This is a poetry/journal book about my experience in the Psych Ward.
It's all true accounts with names changed for privacy. I wrote this while in the ward, except for the last day.
Please take care in reading. If topics of suicide, depression, rap...
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I woke up, took my medications, and then immediately got sick. So I just knew this day was not going to be as good as yesterday. Even though I'd only swallowed my meds five minutes before getting sick, meaning I basically didn't digest any medicine, I wasn't allowed to be given anymore. This wasn't an issue at first, but after a few hours (let's say six because everything takes six hours, right?) I began to feel those anxious emotions of rage and depression again.
I was honest with my Psychos and told them what was going on, so the plan was for me to stay with them all day to keep me from having another fit like Day Five. They were so kind to me, honestly. Brianna could make time pass so quickly with her stories, so all day I just spent coloring, talking to Brianna and the Psychos, and attending groups.
Brianna was like me in that she was Bipolar with chronic depression. I suppose this could be why she liked me so much. She was way more extroverted than me though. Also, like me, she had been molested as a child. But her life sounded like it went much darker than mine. Brianna spoke of being gang raped as a child. She was date raped as an adult, forced into abortions, once homeless, addicted to opoids in the past, and a wealth of other traumatic experiences. She used to be a stripper and then a server, but now was jobless due to covid19.
The reason why Brianna was in the Psych Ward now was because she'd gone into a manic state and was having physical fights with her mother. A neighbor called the police. Brianna grabbed a pill bottle, which only had two pills of Tylenol in it, and swallowed the whole thing. Her mother mistook what happened and thought she'd tried to kill herself. Brianna was forced into an ambulance and sent to the hospital where she was involuntarily placed in the Psych Ward.
I felt an immediate bond with Brianna and so I was glad she considered me a friend.
Besides group, we also ate. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served to our bedrooms, so we had to eat in our own rooms. In fact, you're not allowed to step into anyone else's room. Annie and Brianna shared a room, so they were lucky. I had a new roommate named Marie. She was an older lady who didn't believe she was in the Psych Ward, so I just helped her remember things for the rest of our time together; like how to throw away her food and where the Sun Room was. She was nice and adorable, but quite tiresome.
The food menu was pretty much how it is if you're at a normal hospital. You just circle what you want and give it to the front desk, then they put it in the computer and the next day you get almost nothing that you asked for. Yep. Sounds right.
When 9pm came, I got to take my meds again and all the anger and anxiety faded. I made it through Day Ten with no events, thankfully.
