Do I even bother trying to avoid going back to the hospital?

I went in Monday to a trauma hospital, was transferred during the week to a psych hospital, and was discharged yesterday after an overdose on substances I am not prescribed and severe cutting. I got zero psych treatment other than the availability of “groups” (which as someone who has been to this hospital over 20 times once a stay of a 7 weeks I know they rotate the same ones out every two weeks, and I have been through all of them countless times). I did go to the discussion ones, but the ones where I just fill out my warning signs for the 20th time, I skipped.

Anyway, I’m really not doing better. I don’t feel I should go back, just like I don’t feel I should have gone the first time (which everyone disagrees with, but whatever). I might actually feel worse now after that. At this time I’m capable of sayin/doing things to not be forced in, but not super confident I’ll keep that in the near future.

I do see my outpatient pdoc on Monday, but I’ve already accepted that as far as meds/psychiatry goes, this is as good as it’ll get until I have the option every night of sleeping in a bedroom I’m not terrified to be in.

There’s probably a 60% chance I’m going to “hurt” myself like that again (I wouldn’t really use the word “hurt,” because it was quite the opposite, but I digress). Obviously if I do and they find out I’ll have to go back anyway. If I do and they don’t find out, I’d be fine. If I don’t, I’ll be “fine” of course too.

I just feel so hopeless. I mean, at this point do I just spend my life at the state hospital? Do I get myself put in prison? Do I stop treatment and raw dog being mentally ill like every one else?

I am sorry to hear how rough things are for you @MuddyBoots

You seem to be asking what to do. Why not ask your pdoc what options are available? My friend had ECT and that helped them live a more normal life. I do not know what would be best for you bult maybe pdoc would if you have an open minded approach.

CANDC

(I'm warning you, I'm writing this after a night of non-prescribed substances and before my ADHD meds have started working full force so....)

@CANDC

I"ve been working with my pdoc for almost a year, and probably 7 outpatient docs/nurse practitioners and many more inpatient over the past decade. I can't take antipsychotics, lithium, or tegretol as they are on my allergy list. I can't take antidepressants because I'm bipolar I. I've had over 20 rounds of ECT in the past and all it did was make me feel like an incompetent dumbass who can't find her way to places I've gone to nearly every day for five years and make people pissed at me because I needed a 2+hour ride for being at a hospital half a day and back.

I'm on Depakote right now and my VA level is about 80, so they could in theory go up on that and increase the side effects I have now of fatigue, headaches, nausea, and brain fog to the point I "legally" drive even though it's probably less safe than if I were unmedicated but just slammed two shots of vodka.



This morning when I met my med person for meds I think she could tell I was fked up (my mom answered the door, pretty sure I woke up then and heard "I think she's still asleep" and heard my name called, so I go to see her. I could NOT walk straight, and my speech was a little off but whose isn't when they just wake up after sleeping 12 hours due to 10x the dose a doctor normally prescribes for a benzo and three times the dose I *am* prescribed for sleep meds (I took 5mg of melatonin too but honestly they're my mom's and I just felt like while I'm making for a good night I'd add a gummy for some fun)?). Anyway, she said she'd call later "when I'm more awake." She could be thinking I was drinking too because I called the team (spoke to someone else) about going out to get food and I'm low on groceries and my mom said she'd give me a ride because she needs stuff too. We would go get dinner before (by the way, I saw one of those mapporn reddit posts saying BurgerKing is the worst fast chain restaurant in NH based on popular opinion and I believe it. We used to only go there for shakes, it was always down, and I know that's a general "fast food" thing, but literally we could go six times a week and only get a shake on the day we said "fk it, we'll go get the stuff from Market Basket)) but when we went food shopping the person I talked to said if I get too overwhelmed (my eating disorder is starting to get bad again, blame new years, I didn't really notice until I read my notes from the hospital stay and I wasn't showing up to meals and they'd ask a few hours later after I'd calm down if I wanted eat and I was "visibly panicked" and said no.)

