hsphaven

In the autistic community we congratulate people when they get their diagnosis. Autism is now seen as a neurodivergence, a difference in the way our brains work, rather than a pathology. But there are many times I wish I was not autistic. There are times when it really does feel like a curse, far from something to be celebrated. There are times when, if I could take it away, I would. It is no fun being this severely autistic in this world.

I wrote a post about my autistic meltdown and shut down when I first went into hospital. The beginning of my stay was truly hell, and the end of my stay was equally as horrific. I had settled in by this point. The nurses moved my room away from the common area and turned off the loud air vent in the new room. I finally started to get the respite I had been looking for. My doctor and I then settled on a discharge date: Sunday the 17th. I was mentally preparing myself to leave that day. I knew it was always going to be hard, as change and autism are not the best of friends. But then, on Friday, I got a nasty shock. My doctor woke me up and told me the ward was closing (due to not enough patients) and I would either have to be moved to another ward, or be discharged that day. He suggested discharging me that day as moving is unsettling and distressing for me. I would have to pack up all my stuff and move to a room which may be noisy again, all for just two more nights in the hospital. He didn’t want to see me have another melt down like the one I had when I was first admitted. He said I may then be sent to a public hospital as they wouldn’t be able to discharge me home in that state. I couldn’t think clearly as I had been woken from the middle of my sleep. I agreed to be discharged that day, and the doctors left to organise the discharge. But when I thought about it some more I felt I would like the extra day in hospital. So I approached the nurses, upset about the whole thing. Both nurses showed no empathy.

“What are you even gaining from this admission?” One nurse rudely accused me. “You just sleep all day, you don’t go to group or do any programs.”

“I get respite here,” I told her. I had been taking control of my own recovery, finding a good balance between resting in my room, exploring the area, building lego, watching cartoons and reading Enid Blyton. My enjoyment in things was coming back. There had also been moments when I was triggered (e.g. by Fet Life) and I was lucky I was in hospital where I could get the emotional support I needed. It hurt me that this nurse thought I wasn’t getting anything out of my stay. She seemed to think there was no value in just spending time away in a supportive environment, only pumping people with drugs and making people do the hospital’s stupid day programs and groups, therapies that I have already exhausted. I had actually tried going to group, but found it wasn’t what I needed. I was tired, couldn’t concentrate, and couldn’t participate. Plus the peer support worker who used to run some really enjoyable and different groups, such as one for LGBT folk and one on isolation, had sadly left. So the groups were just mediocre now.

“It hurts me that you don’t see any value in just staying in a supportive environment instead of taking pills all the time!” I told the nurse. I got no comment back.

“You just think that I’m wasting your time!”

“We don’t think that,” said the nurse.

My blood was still boiling. I went back to my room, then returned to the nurse’s station. I wasn’t going to let this nurse get away with telling me what does and doesn’t benefit me. I was quite visibly getting distressed and none of the nurses seemed to notice nor care.

“You don’t care!” I yelled at her in a childish way. I felt like the girl in the public psych ward I was in last who screamed and cried outside the nurses station that no body cared. And she was right, not one nurse approached her and asked if they could help. They sat behind their glass enclosure pretending that she didn’t exist.

I was about ready to start pacing around the ward cursing and screaming. Springing me with the surprise news of the ward’s closure was affecting me more than I showed at first with my doctor.

I told the nurses I couldn’t think clearly when my doctor first broke the news to me. I said I actually would like to stay.. So they organised for one of the doctors to come back and see me, telling him I was distressed about the decision to leave. After a lot of deliberating and even a phone call to Mum to ask for her opinion, we decided I would stay and be moved to another unit. We visited the rooms that were available to see if they were quiet enough. I returned to my room to start packing up all the stuff I had accumulated, and the doctor left.

Facing the enormous task of packing up my stuff, I felt utterly overwhelmed. I was already so exhausted from being woken early that morning and having this news sprung on me. I didn’t know if I was making the right decision. Part of my disorder is that I cannot make decisions, even the smallest of decisions. I actually have a fridge magnet saying “I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not sure”. I sat on the chair in my room staring at what felt like a tsunami ahead of me. “There is no way I can do this,” I thought. “This is all too much.” I changed my mind again and decided I’d have to just go home, this was all making me so much worse. The nurse came in and told me I needed to pack up my things and move units. She showed no concern for how utterly overwhelmed I was becoming. That is when I lost it. “NO!!!!!!!” I found myself screaming. “I’m not going!!!!!!” I must have sounded like a child throwing a tantrum.

