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HOSPITAL DIARY ENTRIES
*Names of doctors and hospitals have
been omitted
Friday 1st September 1995
The reason I haven’t written for so long is because I’ve spent the
last month in hospital , upstairs in the crazy ward. The first week
I tried to do a legger , there was only one nurse on , most of the
nurses were on their break and someone had forgotten to lock the
door to the ward. What I was wearing didn’t really look like
pyjamas, it was just a long T – shirt and a pair of leggings and
because I had been admitted on such short notice I didn’t have any
slippers so they allowed me to keep my shoes. When the nurse wasn’t
looking I grabbed my wallet and ran out of the ward. When I got
downstairs I hid in one of the toilets ( the ones nobody uses) for
ages in the hope that everyone would think I was gone and give up
looking for me. Eventually I ran and I was nearly at the door when
my doctor and 2 male nurses from the ward walked around the corner ,
they had been looking for me and obviously hadn’t given up .
I nearly died. I tried running the other way but because I was so
drugged I didn’t get very far. The 2 male nurses ran after me , got
my arms and pinned them to my back, up around my shoulder blades .
It was really sore but I did kick one of them where it hurts which
was so satisfying. I was dragged up to the maximum security part of
the locked ward kicking and screaming and then drugged even more.
They left me there for 5 days. I got 2 sessions of abreaction which
is where they put you a sort of anaesthetic thing , it’s like being
drunk and then I was asked all these questions about my past and
stuff like that. Last Monday I tried to hang myself in the shower
but I got caught so I was put into the maximum security unit again
and left there until I was discharged yesterday, I had no choice . I
had to go because my VHI has run out again because I’ve been in that
bloody place for 6 months this year. So basically I’m screwed again.
They reduced my medication when I left so now I’m on Seroxat (antidepressant), Xanax( tranquilliser), Sparine( sedative thing , I
think ) and Rohypnol (sleeping tablets) but I am still kind of like
a zombie.
Tuesday 6th February 1996
I’m back in the lunatic asylum. My life is crap
Wednesday 7th February 1996
Well naturally I’m still here in the mad house. I saw the doctor
this morning and they’re going to start me on Lithium. Great I’m a
manic-depressive, another thing to add to my list of shit .
Thursday 20th March 1996
I’m still in the mad house. I’m still getting ECT. I’ve had 6 so far
, I’m having another one tomorrow and I think it might be the last
one but I don’t believe anything doctors are saying . OK. The truth
about my first ECT. I was downstairs with the 2 other “ECT victims
“. Nearly everyone who sees you walking downstairs at 8.30 in the
morning in your pyjamas knows where you’re going. When I was in the
last time we used to see them going down and people used to slag
them and make jokes about them behind their backs. Now I am one of
them. To make things worse , when you are brought back up to the
ward afterwards , you are brought up in a wheelchair with “ECT”
painted in big black letters on the back of it. The first time I
went down I started to panic; I was so scared. I kept saying to the
nurse “ I don’t need this , I am OK, bring me back to the ward -
Please “ but she just grabbed my arm and told me to stop being
ridiculous, that ECT was the only way I’d get better and out of the
hospital. When we were waiting in the waiting room I was getting
more and more nervous and when they finally brought me into the room
where they perform the ECT, I freaked.
