My Breakdown

I've been stable for three years now. I've maintained my stability and taken care of myself and done what I need to do to make sure I stay well. I take my meds, go to therapy, participate in support groups and practice self-care. It all works together to keep me well. 

Then things fell apart. It started with an event that was traumatic to me. One of my friends had overdosed and me, being the stable one, went to go get her to take her to the hospital. On the way to the hospital, she went unconscious and unresponsive. I had to pull over in the middle of the night and call 911. It took a couple minutes for them to find out where I was exactly and then they sent out emergency responders. A cop came first. He checked for a pulse and then he shook her and called her name and tried to elicit a pain response by shaking her at her breastbone. She still didn't respond. Firetruck was next followed by EMS. They once again tried to wake her and couldn't. They took her blood sugar and her blood pressure and those both came back okay. I was standing on the sidewalk, crying, watching the whole thing progress. They began trying to figure out how to get her onto the stretcher when she threw up all over the back of my car and started coming to. They told her that she had to go to the hospital and she became belligerent and started arguing with them in her semi-conscious state. The firefighter running the scene asked me to talk to her and I tried to tell her that she had to go to the hospital and she still fought it. Eventually, she said that if the lead firefighter would leave the scene that she would go willingly with EMS. So the firefighter drove off for just enough time for them to put her on the stretcher and into the ambulance. Then the firefighter came back to the scene. I grabbed her backpack and gave it to EMS to take with her to the hospital. One of the paramedics asked me if they knew that this was an intentional overdose and I said that it was. Eventually, they left, headed for the hospital. The firefighter and the cop conferred with each other for a couple minutes and then told me that due to COVID I couldn't go to the hospital with her so I best just head home and wait for updates. So I cleared it with them that I was okay to leave and headed home. She was released from the hospital the following morning and sent home to recover. No psych referral or anything which really frustrated me because she had hurt herself and needed help but there was nothing I could do. I spent the night crying and trying to pull myself together. 

I slept a couple hours and then woke up to text my therapist about potentially seeing her for a session that day because I knew I was not in good shape. She said she had a session open that morning and that I could see her then. So I stayed up and went to the therapy session. I was exhausted because I had slept all of maybe 2 hours in a 36 hour period. I used the session to process what had happened and then went home. I slept during the day and then got up for my training that night. I ended up sleeping during the training. After that I went back to my bed and I spent the next 24 hours in bed with the only exception being going to the bathroom. This ended up with me somewhat waking up and talking to a couple friends. I was then up during the night for a few hours and then went back to sleep and slept 14 hours straight without waking up. I'm not sure if I was avoiding life or my that I was physically or mentally exhausted. I woke up around 4pm that Sunday and decided to go DoorDashing to make some money. During this extended period of time, I missed my medication for around a week.

During the DoorDashing, I started having thoughts of pulling my car out in front of other cars or driving off the road intentionally. I had thoughts that I didn't really want to live life anymore. So I called one of my friends and we talked for a while and eventually decided that a hospitalization would be good to help get me back on my medication. So I called my therapist and psychiatrist to get some help setting up an intake appointment at a local psychiatric hospital. My therapist called Marshall Pickens hospital and set up an intake appointment for the following day. 

The next day I packed myself a bag and went to the intake appointment. The lady doing the assessment identified that what I thought was just general anxiety was actually me having anxiety attacks over and over again. They admitted me to the hospital. Once admitted, they went through the typical intake process. They did their search of me (which resulted in my losing two things that I tried to sneak in, one of which was my security item, my pillowcase) and then went through my stuff and put it in brown paper bags for me to take to my room. While I was going through the intake process, another patient recognized me from a previous hospital stay. I did not remember her at all (because my memory really sucks) but greeted her. They wanted us to wear masks with it being during COVID and all but a lot of the patients only wore them when we had to go off the unit for groups and meals.  I saw a resident who evaluated me and we went over my medications. I told her I just needed to get back on my medications and she agreed after I explained. The whole purpose of this hospitalization was for me to get back on my medications and medications were a problem from the beginning. They didn't carry multiple of my medications including my sleep medication. The medication that I take is an extended release version of a sleep medication and they wouldn't allow me to bring my own in. The version they had was for falling asleep, not staying asleep which is my biggest issue with my insomnia. So that entire first day it was a battle with my medications. They said they wanted me to try the non-extended release one. That night I didn't sleep but 5 hours and then I was up the rest of the night. So they added an anxiety med for me and once again I did not sleep. I knew that this was not going to work so I asked to discharge. I was there 3 days and then I left because I couldn't take my sleep medication and thus slept very little while I was there which just screwed with my emotions even more. 

