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| re: what is the problem w/ pidpunk??? | |
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pidunk 09:40 am UTC 06/02/07 |
| In reply to: | re: what is the problem w/ pidpunk??? - Venom 04:41 am UTC 06/02/07 |
> Sorry to burst your bubble, but you are just making things > worse on yourself. You've actually been in a mental > hospital before. You actually have a record. > > A record of mental hospitalization, of course I do. I have discussed the breakdown I have had, and made reference to the hospitalization, twenty years ago. On November 17, 1987 I ingested the full bottle of prescribed Dalmane, in a painful impulse during the course of the breakdown, and soon after telephoned a relative to drive me to the emergency room. At the emergency room, I was given an oral solution of water with activated charcoal and an intravenous saline solution. I was checked into that hospital's inpatient psychiatric ward as the standard protocol for such things. While there, the nature of the stay was taken over by family members who falsely described my life to doctors. Therefore, I was negligently mis-diagnosed and mis-treated during that period and the hospitalization which followed. I was released from the first hospitalization on December 9, 1987, and given treatment at that hospitals "day hospital" where they doled out the same inappropriate medication until I made a protest on January 4, 1988. At the informal verbal protest in which I refused the administration of the medication, I was summarily escorted to the inpatient ward again, which I knew would take place, and which also had an additional purpose for me in the effective avoidance of certain uncomfortable aspects of my stepfather's behavioral manifestations at that time, seeing that I could say anything and nobody would believe me because of my predicament. So, I welcomed the re-initiation of the hospitalization, for this second voluntarily period, in which I maintained the refusal of the medication. However, the hospital had a policy, as unjust as it was, that patients refusing medication were subject to holding, and no release would be effected. Due to the inability of my regular functioning, as it was that it was a very serious nervous breakdown, I was not able to state my case to anyone in an ordered and logical manner, and so I was not able to obtain willing representation, although I did try when I was manhandled by hospital staff in a violent episode initiated by them taking advantage of several factors to their advantage. I was however, by staff called "the good one" and I was given privileges such as the milk I requested before bed. But, that was precious little solace. I was denied the only medication I needed and requested: sedatives. I was denied the full sleep that other patients had while the staff made a policy of waking me an hour before the others on the floor. To say that it was an exacerbating situation, is very correct. I had to find my way through that on my own strength and resolve. I ultimately permitted them to re-administer the inappropriate medication as it was the only way I was able to see my way to a discharge. The city hospital kept me their maximum of 30 days and then transfered me directly to the state hospital. The state hospital had harsher methods than the city hospital. When I knew I was being transferred there instead of discharged, I once again refused the medication which had no particular purpose to me even in that goal. So, with the refusal of medication, the transfer was met with another kind of strange policy at the state hospital. There, in front of the ward's nurse station, they had a wood bench, where people were told to sit for the day, from the wake time of 6am until the bedtime at 6pm, with only meals and bathroom breaks permitted; no phone calls in or out, no visits from family, no talking permitted, and for those who smoked like I did, no cigarettes. For four days, while I refused the medication, they brought my meals in a styrofoam plate which I ate in front of the staff and sneaked a publication to try to read while there.....that itself was contraband but the staff chose to ignore it....and it was therapeutic for me because in the breakdown I had the inability to keep words together on the page...a manifestation of my dyslexia...and so seeing if I could keep words together and understand the articles was the only thing they allowed me to do. Around me at night were women who accosted me, and others who did things like scream, another who defacated on the floor, and in the "quiet room" down the hall someone was not being quiet. The environment was horrendous, and I again requested a sedative, which I again was refused. I was told that the medication they wanted to give me instead of that would calm me, and in a state of desperation, I permitted them to give me the medication. The next day they permitted me floor priviliges to do as I wished on the ward. They had television, pool tables, a library, and basic places where I could go and be by myself commuting with my inner remaining self. And there, it was where I chose to spend my time. I walked down the hallway singing. I sang the song by Chicago, "Color My World" and I was in good voice. I sang it, and I was thinking of Jim, and I was thinking of a piece of landscape I had occasion to pass and be shown in 1983 along the route between San Jose and Los Angeles, a beautiful lake surrounded by thick green trees and green hills. The reason why I thought of that was because everything around me was otherwise desolute and depressing and the landscape was the vision I held in my head which helped me overcome the effects of the reality I was faced with. One doctor there told me it was "an unrealistic expectation that you will return to California". But, I had to think it wasn't. The song "Color My World" was sung while thinking of Jim, whom I had spent time with in January that year, and thinking of him made me feel many things, but more than that, I felt that the lyrics were appropos to the encounter's meaning to me....as time goes by I realize all that you mean to me....but I still was without so much realization. Jim was in my mind, but I was not aware of what any future could be from that point, or how to inquire as to where. My focus during that breakdown was all family. It was a process when I was discovering that my family was not what I believed it to be, that every belief I ever held was false, and that there was little solace available. It was a painful time, when there were little comforts. The hospital chose to discharge me around the 21st of February, after the transfer there on the 9th. However at that time, I had been thinking of certain issues which frightened me and I needed time to think of them to find some understanding, so I persuaded them, via my brother's friend a State Senator, to keep me the extra week, which they did. The staff supervisor said to me at my protest, "You are sicker than we thought". Well, what was I if not sick in some way, to be in that place? I had my week, worked out my issue, and discharged on March 1, 1988. The hospital had their own "day hospital" which was a much different set up from the other, where they prescribed the medications and I was able to wean myself off of them without anyone accounting for it. I was given privileges by the staff their to check in the morning at roll call, go my way wherever I wanted to during the day, and return for afternoon roll call, and that was my day. I had through some requests a few therapy sessions, one in which I confronted a few family members as to the circumstances and found their responses. Ulimately, I set the date to leave the day hospital, which they honored, and several days later I got on the plane back to Los Angeles, to rebuild my life from whatever there was left of it. Subsequently I found private therapy which helped me to work out the issues during my adjustments of the facts I needed adjustment to, and now I am recovered. | |
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