Today I left the public psych ward I spent a bit over a week in. Most people would consider me lucky. I am now in a private hospital with my private psychiatrist who I like, but it has not been easy. I was put in a ward with a loud air vent. I ended up shoving the mattress under the table and leaning the bed base against the table to dampen down the drone, creating a kind of triangular cubby. My nurse was amused by my creativity. She told me it’s the kind of thing her cat used to like, but I had to take it down as it was considered a hazard. Thankfully I have now moved wards. I am hoping this room will be better. It has a nice garden view, and I am no longer hiding under a table.

There are things I took for granted before I ended up in the public psych ward like having easy access to a fridge (whenever you wanted something from the fridge you had to get a staff member to get it for you), being able to charge my laptop (they would not charge it so I was without my computer or internet for about four days), and being able to go to bed whenever I wanted (I went to bed early when my room mate went to bed so I didn’t wake her). I have all of these “luxuries” in the private hospital. But there are also things that I hate about this place. I can hear the lady next door talk on the phone. It pisses me off how much more social and “better” people are in the private system. I don’t feel like I belong here. When I was waiting to be admitted everyone else had a friend or a partner there supporting them. People sit around in the lounge laughing and having a great time like they are on holiday. People in public psych wards cry, scream, yell, curse, moan, can’t get up off the couch they are so depressed, and are utterly miserable. That is where I belong. In a strange way I miss that derelict place. That place with furniture that looked even worse than what you’d find in the hard rubbish. That place with holes in the walls, with spilt coffee and rubbish all over the cafeteria tables and floor, with strips of paint pealed off the walls and ants in the bedroom. That place that lacked cleaners and left you with dirty towels and no toilet paper, unlike the private system where cleaners come every day (which actually annoys me too as they wake me and leave the bathroom smelling like a swimming pool). That place that was literally a shithole, where patients left shit all over the public toilet. That place where people were either so fed up or so out of it they flushed cups down the toilet, causing the bathroom to flood. Or they’d throw their coffee all over the artwork which decorated the walls, the only nice feature there. That place where nurses would ignore a girl in distress, crying and screaming right before them, leaving it up to the other patients to do the nurses’ job and help her. “NO ONE CARES” she screamed. I knew the feeling, having been left to cry on the floor of a hospital before without anyone asking if they could help. She even claimed the nurses would laugh at her. She had a tragic history. Her parents were both drug addicts. She then became a drug addict. She got in with the wrong crowd and was kidnapped. She lived with her grandmother, who could no longer handle her so put her in the psych ward. I felt very helpless that night. I asked her if she wanted to chat but she was so distraught I don’t think she heard or even saw me. But as someone who feels all the same emotions she does but internalises them, I also found it a little cathartic having someone get them all out. I did feel like I belonged there. And, like a lotus grows in mud, I even got better there in that place that was negligent in every way except for when it came to administering medication. Then they would come right on the dot. “YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST GIVE ME A PILL AND IN HALF AN HOUR THIS IS ALL GONNA GO AWAY?!” Screamed the young ice addict. “YOU THINK THIS IS GONNA STOP ME WANTING TO KILL MYSELF?” No, she was right, healing takes so much more than meds. I think it was the friendships I made, reconnecting with the piano, having a quiet room, having a considerate room mate, being left to sleep when I needed, being away from my home stressors, and no longer feeling so alone in what I’m going through that really made the difference for me.

During my final night in the public psych ward, I had an extremely vivid dream, perhaps influenced by the song “Lothlorien” by Enya which I played to the other patients on the piano. The dream was about two sisters in the Victorian era. One, Sara, was five and the other, Serphena, was a little older. They wore white gowns and got separated while in a forest a little like Lothlorien. Sara felt abandoned by her sister. She never got over it, and would frequently run away from the rest of her family, perhaps trying to find her sister. Her sister’s disappearance had something to do with black magic. I woke up, then drifted off a bit around 7am. That is when I had another strange experience. I thought I was having a conversation with my room mate. She was criticising me, telling me that I had no life experience/skills and used her like a “pet”. It was a bizarre experience. When I “woke up” I thought I really did just have this horrible conversation with my room mate where she told me all her true, pent up feelings about me. I asked her about it, but she said I had been asleep and had been speaking in my sleep.

It’s been a crazy week. The past week I have had people tell me they hate me, I had another patient threaten to kill me, and I have been called a faggot. I don’t really care what these twits think of me, but still it doesn’t make for a nice week. Honestly this evening I’ve just wanted some booze or something, anything, that will knock me out so I will hear nothing and forget about everything.