Down the Rabbit Hole

I'm at the hospital. I've been here in the psych ER since last night.I slept in the back room and snored without my cpap. I'd begun to feel a need to leave my own body. I couldn't run fast enough. I began to have thoughts of harming myself so I went with a friend to the bookstore. (See previous post). When I got home, the thoughts wouldn't leave of my own bloody wrists and of jumping off the balcony at the bookstore. I started to make preparations to cut myself and to take pills. My friend told me to get two ice cubes and hold them in my hands as long as possible. This was supposed to distract me. It did but briefly. At my -also bipolar 1- friend's suggestion I finally gave up and called the psych ER.

I've been here for almost 24 hours now. I've told them my tales about the voices telling me that I'm evil and to kill things etc. They thought long and hard and they are searching for an available bed at any hospital in the area. This is usually the case: rooms fill up and you have to take the first available rather than your home hospital.

Last night, I was awoken from sleep in a backroom of the ER here- the kind with the thick, riveted double-pained windows. I was given my pills one by one in a tiny clear cup by an unknown man in scrubs. As I picked up each colorful shape, I wondered which kind it was and what it would do....Alice. Yes, Alice, will we be falling down the rabbit's hole again? Shades of the rainbow passing me by, nothing familiar yet strangely I am passive to the process. I swallow, one hue after another: Will we walk through that looking glass into de-realization, floating through what passes for life, but which is really just a simple illusion of my mind? Whichever is the case, two of those pills were double-strength Ativan. Two employees came to me this morning joking about my snoring. Funny thing is, I didn't wake myself up from it.

They feed me here but that's about it. There's a tv, but the shows leave much to be desired. Someone else has the remote. That and I just don't have the attention span for such things lately. I'm entertaining myself by writing this on my Mom's iPhone. A luxury which will go away once I'm admitted. Actually, now I'm editing on my friend's laptop. What a joy!

Since I took the pills, I feel tired, even since I woke up. The voices and thought have slowed way down. I think if I can't get my iPod to work at the new hospital, I will have to ask for pad and paper but who knows how strict they'll be. It may have to all be retrospective.

I talked with plenty of doctors and social workers. I told them my stories, everything in the last few posts here. One touched a nerve and I just kept crying and every time she asked me what was wrong I just started crying more. She did touch a nerve: I started thinking about how I was rejected for music school this past June; that it was all politics; that its one of my oldest passions. I seem to cry easily these days. I hadn't cried for months!

I'm wearing a green band on my wrist. Its electronic. It goes of if I even think about going near the exits. It's for people who are a suicide risk. I also and wearing my pajamas- have been the whole time I've been here. And the bottoms have a big hole in the rear. Oh well!

My mom stopped by today to bring me my CPAP, chargers for my ipod and phone, and a fresh set of clothes. I don't know if I'll be allowed to bring the ipod and phone with me, but I have them even so.

I would say that right now, twenty-four hours in,I feel tired and a bit anxious about how this is going to be. Its a 3- or 4-day inpatient here at the hospital. I got lucky that they found a bed for me in the same hospital as this ER. I'm happy about that. Friends tell me that I'll be much happier for it and that it won't change who I am. I worry that I won't be creative anymore or that I'll be "fixed" and that I won't have any more entries to make in my blog! In reality, my meds need fixed and this is something a doctor said to me yesterday. They just aren't working well since I went off the Saphris and there needs to be one - or maybe two- found that make me feel better. I still am having those thoughts that I was, but they are quieter than they were. Wonder what the people "upstairs" will be like. Oh gosh! I'm not good at dealing with other mentally ill people. I have enough on my plate. And I don't much like groups, but whatever. I'll live through it, I'm sure.

When I got wheeled out of the psych ER, they had forgotten to remove my electronic green band, so a voice over a speaker said, "A patient has left the area... A patient has left the area..." At least now we know what that sounds like. Nobody came running after me.