testify
this is an unedited account of a very bad hospitalization. i posted it to alt.angst twenty years ago. it's not particularly graphic but i find it disturbing. that's possibly because reading it, i remember everything smelling like piss and then all blaming me for it. a couple of years later i saw a psychopharmacologist who told me that bed-wetting is a really rare side effect of depakote.
i'm leaving this public. i'm posting because it made me feel things and if i leave it here i might not need the wayback machine to find it again.
After my wonderfully healing experience in hospital 1, i ended up losing my job because of medication imbalances that totally fucked my sleeping schedule. i was late once too often, and brought to a meeting with the Human Resources Director and my boss. "you're a great worker, you're brilliant, you've been doing a wonderful job and contributing to the department. we have to fire you."
the worst thing was they wouldn't let it go. they just kept talking to me, asking me questions and offering advice as if they were somehow allies and all i wanted was to go to my (former) desk and cry until i dehydrated. "here, take my card. tell the unemployment people we won't contest." fuck unemployment, fuck money, this was real and i ruined it and it hurt and i wanted the sea of concerned faces to go away and leave me the fuck alone.
finally i got to back to my (ex)desk and called alan and made silly threats he could barely understand through the snot and tears clogging my voice. just when he'd gotten me to agree to meet him near our houses, i noticed the dreaded HRD and two men. "wow," i said to alan, they've brought thugs." i looked again. "oooo, thugs with guns! goodie!"
turns out the HRD had called my shrink and the cops and i was about to be transported by squad car to the nearest emergency room. the logic of this escapes me: what are they going to do if i refuse, shoot me? so alan and a nice thug had a conversation and we arranged a nice little party at northwestern emergency room (alan even got tim pierce in on it, bumming a ride downtown from him). in the mean time, i was escorted everywhere i went, but in the ladies room stall managed to down 7 mg or so of klonopin.
after five hours (alan: "next time you drag me to one of these places, you'd better have learned to tap-dance; this is boring") of waiting and speculating which of the er supplies around us were most jugglable (not saline bags, i say), they decided to lock me up. i swore i would never return to a state hospital, i told them i would die first, i begged and whimpered and cajoled, and they sent me to a private hospital in the worst part of town. i'd've preferred the state hospital. actually, i'd've preferred 100 continuous hours of listening to barry manilow, but that wasn't one of my options.
--
sine | deb
more gruesome details of "what i did this summer"
to come.
on july 21, i was fired, and the personnel director took it upon herself to call the cops and tell them i was acting suicidal. tim pierce gave alan a ride to the er, where we sat around for hours watching a cop watch me (it was kinda fun, devising circuitous routes to the ladies' room, but anything is fun on 7 mg of klonopin, except maybe sex).
finally, some nice men in an ambulance came and carried me (an alan) away to the worst neighborhood in town. i love the logic here -- northwestern is throwing you out for having no insurance, but you're being charged $400 for an ambulance to take you to a hospital that accepts indigents.
i was one of maybe three people on the ward not affiliated with a gang, and the other two were in their 60s. i got to be called a white motherfucker, a honky, a whitebread bitch... lots of names i'd forgotten. one guy told me to my face that it was nothing personal, he just hated all white people. still, after a few days i got along okay. i even got hit on by a few drug dealers (there still may be a guy waiting for me at 52nd and kenwood; i dunno).
we have uninspired food, but we get to pick from two choices in each category for each meal. first i'm on a regular diet. then i'm on a low-sodium diet (i practically never use salt anyway). then i'm on a low-cholesterol diet. then regular, then low-fat.
no one took any kind of history -- no questions about my past, my background, anything beyond "do you feel like hurting yourself?" then i got to meet the Doctor. Doctor came in once a day and spent five minutes with each of his patients. i had been relatively okay on a regimen of 60 mg prozac, 2000 mg depakote, 2 mg klonopin, and occasionally trazodone for sleep. prozac works for me. it's worked for years. i cannot function without it. trazodone is also an anti-depressant, but it's been dismissed as worthless because the effective dosage would keep you asleep all day.
