Let's write a book- on Aspie war vets and ex-mental patients

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Woohooo! KristaMetth and Ed Almos both said they would contribute their loooooong stories about when they were institutionalized! These are going to be GOOD! Also, SKOREAPV83 PMed me his story. I'm trying to get him to write it in detail now, play by play!

[quote=SKOREAPV83]
On Wednesday, September 20, 2000, my best friend @ the time was very mad @ me. I was talking about suicide, NOT truly meaning I wanted to kill myself. On Friday, September 22, 2000, I was admitted to CARITAS Peace Center in Louisville, KY, USA. They took all my stuff and manhandled me into the seclusion room even though I was making no threats. I was put on unit restriction just for signing to a Deaf boy on the unit with me. There was only an interpreter available first shift, so he wasn't even getting his right to accessible communication. My mother didn't believe me at first that it was a psychiatric hospital, but I showed her the rules and I showed her around the next day. That Saturday, September 30, 2000, my parents pulled me out of there against medical advice. My father forcibly gained access to the things of mine that had been confiscated and we returned to his house in Cincinnati, OH, USA. My mother didn't want me in the psychiatric hospital, let alone a place where I wasn't allowed to sign. Prohibition of signing is illegal in the USA. It is a violation of my human rights. But the staff of CARITAS Peace Center sure don't give a damn! Even though my mom demands that I communicate verbally with her, she would NEVER want me in a place that "doesn't allow" signing or that violates other human rights I have.[/quote]

Edward Almos sent me this wonderfully written story, saying it was too big to fit into a post, but let's see if it fits:

In 1980 I was working for a bank in the center of Plymouth, UK. The pay
was poor but most employees ignored this because we could get cheap
loans for houses and cars which made up for the poor salary. What we
couldn't ignore though was the incredible amount of stress we were all
under and the complete a**hole that we had for a manager. When you go into
the bank to cash a check it all looks calm but what you don't realize
is that each person on a cashiers position also has another job in the
back office, and whilst they are giving you your change the work is
piling up on a desk behind.

As for the manager we had, he was a unique fellow. Let's call him
'John'. John was a tall thin man in his late fifties who had hit the top of
the career ladder and knew that he was going no further. He was a
banker of the old school, all his documents and memos were hand written in
beautiful copperplate handwriting and he always wore an immaculate three
piece suite coupled with a bowler hat when outside. Unfortunately
John's management skills were pretty close to zero and he regularly had
blazing arguments with his staff in full view of the customers. John
latched on to me early, as a young man with various social issues he knew
that I was an easy target and I quite often felt the sharp end of his
tongue.

As part of my 'career' with the bank I was expected to study for (and
pass) the banking exams. The first part of the exams were easy, in 1978
I'd finished a degree in Chemistry so the early banking stuff was a
walk in the park compared to that! Then I started part two of the courses
and they really turned up the heat, this was degree level accounting
and economics and for someone like me with only average math skills I
found it to be very hard work. On the day of the Part II exam we sat in
the hall and the lecturers told us to turn our papers over. One girl
behind me burst into tears, a guy to my left kept on swearing under his
breath, and for the first five minutes I thought I had been given the
wrong exam paper. I failed, badly, REALLY badly.

Then there was my parents. I don't care how you measure human behavior
my parents were weird. My father was a very religious man, he started
off his working career as a builder but sometime in his life he
discovered religion and like all converts he became REALLY keen. Religion
governed every aspect of his life so that meant that there was no alcohol in
the house, no swearing allowed, not a pack of cards to be seen and if
there was any nudity or swearing during a TV programme the TV would be
turned off for the rest of the evening. The end result of all this was
that I had little or no social skills training to deal with the outside
world, so long as I was either in my room keeping quiet or sat in a
corner somewhere reading a book then there wasn't a problem in their
eyes. If you want a comparison then try and see the movie 'Carrie', I don't
have telekinesis abilities but the upbringing that she received was
painfully realistic.

