|
FROM WITHIN....A Few Words from a Recent Resident Patient.
Of all that I have learned this year, patience has perhaps been the most helpful.
My first stay in a locked psychiatric ward took place during the last week of December, 1992. I was spending Christmas vacation with my family at my grandparent's house in Sarnia, Ontario, when
I was handcuffed by a police officer and driven to a local hospital and put in a solitary room, due to acute psychosis and violent outbursts ( I had put my fist through a window and broke a lamp at
my grandparents' house). I was heavily medicated and kept in the solitary room for three days, only being allowed out to use the bathroom and take a bath. They were three of the most frightening days
of my life. In my paranoia, I though that I was going to be held there forever. After three days, I spent two more days in the ward, sharing a bedroom with another patient, then I signed some papers
and released myself.
I remained in Canada for another week; my father flew in to visit me and we stayed at a motel together. Then I returned to California and after being home for two days, I attempted suicide. I
stayed in my apartment until the next day. I didn't call for help. My mother found me. I was admitted to a hospital for stitches and then spent a week in a hospital bed. Afterwards, I was admitted to
the locked ward of the same hospital and put on medication for three weeks. Upon leaving, I was given a shot that would stay in my system for two weeks and entered the program at Anne Sippi Clinic.
My mother has a conservatorship, so I really didn't have too many choices.
Those are the facts. We hear them all the time. What we don't hear when we hear the facts is all that goes on underneath them, under the surfaces of medical charts and diagnosis. And to tell the
truth, as one who has lived with psychological and emotional problems for most of his young life, I find that sometimes words don't come easily when describing my mind. I remember that as early as
age eight, I was experiencing compulsive obsessiveness, everything from washing my hands too much and playing games with the cracks in the sidewalk to having to have my room immaculately clean and
keeping my belongings in a certain order. This corresponded with my parents' divorce and my family's move to California, but as I grew older, the problems went far beyond the loss of a father
and the dramatic move to a new country.
As a teenager, I spent most of my time alone in my bedroom. At school, I kept to myself and usually only had two or three friends at a time. I had long bouts with depression and occasionally
took to drinking and/or smoking pot and taking mescaline or mushrooms. Sometimes I went to the opposite extreme and became frightened of drugs, knowing that my state of mind was already frail. As the
years progressed, I spent far too much time by myself, being far too serious about life. I maintained various spiritual beliefs, but never joined any religion and haven't to this day. I found that at
the root of my fears, I had a great longing for transcendence, to leave worldly problems behind, or if to remain on this earth than to do so in a state of pure being, empty of all desires and
unhappiness and especially of all fears.
This never happened and I'm no longer waiting for it either. After my suicide attempt, I found that these beliefs largely vanished. One of the confusions I encountered and one that put me in a
very ungrounded state for two years prior to my hospitalization, was my growing inability to discern between my waking state and my dreaming state. This may sound odd to someone who has never
experienced it, but one of the ways it occurs is when an emotionally and psychologically weak and frightened person becomes obsessed with the meanings and images of their dreams. When they have
immersed themselves deep enough in their concern with their dreams, the dreams come to take a rather large precedent over the day, over their waking self. In a manner similar to my states of
schizophrenia, reality takes on a shadowy form and objects, people and places are seen as part real and part projection from the mind.
There were many times when I fought with my fears, literally growled at them. I sometimes wandered around residential neighborhoods or the beach. Usually spent more money than I had to spend,
sold belongings when I ran too low and rarely did anything relaxing. I sometimes felt friendships slipping away and sometimes they disappeared completely, because I was too messed up to make the
effort at casual friendships. As for strong friendships, though very few, I have kept most of them throughout my life. Talking with friends has made a lot of difference.
As for my stay at the clinic, it provided what I had needed all along, a relaxation period, a time devoted to recuperating from the darkness of the past. I ate three meals a day, played sports,
swam and got a decent night's sleep nearly every night.
During therapy, my therapist and I didn't delve too far into the past or spend a whole lot of time analyzing anything. We mostly rapped about whatever came up, sometimes very simple subjects. I
was given plenty of space and was allowed to walk to the store by myself and go on walks throughout town with my roommate, a young man my age.
Truthfully, I didn't completely appreciate the time spent at the clinic until I left. After three months of residence, I moved back in with my mother, so I could start working again and save up
enough money to live on my own. I ended up leaving California for two months to work with my father in Alberta and it was there that I began to look back over my life and see how far I had really
come.
Most of my fears were completely gone. Those that lingered, I had learned how to live with. However, there is one thing I have had to face, the fact that some of my fears and sorrows are
inherent in the very act of living. They don't all go away quickly and some may never leave. I have found that patience alleviates much of my pain and desperation. Knowing when to work hard, when to
persist at something and when to take time out to relax, to read, or see a movie. Knowing when to spend time with friends and when to be alone. Knowing when to have a drink and when to be sober.
There are no rules and sometimes I make decisions which lead me into a state of fear or sadness, but as I say, it comes with the territory.
|
