Traces of Nuts

The first time I was hospitalised, when I was about 17, I started hearing voices. Well, to be more specific I started hearing a robot voice.

I tried to ignore it at first. Get on with things. Go about my business. But this robot voice was every where I went. In my room, in the dining area, in the halls. This voice was starting to (if you’ll excuse the irony) drive me completely insane. I began to feel more and more dejected. Here I was. In a psychiatric institution. Hearing voices.

Then I became angry. I couldn’t even understand what the damn thing was saying.  I couldn’t even be a normal crazy person.  Someone who could actually understand their stupid voices. This is ridiculous!

One day I was waiting for a group session to start when I heard the robot talking again. I decided I had to settle this matter once and for all. I turned to the guy next to me and asked him:

 “Did you just hear that robot voice?!”

He looked vaguely startled and looked around. “Robot voice?”

“There it is again!” I exclaimed. “See! That robot voice! Please tell me you can hear it! I’m being driven insane. I know I shouldn’t say that here...but seriously....can you hear it?”.  

It was then that he burst out laughing. “That’s Harold!” he told me, in between snorts. “He’s had a tracheotomy, he speaks through a tube. I guess he does sound a bit like a robot.”

We were both silent for a moment. “Well that’s a relief,” I finally said. “For the last week I have been convinced I was hearing robot voices”.

Oh we laughed and laughed after that. I felt a huge range of things. Guilty for starters (poor Harold!), embarrassed, but most of all relieved. THANK GOD! I wasn’t crazy. Well, at least not in that way.

But this experience got me thinking. What is crazy anyway? Do you know if you are crazy? I’ve heard that the craziest people often believe they are sane. But sane people can think they are crazy too. Are you crazy if you are sane but think you’re crazy? Who defines it? Where is the line between crazy and sane?

One day, in the MBU, I was trying to make some lunch for David. Another patient was experiencing a manic episode and was pestering me, talking a mile a minute, following me around the kitchen. In between peals of laughter she managed to say “wow! You must really think I’m crazy!”
“Yes,” I responded rather grumpily. To my surprise she just burst out laughing again.
“That’s because I am!” she sung, before waltzing outside to the garden.

She certainly thought she was. Did I think I was crazy? I’m not sure. Do I now? I don’t know. What I do know, is that the deterioration of mental health results in a need for intervention. Some people resist it, but I was open to it. Perhaps that was the sanest part of my condition. I believe that everyone has their own eccentricities, some are just more obvious than others. I believe eccentricities need only be a negative thing should they threaten the wellbeing or reputations of themselves or the people around them.

Although I can’t define what I was before, at this point in time I’ll conclude that for now I’m swinging around the ‘normal’ end of the continuum. Normal. With traces of nuts ;)

Girls, Interrupted.

Having spent a fair amount of time at the MBU, I was able to see many different women come and go. As much as I was happy for the women that were discharged, I was hit by unexpected jealousy as well. Jealousy and then self incrimination. “What is wrong with me?! What can’t I get my act together and get better like everyone else?!”.

But aside from that, what struck me was just how different we all were. I began to see that postnatal mental illness spared no one. No cohort, no demographic group, nobody. There were older women, first time mums, black women, white women, Catholics, Muslims, professionals, teenagers, city women, country women, single parents, smokers, vegetarians and everyone in between. This is why I feel it is so important for EVERYONE to be aware of mental illness, particularly in the postnatal period. You never think it’s going to be you. Your partner. Your daughter. Your mother.

Anyway, although I was in the MBU for a significant amount of time, there was one woman, let’s call her Sophie, who had been there longer. We didn’t really speak much, but we were always kind of aware of each other. Every time I had a meltdown I’d glance around and see her in the background, pretending to ignore me. But that’s ok I pretended to ignore a few of her outbursts too.

One night, increasingly frustrated by my lack of sleep, I stormed out to the nurses station to try and get some sleeping pills. Sophie was waiting there too and we awkwardly stood next to each other for a few minutes.

Finally Sophie asked: “can’t sleep?”.

“What’s sleep?” I replied with a wry smile. Sophie laughed and then gestured to our dressing gowns.

“We should swap” she said. I looked down and noticed we were both wearing purple gowns. She was short in stature and wearing a long gown trailing the ground, I’m tall and was wearing a short gown cropped below the knee. I laughed and then saw the nurses arriving back at the station.

“You should take this,” she said, thrusting a magazine into my hands. “If you can’t sleep. It always helps me sleep.”  I thanked her. I was willing to do anything to get some sleep, and read whatever this magazine may be.