so Doctor upped my traz to 150, upped my klonopin (also sedating) to 3 mg, and stopped my prozac entirely. then he wondered why i never got out of bed. at one point, i was so oversedated i was wetting the bed at night. of course, Doctor thought i was making *that* up so i could stay in the hospital longer. when i wet my bed, there were usually no fresh linens available; i ended up hoarding sheets and towels so i could sleep on a dry bed. they made fun of me when i asked for adult diapers. my clothes got pissed on if i fell asleep during the day, but the dryer was broken so we couldn't do any personal laundry. and after i had to put my really really smelly blanket in the laundry, it disappeared and i slept for four nights in an over-air-conditioned hospital with only flat sheets as covers.
staff never asked when they could yell, never answered when you asked why. a nurse explained to me: we have to make sure you're obedient, in case there's a crisis or something. one of my first nights there, i didn't know this and i asked a mean nurse why i had to leave the hallway and she threw me in isolation for fifteen minutes.
groups were fun. we had a bingo therapy group, and once a spades therapy group and even a watching-the-nurse's-favorite-sitcom group. in one group on focus and process, the leader began by telling us all, "you think i'm here because i wanna be? you think i like doing this? i'm here for the money. i get my r.n. in a few months and i'll get even more money. you wanna get anywhere, you have to get academics so you can get money."
they like leather there. a little old lady, maybe 65, was violently restrained, pinned to the bed, and put into five-point leathers for repeatedly asking for her sleeping pill. she weighed maybe 100 pounds, and this 250-pound aide dragged her into the "quiet room" and tied her up.
of course, i got tied up, too. alan came to see me, and at the end of his visit we asked a nurse if there was a number where he could reach Doctor. nurse hell said no, so i asked if there was a ward phone number and when she said yes, i asked if i could have it. "i'm not on duty right now," she said, turning her back on me.
later in the evening, a fellow patient warned me she'd heard nurse hell saying to someone else, "i'm going to get debra in restraints tonight for sure." of course, the staff often talked and joked about patients within earshot of other patients.
i was sitting in the rec room (such as it was), waiting for the meds line to diminish, when nurse hell stuck her head in the door and yelled that all patients who hadn't taken meds should do so now. i said, "okay, cool. i was just watching the line til it got short." she told me to take my drugs and then go to the quiet room for 15 minutes to think about smarting off like that.
i got my meds and went back to my solitaire game, refusing to go to the quiet room. soon two thugs dragged me from my chair (ripping open yet another wrist wound -- can't these people *see*?) and drag-marched me to the quiet room. once they'd locked me in, i went into the bathroom to blow my nose (i was crying quite a bit by now) and nurse hell came in and demanded that i leave the bathroom immediately. i said i would when i'd blown my nose. two thugs came in and in five minutes i was stripped down, in a hospital gown, and in five-point leather restraints. this was around 6 pm. someone came in and took my vitals and brought me water, an someone later brought my 9 o'clock meds, but that was it. no nourishment, no more water, no chance to pee, no range-of-motion exercises -- just nine hours of lying spreadeagled on a bed under a video camera. finally, at 3 am, someone came in, released me, and told me to go take a shower and go to bed. the sheet i'd been on was saturated, and my gown was so sodden with piss it dripped all the way down the hallway.
in my chart, it said i'd thrown myself to the floor and threatened to bang my head in the rec room, and that i'd been self-mutilating in the bathroom.
the weekend before i left (after nearly a month in this godforsaken place, i don't care how many bleeding christs they stick on the wall, it's godforsaken), the staff decided they were shortstaffed. so they locked us all in the dayroom until 11 pm, refusing us access to our rooms for anything. in the mean time, they had a boombox going in the nurses' station -- james brown, so loud you could hear it at the end of the hall well after midnight. when i confronted the nurse who had been playing it, he lied and said i must have heard the overhead muzak.
all good things come to an end, and Doctor decided i was beyond his capacity to help anymore. i was noncompliant and all that other nasty stuff. i argued with him about my meds. i stood up for my rights. so they transferred me to madden, another state hospital (and another ambulance ride). when i tried to pick up my belongings before i got on the stretcher, an aide (the one who's in it for the money) refused to let me. he insisted i should get on the stretcher and he would bring my things to me. he applied a squeeze hold; i applied my nails. he won anyway, but i made him curse.
at madden, they read my records, listened to my story, gave me a sack lunch, and pointed me toward the bus back to hyde park.