Once I left MIP, I went to stay with a friend who lived three hours away from me to see if staying with her could stabilize me out. I was there for a few days and we went to a Christian conference together but I was still struggling. So I called the Carolina Center for Behavioral Health and asked for an admission. I was afraid initially that they wouldn't accept me because of my past history with them. However, there was no problem in getting me in and I was admitted September 1st. I spent three weeks in the hospital trying to just get stable on my meds again. Shortly after I got there, the friend that I had helped before showed up on the same unit. Her and I got along great, but I spent a lot of time helping her instead of taking care of myself. When she fell apart and was moved to a new unit, I was relieved and was able to focus on myself again. Once that happened, I was able to be stable enough for discharge. After three weeks, I left and started in their IOP program which was three days a week for 3 hours a day. 

I was in the program for a week and a half before my life began to fall apart again. I was suicidal and wasn't sure I could keep myself safe. I was told if I didn't agree to more intensive care, that I would be involuntarily committed so I just needed to go to a higher level of care because of where my head was. So I was admitted to the hospital again. This second time we decided that we were going to try a medication change. I don't do well with medication changes and this medication adjustment was hell on earth. I was super suicidal and wanting to self-harm all the time. I ended up taking a plastic knife from the cafeteria and getting myself put on unit restrictions. I was on for a week and a half and that entire time I didn't eat anything. I drank Powerade and that was it. I started having intense panic attacks, some of the worst ones I had had in my entire life. Eventually, I was taken off. Shortly after, the thoughts in my head became uncontrollable and I didn't feel comfortable asking help from staff. I tend to be afraid to ask for help and assert my needs when I'm in a hospital setting. So I ended up self-harming. Nothing major, not even breaking the skin, just an abrasion. I was immediately put back on unit restrictions and was harshly scolded for doing it. I was in graduate school at the time and my friends were taking care of printing things and typing them up so I could keep up in my courses. At this point there was an assignment I had gotten an extension on and the teacher wasn't willing to budge. So I said I wanted to discharge. I remember the doctor being very frustrated with me and telling me he wouldn't be surprised if he didn't see me back in a week. 

I did IOP again and was there for a week before being re-admitted. During the week that I was out, I got most of my major school assignments done so that I didn't have to worry about leaving in order to do schoolwork. So I was admitted again and the doctor was not surprised. We agreed to try another medication, which of course sent off the spiral of my thoughts and I was consistently self-harming. However, instead of shaming me like the doctor had before, he was more compassionate and just encouraged me through my victories. I had certain staff that I focused on talking to when I struggled. At one point while I was there, I was self-harming and had a plan to kill myself inside the hospital. But I wrote something out and talked to a staff member I felt comfortable with and she took it and put it in my chart for the doctor to read. I was surprised that there was no shaming, complete understanding on the part of the doctor or the therapist. This third time I kept staples with me but didn't use them for a while, just hid them and kept them in my pocket. Towards the end of the hospitalization there, we found out that my days to go to River Oaks were numbered so we fought about me leaving and going there. I felt that it would be a waste of time considering I only had 17 days. But I was pushed into deciding to go there. So I was discharged, had three days to finish up my schoolwork and then prepared to go to River Oaks. 

It turned out to be a great decision. I received help there that targeted the foundation of things. I uncovered a new trauma that I hadn't explored before. I received a lot of help. I got three extra days through doing PHP and those were helpful as well. I left on a crazy note because of everything I did on my last day there but was told if I needed to come back after my insurance days reset (which was 60 days), that I could come back.

So I went home and started PHP at CCBH. I did that for three weeks and then switched over to IOP. We focused on getting me back to River Oaks without hospitalization. We didn't do any med changes other than to increase my nightmare medication because I was having intense nightmares again, mainly because of the uncovering of the trauma from being at River Oaks. 

60 days later, I returned to River Oaks and did a lot of work there over the six weeks I was there. I returned home after 6 weeks in a better state of mind. Newer issues had come up and there was a plan in place to deal with everything. 

This period of time was tumultuous. I struggled with feeling like a failure because I had been stable for three years with no hospitalizations and I had to reset everything. I had to reset on my self-harm free days and my hospital free days. Which was frustrating. I was frustrated that my life had fallen apart again and that I wasn't able to hold things together. I felt like this screwed up my plans on being a social worker and that there was no way that this would be used in a good way.

However my friends told me different. They told me that there will be people who will need to know my experiences and how I got back up after I was knocked down again. That this has a purpose.

I think I'm learning that recovery is not linear. It has ups and downs, peaks and valleys. It's a never ending battle. But it's one that I can fight.