Girls were a problem. Lack of social skills meant that I had no luck
chatting up girls in nightclubs and after suddenly discovering that there
were girls in 1977 I had had very little luck in the romantic arena. I
therefore turned to computer dating and at first I must admit that I
had a reasonable amount of success. One or two of the relationships
lasted weeks and a couple of them lasted a month or two and in the Summer
of 1980 when I met 'Julie' (not her real name) I really thought that I
had hit the jackpot.

Julie was tall, slim, very pretty, and she was signed up to a couple of
the modelling agencies in the South of England. Apart from the
modelling work she also was a receptionist at a local squash club and she was
everything a guy could want. Friendly, talkative, good natured, and the
sort of girl who makes conversation stop and men hold in their beer
guts whenever she walks into a room. Julie however had one problem.

Julie had the mind of a sewer rat.

Imagine if you can everything that you don't like, everything that
annoys you, everything that puts you on edge. For the first few weeks
everything was rosy but in the back of her mind Julie was storing lists of
these things and slowly she began to change. She'd be late for dates (or
not turn up at all), vacations would be booked and then cancelled by
her at the last minute. She drew me in and then she lied, cheated and
used me in every way she could think of.

So, the story so far:

1) Although I don't know it (yet) I have AS. What I do know is that I
have very poor social skills, I'm no good with girls, I can't stand up
for myself in arguments and I have bouts of depression.

2) I'm under terrible stress at work, both from my manager who is a
major a**hole and from the workload.

3) I've failed my banking exams which means that I'm hundreds of pounds
out of pocket and my 'career' is in trouble.

4) My weird parents have done nothing to prepare me for life in the
real world.

5) I've a girlfriend who is trying to drive me crazy.

So I went crazy. Really crazy. Batshit lock him in a padded cell crazy.

The details here are a bit sketchy because the staff at the mental ward
worked really hard to blank out about two weeks of memories using a
combination of hypnosis and drugs. From what I remember I got on a bus
holding a large kitchen knife and muttering under my breath my little
scheme to gut Julie from top to toe. Obviously the bus driver was a little
concerned about this so he called the police on his radio and I
understand that it took six large police officers to drag me off the bus and
into the back of a police van.

I woke a few days later in a circular ward with high ceilings. There
were bars on the windows and doors and a set of leather straps held my
arms and legs quite securely to the bed. Around me were eleven other beds
but not all of them were occupied and all of the other patients seemed
to be allowed a lot more freedom than me. I knew that I had been
heavily drugged because each time I moved my head there was a buzzing
sensation and the room followed my head round in slow motion. A nurse saw
that I was awake and moving so she sat down by the side of the bed and
held my hand. She explained that I had been sectioned under the UK Mental
Health Act and that I would be here for at least the next three months
while the doctors ran lots of tests.

Five days after I woke up my parents arrived. My father, thinking that
he could order people around as usual, walked into the ward with his
back ramrod straight looking for his son. Then he saw what was involved
and within seconds his face turned ash gray. Turning to my mother he
said, "come on Lillian, we are leaving", and then he headed back out of
the door with my mother in tow like some obedient puppy. Eventually the
hospital managed to get in touch with my parents again and my father
refused to have anything to do with me or the treatment I was having. His
reply was that I was "being chastised by the Lord and my illness was
punishment for my sins". He flatly refused to sign any of the treatment
consent forms and most of them arrived back at the hospital blank apart
from one or more biblical texts written at the top of the first page.

I stayed fastened to the bed for a total of two weeks. Bathroom breaks
and food were not a problem as I was plugged into various drips and
collection bags which at least kept my body alive. This was also how they
administered the drugs and some of them were pretty powerful. Even now
I sometimes suffer from short term memory loss and I'm pretty sure that
these were the reason why this occurs. The first attempt to free me
was spectacular but short lived. On having all my straps undone I landed
a perfect right hook on the nearest orderly and then I made a break for
the open door on the other side of the ward. Seconds later another
orderly brought me down with a perfect rugby tackle and I still remember
the image of the floor tiles getting closer and closer as I fell. My
second attempt at release was somewhat more civilized and for the first
time in two weeks I was able to sit up, get up, and walk around my new
home.