--
sine | deb
truth is stranger than fiction
and i'm writing this down so i remember
i'm leaving this public. i'm posting because it made me feel things and if i leave it here i might not need the wayback machine to find it again.
After my wonderfully healing experience in hospital 1, i ended up losing my job because of medication imbalances that totally fucked my sleeping schedule. i was late once too often, and brought to a meeting with the Human Resources Director and my boss. "you're a great worker, you're brilliant, you've been doing a wonderful job and contributing to the department. we have to fire you."
the worst thing was they wouldn't let it go. they just kept talking to me, asking me questions and offering advice as if they were somehow allies and all i wanted was to go to my (former) desk and cry until i dehydrated. "here, take my card. tell the unemployment people we won't contest." fuck unemployment, fuck money, this was real and i ruined it and it hurt and i wanted the sea of concerned faces to go away and leave me the fuck alone.
finally i got to back to my (ex)desk and called alan and made silly threats he could barely understand through the snot and tears clogging my voice. just when he'd gotten me to agree to meet him near our houses, i noticed the dreaded HRD and two men. "wow," i said to alan, they've brought thugs." i looked again. "oooo, thugs with guns! goodie!"
turns out the HRD had called my shrink and the cops and i was about to be transported by squad car to the nearest emergency room. the logic of this escapes me: what are they going to do if i refuse, shoot me? so alan and a nice thug had a conversation and we arranged a nice little party at northwestern emergency room (alan even got tim pierce in on it, bumming a ride downtown from him). in the mean time, i was escorted everywhere i went, but in the ladies room stall managed to down 7 mg or so of klonopin.
after five hours (alan: "next time you drag me to one of these places, you'd better have learned to tap-dance; this is boring") of waiting and speculating which of the er supplies around us were most jugglable (not saline bags, i say), they decided to lock me up. i swore i would never return to a state hospital, i told them i would die first, i begged and whimpered and cajoled, and they sent me to a private hospital in the worst part of town. i'd've preferred the state hospital. actually, i'd've preferred 100 continuous hours of listening to barry manilow, but that wasn't one of my options.
--
sine | deb
more gruesome details of "what i did this summer"
to come.
on july 21, i was fired, and the personnel director took it upon herself to call the cops and tell them i was acting suicidal. tim pierce gave alan a ride to the er, where we sat around for hours watching a cop watch me (it was kinda fun, devising circuitous routes to the ladies' room, but anything is fun on 7 mg of klonopin, except maybe sex).
finally, some nice men in an ambulance came and carried me (an alan) away to the worst neighborhood in town. i love the logic here -- northwestern is throwing you out for having no insurance, but you're being charged $400 for an ambulance to take you to a hospital that accepts indigents.
i was one of maybe three people on the ward not affiliated with a gang, and the other two were in their 60s. i got to be called a white motherfucker, a honky, a whitebread bitch... lots of names i'd forgotten. one guy told me to my face that it was nothing personal, he just hated all white people. still, after a few days i got along okay. i even got hit on by a few drug dealers (there still may be a guy waiting for me at 52nd and kenwood; i dunno).
we have uninspired food, but we get to pick from two choices in each category for each meal. first i'm on a regular diet. then i'm on a low-sodium diet (i practically never use salt anyway). then i'm on a low-cholesterol diet. then regular, then low-fat.
no one took any kind of history -- no questions about my past, my background, anything beyond "do you feel like hurting yourself?" then i got to meet the Doctor. Doctor came in once a day and spent five minutes with each of his patients. i had been relatively okay on a regimen of 60 mg prozac, 2000 mg depakote, 2 mg klonopin, and occasionally trazodone for sleep. prozac works for me. it's worked for years. i cannot function without it. trazodone is also an anti-depressant, but it's been dismissed as worthless because the effective dosage would keep you asleep all day.
