hsphaven

It is my last day on holiday before I have to go back to my dad’s. I feel like I’m being sent back to hell.

This place is magical when people are not here having rowdy weddings. During those times, I would hide away in my cabin producing dark art and living on the margins of society. I haven’t been able to completely get away from the world here. I have been woken by machinery and chain saws during the day which I prefer to sleep through. But I still feel blessed to be able to stay at a place like this. Last night they turned their fairy lights on for a bit even though it was just me here. I spent some time outside soaking up the atmosphere and taking photos. I would set up my camera on a tripod, skip across the lawn in my white hospital gown and quickly lie on the garden bench before the ten second timer finished. I have many more shots to add to my moody collection of hospital gown photos. I took some in the cabin, which has a single bed which looks like a hospital bed with its white sheets and pillows. I’ve even taken some of me in a lake in winter wearing the gown. Hospital has been a big part of my life the past decade, and through the photos I’ve been able to express my emptiness, loneliness and feelings of being a little child just looking for someone to take care of them. I also hope to capture how torn I am between the medical world and the natural world.

During my stay here I have also put together a new zine containing the poetry I wrote about Betty. Below is the synopsis of the zine:

“this zine is a collection of poems written between september, 2018, and january 2021. they are about a nurse who i met during my stay in a psychiatric hospital when i was 25. she gave me everything i’d ever wanted and then took it all away.”

I think I’ve been processing a lot of trauma through my art and other people’s art (last night I was browsing Indigo Daya’s Instagram). Having space to myself has cleared my head and allowed me to go into the deep stuff. Today, I woke up at 10am to the gentle patter of rain on my roof and bird songs. It was incredibly peaceful and cosy. I told my disability worker not to come at 2pm today as I wanted to sleep. I then switched my phone off again and fell back to sleep. That is when I had a dream which no words can describe. It is like trying to describe a movie to people. It often sounds so lame and hard to capture the nuances and emotion. In fact, the entire dream WAS a movie. I was watching the story of a young woman my age who formed a very complex, intense, confusing and emotionally abusive relationship with a man who was a psychiatrist. The man, who looked like Dr. Dean Archer from Chicago Med, was a bit of a shape shifter, initially presenting himself as a cop to this girl who was having a break down. She had parked her car shabbily in the car park. The doctor approaches her but instead of telling her off, he recognises that there is something wrong with her. He comments that she seems to have problems judging distance.

“I was just in a hurry and didn’t have time to straighten the car,” she tells him.

Then we see the two characters in a bakery.

“You really should hand in your driver’s licence,” the doctor/cop tells the girl. He is probably sounding like a bit of a cunt so far, but the girl feels like the doctor cares about her, has her interests at heart and can “see into her”. Driving was something that she found incredibly overwhelming. One minute no other cars are next to you and then in the blink of an eye someone is there. She can’t keep up with the quick pace and attention needed to be a good driver. She feels overwhelmed in general. Another woman is sitting in the bakery talking loudly and quickly. The protagonist finally loses her shit.

“Shut up!” she yells at this other woman.

It is this explosion that confirms to the doctor that the protagonist is mentally unstable. He wants to admit her to his hospital. The girl runs away and disappears down a street behind where I used to live. She then shows up at the hospital. She tries running again but gives up and falls to the floor before the doctor. She surrenders, admitting she needs help. The doctor puts his hand on her and gently presses so she stays put on the floor. A nurse comes by and commends the doctor for his good work the previous day but tells him that they don’t use restrains anymore in their hospital.

“I am just reassuring her,” the doctor said.

“I don’t mind him touching me,” the girl wants to tell the nurse. No body ever touched her and she feels comforted by his touch, as though someone has covered her with a weighted blanked. Finally she feels contained.

The girl receives a lot of attention and care by the doctor during her stay. She starts shopping for nice clothes to wear. She loves bright clothing with cute prints such as bears. She feels the doctor is one of the few people who truly understands her, who can see past the mask she wears to the rest of the world. There is relief in letting go of control and letting someone make decisions for her.

Then one day the doctor withdraws his care and turns painfully cold. It is like he can turn his heart on and off like a switch. He doesn’t seem to care about the girl anymore. After dissecting her mind, she is disposed of like unwanted trash.

At the end of the movie, the girl gets together with a caring guy she works with. The relationship is less intense, but probably more healthy. She is able to give and receive physical affection. She starts to find herself again. She shops for new clothes, buying a teal tshirt with yellow sunflowers which she feels is more her. But she still hasn’t quite shaken the eating disorder she is diagnosed with (orthorexia nervosa), narrowly restricting her diet and refusing to buy food at the shops which contain preservatives.

