Saturday, October 8, 2011

South II (a review on the mental health condition in the US)

I checked into South II on Sunday October 2nd, 2011 sometime around 4pm. I had spent my night in the emergency room and much of my morning. To be put bluntly, there are some serious fucking screw ups in how mental health patients are "treated". First of all, the psychiatrist in the emergency room asked me a total of two questions. Then he left and went to talk to my mother for twenty minutes. My trazone and hungover body could barely fathom what my mother was telling me. Involuntary commitment? a week? He lied about visiting hours and promised therapy for me (more on that later). They carted my ass upstairs, showed me around the wing and sent me off on my own, to cry in my room for hours without anyone coming to me except for OTHER PATIENTS. Granted, i was lucky. most of the patients were former junkies or alcoholics, i did not have nut jobs or schizophrenics coming in my room hasseling me. I did meet one woman who checked in on me, attempted to get me to eat and comforted me. She was a very compassionate person and will always hold a place in my heart.

On weekends, there is no group therapy. You also cant smoke around hospital now soooo...i was forced to quit,,,until i came home... You also don't see a psychiatrist. You also aren't allowed to have electronics, no gameboy, no laptop, no kindle...nothing. Your allowed books and writting materials. there is also NOTHING TO DO IN A HOSPITAL! So you take all these people with mental problems....lock them in a wing of a hospital...and give them nothing but old disney vhs tapes to watch.

When monday finally came, my talks with my psychiatrist were unsuccessful. He didn't listen to me and i saw him for a total of five minutes. I spent the entire day crying in my bed, taking my xanax every four hours. When i finally did get out of bed for a group therapy session, guess what it is? coloring. filling out stupid worksheets. There is no talking things out, nothing. And the therapist i was promised? Yeah....you don't have a therapist. The occupational therapist came in and asked me questions like where i work and shit like that and left and i never saw her again for the rest of my stay.

When i told my mother on her vist monday night she was livid. The nurse who hated me through my entire stay and was a total bitch me, like calling me "Smiley" bullshit to my mom that i need to talk to the other patients and i need to come out of my room or i won't go home and that this is short term care and that we get no therapists.

Ok....locked up, no cigarettes, just made one of the biggest mistakes of my life, need to work through this shit and i have no one to talk to except people who have their own problems? great.

So tuesday, i make the attempts and the doctor puts me on a new medication and i feel ok. I am the one who drafts up my recovery plan. I am the one who writes down how i'm feeling and is trying to evaluate everything in my life and what i need to fix, while these people....aren't helping me. I am the one making myself happy. I am only taking the xanax when i have to see the doctor because this is the person that decides when i go home. I bring in my recovery plan, i tell him i want to restart my life and being locked up is just making me stir crazy.

....i'm released finally on thursday. I was the one to pull myself out of that bottomless pit. i was the one who decided what i was doing on the outside. i was the one talking myself through this miserable experience, no matter how hard it was. This is how we cure our mental health patients? by just locking them in a hospital, making them draw pictures of trees to evaluate their personalities and giving them no one to talk to? FUCK THAT! this makes me absolutly reassured in the fact that i am NOT going into this field and i am THRILLED i stopped going to school for it.