“Some long for longevity
Before fading to dust
Some long for eternal sleep
And eulogy chanted by stars

Into that serenity
Their lost time forever buried
She rambled a thousand times
And million miles
Searching for her light”

Sarah Brightman, “Love And Deepspace”

I feel absolutely abysmal here in hospital. The nurses are waking me up at 10am, which I know is late for most people, but for me, it is the middle of the night. I have a reverse sleep pattern, also called Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, and usually sleep into the afternoon. It helps me to get through the day. There is nothing I want to be up for, I just feel depressed all day and I don’t want to be part of the world. They are taking away my coping mechanism, and I don’t have much to replace it with. Most of the groups here are shit and I am too depressed, exhausted and unwell to attend them. I also cannot read or clean up my bedroom. Today it took me over an hour to get out of bed when the nurse woke me. I don’t know how to explain to people that I literally cannot get up, even if I wanted to. I wanted to get up and see what they had for morning tea but couldn’t move. The nurse insisted that I have a shower and wash my hair. I finally managed to get out of bed around midday and not only showered, but brushed my teeth as well. My hair is long so it is a big effort to brush it and get the tangles out. I did extremely well, but boy was I buggered after all this. It felt like running a marathon. I sat on the floor of the bathroom wrapped in a towel. The nurse knocked on the door to check on me.

“I want to die”, I told her.

She came in and asked me what was going on.

“I’m never going to get better,” I told her.

“Yes you will,” she assured me.

The day just got progressively worse. At lunchtime I got some of the oily food on my good pants. This may seem like a little thing, but I was devastated. I tried scrubbing it off with a wet face cloth and soap, but I think I removed some of the terracotta dye, and now it looks washed out. I couldn’t let it go. I was so distressed the nurse gave me some diazepam. I then went back to bed and fell asleep briefly before she came in and asked what I had eaten. I then pushed myself to go to the 3pm group about stress, as we are meant to be going to groups each day here.

“You’re very late,” the therapist said.

“Sorry, I wasn’t feeling well.” I told her. That was an understatement. If only she knew how hard it was for me to come to group at all.

The therapist talked a lot about sleep, and people who sleep during the day. She said we should go for a walk before 10am because the sunlight releases serotonin in us. If we sleep all day we become depressed, our hormones are all out of whack, and we get a whole host of problems. She also said we get our best sleep before midnight. It still wasn’t enough to get me to change, though.

I went back to my room, still fussing over my pants. I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to kill myself so bad and scream. I wanted this all to end. If I were at home I probably would have starting drinking and taking a whole lot of pills. I played “Love And Deepspace” by Sarah Brightman, and “Where You Belong” by the Ambiance, both incredibly melancholic songs which didn’t exactly help my mental state. Then I went out to the nurses’s station.

The nurse opened the sliding glass door.

“I want to die,” I told the nurse.

She told me to go back to my room and my nurse would speak with me in private. Soon my nurse came in. She told me that she thinks I need to be on an antidepressant, and that my stay here will be long. It was the total opposite to the public hospitals who just wanted me out. It was nice that they actually gave a shit about me, but I don’t agree with the ways they’re trying to help me (getting me up in the morning and giving me more antidepressants). I have been feeling lately that this place can’t help me either and have been wanting to go home. I just feel so fucking hopeless. Unfortunately I couldn’t have any more diazepam as it hadn’t been 6 hours since I had the last dose. The nurse got a telephone order for 5mg of Olanzapine (orally disintegrating tablet), but it really wasn’t enough. These meds were barely scratching the surface.

I don’t know what happened after that. I thought I was just laying low in my bedroom. I opened up my laptop and started blogging. Then my nurse came to my door all flustered.

“There you are!” she said.

I didn’t know what she was on about.

Then a second nurse came to the door. She told me they had been looking everywhere for me. They had been checking my room and my bathroom. They’d asked the chef if I had come for my dinner yet (but I hadn’t). They were freaking out, and I had no idea why because as far as I knew I had been in my room the whole time. I thought of my friend who dissociates and goes missing. He calls it a “black out”. No one has any idea where he’s been. He then “wakes up” but has no memory of where he had been. I wondered if something like that just happened to me. I’ve also been wondering if it’s possible to levitate under extreme stress. It is a bizarre explanation, I know, but I don’t know why the nurses couldn’t find me as I swear I was in my room the entire time. However if I was in my room then I would have heard my phone ringing and picked it up (according to my phone log they had tried calling me at 6:29pm). I feel like Jesus and the empty tomb. I will finish this post with this strange mystery.