so Doctor upped my traz to 150, upped my klonopin (also sedating) to 3 mg, and stopped my prozac entirely. then he wondered why i never got out of bed. at one point, i was so oversedated i was wetting the bed at night. of course, Doctor thought i was making *that* up so i could stay in the hospital longer. when i wet my bed, there were usually no fresh linens available; i ended up hoarding sheets and towels so i could sleep on a dry bed. they made fun of me when i asked for adult diapers. my clothes got pissed on if i fell asleep during the day, but the dryer was broken so we couldn't do any personal laundry. and after i had to put my really really smelly blanket in the laundry, it disappeared and i slept for four nights in an over-air-conditioned hospital with only flat sheets as covers.
staff never asked when they could yell, never answered when you asked why. a nurse explained to me: we have to make sure you're obedient, in case there's a crisis or something. one of my first nights there, i didn't know this and i asked a mean nurse why i had to leave the hallway and she threw me in isolation for fifteen minutes.
groups were fun. we had a bingo therapy group, and once a spades therapy group and even a watching-the-nurse's-favorite-sitcom group. in one group on focus and process, the leader began by telling us all, "you think i'm here because i wanna be? you think i like doing this? i'm here for the money. i get my r.n. in a few months and i'll get even more money. you wanna get anywhere, you have to get academics so you can get money."
they like leather there. a little old lady, maybe 65, was violently restrained, pinned to the bed, and put into five-point leathers for repeatedly asking for her sleeping pill. she weighed maybe 100 pounds, and this 250-pound aide dragged her into the "quiet room" and tied her up.
of course, i got tied up, too. alan came to see me, and at the end of his visit we asked a nurse if there was a number where he could reach Doctor. nurse hell said no, so i asked if there was a ward phone number and when she said yes, i asked if i could have it. "i'm not on duty right now," she said, turning her back on me.
later in the evening, a fellow patient warned me she'd heard nurse hell saying to someone else, "i'm going to get debra in restraints tonight for sure." of course, the staff often talked and joked about patients within earshot of other patients.
i was sitting in the rec room (such as it was), waiting for the meds line to diminish, when nurse hell stuck her head in the door and yelled that all patients who hadn't taken meds should do so now. i said, "okay, cool. i was just watching the line til it got short." she told me to take my drugs and then go to the quiet room for 15 minutes to think about smarting off like that.
i got my meds and went back to my solitaire game, refusing to go to the quiet room. soon two thugs dragged me from my chair (ripping open yet another wrist wound -- can't these people *see*?) and drag-marched me to the quiet room. once they'd locked me in, i went into the bathroom to blow my nose (i was crying quite a bit by now) and nurse hell came in and demanded that i leave the bathroom immediately. i said i would when i'd blown my nose. two thugs came in and in five minutes i was stripped down, in a hospital gown, and in five-point leather restraints. this was around 6 pm. someone came in and took my vitals and brought me water, an someone later brought my 9 o'clock meds, but that was it. no nourishment, no more water, no chance to pee, no range-of-motion exercises -- just nine hours of lying spreadeagled on a bed under a video camera. finally, at 3 am, someone came in, released me, and told me to go take a shower and go to bed. the sheet i'd been on was saturated, and my gown was so sodden with piss it dripped all the way down the hallway.
in my chart, it said i'd thrown myself to the floor and threatened to bang my head in the rec room, and that i'd been self-mutilating in the bathroom.
the weekend before i left (after nearly a month in this godforsaken place, i don't care how many bleeding christs they stick on the wall, it's godforsaken), the staff decided they were shortstaffed. so they locked us all in the dayroom until 11 pm, refusing us access to our rooms for anything. in the mean time, they had a boombox going in the nurses' station -- james brown, so loud you could hear it at the end of the hall well after midnight. when i confronted the nurse who had been playing it, he lied and said i must have heard the overhead muzak.
all good things come to an end, and Doctor decided i was beyond his capacity to help anymore. i was noncompliant and all that other nasty stuff. i argued with him about my meds. i stood up for my rights. so they transferred me to madden, another state hospital (and another ambulance ride). when i tried to pick up my belongings before i got on the stretcher, an aide (the one who's in it for the money) refused to let me. he insisted i should get on the stretcher and he would bring my things to me. he applied a squeeze hold; i applied my nails. he won anyway, but i made him curse.
at madden, they read my records, listened to my story, gave me a sack lunch, and pointed me toward the bus back to hyde park.
--
sine | deb
truth is stranger than fiction
and i'm writing this down so i remember