Locked Up: Day Three, Part One

Last Wednesday was the hardest day of mental illness I have ever experienced. I've felt horrible before, but I have never felt that I wouldn't even think before hurting myself. It was a very rough day, and I'll probably tell it in more than one part.

Before beginning that day, there are 2 things that happened on other days that contributed to this being really bad. The first was that I had an EKG the day before that upset me. (Or it was day 3, I really don't know). Nudity is never good with me, and of course I got a male tech. Who wasn't very sensitive. He made me lay down with my shirt up for about 5 minutes while he got organized. It would have been much appreciated if he'd let me stay covered until he was ready. The only good thing was he did let me rip the things off. I didn't give him much choice, but I did that part.) So whatever day that was my PTSD was kicked into high gear. Given the anxiety level I was at it may have been a last straw.

The 2nd thing was innocent. Apparently Dr. Brain had been on call the weekend before I came in and had told the nurse that I handled things well and would do better than I wound up doing. This would factor in later as I think there was a hesitancy to get me stronger meds fast because "I could handle things".

Anyway, Wednesday morning my first patch was finally applied. That was anti-climactic, as expected. When I saw the psychiatrist I asked to increase my dose to 400 mgs for a few days. (ha; it's been 600 mgs (highest dose) for a week and won't be coming down anytime soon).

I had a big dispute with a student art therapist. I was talking about feeling my meds were so chaotic and starting the new med was scary because it only had so many reasons it might not work, plus MAOIs are just scary. (Not helped by this being essentially a last resort med for me; all that is left is oral MAOIs.) She decided I was being negative and the med would work better if I were just positive. I kept trying to explain that this in general is a good idea, but when you've had as many reactions as I have and as many failures as I've had (45) it is best to exercise caution because getting my hopes up too high would just make it worse if I reacted. I lost, merely because I was the patient and psych patients aren't reasonable.

I then went to lunch and ate essentially nothing. If I'd known what was going to happen to my diet I'd have force-fed myself, but that joy was still to come.

As was the worst part of my week, month,and year.