’s what I’m working with right now.

Medication compliance is difficult for some people struggling with bipolar. Sometimes we think we are all better and quit them because, “We don’t need them anymore.” When in fact, it probably means the meds are working, and quitting them will just cause problems. In other cases, we are annoyed by a side effect or some other problem. We think we know better, but do we really?

I think it’s a lesson a lot of us learn the hard way.

-Quinn

 

Something I wrote when I got out of the hospital

I was angry that I had been hospitalized. I didn’t understand why they thought taking me away from my family was a good idea and why they couldn’t have called someone when they couldn’t handle me.

My family of origin thought that the time I spent on the computer contributed to my illness and didn’t want me to go on. I typed up this outline of how I would like them to treat me, but they dismissed it and were just upset I had been on the computer.

I am not sure if this has anything worthwhile. It was right after I was diagnosed and I was still very ill. I made some sweeping generalizations and I don’t think people need a manual to talk to someone with a diagnosis,

my first first thought was to edit, but I decided to leave it as is. If this bothers anyone I can edit or remove it. Mainly I am just surprised I was well enough to write. I was pretty symptomatic.

 

HOW I WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED
Introduction:
I. I can control my behavior with the guidance of professionals
A. You can not cause reactions I have, like the paranoia that led to my hospitalization, but if we had asked for guidance from a professional he would have told us that relocating someone in that condition often leads to paranoia.
B. Trying to modify my behavior without asking for my input makes me feel paranoid that I am being controlled. I am willing to discuss an issue that troubles you with my psychiatrist, therapist or support group.
C. All I expect from my family is to listen and be understanding. I appreciate how helpful everyone has been.

II. I have an illness
A. I know under other circumstances it would be wonderful that I am spending more time on myself, but pointing that out while ignoring that the underlying reason is because I am unable to do many things because of my illness, is hurtful to me.
B. I can not just cheer up or snap out of it. I can take my medications and follow my Dr’s orders.
C. Once my illness is under control, it may be helpful to remind me if I seem a little more irritable or anxious, but right now that is expected with a mood disorder while they try to find the right medications and they take effect.

III. Realistic Expectations
A. I don’t know what are realistic expectations for me yet. My Drs seem to feel I will be able to return to working, driving and taking care of my daughter and son.
B. Please don’t compare me to others. There are some things that are too stressful for me.
C. I have high standards for myself, and I like my life the way it is, when Ii’m healthy

IV. The psychotic episode was a traumatic experience for me
A. I don’t want to discuss the thoughts, because I am afraid it may trigger another episode
B. That was the scariest experience i’ve ever had
C. I will work through the anxiety and paranoia with my therapist, but I do still have to recover from being psychotic and hospitalized.

V. I hope we can all learn something from this experience
A. I think there is a less traumatic way to get help. Many people wouldn’t willingly go to a locked psychiatric facility, but they would go to the Behavioral Health Unit of a hospital
B. I do worry about our family members on SSRI drugs without mood stabilizers, zoloft triggered mania in me.
C. The difference between an obsession and a passion is if it is interfering with the rest of your life. I am trying to use this time to remember what is really important.

Conclusion:
I will treat everyone as respectfully as my illness will allow, and I expect to be treated with respect in return. I understand that you may be afraid, I am too, but my therapist thinks there is a good chance  never have another psychotic episode.

HOW I WOULD COMMUNICATE WITH A PSYCHOTIC/ PARANOID PERSON
Introduction:
I. When I was in this state I regressed to a child-like state
A. Explain any changes clearly and in advance
B. Emphasize any key words and make sure the person is listening
C. If you think they are hearing voices, written communication is probably better than verbal. I tune-out some things but I pay attention if key words are emphasized either by talking louder or writing and circling key words
.
II. Include the person in any plans
A. People with schizoaffective disorder are resistant to change
B. Plans made without their input may increase paranoia
C. Offer to go to psychiatrist appointment with them, if they seem to tune out sometimes, and discuss having them sign release of medical information.