Later back in my room, having been denied medication, I took out the magazine and started to read. And would you believe it? I actually fell asleep! I kept it in my room for emergencies. Nightmares. Insomnia. It was a first aid kit for the weary. When I left the MBU I made sure to leave my magazine on the nightstand, just in case someone else should need it.

Sophie and I were both discharged within days of each other. I still think about her a lot, and I hope that she is doing well.

The magazine? It turned out to be a Coles advertising booklet. Perhaps it was the boredom of reading it that worked so well for us. Or perhaps it was just the comfort of knowing someone else was going through the same thing. Either way, I do remember having a fair few dreams about cooking... ;)

What's your status?

Yesterday, during an appointment with my psychologist at the hospital, it came to light that I was apparently an involuntary patient under the Mental Health Act for a period of time during my hospital stay. To say I was surprised is an understatement. I assured my psychologist she was mistaken, until she read out my file notes from my doctor at the MBU.

“Rachael was an inpatient at the MBU for two months, much of the time under one to one supervision and under the Mental Health Act”.

The thing is, I don’t remember that at all. I remember being threatened with the Mental Health Act should I worsen, resist treatment or abscond. But that’s about it. Other patients who were of involuntary status seemed to be aware of it. I certainly wasn’t. 

But then again, I wasn’t aware of much. I wasn’t aware that I was on one to one supervision until one day another patient asked my nurse for something. My nurse declined and the patient glanced at me and asked “oh, are you still on one to one supervision?”. It was only then I looked around and realised that I was the only patient with a nurse chained to my side all day. For most of my time in the MBU, the unit was in 'lockdown'. I didn't even realize that the unit could be unlocked until the end of my stay. It was only at then that I realized that the  lockdown  everyone complained about was initiated because of me (along with another patient). Sorry guys! 

The fact that I had psychosis adds another layer of complexity to the whole issue. Trying to piece together fragmented memories is difficult enough, but trying to remember when you are not even sure what was real and what wasn’t is nearly impossible.

I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon researching the matter. Trawling through pages and pages of government documents, searching through the endless 1996 Mental Health Act, trying to find anything that would give me some answers. Surely I would need to fill out a form? Or Steven would need to be aware?

My search was inconclusive. The complexities of the system are really beyond my patience. Is written evidence from my doctor enough for me to believe what happened? It should be, but somehow it’s not. A written report should stand firm against the unreliable memory of a psychotic patient. But this is me, not just anyone. Surely I should remember something.

I know that most people reading this will think ‘well what does it matter?’ I went into hospital, I came out of hospital, I’m feeling better, are the specific details of my stay really that important?

But to me they are. To me there is a big difference between seeking help voluntarily, and being treated as an involuntary patient. The legalities of my treatment matter. What happened to me matters. But most of all it matters that I can’t seem to trust my own memories and recollections.

Who do I believe? Me or them? Who do you believe?

New

This week was one of those annoying weeks where everything seemed to go wrong. Broken plates, broken appliances, broken sleep, missed appointments, sick printers, forgotten forms, lost pieces of priceless jewelery. You name it, it happened. 

I wouldn’t say it was a ‘bad’ week as such. Just an incredibly annoying one.

I had one of those familiar “fuck it all” moments the other day. Skidding around the kitchen, trying to mop up chocolate covered water from the dishwasher with a freshly laundered towel on a freshly mopped kitchen floor, listening to a screaming baby. Fuck. It. All.

But today is a new start. It’s been a cracker of a week, and a hell of a year, but I’m ready to leave that behind and start fresh. It’s my birthday next week, and for my present my mum has bought me a haircut. For the first time in a long time I’m going to chop it off. Not *really* short, but shorter than it is now. I like my long hair, but the truth is, I don’t have the time or energy to spend styling it each morning. It generally gets clipped back, tied back and otherwise neglected. I’m looking forward to something a little less high maintenance! I also splurged on some new dresses and jewellery. Something I very rarely do.  I’m generally a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl, but with summer coming up I figured it would be nice to have some pretty dresses.

  I have also spring cleaned the house, weeded the garden, changed the layout of the living room and bought a new rug. I’ve planted my favorite herbs outside, and I’ve started buying my fruit and vegetables from local farmers at the markets. I’ve gotten myself into a household routine that works.

This all probably seems fairly insignificant. But you see, more than anything I need a CHANGE. I want to physically separate the ‘old’ me from the ‘new’ me. I’m happy, I’m in control, and I want that to be represented in the way I present myself, and in the environment I live in. I want a fresh start.

Now let’s just pray that the hairdresser doesn’t destroy my hair today ;)