The whole thing was weird. My psychologist person who was supposed to be like my personal therapist (the place mostly did groups, but the psychologist is the one who does the long eval and works with the psychiatrist who only does a ten minute talk and figures out meds) was on vacation. I had a nurse lady do the first part of what the psychologist does after I met with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist asked me why I was there, I recalled events to the best of my knowledge (and told him how the last few days were mostly gone from my memory and the last two months were a blur at best) he said I was bipolar and tried to give me meds I told him I had bad reactions to. When I asked him why he thought bipolar, he said, and I quote, "Because of what you just told me." I told him how my perspective was different and I could benefit from clarification beyond that, he told me he was not going to argue with me. The next thing I remember is being in a room behind the nurses station. I am pretty sure it was me going in there voluntarily because no one stopped me when I just walked out and went back to my room. After that incident, I had zero trust for the psych guy and completely shut down communication with him. Every other day he would ask me if I was ready to take meds and I would say no. He'd ask how I was feeling, I'd say fine. Eventually he asked me what I wanted out of the place, I said to get myself stable and out of crisis.

Beyond the psych guy, the place was good. The staff was nice, the groups were helpful. The meeting with the nurse lady was fine. I told her about the psych guy incident and she said how she would not contradict him, but she told me to make sure I have a good trauma therapist when I get out. Added bonus, the food was great and I gained back five of the fifteen pounds I lost over the last few months so yay. I also have a new found appreciation for DBT stuff and I want to get some books or something about all that. Yep.

Mostly though, I walked away with a weird sense of wtf. It took me going inpatient to get people in my life to leave me alone long enough for me to do what I needed to do to hit the internal reset button. There were five or so people who I kept telling that I was not ok and needed alone time to decompress and deal and they just would not stop calling... and when I would not answer, they would show up in my house and get in my face and tell me how they were here to help. That much I do recall. One day I was falling apart, sobbing on the kitchen floor and then I was headed out to a store, running errands with someone, and being dragged back to her house because she was telling me how great I was doing and when I said no, I am not ok, she said I was and then I dunno what happened... but life was like that every day for about a month or so I think. This same person... her spouse blew up my phone while I was gone, carrying on about how they had done everything they legally could to get into the hospital to talk to me and visit... even though my daughter says she heard me tell this woman and her dude that people do not have cell phones in psych hospitals and that was fine by me since I didn't want to talk to anyone while I was there. Just zero respect for my boundaries.

So yeah, long story short, the best part of being in the psych hospital was that people were legally forced to leave me alone for awhile and I got to do what I need to do to get myself out of crisis and get stable enough to come back home. Seems messed up to me that this is what it took, but hey, I am stable and out of crisis so I'm calling it a win. The place was amazing for that... I got to write, draw, eat like normal people do, and get to learn some new tips and tricks to deal and cope, and have the room to use not only new things, but old ones that are tried and true for me. And now that I am home, people are still leaving me alone... some because they get it now, and others because I offended them so by vanishing on them and not calling them while I was in there, but hey, it's all win win to me at this point.

I also had my first meeting with my new t lady the other day. It was just a basic why are you here thing, so I'm not ready to say if she will be a good fit for me or not, but I am following through and I do have a solid understanding that even though I struggle to trust mental health professionals, I know I need one. Another positive of the hospital is that it gave me some new understanding of problems I need to work on that I did not have a solid handle on before so yay to that as well.

Hm. Think that's it... so yeah, there's my update.

-Avery