Hi everyone. I was going to share this in Lea's thread about suicide but thought it would be more helpful? Here, I don't know, you decide.
Wednesday February 3, I went to see my shrink who happens to run a psychiatric hospital, that is also where his office is. Needless to say he asked me how I was doing and I told him I was depressed which was probably pretty obvious anyway. He asked me if I'd been having suicidal thoughts and I admitted that I had. He ask me if I had a plan...duh! I had about half a dozen plans none of which sounded all that appealing and I didn't think I'd go through with it but I also didn't realize how bad I'd let my depression get. I'd quit taking my anti-depressants cold turkey, not one of my better ideas. He barely talked me into signing myself into the hospital. They took my phone, my purse, my shoes, I didn't even care I just wanted to sleep. I was admitted at about 10am and slept most of the day and that whole night too.
The next day I woke up and wondered why I'd volunteered for jail! The psychiatrist who ran that part of the hospital, we'll call her "Nurse Ratchet", came in my room and introduced herself and immediately started talking about meds, which was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about getting the **** out of there!! Needless to say the conversation was short. I asked her to leave. I ended up liking her and (tail between my legs) talking about and taking the meds. Heck I've only picked up one new med since I've been here and it for migraine prevention, I digress.
So long story longer, I spent a very loooooooooooooooooooooooong and boring week.......
Ok let me paint a picture for you of what the psych ward looks like, in case you haven't had this...experience yourself.
Take all color, texture, joy and reason for living and throw it out the window. Think linolium and florecent lights EVERYWHERE! Your practically begging them to shoot you up with Thorazine just to deal!
Now remove anything that you could remotely hurt yourself with like dental floss and crayons.
Speaking of remotes, we weren't allowed to have that either because, and you will never believe this but it's true, someone might try to eat the batteries. O_o
Did I mention that it was a little boring ?
I'm convinced that the whole experience is designed to get depressives like me to go, "What the **** do I have to be depressed about?!?" It's all a matter of perspective.
Anyway. Now I'm in a MUCH better place both literally and figuratively. I've moved to a 10 day inpatient environment in a really nice setting. Its been really good for me so far, I'm really working through the shame I still have around being trans and my depression is well controlled again.
There's alot more to the story but I'm tired and I think this is the relavent bit. The moral of the story is if you need help don't be afraid to ask, it's out there, you DO NOT have to suffer alone, it's not as bleak and hopeless as it seems and your worth it!