The treatment at the hospital started off gently. There were
conversations with my assigned psychiatrist, Dr Bishay and there were group
therapy meetings where all the patients on the ward sat in a circle and
tried to explain what was going on in their heads. The drugs continued but
now they were in pill form and taken with breakfast and evening meal.
The food was surprisingly good although it was always eaten off paper
plates using plastic spoons. There was no chance of a plastic knife or
fork and metal utensils was unthinkable.

We had one suicide during my ninety day stay on the secure ward. By
accident or design one guy managed to break off part of his bed and expose
a sharp metal bracket beneath. Waiting until night when the lights
were dimmed he then ripped out both his wrists on the bare metal and then
calmly went back to bed and died. The first the nurses knew about it
was when they saw a pool of blood underneath the bed. The next day
workmen came in during our group therapy and ground down the metal brackets,
replacing them with plastic. We all had to say in group therapy how the
guys death had affected us and I just stood up and said I didn't give
a damn.

After three months on the secure ward my legal detention had ended. I
then had a long discussion with Dr Bishay and we agreed that I should
stay at the mental hospital for another six months but on a normal ward.
My new ward was a lot bigger with twenty beds, it was also warmer, had
prettier nurses, and there were no bars on the doors or windows. I was
also back to wearing normal clothes instead of PJ's so in theory I
could have walked out at that point and nobody would have stopped me but
this didn't happen as I wanted to be cured.

Treatment consisted of drugs twice a day, meetings twice a week on a
1-1 basis with Dr Bishay and group therapy on a daily basis. Some of the
ward residents had other stuff such as electro-convulsive therapy but
since my parents had refused to sign treatment papers they couldn't do
this in my case. As a substitute they used hypnotherapy as I had already
found this to be of use when giving up smoking the year before, I wish
I could tell you the details of this treatment but I honestly do not
remember.

Eventually after a total of six months at the hospital (three secure
and three none secure) I could feel that I was getting better. I was also
bored out of my mind as I have a reasonably intelligent head on my
shoulders and I had nothing to do. I raised this point a few times during
my meetings with Dr Bishay and I also made it known that I had some
interest in psychiatry and psychology. If nothing else I wanted to know
why I had gone crazy so that I could stop it happening again. One one
memorable day he finally gave up, looked me in the eye, and said "Ed, come
with me".

He took me through the ward and into the corridor, then up a flight of
stairs. On the floor above he walked with me into the medical library
and then after walking to the Psychology section sat me down at a desk.
"Ed", he said, "it's now just after 10am and I will return for you at
noon, please be here". I sat there for a few seconds, somewhat surprised
at the trust he had placed in me, and then promised to be good. There
were a few odd looks from the other doctors and medical students who
were there but I can only presume that they trusted Dr Bishay as much as
I did. At one point a second or third year medical student asked me if
I wanted any help but I knew my way round a library so I just sat down
and got to work.

During the last three months of my treatment at the hospital I spent
hours at that library. The pattern was always the same, Dr Bishay would
collect me from the ward at about 10am and then rescue me from my
studies at lunchtime. We would then discuss what I had been reading over
lunch in the main hospital canteen. This meant of course that I now had
real knives and forks available but I don't think he was too worried. My
studies were extensive, I did some light reading on neurology and the
structure of the brain and I also studied the types of depression and
it's causes. With some help from the other students in the library I also
read into human behavior and how it can be moulded by the society
around it.

The hospital staff were also a great help at this point. We went
outside the hospital in groups of four or five in the care of a psychiatric
social worker. Hours were spent in bars, clubs, shopping malls and all
the other places where humanity congregate just watching people and how
they behave and interact. All the time there were questions from the
social workers, "what do you think he's saying to her", "name three ways
she can show she likes him in public", "do yo think that man and woman
are friends or business partners", it went on and on. They were using
an old military technique which is still in place to train raw recruits
even now, first you break a man then you mould him into something
useful. We had already been broken in various ways and now they were putting
our minds back together.

