shebreathes's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- my experience with psychiatry i'm a survivor of childhood emotional sexual abuse and childhood sexual assault. my perpetrator is my grandfather. when i was fifteen, i told my counsellor that my grandfather tongue kissed me when i was twelve. she called it assault. i'd never heard that before. the police got involved and all the memories of the abuse were brought up. i had to talk about it a lot. i had very little support in my life at that time and i became very depressed. i'd been seriously depressed for years and i knew it but people were only beginning to notice. i started cutting. i started seriously contemplating suicide. my family started telling me that they wanted me to go on anti-depressants but i refused. one day, i left school with a bottle, smashed it and sliced up my arms by the side of the road. i also took twelve tylenol that day. my brother found me and got my mom. she took me to the hospital to drink charcoal. after that, i was admitted to a youthdale psychiatric locked unit. i went willingly because i desperately wanted to get better. when i got there, i had to take off all my clothes, shower and wash my hair. than, a woman member of the staff came in and briefly look at my naked body. it was very triggering and i think it was unnecessary. then, i ented the unit. we had a strict schedule. we had to shower twice a day, once in the morning and once after gym. we had to brush our teeth four times a day. we were never allowed time alone except in our beds at night and in the bathroom. cuttlery was counted after every meal. when i started crying i was told that i was upsetting the other patients. i stopped crying after that. i complained that the place wasn't helping me. we played bingo on the weekend, had little group activities, played soccer in the "gym", ate our meals, watched tv at night, but there wasn't a lot of actual helping. they got group therapy started up after a few days and i enjoyed that. i talked to a psychiatrist every once in awhile but i did not find her very helpful. she wanted me to go on anti-depressants and i told her i didn't want to. i had plenty of reasons to be depressed. sexual abuse, coming out as queer in a homophobic high school at fourteen, being the different and so on. these issues weren't really discussed. i was actually told that being bisexual is the same as being straight, except for the detail of gender. this is obviously ridiculous because the straight kids at my school weren't called a dyke every day. the things my psychiatrist told me were simplistic. she said that the obsessive unrequited crush i had on a boy was just me loving him the way i wanted to love myself. after a week of challenging and resisting the staff, i decided that if i wanted to leave, i'd have to comply. maybe it wouldn't be so bad. i told my psychiatrist that i would consider anti-depressants but i had some questions. i told her that i was a very passionate person and would the drugs take that away from me? she said no. i told her that i had heard that anti-depressants could take away your sex drive and i was concerned about this. she said i'd be put on a low dosage and that my sex drive wouldn't be affected. i went on the drugs. the staff thought i was making progress. they were so impressed. basically, i went from being independant, opinionated and interested in helping myself to just plain old compliant. they were so impressed. i was out in a week. at first, after getting out, i was so happy. i could see the sky again. i could go where i wanted to go. i mistaked this temporary high from freedom for a postive affect of their psychiatry and drugs. i faithfully took my celexa every day and i felt good - for awhile. then i went back to school, back to my lack of true friends, back to being a freak, back to being depressed. i started self injuring again but i kept it to myself. after awhile, i dropped out of school. i got into a really good relationship with this guy. i started having sex and noticed that my sex drive wasn't up to par. i decided that i didn't want to take the pills anymore. i wanted my sex drive back and i didn't like feeling dependant on the things. i tried to find out how to get off them safely but when no information was available, i just stopped taking them. this resulted in a few days where i believed that it was too cold for me to go outside safely. after awhile, the drugs left my system. what i felt can only be described as the lifting of a fog. everything was full colour again. i no longer felt detatched frommy emotions and from my surroundings. i was glad to be off of them. since then, it's been a struggle. i'm still depressed a lot of the time. i still self injure sometimes. but i survive. i'm trying to build a life for myself that brings me happiness and i think i'm doing a pretty good job. recently, i was at a party at my parents' place. i was drinking and in drunked state did not realise that the liquid i was chugging was rum. i'm not a heavy drinker but that night, because of the huge quantity of rum that i consumed, i was out of control. i don't remember what happened after chugging the rum but apparently i was very violent and tried to hurt myself and others. i woke up in the emergency room and had to sapen the next couple days in a psych ward. i was confined to a room with nothing but my bed in it. i was expected to just sit there and do nothing for 72 hours. i slept a lot. the first night, a nurse came into my room and said "here's your medication." i asked her what it was. she said it was mood stabilizer. she coaxed me to take it. i asked her what that meant. she told me it was a starting dose for effexor. i told her i wasn't taking it and she said it was my right to refuse. i had to deal with a seriously condescending social worker. when she asked me about my life, i didn't know what to tell her. i couldn't tell her that i was a queer freak masochist in a polyamorous relationship. she would see that as unhealthy. so i edited my life. i stressed the two year long relationship with my boyfriend. i told her about my counsellor. that i like to write. she was kind enough to give me some paper and a pen. i wrote my heart out, without knowing that she'd try to read it. i had to read her a poem so i read her the least freaky one i had and she still looked freaked out. i managed to get out of their in two days instead of three. but 42 hours staring at the wall is enough to drive you insane. they were so condescending. they treated me like i was incapable of taking care of myself. i am starting to get angry about this. maybe i'm not the one who's crazy. maybe my grandfather is the one who should be locked up (he isn't. he's a free man). maybe this homophobic world is what's unhealthy. maybe my self injury is an important survival tool that has helped me get through some serious shit. maybe i'm doing okay. 8:26 am - July 29, 2004 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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