Showing posts with label psychiatric unit. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychiatric unit. Show all posts

Friday, 4 March 2016

Extreme Mood Swings: Sudden Depressive Episode: My Experience

Low episode....if you can call it that. I don't know how to describe it. It came over all of a sudden, out of the blue like a dark cloud on a sunny day. Suddenly I want to be dead, to sleep, to feel nothing. I feel nothing, but a painful kind of nothing, not sadness, this isn't sadness. This is something more.
It is the BLACK DOG. It is depression. It is a depressive episode. I don't know how long it will last, hopefully a few hours, not days, not weeks, or months, or years.
I am stuck in treacle, I can't move, even typing these words is too much. The light is too bright. I want to be in the dark in a fetal position, under a blanket, warm, away from the world.
What do I do? Do I give in to the demon telling me I am pathetic and better off dead and find a way, in this safe, restricted envrionment, to kill myself? Do I go to sleep? Do I take a sedative? Do I read a book, but how do I read when words don't make sense and they just move around in order. Do I listen to music? But sad songs make me cry and happy songs annoy me.
Do I lie on my bed staring into thin air and let the feeling pass?
Chocolate. Books. Dogs. Music. Things I love. Right now, chocolate is poison, books are annoying, dogs are ugly and music is too loud, too stimulating.
I will have to ride the wave....an emotion can only last for so long, so I have been told, so I will ride the wave....it is at it's peak, but it will dip, it will come crashing down, back to the shore.
I will wash up on the sand and the sun will shine again and life will be worth living.
These are the days, the hours, the moments, that are so fatal. These are the suicidal episodes. But I won't let them win, I won't become a statistic, a sad news story, a corpse in a coffin, I will stay alive. All good things come to an end but all bad things do too.
If it's not OK, it's not the end.
I will fight this beast, this slug, this black dog, this demonic monster.
Tomorrow I'll be on top of the world.

Saturday, 29 June 2013

Don't Call Me Crazy

So a new programme began this week. 'Don't Call Me Crazy' follows the lives of teenagers in an inpatient psychiatric hospital in the UK, suffering from various mental illnesses. The unit - The McGuinness unit, has now been replaced by a brand new modern unit called Junction 17.
After staying at one myself, for 2 weeks, I found this programme rather interesting, yet also sad. Sad because of the illnesses the young people have and sad because of the way they are treated.
My stay at a psychiatric unit was a rather positive experience.
The people there were not restrained in front of other young people, which they are in the McGuinness unit.
One of the patients who suffered from depression, anorexia and also self harmed, refused to be weighed and eat. At the unit I was at, the young people had to eat, and did. They were weighed. They were supervised a lot of the time to ensure they were not exercising and moving around, especially twitching and fidgeting slightly to burn off calories. They went to the toilet and were not allowed to flush the loo until the staff had checked there was not sick down the toilet, which is a way of purging (vomiting).
On the positive and motivational side, one of the patients who suffered with acute OCD told the camera how "OCD does not define her as a person."
The patients raised awareness of the stigma surrounding mental illness and shared personal insight into their minds. All in all it was a very worthwhile programme. It was widely talked about. I read this article in The Guardian which advertised and promoted the programme which raises awareness surrounding mental health.