It's been six months since my visit to a psychward in November of last year. I meant to write about my experience there when I left but I forgot woops. Leaving that place I was filled with so much creative energy but it was all shockwave no damage. Those conditions being so structured and constricting both mentally and physically really makes you wanna move. I think I made the first minute of a song in renoise? thats about it :P

Was my stay necessary? Yes I believe so. In the immediate moment I was a threat to myself. It was the opposite of a pyrrhic victory. A latin defeat? Something like that. Otherwise it wasn't much help. The antidepressants I was given helped little and I believe exasperated my issues. My reputation was tainted to being a weirdo mentally ill freak. I was isolated. Some of my closest friends either brushed it aside as a minor thing while others kicked me while I was down and pushed me closer to the edge than what had put me in there. I'm not friends with that person anymore for different unrelated reasons but I should have cut them off then and there.

I wouldn't be here if my lovely partner didn't love me so much. They visited me everyday while I was there. Bringing me crackers, playing card games and doing puzzles. I've never been loved more in my life. I felt guilty the whole time. I didn't deserve the love of someone that I had almost left in secret if they hadn't stopped me. I owe them my life and I mean that. I don't think I'll ever experience such a strong dissonance between wanting to die and wanting to live as I did that week.

How have I been the past six months after leaving? Very up and down. The medication didn't help much. I learned that not taking the medication is ever worse and that led to problems I'm still grieving. The strategies and cbt sheets I were given are insulting; its like throwing bandages at someone with a concussion. The people that hurt me while in there have grown further away despite my best efforts while others have grown closer. How people treat you at your worst *is* indicative of how they see you. The most important thing I've learned and I only truly got this the past month or so is that I am, unfortunately, mentally ill. Not in a fun tumblr aesthetic way but in a way that damages myself and people around me. Awareness of that has been the most helpful thing I've learned. Its easier to get myself out of spirals and my ruminating thoughts now. I'm slowly getting better. A silver lining to this whole mess and it was a mess.

A few take aways:

• Hospital food actually isn't that bad and they accommodated my vegan diet. That said the food is ridiculously undersalted. If I end up there again I'm smuggling in a salt lick
• Three meals a day with multiple different dishes is really nice. I've made adjustments to my diet to include more dishes instead of the daily huge bowl of slop I'm used to
• Some of the nurses were dehumanizing and gentle in a way that that is disrespectful. Others were nice. The best nurses treated me like a person and not like a world war 2 bomb discovered in someone's yard
• I have strangely little to say about the other patients. I only had a conversation with one person there and they were nice. There's an unsaid understanding that everyone there is at their worst. Mutual understanding for all pots and kettles
• Once you've revealed yourself as sufficiently mentally ill, every insult and cruelty can be framed as advice and tough love. It's held against you. People can lie to your face and insult you and treat it as self presevation. I got off relatively well; this is a major vector of abuse in the world
• Gauge who I can tell details about my mental health better. Some people treat that as good gossip and don't understand the weight some terms and words hold

bless bless