One day Dr Bishay arranged to see Julie. I'm quite sure that he only
did this to satisfy his own curiosity, to find out why she had broken me
in this way, and the results of his meeting were most interesting. He
arranged an appointment for her to come in and see him at his offices
and she never turned up, this quite annoyed him but as I explained some
years later this was normal behavior. The next day she telephoned his
secretary and told her that she had forgotten the appointment so a second
meeting was arranged, this time he confirmed it in writing just to
make sure. Julie arrived on the day (but thirty minutes late) and sat down
in front of the good doctor. The discussion by all accounts was good
natured and friendly until he asked the most important question of all,
"why did you destroy Edward Almos"? Her answer was stunning in its
simplicity, she knew that my mind was a little bit on the fragile side so
she set out to drive me crazy because it was fun, she was bored with me
and driving me out of my mind was the source of some amusement.

In his career to this point Dr Bishay had met many people with
disturbed minds. Through his work on the secure wards he had seen psychopaths,
sociopaths, serial killers and people who would turn your blood cold.
The last line of his notes during the meeting with Julie therefore must
reveal something of her true nature, he wrote "this is the most evil
woman I have ever met".

I know what happened during the meeting between Dr Bishay and Julie
because he showed me his interview notes on my last day at the hospital.
There was a long talk between us that strayed in and out of medical
matters and we both agreed that my time to leave the hospital had come. My
treatment had not ended though, through the hospital I attended weekly
group therapy meetings run by a local priest for a further nine months,
meaning that my total treatment lasted a year and a half. My treatment
finally ended in the Spring of 1982 and I now feel a much stronger
person thanks to the good work done by the hospital.

So, thanks to:

Dr Namir Bishay
Dr Dennis Lilley
Nurse Anne Sherring
Nurse Fiona White
Father Martin Collins



Postscript
==========

I finally obtained revenge in the Summer of 1983. I found out through a
third party that Julie had quit her job, sold her car and apartment,
shipped all her worldly goods out of the country by sea and she was
about to fly out to the USA to become a nanny. After creating a fake
letterhead on a computer I faxed the US Customs and told them that a known
drug courier named XXXXX XXXXX was on the way to them and that she would
be carrying narcotics. On arrival in the USA she was detained, strip
searched, body cavity searched, held in a cell for 72 hours in case
anything had been swallowed, and then put back on the next plane to the UK.
Her passport was also marked as an undesirable alien which meant that
she could never enter the USA ever again. On arrival in the UK she had
no car, no job, nowhere to stay and just a light suitcase full of
clothes, she was effectively ruined. All of this was eventually sorted out
with the American authorities but by that time the job in the USA had
gone. Revenge, as they say, is a dish best served cold.

EDIT: Yes, it does fit!

well i could tell how i got in this family home in first day i was arived they forcet me in my room and lockked the door i tryet to get out but i coulnd do much else then shout"let me out" after about 10 mins i finally startet to calm down i goet to sit in my bed there goet a first day on second day i got a melddown and reason was simbly that i dosent wantted to be there ,they draged me in my room while i was trying to figth back, they holdet me in bed so that i couldnt move, then they gived me a tranqualizer
Then they pulled the bed linens up around me, like a human burrito, tight, and altogether, picked me up by the bed linens and carried me to the seclusion room where there was an iron bed frame with a thin mattress covered in a fresh white sheet. and then, hands all around, held face down, shoes and socks off, ankles buckled in thick leather straps. Then my arms pulled behind my back, also strapped, and a thick nylon web over my torso, buckled down.

In a way it was restained. There was absolutely no way to fight, so I didn’t bother. i was restained rest off day they released me at next morning that was my first 2 days!


my lastets restain sidsuation was like 1 month ago they just restained me in my bed and leaved me there I worked my hand out of one strapped and moved just enough to relieve the pain. It worked for a while, until one worker noticed and put my hand back through....i know..though place but only if u act treadning like

Personally, I'd rather see the royalties go to the lower functioning support networks. The most interesting part of my story is that my Mom said she and her identical twin were held captive by the Nazi's for a week, when they were toddler's in Greece. Unfortunately, the story couldn't be verified.

Did you want me to post my "story" here? Its quite long, sorry. This might get a bit distressing.


