This is a poetry/journal book about my experience in the Psych Ward.
It's all true accounts with names changed for privacy. I wrote this while in the ward, except for the last day.
Please take care in reading. If topics of suicide, depression, rap...
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This picture is the very first picture I colored on Day One in the Psych Ward. I felt like a kindergarten child coloring it, but besides this I found something more soothing than anything to calm my spirits. But let's rewind...
I was going to kill myself. I was depressed; more depressed than I'd been in over a decade. I hadn't showered in a month. Dirt caked my skin. My bedroom was disgusting. My pets cage and litter box were neglected; I could only remember to feed and water them.
I wrote a note. It was only one small paragraph, leaving instructions as to where the information I wrote out was. I had three pages of passwords, bank account information, how to get on my electronics, where to send my pets if they couldn't be kept, and etc.
I had a pile of stuff next to my bed. An outfit selected to be worn on my last day. A container filled with a cocktail of pills and next to this, razor blades. I was ready.
And in a moment of sanity, I was scared. What was I doing? Why? I spoke to my therapist and told him everything and at the end of the call, I had two options: Go to the hospital willingly or go to the hospital by force of cops. My world came crashing down around me and for a moment I thought... I'll just finish, then. But my therapist would probably call the cops and I knew it wouldn't succeed. And so, I went to the hospital.
In the ER, I felt stupid. I kept saying it over and over. I'm so stupid. Why am I here? There are people who are actually sick and I'm here wasting space... I should just leave.
I didn't realize that leaving was no longer an option. The minute I walked in and said I was suicidal, I was on lockdown. I got pulled into the mental crisis section of the ER. They began to ask me the same questions over and over. I had to say repeatedly that I wanted to die, tears be damned.
Then they began to strip me. I couldn't be in a bathroom by myself. I was made to wear nothing but their gown and socks; even my hair band was removed. My phone was taken and I wouldn't be allowed to read messages on it again for the next 12 days. I was told I couldn't have any clothes with strings, hoods, or wire in bras which was pretty much my full attire.
I was pulled into another part of the ER; a quieter area with rooms for monitoring patients. I was placed in a prison cell, or so that's how I described it, with just a bed and a camera in it. And with nothing to do, I slept. I slept until I was awakened and taken to the Psych Ward, where I was orientated, disorientated, and given something to color to pass time in the night.
The staff was all so very kind to me. It sounds scarier than it was. Mostly, it was just confusing and I was vulnerable. Everything they did was to help me and I came to understand this in the end. And so this was Day One.
