hsphaven

Since returning to the city I have been full of rage as scorching as wildfire. I struggle to recall the past week and cannot put it into a coherent narrative, so all I’m going to do is go over some of the texts, emails and things I’ve written which I have copies of.

Tues 26, Nov, 10:26pm- texts to therapist

“How many tablets do I have to take to get some fucking rest??? I wish the doctors would give me something even stronger like Xanax. I’m so tired but wired. I finally fell asleep this evening. Didn’t even have it in me to brush my teeth or get changed. Then just had nightmares about the past few weeks and woke up again not knowing where the fuck I am. I wake up having a coughing fit, and it’s not cos I have a cold. I don’t know if I’ve developed sleep apnea now or something. I’m itching like mad. Maybe I got burnt sitting in the river earlier today I don’t know.

My sleep’s completely fucked. My appetite’s fucked. I wasn’t eating much for ages. Didn’t even feel hungry. But now I’m starving all the time and no matter how much I eat I’m never full. Been a massive change in me.

I think my GP would like to talk with you. She wants to form a support team and is getting annoyed she’s getting no communication from the other people helping me. Can you contact her?

I was going to start drinking again today but I don’t want to fuck my ears up even more which is what happened when I last drank.

I feel like I’m going to die from exhaustion. I’m still mute. Thank god God gave me the gift of writing or else I would be completely locked in my own little prison with no contact with the outside world.”

11:47pm-

“In this very physical, severe form of depression now.”

Wed, 27 Nov, 1:14am

“I hate this. I hate feeling so hungry all the time. I’m going to become obese if it doesn’t settle down. I hate not getting any rest. I hate all the damage the drugs have done to me. I hate feeling like I’m gonna pass out or collapse all the time. What the fuck is wrong with me

I feel like I’m having a panic attack

I can’t seem to enjoy anything

I can’t sleep when I’m so fucking hungry, even though I just ate

Everyone say it’s good I’m eating again but this is not normal.”

Wed, 27 Nov, 4:47pm, text from therapist-

“Wow! That’s a lot to deal with Zoe. Yes, I am happy to contact your Doctor.”

I then got a voice mail from my therapist saying the cops won’t let him take me to a park with bushes anymore.

Wed, 27 Nov, 6:07pm

“Oh so it’s ok for me to run off into the bushes and get into trouble by myself, but it’s not ok for you to be there with me? They don’t want to know about it cos they don’t want to spend money searching for me. Cops don’t give a shit about me. Fucking cunts. Who are they to tell you where you can and can’t take me?”

Wed, 27 Nov, 10:11pm

“Thanks Zoe,” Peter wrote in response to my doctor’s number which I gave him, “I will call her in the next couple of days.”

“There is something really wrong with me medically now,” I continue. “I’m itching all over, I’m starving all the time and no amount of food will ever fill me. Patricia [GP] thinks it’s a good thing I’m eating now as she thought I was anorexic. And you know what maybe I fucking was. But does anyone have any fucking idea how distressing it is to completely lose control like this? To put on weight when you’re anorexic, and to feel so hungry it’s like you’re in poverty. It’s not a nice feeling for anyone. It’s hard to sleep when you’re so hungry. My sleep is completely fucked. My appetite’s fucked. My mood’s fucked. I’m angry all the time with rage as mad as wildfire. Patricia just wants me to go to a private hospital but quite frankly I’m beyond it. I really need to be left to sleep when I can as it’s the only time I’m not eating but they insist on waking me up at 10am. There will not be enough food in the hospital for me, I will eat the whole kitchen. I’m up at all hours, too traumatised to go to their stupid groups and I will probably scream there all the time and get myself kicked out.

The worst past is not knowing how long this is going to go on for.

I will send you my last two pieces of writing explaining what has been happening. I know you’re busy, but maybe you could even read them on Friday as it’s not like I’m talking right now.

I think all the trauma has caused the parts of my brain in charge of appetite and sleep to malfunction. I really belong in a medical ward now, not a mental health ward.”

Thursday, 28 Nov, 2:53pm-

“I tried to go out today and get some groceries,” I wrote to Peter, who I’m surprised had not blocked me already. “I just about passed out. The lady in the shop was so nice, she helped me carry my box of groceries back to my car. But I shouldn’t be driving like this. I’m sleep deprived, dissociated and it’s all too much. I should probably go to the ED but they can’t figure out what is wrong with me medically and then just make me see the psych cunt. I’d rather die than see them.

Also realised as I was driving back that I forgot to buy the main thing I was after at the shop. I couldn’t go back there, that shop is sensory nightmare, so I’ve come to a smaller store.”

