#15—Psychiatric center: thrice inpatient
Creation Date: 2022/12/14
Prep talk—
My arrival for a third stay inpatient at this psychiatric hospital was under superfluous circumstances I will write about later. For now, I will just tell you I had come from a jail. You see, I was not admitted to the behavioral health unit as my family had wanted when the police arrived to haul me away. The BHU at the local generaal hospital had been shut down in recent months. There was also an even more superfluous event that had taken place about two weeks before they showed up at my home and hauled me downtown to the local police department office I will also write about later.
Intake—
I was committed to the Office of Mental Health by a local judge from the local jail. I was unsure at first where I would end up this time, but I am actually glad in a way that I would return to the psychiatric center I had rapport with.
As the circumstances were superficial-like, being back inpatient was surreal to me. My academia progress was haulted for a time, yet this time I felt more educated and aware of certain things. This was because I spent a month in a forensic psychiatric center whilst in jail because I did not allow the jail to test me for tuberculosis and I wouldn't take a mental health questionnaire to assess which jail block would be the best fit.
Yes, instead of taking me to the ER to be transported for an inpatient stay, I was in jail. At least the jail didn't force me to take "meds", but they did tell other inmates I should be. The jail also classified me as suicidal after I refused to take their mental health questionnaire upon arrival. They just assumed as much and I was isolated, put on watch by a guard. Ridiculousness if you ask me.
Something different about the intake process at the civil hospital I was finally released to from the jail, transported to and all, was that I wanted no part in it. And yet, because of the judge back home, I became the property of the Office of Mental Health. I would have to do the program all over again.
Intake involved staff being a little more confrontational this time. They were aware I came from a jail, and they acted like slavedrivers with whips. Eventually, they gave up asking me questions and called in a psychologist to scare me one last time before taking me to the unit. The psychologist said that if I didn't "cooperate" that I would be strapped to a gerny and a sedative would be administered.
Oh, I said no thank you, and followed staff to the unit.
Familiar faces—
There were still some people I had noticed from my very first stay nearly eight years ago. Still in the institution, still being forced to take pharmacology drugs, sitting in the same chairs day after day. Some let me know they had remembered me. Yay, me! I must have made a lasting impression.
As for staff, there were new faces and some still on the job after all these years. Some assured me that based on the information they had received from the jail and court that the experience must have been traumatic and that I shouldn't have had to have gone through any of that. They were also aware that the local BHU back home had been shut down. I actually didn't mind that last part, the shutdown.
They pleaded with me to cooperate with pharmacology drug use so that it wouldn't have to be like the last times, getting the exclusive mental health court involved for forced drug administration. Of course, I didn't take those side-effect ridden, drug-induced hell of a life pharmacology drugs willingly. So, they set up hearing after a few weeks, but this time I went to the court myself.
Mental health court—
What an invaluable life experience it was to get into the hearing this time. I got a feel for mental hygiene legal services who represented clients at the psychiatric hospitals, and for how psychiatric hospitals made clients out to be to the exclusive mental health court judges.
It starts off the hospital making their case for forced drug treatment. They began by bringing up the fact that I wouldn't willingly take pharmacology drugs, that I had just come from jail, some other nonsense about revolving door stuff, and that they had some choice drugs in mind. The drugs of choice were different and the same. An anti-psychotic I had not been on, in injectable solution form, and that dreaded tablet that made me hungry. Like, uncontrollably hungry. The dosages were lower this time.
I really had only one thing to say to the mental heath court judge, and that was that I wasn't willing to take pharmacology drugs but that I was willing to participate in group therapy. They wouldn't want anyone in a group therapy session if they weren't on "medications", so the judge sided with the hospital. I also wanted immediate release because of the superfluous nature of my arrival, but hey, I was a slave at that point to the Office of Mental Health, my words meant little to anyone.
When we returned, I spoke with this student psychiatrist-in-training who spoke about me at the hearing, all based on their interactions with me of course. We kind of had a laugh about it all, but I gave the m a piece of my mind before the first injection. I simply stated that as they are a student, did they not realize in that moment how easy it is for exclusive mental health courts, without a soul in the audience for that matter, to force clients to take drugs and that the judge gave the okay for any means necessary to get the drugs into the client. I only said this because this student came from Poland, a place that was divided by Germany and Russia at the start of World War II, where concentration camps were located and people were treated inhumanely, to put it lightly.
If they want to come to my country and participate in concentration camp-like forced druggings and experiments, I don't want these foreigners here, causing health problems for Americans. And that's what pharmacology drugs do. I suffer death in life everyday I have to take side-effect prone pharmacology drugs whereby I have little say in dosages or partaking in other drug consumption until the possibility of more effective pharmacology drugs work beter, with less side-effects, if I was even diagnosed properly. Like, I was diagnosed with this dis-order after a week spent with soldiers on leave at the general hospital back home. Relativity, some may think.
When it was time for the first injection, I allowed everything and I also took the tablet form of the "hunger med" from then on. Like, I wasn't going to do what I had done previously. I simoly wouldn't take the medications willingly and I want it documented everytime like that.
Groups!—
With lower dosages this time and on a different anti-psychotic, I wasn't as sleepy or as hungry this time. Dosages did change to higher dosages later after an incident with another client who trespassed into my room. Staff said I was being delusional and sided with the other client who told them they didn't go in it. I was lit. So, they upped my dosage, and I could no longer control my eating habits again. I was more tired during the day and I ended up struggling for the rest of my time in groups.
