post your pscyk stories:)

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Agnix: Haldol did that to me.
Tohlagos: Thanks; I will write more. I'm so glad someone liked it!
Nairin, that's HORRIBLE. They had no right to do that; you could have taken them to court.


Let's see... more about the HCPC. They gave Benadryl to help you sleep if you asked, if you needed more food you either had to take something someone else didn't want or get the doctor to prescribe you more food... we watched CSI, The Simpsons, Family Guy, the news, and other stuff... there's more I wanted to talk about but I don't remember it right now.

I popped about 60-70 pills once during my freshman year in college and was stupid enough to leave the bottles out for my roommate to find them. I was conscious when they took me to the hospital so I checked myself in. After I had my stomach pumped I was left alone in recovery for nearly 8 hours. If I had the energy I would have grabbed a scalpel and finished the job, but I was wasted from having my insides sucked out and I honestly felt that I deserved the hell that I was in. There's nothing like being covered in your own black charcoal vomit.
I was in the psych ward for a week. It was a very interesting experience. There was a broad range of people there, from the failed suicides like me, to bulimics, to Billy, the 19 year old with the brain power of a toddler, to the girl who cried if you turned the radio to anything other than the Christian station, to the old lady who would stand in a corner giggling and farting, rather loudly might I add. I endured test after test after test. The food wasn't bad and they had a billiards table, but I checked myself out when they told me they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me and said that they couldn't keep me there against my will and went back to the college dorm. I failed the rest of my classes that semester, and didn't do any better the next. I ended up leaving college and never going back. That was 20 years ago.

Okay, I was in another psychiatric hospital, the Neuropsychiatric Center which is part of the Ben Taub hospital (in the "Crisis Stabilization Unit" on 2 North) for 5 days and Jack came to visit me there every day too. They were more laid back than the HCPC. They let us keep our toiletries even though they confiscated any medicines (security hole?). They gave us back our shoelaces when we were off precautions. Most of the food was slop, but some was really good. After dinner thye asked us one by one what percentage of our food we ate, if we used the toilet that day, if we brushed our teeth, if we showered, and if you were female, they asked you if you were on your cycle. We had group therapy every day.


One of my roommates was named Terrell (sp?) If it was spelled Terrell, I wonder if she was named after the Terrell Unit (the death row in Texas). My other roommate snored and when she exhaled she shrieked and it sounded like someone was suffocating someone else with a pillow. After about an hour of this (or did it just seem like an hour?) the staff FINALLY came in and shone a flashlight around the room, then laughed and left.


In group therapy they gave us papers with our meds and the reasons for them on them, and we had to turn over our papers and recite what meds we were on, what dosage, and why we were on it, and why we were there at the hospital. Apparently, most of them didn't know what meds they were on; they were too depressed to care; they just took whatever was handed to them and didn't ask questions. One day we had Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and it was fun, even if it was behavioral. It wasn't what I expected it to be; it was a lot more humane. We talked about feelings in it, more than in the other group therapy sessions. Everyone loved that class the one day we had it; a few of us actually thanked the therapist for it after.


When we went downstairs for an outdoor smoke break, we looked into the admitting office to see who our new fellow inmates might be, and saw a woman with a blanket over her head sitting in there, hiding from the window, squished into the wall. I said maybe she was Muslim and lost her burka. Everyone laughed so hard; I didn't know I was that funny. They laughed some more when I said that maybe some person, prejudiced after 9/11, pulled her burka off and now she's in the hospital with post traumatic stress.


Anyway, I was diagnosed with Bipolar I again, Social Anxiety Disorder and depression with psychotic features.