IDENTITY VS ILLNESS

Introduction: It can be difficult to distinguish between the individual’s true identity and those behaviors that are due to the illness

I. I have some traits that I consider part of my identity that are not highly valued in our society. I want to treat my illness but not give up who I am. Some of these traits for me are:
A. passive
B. stronger written than verbal communication skills
C. sensitive

II. There are traits of the illness that seriously impair my life and I need medication, coping skills, and support to deal with these. Some of these are:
A. Paranoia/Anxiety
B. Impulsiveness
C. Irrational Thinking
D. Isolating

III. There are some things I may enjoy that others may not understand, but it IS normal behavior
A. long baths
B. Solitary walks
C. Reading
D. Computer Interaction

Some things I wouldn’t want to hear
A.i want the old you back. I am still here, hiding behind this illness
B. You need to do this I don’t take orders and I prefer to take advice from professionals (others may vary on who they trust)
C. You are being too emotional. i do understand the sentiment, but I can’tc ontrol how I feel

“It gets better”

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*Trigger Warning- Suicide* The realization I describe in this post made me feel very suicidal when I had it several months ago (I am fine now), read at your own risk, and please be safe.

“It gets better.”

The most depressing realization I ever had about being bipolar was when I read a 17 year old girl’s account about her bipolar. She says she sat on the edge of her bed with pills in hand, ready to swallow them all. But instead of taking her life, she went to her mother’s room and sought comfort.

She ended it by saying, “It gets better.”

(I wasn’t very inspired.)

We’ve heard that a million times- “It gets better.”

And it does get better.

Before I read her post, I would say that too, “It gets better.”

But dear sweet little 17 year old girl, if the doctors say you’re bipolar. Then you’re sick for the rest of your life.

I was your age when I found myself holding a noose, what stopped me was that I couldn’t find a place to tie it up at. A month later, I was put on medication, and for what seemed like the first time in my life- I was happy. I was just like you, trying to tell everyone how things “can get better.”

And then two years later at the beginning of winter, I slit my wrist open and the consequences led to a hospitalization which led to me getting suspended and much more. Suddenly I realized how deep I’d fallen again. And then about a year later, I had a job and I was doing well in college and I was so very successful. And I was saying, “Things do get better.”

And then another year passed and I fell and broke my wrist. And with my wrist, my mind followed suit and I found myself more manic than I ever knew I could be. I made many plans to vandalize, let a man film me doing a sexual act, popped pills like candy, and more. That winter I spent my days half cracked open. Then school started again, and I was too far gone. I dropped all my classes, and took the time off to heal bone and brain.

When I broke my wrist I was told, even with the surgery, that it would “never be the same again.” But what’s scary is that that same phrase can be applied to my mental health. That manic episode changed me, I will “never be the same.” So when I read that 17 year old girl’s account of how everything gets better, I looked at my own life. At the cyclic nature of my disorder.

And I realized something terrifying.

It may get better.

But it can, and probably will, get worse again.

It’s a pattern, don’t you see?

Good to bad, bad to good, good to bad… and so on.

They say bipolar is a chronic, life-long illness.

And they say that for a reason.

-Quinn

A Fragile Mind

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I want to take Xanax the way I used to. The irresponsible and reckless way. The dangerous way. The way I don’t advise anyone to ever take it.

I want to drown out how awful I feel. I may have taken a quarter off, not to heal my broken wrist but to mend my manic mind, but I am still fragile.

I took an incomplete in a class, but I have to finish it sometime. And that deadline is right around the corner. I am not prepared and I do not have the strength to care.

Part of me is giving up, ready to fail a college course for the first time. Ready to ruin my future as a psychiatrist or psychologist. But part of me is still squirming to hold onto my dreams, to finish this class, to stay in the game.

Just listen to the online lectures, take notes, and memorize everything. Yet I can’t even tell you the names of the diseases I’ve learned, let alone their symptoms or treatments.

This should be an easy class, even an enjoyable one, but some professors know how to make even the most interesting of subjects into a nightmare.

Maybe the mania is gone, a vague memory where I was someone possessed by the need to vandalize, pop pills, and stare at Christmas lights. But I’m not stable. I’m always a little up or a little down.

I don’t think it is possible for me to be perfectly stable. It’d be like trying to balance a coin on its thin side in a windstorm.

