Thursday, July 16, 2009

The myth of the big guns (Part 2)

It's kind of counter-intuitive to think of people getting sicker in a hospital. But it happens every day. People who come in for surgeries wind up with pneumonia, people who come in with pneumonia get bed sores. And, if my experience is any indication, people who come in with psychological problems just keep accumulating more psychological problems. I arrived on Krembs-3, the less acute psych unit at Binghamton General Hospital escorted by two people wearing badges that read "volunteer". Why anyone would volunteer to ride elevators with crying people at the crack of dawn was and still is beyond me. I was quite distraught, as may be imagined. On top of how I had been feeling before I came to the ER, I was feeling totally powerless and helpless in the face of my surprise admission, and my nerves were frayed from two hours of being badgered by Jen, and I hadn't slept in the past twenty-four hours. In addition, I was wondering at the back of my mind what the hell I was going to tell my professors if I was still stuck here come Monday. I was, I hope understandably, having some difficulty maintaining my composure. I wept through my tour of the unit and my intake interview with the nurse. "I don't understand." I kept saying, "I haven't seen a doctor." At last, my psychiatrist appeared on the unit. She was a tiny woman from India called Dr. Rao. The first thing she did after introducing herself was offer me drugs. No, I would not like some ativan, thank you, I would like to discuss your reasons for admitting me. Yes, I understand that I seem upset, but I am upset for a legitimate reason and that isn't what Ativan is for. No, I would not like some vistaril either. Keep in mind that when I say I was upset, it wasn't like I had thrown a chair. I wasn't even yelling. I was just crying. Crying hard and messily, no doubt, but that was the extent of my "out of control behavior". Finally I agreed to take a Benadryl simply so we could move on to other things. She gave me a physical exam which consisted of a cursory listen to my heart and lungs. I expressed concern about missing my upcoming finals. She dismissed these out of hand. If she had been listening, she might have taken into consideration that people who are in imminent danger of suicide aren't generally thinking about what's going to happen next week because they don't plan on having a next week. She might have taken this as a positive sign, and dare I say, made an assessment that required some insight on her part. Instead she gave me the patent answer that I get everytime I show reluctance to drop what I'm doing in my life and do whatever I'm told: "Your mental health comes first." She told me she would do a blood test to see what my lithium levels were like and we'd go from there. "Just a few days" she had said. "I will discharge you, maybe on Wednesday." But I still felt as though I didn't need to be there. Yes, admittedly, I had thought of suicide, I had even thought of a plan. But I hadn't done anything about it. Not even close. I hadn't gone into the station and gotten a box-cutter and stood in the bathroom, poised on the edge. Instead, I had done exactly what you are "supposed" to do. I thought, (and I still think) that showed I wanted to live. And besides, I had support outside. I had people that I could count on not to leave me alone. I said so. She said that I was clearly emotionally unstable, why, look at me, I practically couldn't speak for crying. But you can't say that you admitted me because I'm hysterical when I'm hysterical because you admitted me. Or at least, I thought you couldn't. Apparently, you can. In any case, I realized I was going to have to suck it up, and fast, if I wanted to go home. So, I went to groups, I took the meds they gave me. I requested Benadryl when I was homesick or angry at my situation because I didn't want them to have any reason to question my judgement (or to see me teary again). And I started to think, that second day there, that maybe this wasn't such a bad thing. So I hadn't really needed to be hospitalized, maybe it would do me good anyway. Maybe this was my chance to really get out the big guns and blast away those awful feelings. So, they're a little trigger happy with admissions, at least they'll pay attention. They'll make sure they get to the root of the problem. At least I'm in a situation where something will have to change. Yep. That's what I thought, all right.

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