As I was under court obligations to take drugs, or have them forced into my body if ever I refused them, the psychiatrist overseeing the drugs let me know that there was nothing that they could do to lower them, that the mental health court judge was the person who was dictating all the drug dosages. The only way I could get drug dosages lowered was if I was able to return to society, get back into an outpatient program, and work with them.
All-in-all, I went through everything again, made even more connections with various groups, doing what I had done in my two years back in academia, and related different groups into bettering my mentalities when it came to new life experiences.
Disability—
So, that student psychiatrist-in-training from Poland at one point questioned me about income. It was odd, their questions about it came in the middle of a conversation. We were behind closed doors in an office, so I conversed about it. They asked me about SSI and SSDI, they were sure I was receiving those for income. I refuted their assumptions. I didn't know what those were, but I did explain that I was disabled. When they realized what I was saying, it seemed like mental health care professionals don't view mental dis-orders as disabilities, but as illnesses that can't be cured.
I attempted to give my perspective on dis-order versus illness. They did say they were an M.D. doctor, but wanted a PhD instead so they could forget about what actually happens and live off of mental health delusions. My words, not theirs.
This interaction with a psychiatrist-in-training from Poland, who did let me know they were an atheist, was extremely interesting to me. I asked about Poland and if they ever read any of Tolstoy. They said of course to the Tolstoy readings, so I rambled off what little quotes I remembered, and it seemed to bring out smiles. It was a great experience. But, their residency at the hospital came to end before I was discharged. Oddly enough, they seemed to make it a point to come and tell me, as if we had entered into a friendship of sorts after all the chats about life in Poland, mental health courts, drug administration, and where they wanted to be in ten years. Again, great stuff. And me being the one they wanted to tell personally, I was honored.
Family visits & Outings—
So, family came to visit and made sure that I knew that the jail bit was not something they wanted to happen, but again, I believe the incident two weeks before finding myself back in a psychiatric hospital had everything to do with how I was treated by the local police department.
Of course, I forgave them and we enjoyed time out together. We visited some of the same places as last time: pizza, shopping, the library.
When I was allowed the priviledge of off-grounds exploration, I worked my way up to time alloted of between four and five hours. I found a local bus stop and got a look at the routes and started planning my outings based on the bus routes. There was a route that took me to a shopping mall about thirty-five minutes out on the route. I would always return with something new. Staff let me know that I needed to stop buying things because the psychiatric center was not my home, and my catalogue of belongings was quite long towards the end of my stay. There were some clients who knew when I would be back so they kind of were waiting to see what kind of new shoes I would be wearing when I came through the door.
On supervised outings with other clients, I tried to make the list for haircuts every chance I had. I wanted to maintain a level of self-care, my appearance. Something highly recommended by staffers is good hygiene and taking care of appearances.
Sometimes outings required a lot of mental processes, like time management and psychoanalysis of situations. And as a side-effect of anti-psychotics is one that if I start psychoanalyzing for a consistent amount of time, the anti-psychotic will shut me down. I would become detached from my environment and I struggled getting back into the facility, or once back in, struggle to maintain consiousness, awareness of my surroundings. It was like death in life, death in multiplicity. But, dosages weren't allowed to be adjusted by doctors because the mental health court judge was. It was a pain.
Supportive housing needs
As much as my family back home was apologetic about the jail time, I couldn't return home. What was allowed was that I could team up with a supportive housing agency that works with mental health patients to secure housing. Who would have thought of such a service! I was flabbergasted at such a service I wanted to know why these services weren't suggested to me in previous inpatient stays there. They seemed to be treating me differently besides the court-back drug administration because of the disability status with the Social Security Administration and that staff knew I was back in college.
The agency for my need of housing was needed as a condition of discharge. My time spent with them after being accepted into their program was awesome. Really nice people that helped me find apartments. I did eventually find a place, kudos to them, and I am still where I ended up.
The services available to people with disabilities has come along way in the past ten years was what I was told. More funding for mental health clients had become available and mental health services were expanding. We all need to make sure these programs flourish, you know?
Assertive community treatment—
Another condition of discharge was again that I must complete the hospital's affiliated outpatient in-home care management program. It was more enjoyable for some reason this time around. I was able to come off of the anti-psychotic injection and on to a tablet form of it. The dosages were high and this time around, with the self-advocacy I was doing that started inpatient worked to get me participating in how much I would consume. The lower the dosage the better off I was feeling.
I was also not through with my academia run, and when I let the ACT staff know I had enrolled for a semester again, they helped me get into the outpatient that I had gone to before. The outpatient program was reluctant to allow me back in the program this time around because I would not take pharmacology drugs willingly. Eventually, they allowed me in and I was discharged from the Assertive Community Treatment program.
Back to academia!—
Settled back in my hometown once again, I allowed a year to pass in my new residence before enrolling for my first semester while on lower dosages of "the meds". In fact, I was able to come off of "the hunger med" altogether when I kept up self-advocacy on how drugs were interacting with my mind, bbody and soul. I kind of think to myself that I was being treated differently by all of the mental health professionals I was communicating with because they understood I was now classified as a disabled American. Clinics were allowing me to participate in drug choices and dosages, I had a new residency, and I was back in academia. It was all feelings of pleasentry for me.
My next blog article will be me writing about my next academia adventure. I enrolled for two semesters, and then I took another break.