hsphaven

I don’t know if I’m getting better or worse in this hospital. My mood has picked up since my last post, which I suspect is from the dexamphetamine I’ve been taking. This drug has been a real game changer. It lifts me out of the deep dark hole I’ve been stuck in and gives me the motivation to do things. I am able to enjoy going out and doing things. I am able to sit through one and a half hours of art class as I work on my beach shack paint-by-numbers. I am able to clean my room. It takes the edge off my depression, and for once in my life I get a taste of what “normal” feels like. However, I have also had some concerning experiences while here. As I mentioned in my last post, I had a black out which lasted up to three hours if I were to guess. It is a mystery to both me and the nurses where I went. There are quite a few weird nurses here. Just before I went missing I had an odd conversation with the nurse I believe admitted me. Her whole demeanor was different. She kept telling me to tell my doctor to do something, to tell him what I want or he won’t do anything. She believed I needed to be on antidepressants. That day I was very suicidal, and I am not sure if this hospital is used to people being so unstable. They still let us keep our charger cords, which most other hospitals confiscate as they worry patients will strangle themselves with them. I am not sure if that conversation had anything to do with me going missing, but that is the last thing I remember until I reappeared in my bedroom.

The past few days the nurses have been commenting on my dress. One pervert, I mean nurse, told me she could see through my skirt. There has also been one other nurse who has been picking on what I like to wear. I put on a crop top like women wear at gyms as I was going to use the exercise bike. On my way there, however, this Scottish nurse told me to put on a top. So I went back to my room and put a top on. Then today, she told me my skirt was too short, even though I was wearing a pair of shorts underneath. I went back to my room and put on another skirt, a white tutu with a lining. Then she told me that skirt was “inappropriate” too. That was the point when I lost it, and I’m afraid I have inherited my parents’ red hot anger. I blew up like a volcano.

“You’re targeting me!” I screamed. “Look at all the others wearing short shorts here, you are picking on me!”

“I’m not talking about other patients,” was her flimsy answer.

I stormed off to my room and slammed the door shut so hard that it shook another patient walking past.

“Geez,” she said, or something along those lines. I don’t think those in private hospitals are used to seeing such intensity of emotion as you frequently get in public hospitals. I apologised to her. I regret my actions so much as, believe it or not, I actually am extremely noise sensitive. My ears haven’t been right since.

I couldn’t stand being in the ward so I charged to the other end of the hospital with a scowl on my face, slid open the glass door and entered the courtyard/garden area, a pretty area that seems very upper class. I then wandered round the corner and to my surprise I found there was a driveway designed for ambulances that led out onto the road. I walked down the driveway and then found myself outside the hospital. I had no idea it was so easy to abscond from this hospital; the door inside is always locked. I knew I wasn’t meant to be doing this but I didn’t give a fuck, I needed some space from them. So I left, and ran down a side street until I got to an oval. I ran around the oval, with frequent breaks to rest in the shade and text/call my friend, family and my psychotherapist. The sun was still scorching even though it was late afternoon. My phone didn’t have much battery left. I considered going to the shops and asking if they would kindly charge it for me as I didn’t want to go back to the hospital. In fact, I started wondering whether it really was a hospital. My whole perspective of the place darkened. I wondered if it was actually a cult of some sort disguised as a hospital. I felt targeted and harassed by them. Everything felt phony and unreal. I didn’t feel safe there at all and I was scared of the nurses. In the end I went back and sat on the grass in the garden. A lady came out of the building and told another patient sitting in the courtyard that she heard footsteps in the driveway. The patient said that I had just come up the driveway. I had been busted. Shortly an Indian nurse approached me. I admitted I had been down the driveway but refused to let on that I’d left the hospital completely. She was very pleasant though. I told her a nurse on my ward was harassing me and having a go at my clothes. She told me to continue wearing what I like.

“I am very motherly and I am worried about you,” she said. “I would be worried if you left the hospital. I think you should have some dinner.”

I finally got up, went back to my ward, plugged my phone in to charge and got my plate of dinner, even though I wasn’t hungry. Some other patients, some older women, told me they loved what I wore. It meant the world to me. I had sat next to one of these women before in the EFT tapping group, but I didn’t recognise her due to my face blindness. She had such a warm heart, asking how my day was and whether I’d like some apple juice. I sat down at her table. It was the first time I’d sat with some other patients; usually I keep to myself. I hardly ate and when we all finished I brought the rest of the food back to my room in case I got hungry later.

The nurse who told me I couldn’t wear my skirt came into my room.

“I don’t want to talk to you,” I told her.

She said she wasn’t going to argue, she was just going to write in the notes that she did her job and told me the skirt was “inappropriate” and I did not comply. I told her it wasn’t “inappropriate”, it was a hot summer’s day for fucks sake. The skirt was still longer than the skirts the tennis players are wearing.

“What does it even matter?” I asked her. “I spend most of my time in my room anyway!”

She said she wasn’t singling me out and had had this conversation with a number of other patients. Then she asked me all the standard questions about what I ate that day and whether I felt safe.

“No, I don’t feel safe with you now,” I told her.

Later, after she left, I approached the nurse station. I told her I wanted to speak to their manager.

“This place is like a fucking boarding school!” I told her.

“I ask that you do not swear at me,” she said.

“I won’t swear if you stop picking on me,” I replied.

Then she ended the conversation and went back into her glass enclosure.

This evening my doctor came to see me and we had a discussion about the skirt. He said it is see-through, and is unintentionally provocative to patients who might be in a manic or hypersexual state. He said it’s not just about them, but might leave me vulnerable too. Afterwards I took lots of photos of myself in front of the mirror…. Photos from the front, the side AND the back to see if I could see my undies through the skirt. I could not.

So that was the horrible end to my day. I was thinking of discharging myself and accusing them of all kinds of things that probably would get me locked up in a public ward with the craziest of the crazies, but I am starting to calm down. I just hope my ears recover from the mighty bang of my door slamming earlier today. Having the nurses pick on me for what I wore reminded me of my time at a strict fundamentalist, Pentecostal, homophobic, cultish college when I was fifteen. It brought back the days when we were all lined up like dolls and had the hems of our dresses measured. It reminded me of the days when I was constantly told there was something wrong with my uniform, that I needed to buy new white socks as my socks had slight ribbings in them. Teachers would wait outside the doors and even down at the local shopping centre making sure their students were wearing their precious blazers before they got on the bus. I was even told I couldn’t wear my “make poverty history” wristband as it violated their uniform policy. These were the days when I had to endure weekly “chapel”. I always tried to stand as far away from their beloved band, noise they called “music”. The room was full of crowds of people with their arms in the air. These were the days when I did not know I had autism and was interrogated and attacked by both teachers and “friends” because I didn’t want to go to school camp and parties were too loud and crowded for me. This was the year following some nasty bullying at my previous high school and my post traumatic stress and social anxiety was most severe. I frequently cried. When people laughed I assumed it was always at me. I thought everyone hated me and were plotting to get rid of me. I had meltdowns at camp where I’d scream, cry and lose awareness of my surroundings. I jumped when someone else came into the bathroom and I received no help for my mental health. I believe if I had of got help earlier I wouldn’t be in the situation I am in today.