“You’re not being fair on the other patients,” the mean nurse told me. I didn’t understand what she meant, but to be demonised and told I was deliberately being difficult while I was clearly in distress just made me even worse. She was getting impatient with me for changing my mind so often. She couldn’t see it was part of my mental illness which I was in hospital seeking help for (indecisiveness is actually listed in the DSM as part of the criteria for depression). I was screaming and lying on the floor by this point. “I’m sorry, I can’t help it!!!!!!!!!” I screamed. I truly, sincerely couldn’t.

“We have done everything to accommodate you this admission,” she told me, as though I had just been a brat the whole time I was with them. She made me feel like a burden just for having a disability. Apparently it is too much to expect your disability to be accommodated so you can access a hospital just like everyone else. I had overheard another disgruntled patient earlier who also had a disability (though a physical one). There were only a few rooms in the entire hospital which she could stay in, and they were currently all full. She was upset that she may have to go home before she was ready. I was in a similar situation. I had finally found a room I could tolerate, and was now having it taken away from me.

The nurse told me I could not stay in this room. She sternly told me my options. By this point I had had enough of this place. I felt I’d get better care outside of the hospital. “I want to go home!!!!!!” I screamed. But in the end I was sent to another ward. Some other nurses helped pack and move all my stuff while I just stood there gobsmacked by the way I had been treated. My meltdown had turned into a shutdown, and I lost the ability to talk again like when I was first admitted.

I had a headache and couldn’t do anything. I tried to think of just one small, nice thing I could do for myself. I thought I’d make a chai, but then realised I’d left my soy milk down in the old ward. So I marched down there feeling very unwelcome, grabbed the milk, and left. But the bottle was empty. I then asked the nurse if I could take leave and buy some more, but it was “hand over time” and no body was allowed leave for an hour. In the end I just took some diazepam and crawled into bed. I was fucked. I started to drift off, but then the multi-tasking woman who I now had to share a bathroom with turned on the shower and blasted a loud audio at the same time. There were other sounds that were getting to me as well. In the end I decided I just could not stay here. I saw my nurse and told her I had to leave. The doctor came back and agreed with my decision. I called my dad to come pick me up. He arrived just as I was getting my last lunch in the cafeteria. I was the only one wearing my PJs in there. This so-called hospital was like a boarding school. Patients were expected to be dressed when in the dining room. But I was so mad I didn’t give a shit, and if anyone had an issue with me I would bite their head off. I was fed up with the way this place called themselves a mental hospital but when somebody is screaming in distress they are told off or threatened to be expelled. Patients were expected to be calm and well enough to get dressed. Many patients were still well enough to socialise and have fun, sitting around in big rowdy groups laughing and playing games. I detested the other patients and avoided them throughout my entire stay. I didn’t belong here. Even my psychiatrist thought I was more like a public patient than a private one. I walked around the ward with a big scowl on my face, especially that last day. In the cafeteria I watched the cooks slap slaughtered cattle and chicken onto patients’ plates and sandwiches. It made me hate them even more. There was one patient who offered me some bacon chips back in my old ward. I told him I was vegan. “Are you one of those vegans who hate people for eating meat?” he asked. “You don’t seem like that kind of person.” But I bloody well am that “kind of person”. I do not endorse animal abuse, and don’t think any one else should either.

I ate 3 pieces of pumpkin and 2 pieces of potato, then left. I went to collect my medications, but the dead-eyed nurse wouldn’t give me back the medication I had bought and brought in from home. I wasn’t even sure she’d return my expensive vitamins. She said she had to ask someone else. Finally she agreed to give me back my medication and vitamins. I started moving my stuff down the lift to the car on wheelie carts. I cleared out everything except for a single glass bottle of lemonade I thought I’d leave on the table in defiance. I wanted to show the nurses that they can’t stop me smuggling in what I want (glass is prohibited as they worry patients will use it for self-injury). As I was packing my stuff into the car some of the other patients from my ward, including the guy who’d offered me bacon chips, said goodbye and merry Christmas. It antagonised me. There was nothing merry about this time in my life. I even found out that some of them were still allowed to stay on our old ward, just to add fuel to the fire.

You may think this is the end of my story for today, but we are only half way through. I was so wrecked from the day that all I wanted to do was crawl into a hole and disappear. I couldn’t stand sitting in a car with another person, even my dad. I snapped at him not to joke as I’m in a foul mood. Ten minutes down the road I realised the hospital hadn’t given me back my chargers (which they confiscate as they’re afraid people will strangle themselves with them). I called the ward and asked if I could come back and collect them.

