The System is Fucked

The nicest way to describe the psychiatric system is fucked up. I call my doctor and say "I think my meds aren't working anymore. I'm up and down. My mood swings are insane and I can't control myself. My anxiety is so bad that I can't order food in a restaurant or decide what clothes to wear in the morning." It took me 2 hours that morning to decide to put a t-shirt and jeans on to come to the doctor's office. She puts in a referral to the local hospital to get me in to see a psychiatrist. I go on vacation for a week hoping that getting away will solve some of my anxiety. Instead the anxiety gets worse and I start flying through life. I'm binge drinking at night, stopped taking my meds because I felt really good (while I was drunk). I was social and laughing and laughing ... so hard I actually fell over. I love myself drunk more than I love myself sober. Everything that I hate about myself seems to disappear. All my social anxiety seems to disintegrate when I'm drinking. I'm the life the of the party. I announce to the bartender that let's get a round of tequila for everyone! One for the bar tender too. We lick the salt, drink the shot and bite the lemon. I then drink a beer as a chaser in two gulps. I have the perfect buzz going. I am affable. I am friendly. I make jokes. I no longer think everyone is staring at me. We dance like fools, we laugh, I carry on like I'm 23 year's old.

But with these highs come the lows.

Low enough that waking up is hard and I can barely wake up. Not because I'm hung over, but because a heavy sadness hangs over my head. I'm moving in slow motion. I cry at the drop of a hat. I'm paranoid. I return from vacation expecting to feel relieved, but I'm not. I'm more anxious than when I left. There has been no call from my doctor or the psych department of the hospital. I let another week pass by with major mood swings. Three weeks have now gone by and still nothing. I call my doctor and she says it will take up to 2 months to get an appointment. I don't have weeks. My scale is tipping. The craziness is coming. It's moved from my chest to my limbs. My skin is crawling. There's a body that wants to come out. I feel possessed. I asked for help and all they can offer me is a 2 month turn around. Instead of getting treatment, I self medicate. More booze and cutting.

I end up in the ER. He finds me cutting on the bathroom floor (as I mentioned earlier). Now I am in the ER. I am scouring the the halls for what the hospital calls "sharps." I need to cut so badly. It's all I can think about. As I'm searching the halls, I remember I have a metal butter knife. I go back to my bed in the ER and I try that, it barely makes a mark. yes folks, the ER left me with a knife. Although it doesn't do anything - what if it did. I rub it against my wrists back and forth back and forth. It finally breaks through some skin, but not enough. I try a fork - nothing. I try ripping a prong off of my hospital bracelette, still nothing. Finally the bright idea hits me to rip off the metal part of the pen off. It was sharp enough to make a small incision, but still not sharp enough to make me bleed.

I start pacing the halls again - looking through nurses hospital carts. Trying not to be suspicious. If I had the balls, I would have stolen something. But, I couldn't. I ask the nurse for my meds and decide to go to sleep.

I spend 3 days in the ER, where no one really knows what's going on. They treat me like a normal person. I'm able bodied and I can talk, but I can guarantee I'm more fucked up than anyone on that ER ward. It took imovain, seroquel, and some other unknown drug (maybe clonazepam or lorazepam) to put me to sleep.

The next morning I wake up and they can move me into the psych ward. I walk down the white corridor that is lit with neon lights. My parents and partner are there. I feel like I'm marching to meet my maker - they buzz me in. The Northern European nurse, Lucy, whom I remember from last time I was here, brings me to my room. She makes me dump all of my items onto the bed and she searches my bags for those infamous sharps. She confiscates my pills, my blowdryer, my razor, hair spray, and shave gel. I get the pills and the razors - the others I still don't quite understand. She leaves my Ipod, but says she'll have to take the headphones at night. I'm numb. I should be listening, but I'm not. I look around at the blush pink privacy curtains, the seafoam green comforter and wondering - can I back out now? By the time I've come back to consciousness I'm hugging my parents and my partner goodbye. My partner has tears streaming down his cheeks, but I am unmoved. I'm blank faced and cannot let him see my distress. But, when he leaves, I fall apart. I curl up on the bed and cry. All the composure and stoicism cannot help me now. He is gone and I fall apart...

The God Question

My second night in emergency, waiting for there to be a bed in the psych ward, I am granted with the luck of having a great nurse. Our conversation began regarding her tattoos, which I have always found interesting, but I have been too chicken to ever get. My partner and I have thrown around the idea of getting each others name tattooed onto our ring finger, but we were told that it wasn't the best idea. The ink bleeds and a lot of people think they're gang signs. Ohhh the prejudices. Anyways, she had her husband's name tattooed on her finger. I asked her about it and she said her husband is unable to wearing any metal and so he couldn't have a traditional wedding band. So, they decided the next best thing was to tattoo each others name on them instead. At this point I was feeling quite anxious and she was sympathetic and talked me through my panic attack. I talk like chicken little, crying that the sky is falling.

Anyways... throughout our conversation she proposed the God solution. She claims that after finding God, she never suffered depression again. And I wonder - is it that easy? You find God and there is some cure that magically makes you better? I pick up a bible and head to church every Sunday and my anxiety, my depression, my bipolar disorder will disappear? Why aren't they bottling this stuff???? The cheesy tv spokesman comes over the t.v. and says: "Are you feeling depressed? Hopeless? Anxious? Have you thought of committing one of the biggest sins - suicide? Well, we have the solution for you! The "G" Pill! That's right folks, swallow the "G" pill and all these feeling will go away!"

Just like any other pharmaceutical drug - it doesn't stress accountability. That's always been my problem with religion. I was raised a Catholic and terrified of God and it was always "God punishing me" if something bad happened. But, what about my accountability? My responsibility? Everything becomes "God's Will." (I'm fearing some backlash for this post already, but it's called freedom of speech people!) I don't buy the God thing. I can't.

If the solution to mental illness was as simple as "finding" God, as my dear nurse suggested then wouldn't therapists and psychiatrists hang up their belts? I mean, I know mental health is big business and company's are much more focused on finding a profit and not on helping people and psychiatrists have a stake in these claims. But if God was really and truly the answer, wouldn't "the word" have spread by now?

I wonder if I have simply replaced God with a person. I wonder if finding meaning to life with or without God is just about finding your rock - the one thing that ALWAYS makes sense. No matter if the sky is falling or not. I've found this one thing (it still hasn't cured my mental illness, but we're talking the meaning of life here!) This one thing that I've found is not God, a spirit, or the holy ghost. It's a living, breathing, human being. It is not elusive. It is not found in an old book about legends and imaginary friends and voices in people's heads. He's real. He's proven himself to me (more than I deserve). He loves me more than I deserve. He's not God, but a man. A real person that I can run to, cry to, hurt, fuck, and love more than my own life. But he still doesn't solve my problems. It is still on me. I force accountability. This is what I am learning.