“It sounds very challenging, Zoe,” Peter wrote back, with a crying emoji.

Friday, 29 Nov, 3:28pm

“I look forward to seeing you at 6:30pm tonight, Zoe,” Peter wrote. “I spoke to your doctor today.”

Saturday, 1:44pm-

“God I’m so sick,” I wrote as my word vomit continued. “I took some strong painkillers for my migraine last night and it went away for a bit but it comes back. It doesn’t go away completely, it lingers for days. There’s crazy amount of tension in my body and last night it was so bad I was getting some really distressing physical symptoms. So I took some diazapam too which is meant to be a muscle relaxer… It helped a bit but I still barely slept. I’m totally fucked today. I need to go into Collingwood today but I barely have it in me”

Sat, 3:33pm-

“I’m too sick to go out today,” I inform Peter, who is starting to know every minute detail of my miserable life. “My NDIS/disability worker brought me home. I had a break down trying to get ready. Things go missing constantly. I couldn’t find the clothes I wanted to wear, then I couldn’t find my drink bottle. OCD kicks in and I can’t stop until I find them, pacing round and round in a state of delirium. Finally manage to get in her car almost an hour late, we get 10 mins down the road and she realises there’s something really off with me and takes me back home. I then look for my face cloth as I’m boiling and of course can’t find that next. Doesn’t help that the house is a fucking junkyard / bomb site. There is no floor space in my room. I’m not able to clean up. Finally I find the face cloth. I go to get a glass of water but my water filter is empty. I go to get the kettle to fill it and find my dad’s fucking taken it. I’ve reached the point where it just about kills me to walk to the other side of the house to get the other kettle and fill my water filter. I’m dehydrated all the time because it’s too much effort just to fill a glass of water but I don’t even feel thirst anymore. In a matter of minutes I’ve put the face cloth down somewhere again and forget where. I’m over it all. I have suffered for so long now the kindest thing for me would be death. It’s cruel that society tortures us so much that that it’s unbearable to be alive and then society won’t even legalise euthanasia so we can put an end to our misery. So we are left having to take matters into our own hands, not knowing for sure if it’s actually going to kill us or leave us even more fucked up. I’m a total write off. All I can do is go back to bed. At least I have the house to myself. I can’t stand being in someone else’s energy field.”

Sat 8:55pm-

“Feel so breathless and horrible.

Everywhere I go I am assaulted by noise. I have to sleep in a box my dad built which blocks some of it but not all of it. I’m now wondering if the box is making me sick as I’m not getting enough oxygen. So I moved rooms and opened the window but all I could hear were all the neighbours dogs barking. God people are so fucking annoying! So I had to shut the window and now I feel breathless again. I feel so awful I’m thinking of asking my dad to take me to Knox Private Hospital ED… I know it will be expensive but at least they don’t have any psych services there. I don’t want to see another psych cunt. But still I think it will be hard to hide my mental health. They will be taken aback by my muteness.

Feel suffocated.”

“I am sorry you are having such a difficult time, Peter replies. “Going to Knox Private sounds like a good idea, Zoe.”

“Thanks Peter.”

Monday, 7:23pm, text to Mum who wanted me to go to Delmont-

“Fuck Delmont, I’m not going,” I wrote. “They don’t give a shit about me. For WEEKS we have been trying to organise an admission there. WEEKS of utter hell where I have tried to drown myself, walk in front of traffic, been screaming in front of everyone, been handcuffed by the fucking cops, been unable to sleep as all I get are nightmares and flashbacks, been so traumatised I have become mute, have been so depressed it’s too much to even fill a glass of water, have become so sick physically I almost had to go to the fucking hospital again. It was such an effort to get to Delmont today. I just had to get out of the house before I smashed a window because of the neighbour’s fucking chain saw. Only to be told the admission is tomorrow. It IS Delmont’s fault. No body from Delmont bothered to contact me and tell me the date of the admission ahead of time. And now they’re saying the doctor’s about to fuck off on holiday so I can only have a short stay? FUCK THEM. All these hospitals are all the same. Fucking useless cunts who pretend to give a shit but don’t. All I want is to be left alone where I have some control over my environment and am not assaulted by noise wherever I go. All I want is to reverse the damage these fucking “professionals” who were meant to help me have done to me with their drugs and their mere miserable, smug presence in my life. I’m done with the lot of them. They don’t have a fucking clue what I’m going through.

They sent me home to a potentially very dangerous situation today, If that chainsaw was still going I don’t know what I would have done. I’m lucky dad has fucked off to Glenroy and the place is quiet so I can have a chance to recover.”

