Every so often, the night makes me a little wild. The darkness and quiet is a blank canvas my emotions paint the most wonderful yet fragile show on. Not many people see this side to me. I am locked in a psychiatric ward at the moment for what most people think is uni-polar depression. The other night I lay in the rocking chair in the sensory room, a room designed to calm people. It has a wicked “bubble lamp”, a tube which is almost as tall as the room which generates bubbles and changes colour. I couldn’t resist transforming the space into my own ecstatic dance party. I put on some Deep Forest and uplifting psytrance music, and suddenly I was transported into a whole new world. It didn’t feel like a psychiatric ward at all. It was 2am. I danced until my calves ached. I danced until I was ready to sleep, but still I kept cranking up the music. I created my own ayahuasca ceremony, and I didn’t even need the drugs. The music was my drug. The lights were my drug. I knew there would be consequences for this, but it didn’t stop me.

I went back to my room, stood on my bed, and the room began to spin. At around 5am, just as more people started getting up, I experienced what I call “manic panic”. The high morphed into something not so nice. I felt like I was on drugs. I felt out of it, like nothing was real. I felt like I was going to pass out, die even. I hovered around the nurses’ station looking for a nurse but no one came out to see me. Other patients were asking for coins for vending machines or massage chairs, laundry, things that could have waited while meanwhile I was having a panic attack. I was just about to lose it, start screaming, when finally a nurse approached me. She had no warmth to her but she gave me some valium and put me to bed.

I have caught up on my sleep. Today I slept until 2pm. I like how the nurses let me sleep here. In many ways I prefer the public hospitals to the private. I have crashed into severe depression though. Yesterday my mum took me back to her house for Christmas but all I could think about was suicide. I couldn’t stand being around my mum. I went for a lone walk in the forest, which was wet as it has been raining. I imagined what I would write in my suicide notes to my parents. I just don’t belong in this world, never have. I probably shouldn’t be let out of hospital as I am not ok, but unfortunately public hospitals are only really interested in keeping people who are manic and psychotic, not people who are quietly suffering inside.

I keep to myself here most of the time, but got talking with a young girl (lets call her Kelly) the other day. She has been in hospital for months from a drug-induced psychosis. I felt for her as I have had a drug-induced psychosis as well. It was one of the scariest things I’ve been through. I think she’s lucky to have been able to access a hospital, as I was on a farm in the middle of no where when it happened and the people I was staying with didn’t know what to do. She is getting better. I am very socially awkward around her. I feel a great deal of anxiety around girls, probably because I’ve been bullied by girls throughout school. I still feel like I’m at school, and I still feel that debilitating social anxiety I had back then. Sometimes my mind doesn’t realise that fifteen years have passed. I feel annoying, like they don’t want me around. I want to take care of Kelly, probably because when I was younger I wished I had someone who looked after me (and I still do). I need to be careful that I don’t form attachments here, as I will be discharged soon. Hospitals don’t like giving me long admissions, thinking I will become dependent on them. And I worry they might be correct. I hate my home life and can’t function outside of hospital.

There is one woman here who is completely ruining my stay. She is loud, aggressive and volatile. She never shuts up. Unfortunately her room is just along from mine. She called poor Kelly a slut for speaking with one of the male patients, and screamed at her to leave her alone as she already has a daughter and pony to look after. I don’t know why Kelly hangs around her.

Time and time again I wish there was a ward for autistic people. Hospitals are sensory nightmares for autistic people. Maybe one day someone will create a ward just for autistic people, but I’m not sure it will happen in my lifetime.