I don't even know what I'm writing at this point. But basically this time they didn't really go through diagnosis stuff and treatment, but said "mayybe there's a mild or even moderate bipolar aspect to it, but we both know if we messed with your meds in any way we've done before, there is a near certainty you'd get worse." They put CPTSD as my primary diagnosis which was new I guess. I've never seen them go outside the DSM (before they did put PTSD-dissociative type though, but that is in the DSM now).

I ripped all my steri-strips off yesterday too (I told them I would, they told me not to "they're there for a reason," but it's been five days since the first ones and 3 for the last three, and all except those last three were coming off and would've come off in the next shower anyway).

I'm listening to Nessa Barrett- noose on repeat. It's triggering if you can't tell by the title, but it's a song I could've written myself right now (though I would've made it more post-punk-ish, but would include a stripped cover).

There doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency between when my team makes me go IP or not though. Last year I had to go involuntary because I just didn't eat (wasn't even eating disorder IP because I "wasn't sick enough" for that despite being "too sick" for PHP). Once I did go to the ER willing to go voluntary because I had not had a wink of sleep in three days, (needed four stitches), was tortured by racing thoughts, and was hallucinating. I got a freaking hydroxyzine and kicked out of the building at 2am in a New Hampshire February with no ride to a home a 30+ minute drive away. Does it depend on the quality and content of your jokes?

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I mean, my first "serious" suicide attempt was 13 years ago, and I've had 6 "serious attempts" since then and a bunch of other times where I was just thinking something would be good for shitsngiggles that "would've killed people," and here I am, so it's not like I'd EVER need to go unless I was a threat to others, which I can get away from others.

If you look at whatever tf I've been diagnosed with in just the past two years both psych and physical wise, you'd never know where to begin because symptoms look so similar (either schizoaffective or bipolar, BPD, ADHD, PTSD(?), and disordered eating that comes and goes, but in my mind the sza/bipolar is just this thing I have because my dad had it and the rest is probably just from trauma/neglect and someone could "fit" DSM criteria for one but be treated way more effectively by the other) and I am more of a "it's probably this, but for all I know it's this, this this, or even that," and the thought process changes all the time.
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So, see, proof I am perfectly fine. But that's not how they'll see it.

Dude. Just for today.

What exactly just for today? I got my meds, and had a fight with my case manager, and agreed to not one but two med changes (one being put on a PRN antipsychotic that left me thinking, as a patient in a psych hospital, I was breaking into apartments in big cities in Massachusetts, being lost in a pink rat maze, being led into a cabin in Maine I was told was mine but was not and there were rifles everywhere. It was raining cocaine and ants. “But we won’t force you to take it, and we’ll start with lower than the lowest dose.”

I’m going down on my stimulant because it has the same effect as 8mg of Xanax on me (that convinced her I probably have genuine ADHD), which she told me only made sense for people who have ADHD and are over medicated. We only decreased my AM dose because there are days I have to nap before parking, sometimes at a gas station, or if I know it’s really bad I’ll go the interstate and use the rest stop.

Just today.

I guess it was productive. We never really talk about side effects and I was able to tell her I have driven a very hilly windy road after three white claws (yeah, I had that phase) and felt safer doing that than every single day I leave the house now. I told her of the nausea and headaches. I’ve been having pretty bad bleeding gums which they list as a side effect, but I’m a bulimic, drug addict that has crap oral hygiene.

I’m terrified of the antipsychotic though. I didn’t have problems with it until it was scheduled though. If I get akathisia, I’m taking more benzos. Not a crazy amount, just enough to calm things down.

It’s night and I’m starting to freak out. I’ve been using DBT skills and normal coping skills. I’m sorry, Linehan, but in 2024 having a political discussion or imagining being a stone falling to the bottom of a lake aren’t my things (there are some good things). we went over ABCPLEASE and I can do o of those things right now.

TW: I was jumping out of trees and bunk beds to intentionally hurt myself in 3rd grade. By 13 I was cutting daily. ZI had times of picking (both from meth and just anxiety), I want to get OUT of a relationship because it’s safe/boring compared to what I’m used to and get back with old partner. I try these “boring” things and THOSE are the ones that get me restless and uncomfortable.

