Relationships--me and them

The Great Escape tale needs to wait a bit. I have other things on my mind tonight.

I mentioned previously how naive I was when I was younger--my teenage years. Then I was diagnosed and entered the mental health care system. What little ability I had left inside to trust other people, the world, the cars on the freeway, etc, disappeared. It was a matter of survival.

I never ever forget who has the power when I interact with people--especially medical people. I watch what i say carefully so as not to end up somewhere I don't want to be i.e. another hospitalization. Having learned after about 20 years that I could maybe trust again...and I was going to have to if I was ever going to get better, I also learned that by baring your soul to a therapist, you have left a door open to your pysche and if they so choose, they can inflect incrediable pain with a few well chosen words. They know where the scars are and can reopen them so fast you can't even try to block the attack. I also know that in a court of law, my word against a health care professional's is like a stick fence against a tsuimami. In fact, my word won't stand up to anyone else's who has not sought professional help or been diagnosed...yet. --mischevious grin--

So what characterizes my relationships with mental healthcare professionals? Caution. Watching carefully the body language, expressions, the eyes in order to know when to fold the conversation and walk away.

Relationships with other healthcare professionals....doctors...as in MDs.....SIGH It does not matter what symptom I may be having...even running a fever it seems...but as soon as I answer the question what medications I am on--thereby revealing that I am a psych patient--then my symptoms suddenly become something to not take seriously at all and to catagorize me as a hypochondriac or the symptoms are a manifestation of my depression. I have been so frustrated at times...I have this very satisfying fantasy of going berserk in the exam room and smash everything to pieces, throw a chair or the stool at the doctor while screaming my head off...and then very calmly saying, "Doctor, there is no reason for alarm. All of this is just in your head." However, since I am not a violent person, I will never know that satisfaction. I've had nurses do the same thing to me as well. It takes a long time to find a doctor who will listen. I finally have I am pleased to say...I think. Now I have a ton of physical diagnoses and have to take even more meds than before! Hmmmm....perhaps I should not have looked so hard for a doctor who would actually investigate my symptoms!

A little off the subject...but I want to share my pet peeve with MDs...in the years gone by, the doctor examined you, ordered tests, interpreted results, and planned the treatment. All you had to do was comply. But now doctors often ask ME if they should order an x-ray on my injured body part, do I think the treatment plan will help, what do I think the problem is, etc. EXCUSE ME but YOU are the one who went to medical school and passed your boards so why are you asking ME? It doesn't matter what I think! I am the patient! If you need the help of your patient who has not been to medical school to practice medicine, then I think I will just hang out my shingle and open my own medical practice. I don't WANT to make major decisions about things I know nothing about. Could we have a meeting of the minds at some point and stop this insanity? Pretty soon I'll have to assist in my next surgery...Jeesh! Someone please explain to me why it is that I am the crazy one and the doctor asking my advice is not???? And I have observed doctors do this to non-diagnosed people too! Ok....I think I feel better now. And if there are any doctors out there reading this...please keep your questions to yourself or better....go ask a nurse!

TM

Relationships on the unit-part 1

In this post, I am referring to inpatient hospitalizations #1 and #2. These occurred in the mid-70's on a one-size fits all locked unit.

I have to admit I was very naive when I shared a poem with my psychiatrist during an appointment that I had written titled "The Death Wish". Then I announced that I while I really appreciated all his efforts to help me I was very sorry to tell him that I was going to kill myself. But I thanked him very much for all he had done for me. I hoped he wouldn't be too upset.

He asked if I wanted to go in the hospital. I thought he was out of his mind! Hospital! Why would I go in the hospital? I wasn't sick or injured--yet. And if I wanted to die, going to a hospital was counter-productive! He explained what he meant. Oh crap. I thought that stuff was only in the movies, tvs, or books.

So there I was...18 years old and locked up with other mentals, alcoholics, junkies, and a teenager who had murdered his stepfather after he escaped from the closet he had been locked in for all of his life. He took a shotgun and killed him. He really was a nice kid and kind of like Rip Van Winkle...didn't know how to even work a soda machine! Or even what a bed was. Sad. He did learn quickly though.

The first hospitalization was 6 weeks long. The second one was 8 weeks. By the time the second one was finished, I had been enculturated into the subculture of psych patients. We have our own rules and codes of ethics.

A patient was brought in one night to sleep over. He was being transported to the state hospital but he didn't know that. One of the junkies found out by overhearing at the nurses station. I was there when he told the guy who was going to the Big Place for a long long time. He looked at us and said "Thank you, man. I'll never forget this." He escaped that night. We were all rounded up for questioning by the head nurse the next morning but we just stared at her like she was crazy. She finally stomped off saying, "I KNOW you guys had something to do with this!!" We laughed about that for a long time afterwards.

The unit had a Halloween party. One real suicidal mental lady was in the nurses station in the kitchen area preparing punch or something. I was sent in to assist. I thought that was crazy...both of us suicidal and putting both of us around knives and the medication supplies. But yet...I liked her and I wasn't about to let her do anything to endanger herself and vice versa. It was like...I don't care what you think, you are a wonderful person and don't you dare hurt yourself! But me--I am the one to die. Oh no, you don't!

We look out for each other.

Next blog will be about my Great Escape and the orderly who came after me. Now that is a telling story!

Normalcy

I think it was Margaret Mead, a cultural anthropologist, who wrote that normal behavior in a culture was defined by the behavior of the majority of the people in that culture. I never realized that mental health was a democratic process! But if it was...then the patients in a mental unit would be the normal ones--by the numbers. And the staff would be the abnormals! But the staff are the authority figures--the Power. So it could follow that normal behavior is defined by those in power--authority figures. Then again, those in power are enforcing what they learned during their education which was based on what the majority believes, approves, and allows to be taught from approved published material!

So is this a valid corollary: Truth is defined by what the majority accepts as truth? E gads! Sounds like something out of 1984!

And if history is validated by eyewitness accounts, could I change history writing "erroneous" (according to current experts) eyewitness accounts for future generations? If my views of the world were the only ones left after the Great Flooding because the ice caps are melting...I believe the future would be very different from the way it is now and will be forever, amen. Better or worse? Each person must choose the world they create around them and thus the world in the future. For me, it would be better.