It started in 2004, with withdrawing behaviour, and problems making friends. I was sent to a
therapist for that. It didn't help, and in late 2004, I started having moderate
hallucinations. I held out until 2005, when I became very withdrawn, turned into a rather
hardcore grunger, and spent break/lunch times picking holes in my skin with my nails. I
stopped eating enough. The hallucinations became worse around December 2004. When I was in
Muscat accompanying my Dad on his business trip, I got a room to myself. I spent two hours
cowering in the corner of my room, because I was convinced that the television was trying to
kill me. I cut myself on that "holiday", and by the time that I came back to school, the
voices were so bad (and a visual hallucination had joined in; she was terrifying, and forced
me to do things I didn't want to do) that I ended up taking a sharpened bread knife and I
slashed my arm severely, but I didn't get any treatment for it. March 2005, my school nurse
sent me to A&E because I was seen crying and yelling at someone that wasn't there. I was
almost completely catatonic throughout that A&E visit. Several junior doctors interviewed me.
They tried to get me to have treatment for the old scars, but instead I ran off into the
corridor and up some stairs, trying to get away. Security found me and practically
rugby-tackled me to the ground. I was brought back into the "quiet room" and then sent (at
1am) to a paediatric ward to await treatment. The next day I was seen by two doctors, and then
I voluntarily went to an adolescent ward in a psychiatric hospital in London. I stayed there
for three weeks, and came out not too badly. The symptoms did not fully go away, but I was
generally ok. I went voluntarily in early August, but only for a panic attack, and it wasn't
very "eventful". I left three weeks later. But 30th October 2005 was the worst. I tried to
overdose, and my psychiatrist took me to hospital. I wasn't resisting, because the symptoms
were so bad that I was completely out of it. I cannot remember the details well, but I do know
that I attempted to trash the living room in a rage (initiated by the voices and the woman in
my hallucination), and was grabbed by two nurses and they tried to drag me into the "quiet
room" (a.k.a. "room where many physical restraints occur"). Obviously, I resisted, managed to
get away somehow, and almost threw a chair at a nurse in this
hallucination-fuelled-paranoid-rage. I was then seized by them again, and this time physically
dragged into the room. In that room, they pinned me face-down on top of a matress on the floor
and grabbed my arms. I kicked like hell with my legs, which they then pinned down. I resisted
for three hours, only to end up being injected with lorazepam in my back. I stayed there for
another six hours to regain proper movement in my body. Although I did try to get up not too
long after I was "calmed down", and then all said "no no no, don't do that" and pushed me back
down again. I just wanted water. I spent the night being watched by two nurses and not
sleeping at all. The next day, I had an appointment with the doctor. During that appointment,
her voice was fading away slowly, and I was distracted by the "hallucination woman" in a black
dress. The voices came back to accompany her, but this time they came back badly. They were
shouting me to strangle the doctor. I kept saying "no!", and the doctor and the two
supervising nurses were asking me what was wrong, but I didn't reply. The voices got the
better of me, and I got my hands around my neck, not wanting to do it, but being *forced* to
do it by the voices. I was restrained for six and a half hours with two injections. Then I was
sectioned (section 2), and sent to a secure ward, which was horrible. The NHS were waiting for
public funding for me to go a private hospital (which had an adolescent psychiatric secure
ward), so for two weeks I stayed in a Surrey hospital, in an *adult* secure ward. The bathroom
was almost untouchable, I was bedroom-ed next door to a suspected sex offender, and I had my
arm twisted back several times during restraints (I looked this up: it is not allowed to use
pain as a de-escalating device during restaints of under-18s). I stayed there for two weeks,
and then two weeks (to complete my section) at the private ward. The private ward was ok,
although I wasn't allowed to go outside. At all. I was recovering by then, and was sent back
to London, where I stayed as an inpatient for another month, and then outpatient for two
months. I got better, but not 100% better. Since then, I have been having almost daily
hallucinations, but most of the time, they're not too bad:
- Stroking a cat that's not there.
- Talking to someone that's not there for a few seconds.
- People calling out my name repeatedly.
Etc etc. I do get flare-ups where the voices and hallucinations get very bad, and was nearly
sectioned early last September. But most of the time, I am just the eccentric loner girl, with
hallucinations... I am currently trying to fight them without raising my medication, but it is
very, very difficult.