I want to prove I’m immortal. I’ve been fantasizing about it all night. Except someone will eventually find me and a surgeon will patch me up and I’ll be detoxed.

I’m trying. I don’t want to. I don’t know what I want to do. I want to live by myself, but financially that’s not possible until I get a ft job at $23/hr or wait another expected 6 years for section 8.

I can’t live here. There’s too many flashbacks and triggers. I probably won’t even get into that new apartment because I’ve missed two calls so far to set up move-in.

Youre like the definition of chaos theory.

So can we distinguish between whats physically wrong and whats emotional damage? Ive been on a new beta blocker for the past month, and its like - oh shyte, the old one really effed me up, so im dealing with that. But also it was only when i was 50 that i got put on topamax and realized i had a mild epilepsy - another mind eff.

My point here is, dont rely on the drs to figure out what med will help you. They have no friggin idea. My psychiatrist saw me twitch and said, "What was that?" You have to figure it out. But hey you are the smartest person i know.

All my "meds" (from the "dr" at the CVS parking lot) have helped more than this suicide-attempt-inducing haldol or that Effexor that made me feel like someone was playing mad scientist with my neurotransmitters. A "smart" person would go back to what worked.

I told my dr today I was afraid of the team and what they're doing to me. So what does she doe? Prescribe an antipsychotic after I told her no ("it'll just be PRN, just try it") that has previously left me thinking--experiencing-- I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean anywhere from half a second to five weeks after breaking into an apartment in MA before getting lost in the woods by the Canadian border and being afraid of being shot for trespassing. It rained cocaine and ants ate that shyt up.

What's physically wrong? How am I supposed to know? Go off my meds and see if everything I have that's listed as a side effect goes away? (I don't plan on showing up tomorrow. I don't plan on telling them. Those evil fkers can go fk themselves. Anyone who goes into the "business" of fking with someone's head deserves to be waterboarded.) Maybe my diet is severely lacking in polar bear kidney. Hell, I'll head northbound tonight. No passport right now, but they don't check, and if I'm g oing against a polar bear I don't have too much concern about coming back.

Maybe it's because I'm a fat fk. Maybe, THIS FATIGUE THAT IS LISTED AS A SIDE EFFECT OF DEPAKOTE BUT COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE CAUSED BY THAT, isn't allowing me to live a life I can actually enjoy. You know. Who the fk is happy when they spend half the day on a bed they were raped in?c

So you know what, you're right, I am smarter than the doctors, so I'm not going to listen to them. I have different values (they value not getting their license taken, I value my own cognitive freedom), so yeah, not even gonna bother with meds anymore. Or therapy where she just says stupid shyt like "oh yeah, of course you hate yourself. Everyone around you hated you growing up, so that makes sense."

I just know IF I do go like someone from my team told me to, they're going to aggressivey fk withm y meds in a way I won't like and I'm gonna get out nd its gonna be worse.

THe pacing, the pacing the pacing.
Anorexic chick wants a snack? We don't want her to binge so we'll lock the cabinets and fridge.

Is it okay to drive if you took 6mg of xanax at 7pm and another 3 at 2am?

Very sorry. Mental health system is a huge scam! I've been abused in all hospitals last 40 years like you wouldn't believe! They are all sick, incompetent, compassion-less and they NEVER could diagnose me correctly and I've been to one hospital 6 times and it was horrible! One Sr Dr there just told jokes every morning when I was incapacitated and in torture and offered zero help! Last Dr almost killed me several times and I complained and got banned from all practices in MD & DE! Psych techs are the worst people!

I don't know why but I'm having a hard time understanding this (and most other) threads. I read and re read but ill forget what I read and it won't make any sense. I wanted to add to the conversation but all I've .got is nonsense. Tonight I feel really crazy and out of it.

I think we survive in spite of them, not because of them. We assume they have knowledge and insight - all they really have is a little more information than we do.

This is very true, at least for me (and probably most). Most of psych staff are confined to their biases and cannot see the iatrogenic harm they are causing.