“I know you are disappointed that you weren’t admitted today but that was a misunderstanding of Patricia getting the day wrong,” Mum wrote back. “Delmont phoned me this morning to say your admission was tomorrow. They phoned me because you don’t pick up your phone and are not speaking at the moment. If dad had checked his phone when i messaged him he would have let you know . I was at work. It is unfair that you are blaming Delmont . They have now found you a place albeit just 10 days because schiff will be on holiday after that, but he still offered you a place snd can help you during that time. You must take up this offer of help. It is a chance to improve your current state . TAKE IT. Patricia has also gone out of her way to help you. Please don’t go blaming everyone. It JUST IS .It is not fair that you are lashing out at everyone. The offer to help you is there tomorrow at Delmont. TAKE IT.”

“Why did they only call you today?” I text. “And why didn’t they leave me a message? Yes it is fair that I am lashing out at everyone. They deserve it!”

“I don’t know why they didn’t call until today…. but being a weekend perhaps a bed didn’t become vacant til the end of last week,” my mum wrote back. “Patricia [GP] didn’t contact me until late Friday. She had only found out. The hospital only uses landlines so phoning someone who will pick up the phone and talk is necessary… so they phoned me. Schiif is offering to help you until he goes on leave . Ten days is better than nothing and it is likely that if he thinks you need it he will have you back next year when he gets back from leave. PLEASE dont be hard on the people who are trying to help you.

Do you want me to come around and we can go for a walk. You need to cslm down ……”

More texts to Peter–

“I’m so fucking sick of everything going missing all the time! I was looking for my tent poles today as I am so fed up I just want to go live in the bush but I can’t find them anywhere. I think the cops may have taken them as they thought I was going to kill myself with the tent. There is no escape. If I had a guaranteed way of ending my life I would take it.

I can’t even handle the sound of a blow fly in the house now.

All I do is run from one horrible person and place to another.

I liked that tent. It was a good quality, expensive tent. I was used to setting it up. Now the poles are gone.

It really fucking upsets me when I lose things all the time.

Everyone’s fake ass care. Everyone’s a two faced beast. Everyone betray me. Trust no one.

If I could flick a switch to kill off every human being, including myself, I would.

My mum says it’s unfair that I’m lashing out at everyone. Like she can speak, taking out her problems on me all my fucking life. After a lifetime of abuse I’ve finally cracked.

I don’t want to be in this miserable fucking world anymore. There’s nothing Delmont’s gonna do to make me feel any different. I’m not even mentally ill. I never was. I realise that now. I’m just sick and tired of living in a world that is so fucked up. So fucked up, it can’t be saved. I just want to kill myself. It’s too depressing watching people abuse and oppress the planet and each other. If I could burn the whole world down I would. Or flick a switch to kill off the human race and give mother earth a chance to recover.

We shouldn’t be here. We stole this land from the aboriginal people who lived harmoniously with nature. I feel disgust being a white person. If I could give back the power to the aboriginal people I would.

What is Delmont gonna do about that? Nothing. What is their “mindful colouring” gonna do about that? Nothing. What is their CBT or DBT gonna do about that? Nothing, just tell us we are the ones with the problem for feeling angry, sad, anxious, suicidal, thinking the world is a shit place etc. I’ll just sit there surrounded by a whole bunch of cunts chomping on their chicken wondering what is wrong with me for throwing plates around the kitchen.

They give you the same lame mental health questionnaire every time you go there and every time you leave, as though a few weeks stay in a concrete institution being given drugs that damage you and brainwashed with “therapy” is gonna fix everything. The questionnaire has a narrow definition of anxiety as pacing about which always downplays my level of anxiety. There is a zillion different ways anxiety can manifest, including the complete opposite: staying still and frozen. I’ll probably rip the survey up in front of them.

You know they’re lucky I’m not speaking. They’re lucky they won’t hear what is on my mind right now.

The Zoe people thought they knew is long gone now.

I need a gun”

“That must have been awful to be told your admission was tomorrow, Zoe,” Peter replied. “I am really sorry you had to go through that. It’s not what you needed right now. Yes, anxiety can manifest in many different ways.”

“Yeah,” I wrote back with a tear emoji. “Damien wasn’t impressed either. It messed him about too.

Every time I hear car doors outside I worry it’s the cops or someone else coming to harass me.

It really upsets me how I lose everything.

It took all the strength I had to talk myself out of doing something really destructive today like getting totally wasted or attempting suicide. I’m not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of surviving it even more fucked up.

It’s so cruel euthanasia is not legal here

But I do wonder if I do die will I just end up in another equally horrific life.”