The movie finishes, and I am left speechless. I want to bawl my eyes out because it hit home so hard, but all the tears are stuck inside, drowning me from the inside out. I just go quiet. We are asked what we think of the doctor. I feel rage as hot as wildfire and tell them I could never forgive the doctor for what he did. I then start to wake up. I feel like my mind just came up with an incredible storyline for a movie and I want to bottle it all in a jar, but the dream quickly starts to fade away like sand between your fingers.

I realise now that the character in this dream was me. I was watching myself in third person. The dream was about my complex feelings around the mental health system. My longing to trust, to let go of control and feel safe at the same time. A little part of me that actually wants to be subjected to paternalism, even though other parts of me are screaming that I know better than they do. The dream reminded me of a doctor who put a compulsory hospital order on me a few years ago. I ended up fleeing the city. Forcing treatment and hospital on me was less common, though. Mostly they just wanted me gone. For me, it was far more painful to be abandoned by these people, to be seen for ten minutes and then dumped on the cold, hard floor of the waiting room suicidal and crying after asking for their help. If I had to choose between being neglected and being made to take olanzapine, I would prefer the latter. I believe the doctor who put a compulsory hospital order on me cared about me. He took more interest in me than any other psychiatrist I’d seen, reading one of the books I wrote and choosing me to do a case study on. He came to see me in the emergency department one time when my manic episode turned very scary. He said to the staff “I know Zoe very well, she is suffering from psychosis”. I don’t know if I agree with that diagnosis, but I actually really miss him. He was part of my case management service, who will not take me back, so I am no longer able to see him.

I have to pack up my belongings tonight and leave this place. It is really hard given I’ve been thrown deep into my trauma today and also because I feel more at home here than I do where I live. I want to bawl my eyes out, but I think I’ve run out of tears. I did end up seeing my disability worker today. He took me to a crystal shop and I splurged $320 on clear quartz pyramids and other crystals. Ever since that episode years ago which led the doctor to put a compulsory hospital order on me, I have had a buzzing, staticky sensation on my head. It feels like I have a bee stuck beneath the surface of my scalp. It feels like something is pulling on my hair, and sometimes it feels like something’s crawling in my hair! I believe the buzzing sensation and the whole episode was caused by some new medication I was given. My old case worker thought the buzzing might be a residual psychotic symptom, but the olanzapine, an anti-psychotic, didn’t seem to help. Maybe it is a bipolar thing, as I’ve heard of people with mania experiencing similar physical sensations, such as having a “hummingbird” in their head. But this sensation is constant. Surely I can’t be manic ALL the time? Maybe I am, who knows. Maybe I am constantly in a mixed state. I just want it to go away. I’ve seen neurologists, physiotherapists, Chinese medicine practitioners, psychiatrists, you name it, and no body has been able to help me. At first I thought I was having a kundalini awakening, or it was some kind of ascension symptom. Lately I’ve been thinking my crown chakra must have blown up. According to one source, “the crown chakra represents that part of our consciousness concerned with perceptions of unity or separation. It’s the level of the soul.” These were common themes in my episode. So that is why I bought all these crystals, to try and fix my crown chakra. I’m already starting to lose hope, though, and feel as though I may as well have washed $320 down the drain.

This evening I went out for dinner. I sat in the restaurant alone, surrounded by families. I don’t even care to be like everyone else now. I am happy being alone. When I got back I got a message on social media from a man in America who apparently has been trying to contact me. He replied to a public post I made… a song called “Alien” by Valveuni. This is what he wrote:

“Life is beautiful when you have the right family, people, and friends around you. I know you don’t know me, but I hope you are aware that every good friend you have today was once a stranger? Sometimes we meet someone new and feel like we have known them all our lives. I must admit that I love every post you have on your blog and you seem like a nice woman who would be a good friend. Can we please be friends ? I’ve tried several times to send you a request but it’s not going through so I decided to drop a comment here. Please send me a friend request let’s get to know each other”

I was touched by his message but I actually searched his message on Google and found that other people have written virtually the same message elsewhere on the internet. I find that when I am going through something really deep, I start getting messages like these. During my manic episode, I was contacted by a “witch” on Facebook who told me my ancestors had a message for me. I am inclined to trust these people, but the people around me have told me they are a scam. So I will probably be ignoring his message. I wanted to believe the message was meaningful, but I think his profile may have been hacked and is doing weird things/sending spam to random users. I don’t know. Everything is losing its magic now. I’m starting to feel that am alone, that I will suffer for eternity and life is ultimately meaningless.