My bipolar is and never will be the productive type. Some people go manic, and get everything done. Me? I destroy everything I can, myself included, and I want the world to see that. And the depression? It just doesn’t care enough.

I go to two types of therapy right now. One for my wrist and one for my mind. It has taken months to repair my wrist, but the evidence is visible, I’m always going forward, I’m always improving.

But the mind isn’t like a broken wrist. I’ve been going to therapy for years and yet I can go backwards. Some days I even fall and break all over again, as if I never healed to begin with.

When I was hospitalized at 19, another bipolar patient took me by the shoulders, looked at me very carefully and warned me- “You’re already so young to be in here. It’s only going to get worse. Be careful.”

And maybe you’d think he is wrong for saying it’ll only get worse. But he wasn’t. It has gotten worse, just in a different way. Yes, my youth is an advantage. Getting help early on may have saved my life more times than I know. But he was right- It’s gotten worse and I do need to be careful.

But what is being careful when it comes to your mind?

-Quinn

Some Coping Skills

Psychiatric Hospitalization- The feeling, not the story.

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I’ve only been hospitalized once, although there’s been multiple times when I needed it.

I always had a curiosity about what it’d be like in a ward.

The background story is: I had/have issues with self harm. And when it was at its worst, I cut myself deeply. Deep enough to see the tendon and to be rushed to the ER. Long story short- my parents found out and asked what they could do to help me. I told them I needed outpatient care and they said okay. I called the local psychiatric hospital and they said I could come in any time for a psych evaluation so I could start outpatient care.

I went in for my evaluation and left 5 days later.

The hospital had decided that I was too unstable/unsafe after my self harm incident, so they required me to stay. I remember sitting in the evaluation room, staring at the window. It was dark and all I could see was my reflection. I don’t know what I felt. It was a mix of wanting to cry, wanting to run out of the place, wanting to scream that they couldn’t do this to me. But mostly, I just felt defeat. Eventually a lady retrieved me, asking if I was okay. She informed me I could go back to the lobby. I ran back in there and hugged my friend, sobbing as I told him they weren’t letting me leave. I could feel everyone in the room staring at me. But at this point, I was certifiably “crazy” so who cares, right?

I won’t go into the details of my psych ward stay. Instead, I will tell how it felt for me.

At first, it was terrifying. It was nighttime when I was admitted, and I told them I wouldn’t be able to sleep since I had a nocturnal sleeping cycle to begin with. I sat, alone, in the one room where you could just hang out. I sat with a puzzle, and tiredly tried to put the pieces together. My mind felt both overwhelmed and slow. Like the puzzle, none of the pieces were coming together.

When everyone woke up for breakfast, I had to face the other patients. I had no idea what to expect of them. A million different versions of “crazy” went through my head. And yet, I didn’t expect them to be … so much like me. They seemed normal, for the most part. But what stood out was how friendly they were. I was invited to sit and share my story.

I grew comfortable in the hospital. I knew my parents must be upset, I knew that my dad was probably having anxiety over it. Anxiety that would make him angry, that would make him yell at my mother. And what about my mom? How would she feel? Scared? Or would she feel like it was completely unnecessary? Would she be mad too?

But honestly, those questions barely crossed my mind. Because I knew I was safe from them. I knew that while I was in here, they couldn’t really hurt me. My dad wouldn’t yell at me. They’d awkwardly visit at visiting hours. Just to clarify, my parents have never been physically abusive. But I do fear their tempers. Mostly, I fear the control they have over my life since they’re completely supporting me through college.

It didn’t matter though. I was hospitalized, they couldn’t do anything about that. Plus, I could control all communication with them. I felt safe. Everything was so routine, we’d wake up and take our pills. Then we’d eat breakfast and go on a smoke break and go to group therapy and then a smoke break and then group therapy and so and so forth, all day.

I was able to talk about my problems and I was able to bond with other people who were going through exactly what I was- not necessary a “mental crisis” but more like we were all stuck here, and that brought us together.

I put the pieces of that puzzle together with the help of the other patients. We’d sit and talk and figure out the puzzle together.