Monday, 10:37pm, more texts to Peter-

“I wonder if I’m in some kind of horrible mixed mood episode. Take the worst aspects of mania and the worst aspects of depression and mesh them together. You’re writing a zillion messages, you are full of rage, you’re intense, you’re agitated, you’re not sleeping, and yet the content of all your messages is so fucking miserable, you’re withdrawn and don’t want to be around anyone, you feel utterly hopeless, everything is such an effort and you’re suicidal.

Well everyone my rage is directed at deserve it.”

Tuesday, 11:27am

“It sounds terrible, Zoe,” Peter wrote. “I hope you feel a bit better today.”

Tuesday, 1:20pm, texts to Peter-

“I’m sick to fucking death of losing things! I spend my entire fucking life looking for things. I kept my ADD meds in my bottom drawer but I went to get them out today and they’ve all been moved! For fuck’s sake. They don’t even help with my ADD symptoms, I just take them to try and lift my mood so I can actually do things. Hopefully the doctor at Delmont will give me some more.

It just sucks as the government monitors all these drugs they consider addictive and it can be hard to get a script. And if you do get a script, it can throw you into “red” on the system and prevent you from getting other drugs you need like sleeping pills. Which is so stupid, like they think someone can’t have both ADD and anxiety/sleep issues too.

All I can find are bottles of vyvanse. I’m not sure I wanna go down that route again. Full blown mania, panic attacks, solipsism syndrome. The euphoria was nice at least, so fuck it maybe I will try it again  But the short acting Dex is safer and I can’t find the bottles the Delmont doctor gave me anywhere.”

Tuesday 4:30pm-

“Fucking over this shit. I swear I put my sunscreen in my bag but then it just disappeared. Something is seriously messing me. A swear there’s like a black hole in our house. Everything is so fucking hard. My foot hurts from tripping over a fucking stick. Then my dad calls Delmont and says we’re on our way and they tell him they were expecting us earlier. No one fucking told me that! I’ve heard absolutely nothing from them the past few weeks. What is wrong with their communication? Do they think I’m like fucking retarded or something now that I don’t speak?”

“It sounds very frustrating, Zoe,” Peter replies.

“I don’t know if my dad knew what time they were expecting us today but he was out until 2pm and then when he comes back he just goes to bed and sighs and doesn’t seem interested in helping me get there at all. Why should he I guess? They’re just a bunch of dead eyed soulless shells in a concrete jungle who don’t give a fuck about you or their job.

Stuck in all this traffic now of people coming home from their 9-5 jobs which they’re probably over as well.”

I then sent Peter the song “Mad World” by Gary Jules.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” I continue. “I’m just a symptom bearer of a profoundly sick society.”

So, that was my lead up to the Delmont admission. And they are only the texts I sent my poor therapist. I also bombed his email inbox.

I sent pages to him from Evanna Lynch’s memoir, “The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting”, a memoir about her anorexia. She talks about there being a fine line between restricting and binging. She describes the point where she swung to the other extreme lost control, couldn’t stop eating and worried that the next time she ended up in an eating disorder clinic it would be for obesity! “I might as well never have had anorexia,” she writes.

I wrote Peter a long email about Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and “switching headaches”, as people in the DID community call them.

“I’ve got something very similar where I get a headache before I switch, as well as after. (Especially when it’s a long period of someone else fronting.),” one member wrote. “Unfortunately, I don’t have a very good solution for it; I just keep a bottle of ibuprofen in my purse and take it if it gets to be too much.

Could the headaches be caused by dehydration/hunger? Perhaps whatever part is out is simply forgetting to eat or drink. I know that at least one person in here does that on a regular basis :P”

“I think I mostly get them when fighting a switch,” another person wrote.

“Usually we get headaches before a switch or while someone is trying to take control, if we are fighting it then we get dizzy/lightheaded but it starts to go away quickly once the switch is over and the fighting has stopped for us,” was another comment.

“Yeah I get headaches after sudden switches, and when I’m trying my best NOT to switch,” was another comment. “Also when there is inner tension.”

I told Peter I was glad he enjoyed the new park we walked at.

I then went off like a rocket again. It was when I posted to a community group on Facebook about my situation and what the local hospital did to me. My post was rejected. I was told to keep the “lovely” bits (how ordinary members of the public have been so kind to me), and remove the rest.