It was a horrible room with all this weird looking equipment. The
doctor that was there and I think it was 2 nurses, had to hold me
down ( if they needed all of them to hold me down then I can’t be as
thin and undernourished as they keep being told I am – they’re all
liars ). I kept pleading with them to stop but they wouldn’t listen
and then I felt the needle going into my arm and I knew that was the
anaesthetic. I opened my eyes as wide as I could and willed myself
to stay awake but it was no use. I felt like an animal, it was one
of the worst experiences I’ve ever been through. The next thing I
knew, I was waking up in the ‘ recovery room’ and I felt really sick
and I had a splitting headache. It’s not helping me, I don’t feel
better, I still wish I was dead. I’m just dying to get out of this
place so I can just end all this torture. 2 or 3 weeks ago I did
something really stupid, I am cringing now when I think about how
pathetic and stupid I was. One night I felt really down and
depressed so I searched through my stuff looking for something sharp so I could slit my wrists but I had nothing. I found a plastic bag
and it had a warning on it to keep it away from children to prevent
suffocation so being the stupid cow I am, I put it over my head in
the hope of suffocating myself. Off course one of the nurses caught
me and I was dragged kicking and screaming upstairs to the locked
ward for serious lunatics. I think I was there for a week but I’m
not sure and I don’t remember much of it, thankfully , because
they seriously increased my medication so I wasn’t really in the land of the
living I( I’m still not ). I don’t know whether it’s the medication
or if its because I’m crazy but most of the time I feel like I’m
just floating around the corridors, like a ghost or a spirit or
something. I don’t feel like me anymore
Wednesday 24th April 1996
2 or 3 weeks after being discharged
from the psychiatric hospital
Well what a shit week. At the moment
I’m lying in bed in hospital ( general hospital no psychiatric) but
apparently I’m going home tomorrow( well after I see my psychiatrist
who honestly doesn’t give a shit ). On Saturday I felt completely
shit and took 100 Librium with a can of Budweiser with bleach and a
bottle of ‘Stain Devil’ in it, hence my week in hospital. Dad found
me unconscious on my bed ; mum called the doctor who then called an
ambulance. When I came around they took an oxygen mask off my face
and pulled a tube out of my throat. Then I was made to drink a
bottle of charcoal which was completely disgusting. I’ve just have
spent the last hour crying my eyes out. I hate it here. At the
moment I still feel suicidal, lonely, depressed, hopeless, afraid,
guilty, lost. I feel like I’m down a black hole and there is no way
of getting out. I feel as if I’m trapped in some kind of ‘world ‘
where the only feeling is misery, there is no light, everything is
darkness, deep inside I’m falling apart. I’m trapped.
There’s no way out …..
Saturday 5th September 1998
I sort of flipped again today because of all the shit in my head. I
cut my wrist this morning. None of the nurses noticed. When I
flipped the duty doctor was called up and he wrote me up for an
extra 50mg of Melaril. I was told I was ‘disphoric’ by one of the
doctors today. Of course they wouldn’t tell what that means.
Sunday 6th September 1998
I’m pretty zonked from medication. They noticed my wrist and all the
nurses said to me was that I was being ridiculous and stupid and
then he told me to hide and go down to breakfast. Dear God sometime
maybe you will free me from this horrible, cruel world.
Friday 11th September 1998
Everything I write here will probably not make sense because I’m
drugged out of it
( due to medication, I was unable to concentrate long enough to
write a full sentence and when I could, it usually didn’t make any
sense )
Sunday 13th September 1998
I am still bombed on tablets. I’m too confused to write anymore.
Tuesday 15th September 1998
I’m zonked but I’ll try and write anyway. This morning I was lying
on my bed ….
Oh God , I’ll have to write again because I/m not able to make
sense.
LATER – This morning I was lying on my bed and mum came to visit me.
I went to sit up and talk to her but she said “ don’t get up, lie
back down and talk to me”, so I did. I was talking to her for a
little while but then I noticed that she wasn’t answering me anymore
so I sat up and she was gone. I ran down the ward looking for her
but I couldn’t find her so I asked one of the nurses where was she.
The nurse looked at me strangely and said that my mum hadn’t been in
to see me at all today and she was right because mum rang me and I
asked her had she been in and she said no. I must be going mad if
I’m seeing and talking to people who aren’t actually there. My head
is obviously screwed up completely.
Monday 21st September 1998
Oh God , they just weight me and they have decided that if I loose
anymore weight I’ll be on bed rest which means not only are you
confined to bed but you are not allowed visitors, telephone calls,
showers, and loads of other things.
Tuesday 22nd September 1998
They weight me this morning and I was up a pound but I had purposely
drank loads of water and put batteries and money and a bottle of
nail varnish in my dressing gown pockets so I’m not on bed rest,
thank God. One of the nurses was giving out to me today about my
eating and she said that the other day she was trying to wake me up
for lunch but I was too weak to get up. I don’t remember that.
Everybody is getting annoyed with me because I keep repeating myself
but its because of the medication.
Friday 25th September 1998
I’m on bloody bed rest just because I lost 3 pounds since Tuesday. I
had drunk loads of water before getting weighted but my weight was
still down. I don’t understand why they would put someone as fat as
me on bed rest. They only want me to get fatter.
Tuesday 29th September 1998
Dinner is over now but the battle has only started. One of the
nurses brought my dinner to me, threw it at me and said “ Eat that,
all of that”, Then she said it was a waist of time me being here,
because I’m on bed rest I should be eating more! I don’t think so!
She said I might as well be at home. I got weighed and I’ve lost 2
pounds since I was on bed rest. Ha ! I’m winning the battle ( just
about ).I think the nurses have given up on me and food.
Write your personal
opinion on this type of treatment and the affect it has on the human
being
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