If anyone wants to talk about schizophrenia, then I am happy to talk.

in

Huh?

?????

BazzaMcKenzie PMed me his story:


I think I am probably a borderline aspie (is that PDD-NS?). Or is it just that at age 48 I have finally matured and don't feel so awkward and feel less aspie than when I was a teenager?

I was a Private in the Army Reserve Infantry. I always wanted to be an officer in the regular army, but was not accepted (twice). I liked being in the Army Reserve, everyone was very friendly, although I didn't make any friends that lasted outside the army environment. After a while in a rifle platoon, I was talked into transferring to the band (I played an instrument) which had very strong commeraderie, but again nothing that extended (for me) outside the Army environment.

I joined the infantry reserves on leaving school (age 17). It was something of an obsession at the time. I remember the tests (IQ, psych, medical and interview) as stressful. Everyone seemed to keep asking if I had a girlfriend and what she thought of me joining the military. If felt uncomfortable at those type of questions. It would be another 4 years before my first kiss and 7 years to my first girlfriend. I was nervous the first night at the unit, but EVERYONE in my platoon came up to me and introduced themselves and gave me a warm handshake. Afterwards I went back to the mess for a drink (which was good, at age 17 I was underage, but as a soldier in a mess I was legally served beer), it seemed the whole company likewise wanted to say hello.

This impressed me very much. I had never experienced such friendliness, EVER. It impressed on me how good it is to go up to people in any new situation and say hello and shake their hand, which I still do.

The Army was not stressful. It was lots of fun. As a "digger" ("grunt"), we paraded 1 night per week, had a bivouac 1 weekend per month, and an annual camp of 2 weeks. There didn't seem to be a lot of free time for "chit chat". There was a focus to most things, like training lectures (in doors or in the field), or else we were in small groups or when we went "tactical" on annual camp, there was lots of time alone. We never had any dormatory accommodation like you see in movies. I would have hated that.

The most stressful part of being in the army would be times (usually long trips in the back of a truck) when guys would talk about sex and girlfriends. Never having had a GF I dreaded someone asking me to talk.

In the band, we just practised, played at Army functions, and drank a lot of beer. One of my favourite gigs was playing solo at Field Force Command's formal dinners. You would be treated like an honoured guest, because the band was in high demand and these extra gigs were voluntary. On annual camp we would "do all the rides and shoots", but not have to do much other "green stuff".

I always felt like a valued member of the team.


There; now the thread is easier to find.

Ana54 asked me to post stuff I remember. I'm going to post "snippets" because memories come back to me randomly, not all at once.

I'm not writing names here. I got into trouble for that before.

This happened during my stay in S******* Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (a.k.a secure ward) in Greater London... I was severely schizophrenic and agitated at the time and had been moved from a general adolescent psych ward in London because of an assault that I made on a staff member... Had voices etc telling/forcing me to do things that I honestly to god did not want to do. I was in the kitchen, standing next to someone who was making toast, and I tried to stab a nurse with the knife that she was using. Thankfully I was "stopped" before the knife could get anywhere near her, and even if it had, its a psych ward knife, i.e. as blunt as kiddie scissors in nursery. Obviously, I was pretty scared then, and I tried to get away, but I had the alarm going off and everything, I was dragged out of the room by two nurses, and I distinctly remember yelling at them to let me go. They said they were taking me to the seclusion room, and that hit me like a bullet. I resisted and screamed at them with all my might, and I had the screaming in my head too... It was rather noisy and traumatic to say the least. I was thrown down on a matress on the floor and restrained by brute force for quite a few hours. I had my arm twisted back painfully several times, which was illegal at the time, because I was 16 (i.e. under 18 - different rights, even when on section). The only reason I stopped in the end was after being stabbed in the back with an intramuscular. If it wasn't for that, I would have probably fainted from physical overexertion. I had bruises on my arms and legs from them.