“No one wants to hear about the AWFUL AWFUL SICK UNSPEAKABLE THINGS people and institutions do to me,” I fumed to Peter. “I have tried speaking out time and time again and I just get blocked, kicked out, gagged, gaslit, told I’m mad or bad, my posts rejected on Facebook because they’re too honest etc. We live in a sick, toxically positive society who doesn’t want to hear the truth about the underworld. Seriously Peter I’m fucking over it. I’m over everything. I don’t belong in this world. All my life I have been subjected to smear campaigns and programming to get rid of me. And it’s almost succeeded. I’m at the post where I WANT to go. I WANT to fucking kill myself, even though I know I’ll be giving these psychos what they want. The best thread I’ve read on Facebook is this one from a severe abuse, ritual abuse and exploitation survivor support group. I don’t even need to write anything, these members have already spoken for me, especially the third one.”

I included a few screen shots, making them anonymous.

“No matter how bad I seem, PROMISE me you will NEVER call an ambulance or the police again,” I told Peter. “They’re not here to help us, they’re all part of the agenda.”

I sent him the song “Burn” by Nine Inch Nails, and also “Janie’s Got A Gun” by Aerosmith.

“One day I’m afraid I’m going to become one of those kids who loses it after a lifetime of being pushed around and goes on a murder spree,” I wrote. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for me to go to Delmont. I might smash their windows, throw plates, scream, trash their dining room, and never be allowed back.”

I then sent him some screenshots from a parliament enquiry about child sexual assault in the Catholic church and, specifically, the parish my primary school was part of. Below is the section I sent him:

“A concern I have is not the Senator Xenophon point of an abuser using the Confessional “…to try and clear their conscience”, states a Catholic priest who was at my parish from 1975-1999. “It is more the possibility of a paedophile abusing the Confessional.

Unfortunately, because of the seal of secrecy, a paedophile can use the Sacrament of Penance as a legal strategy to ensure no-one can speak out about him.

This actually happened to me while I was a priest.

When I was in the parish of Belgrave a victim came and made explicit allegations against a priest. Immediately I had a call from that priest asking if he could come and talk with m. We had an open and frank conversation and at the end he said, “I want you to hear my Confession”.

We were simply sitting in chairs in my lounge and I was surprised and take aback by this unexpected request, and without any delay he launched into the confessional formula with his specific content.

When he left, I was feeling used as I really don’t believe he came to talk. I don’t believe he came in genuine remorse for absolution. I believe he cunningly took me out of the public forum by binding me through the absolute confidentiality of the Confessional seal of secrecy. I believe this was his clever strategy to minimise his exposure as a criminal sexual abuser of the child who had entrusted his abuse to me.

My only consolation was this priest ultimately was convicted without me being involved in any way.”

“Fucking wankers all treating me like I was the criminal when their parish was full of paedophiles who got off scot free,” I raged to Peter. “I’ll tell you now some fucked up things were going on at St Thomas Mores, the school I went to from prep to grade 1.

All these cunts who have abused me deserve to be NAMED AND SHAMED but everyone just wants to shut me up. So you know what I WILL, fuck everyone, no one can be trusted, I refuse to be a part of society. I take myself out of the realm of language. If only I can kill myself and take myself out of this world entirely. I am alone. I always have been and always will be.”

I was pleasantly surprised when I got to Delmont. The receptionist was friendly. She said she remembered me from last time, and made sure I got a quiet room. My room was perfect. It was up the end of a no-through corridor and the window wasn’t too close to the busy road. I didn’t hear any noise from the patients next to me. My nurse, Alana, was the best nurse I’ve ever had. She was empathetic and very human, sharing little parts of her own life with me. She told me her brother has schizophrenia and she used to feel a lot of rage as well. She recognised it was due to trauma and neglect growing up. When she did the intake she asked what my pronouns were. I was surprised by how progressive the hospital had become. She said the hospital needed a photo of me.

“Smile while my life is in ruins,” I said.

But the photo actually was a really nice shot.

“I might have some skill!” Alana joked.

I asked for a copy, so she gave me one.

It was past dinner time but they still organised a meal for me. It was the best vegan meal I’ve ever had from a hospital.

Alana came back to check on me and gave me the remote to the TV.

I brought my camera and took another shot for my “girl absconded” collection which exposes what the mental health system do to people. I managed to smuggle in a syringe which I used as as a prop. Alana said to come see her on Saturday in the other ward as she wanted to see my photography.

I find some of the quotes in mental health hospitals pretty offensive. I had a bit of a dig at one of them and laughed quietly in my room.

Little did I know everything was going to turn to shit the next day. I got a text from my NDIS worker, the guy I mentioned in my last post whose family is from Mauritius and who is also vegan. I see him twice a week and he has helped me a lot.

