Okay,
trigger warning here. Sad stuff.
Life took a very definate turn for the worse.
I am finally back home after a week in hospital. First Psychiatric Emergency for a few days, then into Psych observation.
My wife and I had a nightmare time trying to navigate the mental health system in order to treat my worsening depression. After a couple of weeks, we found a social worker and she recommended the exact same process that we had tried, and when I told her I was just being passed from phone line to phone line, she said she had no idea what else I could try. The experience drove me into a deeper depression, and a day later I checked myself into hospital with suicidal ideation.
I was put into a P.E.C.C unit. There, I was subjected to psychiatrists and registrars- a new one each day, each one made me go over the same story in the same way, and it became clear that they where not comparing notes. Eventually one said he would set up the support network... and guess what? Exactly the same plan as I had been looping through before. A nurse then showed me the long term mental care unit and it was absolute bedlam, filthy conditions, really terrifying people walking around yelling. It was a human bin. I was in shock.
Back at
P.E.CC I heard a nurse talking about the exact same treatment plan and I just snapped. There was literally no way to get the help I needed. My body ached, I had not slept properly, and the kitchen kept sending omlettes and mash for every meal because I have allergies that stop me sleeping, I was starving. I was getting tremors and blurred thinking from the meds. I went into a fit and tearing a spiral binding from a notebook, made a garotte and used it to cut off my circulation around my neck. It was working nicely, but something made me snap out of it just as I was feeling faint.
After 'the incident', they moved me to not only the place that caused me to act, but into the worst part of it... psych ops. The room was filty, except for the patch on the floor the woman mopped each morning for a few seconds, the walls where covered in what looked like snot. An air conditioning vent pumped cold air into my room, the nurses kept offering me food without consulting my diet plan- stuff that would make my mouth blister and give me itchy joints... chocolate, tomato, cheese, broccoli... every bad thing at the very top of the list. The kitchen kept sending down food errors. By this stage I had had only a few meals, and most of them where weetbix and bread. I was exhausted from the shakes, my throat hurt and I was subjected to yet another new doctor and had to repeat my same story. The toilet door did not lock, so I could not shower. Men just wandered into the ladies toilet area. It was horrible. They cycled the nurses so I had to go over everything again twice a day.
Finally I got the same psiciatrist on two days running, and he shifted the plan. I was released, and have a bulk billing psych on monday in place with further sessions pencilled in.
After a nice afternoon at home, actual sleep and real food I felt a bit better, and was certainly glad I didn't kill myself. Then the following night the tremors really kicked in, and my wife rushed me to hospital emergency. I was convulsing and had heart palpatations. We thought it was a reaction to the new meds dosages. I was shaking violently. They tried to stop the tremors with a couple of injections, and when that failed to stop it, they diagnosed it as a response to high levels of stress. I was discharged again.
This morning the shakes are still there, it I must look like a parkinsons sufferer. It is very hard to hit the keys. My head keeps ticking to the side. Its really stressing me further.
I feel so utterly let down by the healthcare system.
