Warded

So there have been a lack of posts here, specifically because Thursday night I attempted suicide. I spent Friday in the ER, and Saturday to Tuesday in a psychiatric hospital. Wednesday was spent at an acute partial treatment program, which I'll discuss in another post.

I've been thinking long and hard about how to describe my time in the ward, and for now I'll keep things simple--I'm posting this from my Blackberry, so a long, in-depth post isn't going to happen today. Tomorrow, maybe, or the next day. Not today.

I went to the ward willingly. I knew I needed it, and I did well there. I was incredibly unwilling to leave because of the support I got from the other patients and the fact the staff kept a safe environment in which I was able to cope with things better. The doctor, however, was terrible, disrespectful, and the type of man who I do not think has any business around people with mental health problems. I think there requires a certain level of respect and understanding a psychiatric doctor needs. By no means do I think they should treat patients with kid gloves, or coddle them, but just because I suffer from depression does not mean I am stupid, nor do I think it's appropriate for a doctor to purposely try to upset a patient, which was what this doctor was known for.

For the past month my depression has been well-recorded by various mental health professionals, who have been nothing less than respectful, taking what I safe seriously and creating a safe space to speak my mind. In this psychiatrist's office there was no "safe space", and everything I said was thrown back at me, with the intention of getting me upset--which, admittedly, worked, and when I got upset the doctor threatened to keep me there as an involuntary patient (I went in as an voluntary) and then informed me he did not think I actually had depression or suicidal thoughts, that instead I just thought this was a game. That crossed the line for me. I yelled. We fought, and I demanded to be discharged because I no longer felt like I could manage well in a place where he was a doctor. I was.

My time in the hospital was primarily a positive experience, but the doctor was the one dark spot on my stay.

Finding Winter

This isn't me missing you. This is me missing the me I used to be.

This isn't me.

- "The Seconds Before the Launch", I Wrote This For You

Hello.  My name is Winter, and I suffer from clinical depression.

I suppose I've suffered it for as long as I can remember: high school, my "gap year" before college, and now, at twenty-one, and a college drop-out.  I can tell you that a month ago I had it all: I had a boyfriend who loved me (now I have an ex-boyfriend who loves me, but is suffering from his own mental problems so severe he broke up with me because he couldn't handle the added stress of a relationship), a full ride to a decent school (I stopped showing up weeks ago, am in the process of dropping out), a good home and a bed to sleep in (complete with an alcoholic father and a mother who was never much of a mother), "fun" job/hobbies in graphic design and sewing (more on that later).  I can tell you I was not happy a month ago, have not been happy since maybe July.  I can tell you the toll it's taken on relationships: pushing my boyfriend away, hurting him and causing him enough strength he would rather cut me out of his life than have me stand beside him during his own hard time, distancing myself so far from friends I feel as though I have no one to talk to.

I have a therapist at an emergency adult intervention program, where I am enrolled for one month.  I'm in my second week in the program, and I feel a million miles away from even being "okay" much less "better".  It feel foreign and strange to smile.  It feels foreign and strange in my own body, my own mind.

I realized in my first week in my program I don't know who I am.  "Find things you like," my therapist said; "Do things that make you happy," my ex suggests.  I don't know what I like.  I know what everyone expected me to like.  I know the stereotype of the smart, over-achieving art student that I had become, and I know how unhappy that has made me.

I keep a private, written journal, which I started a week ago.  However, what I have discovered in this past week, is I am not the only person out there trying to find some peace of mind, trying to find safety in their own thoughts which have grown so dark and dangerous.  This blog is not about self-pity, it's about trying to find the light at the surface of the water, and sharing that journey with whomever may be interested.