“I wanted to talk about our sessions, like we spoke about at Frankston. When you said you saw me more than anyone else in your life, and it contributed to creating a sense of attachment, where you would be very upset if I couldn’t see you anymore.

Office said Sofie can take over one of my days.

I think that might be best. Might make the relationship a bit healthier and long term sustainable.

It also helps me personally. Makes me feel like I’m not knowingly seeing you too much which makes you emotionally vulnerable.

It would be really good to have another person involved, bring more ideas and support in.”

I actually feel like a thousand butterflies are thrashing about and dying inside my stomache as I go over my NDIS worker’s texts.

“What???” I wrote back. “No way. You are a positive part of my life. Why are you withdrawing that from me? You’re just like everyone else. I can’t believe you’re saying this to me when I am in the midst of a break down and need you more not less.

Seeing you twice a week is what gets me through the week.

Way to kick a person when they’re already on the ground!”

“I understand it might be hard to hear something unpleasant while you’re feeling so low,” he wrote back. “But from a timing perspective, there hasn’t been a time in recent months that was more appropriate, and there isn’t likely to be a time in the near future that will be any easier.

With your mental health consistently bad, it didn’t affect my timing.

All I can do is make changes as my evaluation of my situation changes.

I’m hoping, if anything, having 24 support, nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, might help.

I can’t be solely responsible for you making it through the week. That’s a lot of responsibility, pressure, and fear honestly.

I can’t handle that emotionally, but I also can’t handle it professionally, I don’t have the time, skills, qualifications etc

I’m optomistic, I know change is awful, but I’m hoping you might like the way things look in the future, the woman you’ve been seeing already has better availability at better times. Might work out well”

I sent him this quote:

“To think I almost felt safe enough to speak with you the other day,” I wrote. “Good thing I didn’t. I will never speak to anyone ever again. I still disclosed stuff to you through writing that I never told anyone. And now you turn around and do this to me. I knew you were going to hurt me just like everyone else. Get out of my life! You make me want to die! I’m close to being sent back to a public hospital now as Delmont can’t manage the state you’ve put me in.”

I had what I call a “dry cry”, where one grieves to the maximum point that the pain does not bring tears anymore. Some came out, but most were stuck inside. I was curled up on the floor in the corner of my room in my pink PJs unresponsive. The nurses came in and told me to get up.

“Your doctor is coming in ten minutes,” the nurse said. “You don’t want him to see you on the floor do you?”

Did she honestly think I gave a shit? I didn’t give a shit about anything anymore.

When my doctor arrived he asked the nurses when I had become distressed, and they said just today.

“When she falls asleep she feels like she’s dying, which must be very scary,” one of the nurses told him.

The doctor asked me questions but I didn’t respond to any of them. I could barely even write.

He asked what I wanted to get out of the admission.

“If it’s just respite that’s fine too,” he said.

The admission suddenly felt completely pointless. My life was over. The only thing that could help me now was death.

He wanted to chart me some more medication but I resisted it, telling them that it’s not going to fix anything and all I wanted was to die.

I remained curled up on the floor listening to “When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die” by Moby. Music was the only way I could communicate.

My doctor said he wasn’t planning on sending me to a public hospital and instead put me on 15 minute watch.

I was screaming so loud my ears hurt and throwing the cushions around my room.

“You’re disturbing the other patients,” a male nurse told me.

These same words are used against me time and time again. What do these people expect? It’s a psych ward for fuck’s sake. The lack of care and the way hospital staff just want to shut me up only makes me more distressed. I wasn’t even in a communal area, I was in my bedroom. I just needed some kindness. I just needed people to hold space for me and my intense emotions until the wave finally broke and settled down. Once again a switch went off in my head and I felt I had to get out of there. So I burst out of the room, past the other nurses hovering by the door, pushed open the hospital fire doors which had been shut, ran past patients eating their dinner to the other end of the hospital, through the garden and to the driveway where I absconded last time. To my surprise, though, I found they had built a large wall blocking the driveway. I tried to climb over it but I couldn’t. The nurses brought me back to my room. My doctor then told me he had decided to put me on an “assessment order” and send me to a public hospital. I begged him not to.

“Please don’t send me away,” I wrote. “Just give me meds.”

I would do anything not to be sent back to the public system, but he would not budge.

A few female nurses took turns sitting with me as we waited for the ambulance. The only good thing about all this was that I got a lot more time with the nurses than most patients do and was able to talk about everything that had been happening. One nurse, Julie, was especially lovely. I calmed down a lot with her. But as the ambulance approached, I got more and more scared. I tried to run off again. I grabbed a chair and was going to try smash the sliding glass entrance door with it. I vaguely remember hearing a “code grey” being announced. I assume it was for me. It was first time I’d ever heard a “code grey” announced in this private hospital. Usually those codes happen more in public hospitals. They took the chair off me and I started banging my head against the wall. The female nurses managed to get me back to my room again.