Last edited by SteelMaiden on 21 Dec 2007, 3:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have another one. I'll post it afte rI watch Oliver Twist.

Such restraints happened well into the double figures during those hellish 4 weeks (after my section ended, I was a little bit better due to a very intensive medication regime and I agreed to stay voluntarily).
Once I was restrained for 6.5 hours by brute force. The order of medication goes lorazepam pill (I refused, and its pretty hard to make someone swallow a pill when they refuse), liquid diazepam (spat it out, every little bit. Difficult when you're lying on your stomach and having your head manhandled) and then the dreaded intramuscular lorazepam of a much higher dosage than the pill. I remember them telling me that they were going to use it, and I remember actually getting free for a second before they were going to inject me with it. But I had one nurse sit on my legs with her full (heavy) body weight, another two nurses holding down my arms by my sides, a nurse trying to stop me from trying to break my nose, and one last one holding my back so that they could jab me in the back with it. Six nurses. Too many; it just made the whole situation more terrifying.
Have you ever heard of out-of-body experiences? I had a couple of those during that restraint. They were very bizarre; I could see behind myself (I was on my front, my head facing away from the door) and quite far into the corridor.
I remember about twenty minutes after the i.m. lorazepam, when I appeared to be very sedated. I was lying there, and they were cautiously letting me go. Suddenly I felt this random rush of energy and I got up to run away, but I was practically thrown on the matress again, and they didn't let me go for ages after that.

I was nursed on 2-1 (two nurses to one patient) for four weeks. Going to the loo would be door half-open and nurse standing in the doorway, not looking, but hearing.

But to be honest, I do wonder what it was like from the nurses' point of view...

well its up to someone to compile all these posts they want, and publish them in book form.

Go right ahead if you wanna do it, you dont need our help, dont excpect people to really bother to do contribute to your book directly, just nick their posts and publish them!

you'll be rich!

add in your own words aswell for narrating etc.

ha

Look, everyone. I'm not trying to throw cold water, but a war (and there is one now) is not something you write about lightly. This is one war (and I know little about it) I was in another one, and I know a lot about it, and I don't think I want to talk about some of the things that I did as a part of that war, because as a human being, I'm not very proud of them. Unlike a lot of people, I don't have nightmares about them, or PTSD, and there is some stuff that happened in the "rear areas" that is very funny, but that's not what the war was about. War kills a lot of good people. It sure killed a lot of my friends. There are kids coming back from Iraq who won't go back. The army says "oh, they're just afraid of getting killed." And then, they find that they've killed themselves. So there's something else happening.

As for mental institutions....they mostly have nothing to do with war. The only relationship some of them have to wars, is that they ruin human beings. Except in a war you're trying to kill people, and in a mental institution, you're (supposedly) trying to help them. I realize it doesn't usually work out that way, but at least you don't give the patients guns and tell them to fight it out with each other.

Anna, I really admire your wanting to do something like the original project you proposed (and you know me pretty well from pms) but I really think that it is more important (at least on wrong planet) for us to help each other with our more immediate problems. Any problems with AS that I have, I had before I went into the service. Vietnam didn't make them worse. If you want to see real problems (here and now) start doing some research on some of the boys and girls who are coming back from the Middle East with PTSD. It 's not pretty. It happened during Vietnam, but no one paid any attention to it, and its victims are now either in prison, dead, or on the street.

Does that mean you, or anyone else on WP can't do anything to help....no, if you really want to help, there are ways to help the kids coming back. But you have to get involved, and you have to overcome your own problems (not just you, anyone who wants to get involved), and you have to be willing to hear some pretty horrible stuff, and stick with total strangers who are pretty obnoxious sometimes....flashbacks are no fun....and who aren't going to learn to trust you for a long time. It just works that way. If you're dedicated, then it doesn't matter, because eventually, you break through that ice, but eventually can be a period of years.

I just think that most of us who were involved in Vietnam probably wouldn't talk about the really bad parts without self-censoring it (why upset people?), and as for people in a mental instutitution who have really gotten better, why revisit something that was totally unpleasant.

I don't know where I'm really going with this, so I'll stop.

btdt

Makes sense.