On maybe my 2nd or 3rd day in the ward, I was given terrible news. News too long to explain right now. But news that shook me and turned my life upside down. I felt as if the walls of safety had been broken down. All it took was two police officers and suddenly I didn’t feel so safe anymore.

You see, the world had stood still for me. During my stay, nothing could hurt me. I was impermeable. The outside world could do nothing to me. But those police officers proved me wrong. The outside world could come in, it was just me who couldn’t leave.

I stopped socializing with the other patients, I curled up in bed. Sobbing until there were no tears left. At once, I felt like the hospital was both a prison and a sanctuary. I couldn’t leave, I couldn’t take care of the responsibilities the police officers had informed me of. But still, I was safe from myself. I was safe from my family, friends, everything.

I felt the desperate need to leave, I had things to do- immediately. But I was so sick from the news that I wanted to stay. And the staff agreed- I needed to stay. My 5150, or a 72 hour forced hospitalization, was changed to a 5250, where they could keep me for longer. I stayed an additional two days.

We weren’t allowed on phones during group therapy, that was our punishment for not going. But I was given special permission to use the phone to sort out my personal life because it simply could not wait. I was given a room with a phone. And I sat down and made all these phone calls, with the occasional call to my mom or to my friends to tell them what was going on.

It was a mess. I felt very stressed out and my memory of those hours I spent on the phone are best compared to the way you feel after crying- broken, defeated, but mostly tired.

Very, very tired.

My time in the hospital was ruined by those two police officers. Had I been able to stay non-interrupted, I imagine the stay would have been rather pleasant. For the most part, I actually enjoyed my stay. My fellow patients were all friendly and their company was desirable. The food was decent enough. I got to smoke cigarettes every now and again. Group therapy was fun to me. Doing the puzzle in our spare time gave me something to obsess.

The puzzle let me forget about all my troubles. About the predicament I’d gotten myself into. I loved that puzzle.

I still remember walking out of my family therapy meeting, eyes puffy and red, sniffling from the tears. And when I arrived to my fellow patients, my support group, they handed me a puzzle piece. I looked at the puzzle and realized they’d left me the last piece. I probably cried, I don’t remember. All I knew was that these people understood me, they understood how important this puzzle was to me. And they had saved the last piece for me.

Ultimately, I loved the hospital. It was a safe place for me. Many of the patients reported they’d been transferred from other facilities, and they said those places were nightmares. I guess I was lucky.

I’ve wanted to go back. To remember the safe feeling, to know everything I needed was taken care of, and that all I needed to do was work on making myself better. But you can’t forget the locked doors. Even though I enjoyed the hospital, the patients and I would scheme on how to act to get out sooner. Once you’re in there, you want out.

On the smoking patio, there was a giant fence that had a green canvas blocking our view out. It rose far above our heads, but I would gaze through the little holes at the corners. A glimpse of the real world, I could even see plants if I looked hard enough. But I also saw another gate.

It is bittersweet. There is no good way to summarize my stay there because it was such a conflicting period. On one hand, I was safe from the world. But on the other, I wasn’t. The world was still moving even though mine had made an abrupt stop.

I needed to be in the hospital. I needed that experience- all of it. I needed the feeling of security. And then feeling that security ripped away from me. I needed to learn that I could withstand all of this.

I needed the hospital to give me a place to experience all my emotions… while keeping me safe from them.

-Quinn

If it feels good, don’t always do it

This is one that took me a looooong time to learn.  When I am symptomatic my biggest issue is usually psychosis, and sometimes it feels good.

People are following and filming me because I am special. I have secret skills. People communicate to me through code because it would be dangerous in person. Sometimes I think people are angry at me, but other times i think they like me.

For awhile after I was stable I would miss the “good” times when it felt good and I felt special. I feel like I didn’t hurt anyone but myself.

One day I absent-mindedly asked my husband what was the hardest part of our marriage. I thought he would say when the children were infants. I don’t even know where the question came from. His answer was 2003. That was the year I had my first psychotic episode.  It hadn’t really hit me until then how my being ill effects other people.

I have been good about taking my medication, but it was always for myself. I don’t want to get stuck in a bad state of mind. Now, I do my best to keep healthy for my whole family.