“It’s just us,” one of them said. That male nurse who upset me had disappeared.

The nurses packed up all my belongings and two male paramedics arrived. Julie held my hand as we walked to the ambulance. She said this wasn’t the end and that I could come back soon but I wasn’t sure. I was shattered as my stay had been going so well and it is so hard to find a room quiet enough for me given my severe noise sensitivity.

The paramedic in the ambulance asked what he can do to help me.

“Euthanise me,” I said.

“I can’t do that, sorry,” he replied.

I tried to climb out of the ambulance a few times. The paramedic who was driving yelled at me and locked the doors.

“Fuck you,” I texted my NDIS worker. “Now I’m being sent to a public hospital. You have destroyed my stay here. I never want to see you again.”

Then when we arrived at the public hospital I refused to get out of the ambulance. I tried to climb out through the driver’s door but the paramedic stopped me. I returned to the stretcher and was taken into the emergency department.

I paced around the hospital a bit and found a small, quiet lounge with a big picture of embroided mushrooms and fairies. The paramedics told me I had to return to the stretcher. A female staff member told the paramedics I would need some medication such as valium, olanzapine or even ketamine. If I refused then I would get an injection. The paramedic who drove me there was gruff at first, but he softened. We played a game of norts and crosses while we waited for the lady to come back with some medication. He asked me why I didn’t speak.

“I guess cos it’s unspeakable what people and institutions do to me and the planet,” I told him.

He explained in the hand over that I was very “switched on” and was just sick of being churned through the system. He actually seemed to get it. He told me he was sorry for whatever terrible things had happened to me, which meant a lot to me.

I couldn’t handle the ED with all the beeping machines and sick people so I took off back to the lounge I found earlier. I spent hours in there listening to music on my phone and distressed. I emptied the plastic bag of rubbish such as used face masks, hid behind one of the couches, tied it round my head and tried to suffocate myself. Disgusting, I know, but I was desperate. In the end it got too uncomfortable so I took it off. In hindsight I wish the hospital had of knocked me out with ketamine. It’s not something I’ve ever tried before but I have since read up on it and it sounds like it could have brought me some relief. At the time I was just scared and thought all these people were the enemy.

I got calls from a private number on my phone, and then a text message from the police saying I was now a “missing person”. I got a text from my mum saying she was appalled by how Delmont had treated me. Later that night I finally left the room. I walked into a lift and went to floor 1 and then floor 0 looking for a way out. I found a cellar where the hospital stored things. I had a bad feeling that I shouldn’t be there. Eventually I returned to the ED. The staff were shocked to see me. They asked where I had been, but I wouldn’t tell them. Apparently they had checked all the security footage and there was no sign of me. There were no longer any beds free.

“It’s ok,” I said to the nurse. “I don’t need a bed. I go now.”

“You do need a bed,” he said.

I was made to wait in a stretcher and a security guard was assigned watch over me. I felt like a failure. At least my nurse was nice. He called me darling, though not in a creepy way. I was so scared about seeing another one of their deranged psych staff that I was shaking like a leaf. My nurse seemed genuinely concerned about me. He asked me to take some medication.

“I don’t want to see you get an injection,” he said.

I was given 10mg of diazapam but it didn’t do anything. I was then given 10mg of olanzapine. I hated the public hospitals so much and was so desperate to get out of there that I kept looking for some matches or something flammable which I wanted to use to burn the place down. I kept telling the nurses to evacuate the hospital.

I was eventually moved to another room which they called the “bar room”. “Why would a hospital have a room containing alcoholic beverages?” I thought to myself. But I just found out that “bar” actually stands for “Behavioural Assessment Room”. It is a “separate space in a hospital emergency department (ED) that’s designed to manage patients who are aggressive, violent, or behaviorally disturbed”. One wall was made from glass, and a nurse would sit by the door with the computer. I actually preferred the room as it was away from all the beeping machines, though it was too bright. Despite being so bright, I eventually fell asleep. When I woke up, I saw my dad sitting outside talking to the nurse. I was furious and threw my notebook. I hated his presence. I felt like an animal in an aquarium being watched. The psych jerk also came to see me, but I was too groggy to speak with her. She decided to keep me on the assessment order and left.