“Since you’ve been discharged you’re not allowed to come back to the ward to collect them,” the anal nurse told me. “A nurse will bring them down to reception”.

I waited at reception for fifteen minutes and finally a student nurse emerged with my phone charger.

“There’s another one,” I told her.

I asked if I could just come up to the ward and help find it myself. She agreed, being a student nurse. We went up together and found it. Unfortunately though they’d lost my tooth brush charger.

I left in just as bad a way as when I was first admitted. I had done the full circle. I spent the entire trip home fuming and thinking about suicide. I had everything I needed at home to do it. I had wanted this for so long. “Would this be the day I finally do it?” I thought. I had no idea what to do or who to speak to. I had only just left hospital. I was exhausted from it all and I didn’t exactly want to go back. I ended up calling Lifeline. They answered quickly and the lady was nice enough. She challenged me to think of one nice thing I could do for myself when we hang up. All I could think of was take some medication for my headache. So I did. I went to bed and took some Panadeine Forte. But then, one tablet turned into two, which turned into three, which turned into four. I was hoping it would help me both physically and emotionally, as codeine is known to make people feel good. Then since I was on a roll I moved onto the diazepam. I popped a couple of those. Then some more. I didn’t know what had got into me. I didn’t know if I wanted to kill myself or just cease to exist for a bit. I then took a few sleeping pills, and then I started drinking pure rum. I poured the clear liquid it into a glass and drank little sips at a time as it was incredibly potent. I called Lifeline back and continued mindlessly drinking and popping more and more pills like candy. My speech got slower and slower. I kept knocking over my glass of water. The lady asked for my address and I gave it to her. Talking to her as I drank and popped pills was the last thing I can remember. I don’t know how the conversation ended. Everything ceased to exist. Then I was in hospital. I had no memory of the trip there. I had stickers all over me attached to monitors. I was wearing a blue hospital gown. The nurse came and said she wanted to do a second blood test as the first test showed I had dangerously high levels of paracetamol in my blood. I didn’t remember them even doing a blood test. They said my blood pressure was extremely low. I had a drip in my hand and they were giving me bags of fluids.

Usually nights spent in the emergency department are long and excruciating, but this night was different. I was barely conscious for most of it. The next day I woke up. I actually, for once in my life, felt well rested and good, though I was shaking. That night I experienced sweet nothingness. No dreams, no noise, no racing thoughts, nothing. It was like being dead. My mum came to see me and brought me some chai. I spoke with one of the hospital’s psych clinicians, an older bloke who I actually really liked. I don’t know whether it was because he read my notes, but he understood things about me without me even telling him. I told him about my nerve issues. He told me I am a very complex case and it is clear to him that I have trauma. He never used the BPD word, just complex trauma, which is rare for people in the medical field. I was medially cleared and left the hospital. I came home and found I was wearing some white panties, for some weird reason (I don’t know why they would have changed my undies), and had a band-aid on my finger. I didn’t really know what had been done to me while I was knocked out.

When I arrived back at Dad’s house where I live, I found my book that had been sitting beside my bed, “Jeannie’s Brave Childhood” (a memoir about DID) sitting on the table. It was wrecked. I must have tipped my glass of water on it. Dad had put tissues between the pages trying to soak up the water. He said all around my bed was wet. I later asked my dad to fill in the gaps in my memory. He said I came out of my room asking for my phone charger earlier that night. I was on the phone to a lady from Lifeline who wanted to speak to him but I didn’t want her to. Then the police arrived at the door, followed by an ambulance. I was taken out into the ambulance on a stretcher and the paramedics were shaking me trying to get me to wake up. I must have been completely intoxicated as it’s usually easy for me to wake up. I still don’t have any memory of the paramedics or the trip to hospital.

I am ok now. The day leading up to my overdose was horrific, but the overdose part was actually quite nice. It was like being able to switch off the world. I actually kind of miss it, and feel like doing it again some time, but I know I probably shouldn’t as I’m lucky I wasn’t left with permanent damage (not that I know of anyway). I got my period today; no wonder I had been feeling so awful. I have PMDD, which makes all my issues ten times worse. I am now taking it easy trying to recover from all this. I’m actually so touched by all the people who helped me that night who, unfortunately, I didn’t get to thank as I was unconscious. 

Sleeping Beauty by Victor Gabriel Gilbert