I was transferred to PAPU, a short stay psychiatric unit I’m often put in. This is where I am now. I have been taken off the assessment order. I’m not sure how I feel about that. If I am on an order then they are obliged to keep me, rather than kick me out like they usually do. And this time going home is going to be even worse because I no longer have my NDIS/disability worker.

“What is there to go home to now?” I texted a friend. “Nothing. What is there to live for? Nothing.”

I wrote a few more fuming texts to my NDIS worker.

“I’m sorry for being human and treating workers not as commodities but as human beings I bond with. Why is that such a crime? Our relationship and twice weekly sessions were perfectly fine. It’s your job to help us get through the week. Isn’t that like the whole point of support work? But everything good has to turn to shit doesn’t it.

Our relationship was actually one of the healthier relationships I’ve had. My mood didn’t crash afterwards like it did with Jordan and therapists. Twice weekly sessions was working well for me. Yes, naturally I’d be sad if I lost you one day, but still I don’t get where all this is coming from. If you’re going to insist on withdrawing your support and palming me off to someone else then I don’t want to see you at all.

You don’t get it. How can I see another worker when my trust has been broken so many times now?

You can all get fucked!

If you want another person involved why don’t we add another worker on top of our two sessions rather than withdrawing one of them?

Like my life is completely empty. I don’t work, I don’t study, I have all the time in the world to have three support sessions a week.”

It’s not easy being in PAPU there is only a pathetic blue curtain separating my bed from the other beds and communal area. I hear people playing music. I hear people watching movies. I hear everyone’s conversations. There is a great article written by Tanya Shilina-Conte about mute characters in film.

“Like a camera, the silent patient sees, hears, records, and retains everything, but does not respond verbally,” she quotes from Subak, West & Carlin (1982, p. 335).

There was one annoying patient who was having ECT and would antagonise me with how happy she was. She had no sense of privacy and would sit up yakking on the phone in the common area and watching TV in the evening. I played music to try and block out the noise of the TV. I didn’t play it very loud, just enough for me not to hear the TV. Then she turned the volume of the TV up. Then I’d turn the volume of my music up, blasting “Burn” by Nine Inch Nails. She ended up complaining about me to the nurses. I told the nurse I was just trying to block out the noise of the fucking TV. Thankfully they told her to keep it down and then it went off completely at 10pm. I also stole the remote so no one can watch TV anymore; it’s unfair for those of us in curtained areas who have no door we can close.

I can only write in one of the ward’s meeting rooms when it’s not being used, or in the courtyard outside, the only two places that are quiet. I’m sick to death of hearing about the 22 year old’s delusions of grandeur, his depression, his anxiety, his upcoming admission to The Melbourne Clinic, how he wants leave so he can move his car, his nightmare ex who had BPD (yet another person giving us a bad rap), his plans to go travelling after hospital, his alcoholism. I’m sick to death of hearing the other loud woman complain about how she just wants to go home and see her family and pets. At least they have things to go home to and look forward to. All I want to do when I get home is kill myself.

I have fallen asleep and woken up in so many different places this past month- my dad’s house, the back of someone’s car, a church, various hospitals, the courtyard- that I get confused where I am upon waking now.

I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to get here. I have already spent two nights here, and usually that’s the maximum (though they have kept the 22 year old guy here for over a week now- obviously BPD is not one of his diagnoses!) My tremor, which developed when I overdosed earlier this year, has got worse here. The annoying women who was having ECT was discharged today and I asked the nurses if I could move into her room (there are two rooms and two curtained beds here). One nurse said I could, but then another nurse gave the room to someone else. Apparently they are trying to get me readmitted to Delmont, but I suspect I won’t be able to return. I’m not sure my private health insurance will allow it as once you are discharged from a private hospital you usually have to wait a whole month until you can be admitted again.

I’m still mute. It has been weeks now. I discovered a thing called “silent protests” which is a form of civil disobediance and non-violent resistance, a bit like hunger strikes. I don’t know if this is what’s motivating this. I also discovered a term called the “vow of silence”. People go on meditation retreats and don’t talk during the entire retreat, or just during meal times. Silence is seen as a way of deepening one’s spirituality. One person on the internet wrote the following:

I love silence, once you get used to it it feels like a sanctuary, a place of rest and just being. It takes away the need to be something for other people, It gives you respite from the judgements and expectations that surround you all the time. It allows you to just be so that your self referrals slow down or even stop; other thoughts continue because the mind cannot help itself but make thoughts just as the eyes cannot help themselves but see if they are open. It is the content that shifts, and the self referencing endlessly suggesting you need to do this or that slowly sinks to the bottom.

Maybe I have concluded that the only person I can truly trust is me. But that is also a fucking nightmare.