technically safe
I just want to scream
Note from author: This is a companion to my last post, on the edge of a crisis. There are multiple mentions of weight loss, including a calorie amount. I wasn’t given a trigger warning for it, so I thought I’d include one here even though I am growing increasingly fed up with trigger warnings (pun intended). Hopefully you are safe as you can be and continue to be so. I believe in us.
The last time I got out of the psych ward in February of 2024, I couldn’t stop writing. What else was I going to do, with fresh trauma and no work to distract me?
This time, I don’t even finish the sentence I’m writing when a nurse pops up to say, You wanna get outta here?
It will be a week on Wednesday. It’s Monday, meaning I have been free from the ward for five days. It feels longer than that.
Gnossienne No. 4 is playing from my portable speaker. When I play it, it doesn’t sound this good. I’ve been practicing every day since getting out, even pulling out an old pocketbook and repurposing it as my piano notebook. Whatever I work on that day gets put into the notebook. I add colorful stickers and feel like a kid.
Maybe it’s enough for now.
day 0
The night I’m admitted to the psych ward, I’m given a pair of too big scrubs, the same rust color they were the last time I did this. Back then my hair was long and matched the scrubs perfectly. Now it is short and green. I guess I’m doing something right because two people ask for my pronouns.
I am in a room by myself, complete with a private bathroom. This makes me feel better immediately. As I settle in for the night, still high on DPH, I try not to worry about tomorrow.
You did enough today, reassures my inner voice. Give yourself a break.
Why do you think I’m here?
day 1
At breakfast, I find out they let patients wear their own clothes. I have showed up to the dayroom wearing the too-big scrubs. My head aches and I feel dazed.
What can we help you with while you’re here? asks the weekend psychiatrist.
I stare listlessly at the tile and shrug. I just came here to be safe, I say.
I sleep most of the first day. So does my roommate, who came in early during Saturday. A nurse brings in my food on a tray. I eat a little of it. So easy to lose weight on hospital food.
day 2
I’m starting to regret coming here, just like I knew I would. I can’t stop thinking about my vape.
Last night my sister came to visit and I told her where my Benadryl was. Now I won’t have that when I get home.
That’s a good thing, you know.
Yeah, yeah. I know.
I thought I would be doing a lot more writing here, but so far mostly I’ve just been in bed. My head pounds dully, no doubt due to the sudden absence of caffeine. The coffee here is so-so. I just want my peanut butter banana smoothie with powdered espresso. I also want a joint.
I haven’t called any of my friends yet. Not sure what I would say at this point. The more people who ask what I’m going through, the more at a loss I am to answer. What is going on that hasn’t been going on for the last 17 years? Why am I in crisis now? What will keep me from being in crisis again?
Dinner was under 200 calories. How did I know? Because each meal comes with a long receipt detailing the nutritional information of everything on the tray. Steamed carrots, green beans, side salad (no dressing), fruit cup. I ate it in the dark of my room with my roommate snoring to the side.
Why did I think this would help?
I try calling my mom and get an automated response. All of a sudden I want to cry. I miss the feeling of my cats’ damp little noses against my palm, the bite of cold air on a late-night walk.
Don’t cry, I repeat to myself. You’re technically safe.
day 3
The angry middle- aged woman in me wakes up swinging. I shower angry, dress angry, sip my coffee angry. All night I slept angry, tossing and turning and shivering in turn. All my clothes are drenched in sweat when I wake. There are pubes in the shower that aren’t mine.
Breathe. Don’t freak out. Nothing can be gained by freaking out.
The sweet gay nurse gets me a second styrofoam cup of coffee, which I feel guilty about, wondering if the other staff think I’m a Karen. Why the fuck am I worried about that when I’m in the psych ward? It’s insane.
I’m insane.
It would be insane to go to all the trouble of admitting myself just to spend the whole time complaining about food.
You’re being kept safe, my inner voice reminds me. Don’t forget.
Yeah, “safe”. I feel plenty “safe” right now.
When I was in residential treatment for my eating disorder in 2021, we had to fill out a check-in sheet every morning and read it aloud so everyone on the ward knew how you were feeling and what your goals for the day were. I don’t have to do that here, but I ask myself the questions anyway.
How am I feeling? Frustrated. Trapped. Crazy. Sad. Regretful. Regretting that I brought myself here. Angry that I let things get this far. Angry that I didn’t take things farther.
Finding myself trying to make my care team laugh. What is wrong with me that this is where my priorities lie?
I just want to scream.
I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing. Time doesn’t exist here, which is to be expected. Privacy doesn’t exist either, and I keep accidentally overhearing the private business of others, as others surely keep overhearing mine.
There’s the husband whose wife has visited him every day since I’ve been here, who is welcoming to me even though he’s getting out soon. His wife is a professor-turned-artist with a psychiatric history of her own. I am jealous of the casual yet deep understanding they seem to have with each other, like they’re supposed to be together.
Another new patient has her wife bring clothes and books for her. I wish I had someone to be by my side through all of this. To someone like me, the idea of having a person is unheard of.
As soon as I write this, I remember that my sister is coming later to visit me. I’m embarrassed to have her see me like this, but even more embarrassed to be in this position of need.
You’d do it for her.
There is a man with schizophrenia across the hall that keeps repeating things to anyone who will hear. It’s very sad. Some people are very bad at extracting themselves from the conversation, and I feel bad for them too.
Another man has recently harmed himself and needs to be attended all the time. He and his aide walk by me talking about poop and Tinder.
Down the hall, the phone is finally free. A new arrival—the woman with the wife—was crying to someone that she just wanted to get back to her life. You and me both, girl.
I want to call [friend] but I don’t want to interrupt them. I could call [other friend], but I don’t know what time it is in their city right now and don’t want to catch them at work. I wish I didn’t spend so much energy thinking about how I am inconveniencing or annoying others. It’s the thing about myself that I find most annoying. Ha, ha.
Your friends treasure your presence in their lives, reassures my inner voice. They miss you when you’re gone.
day 4
The man across the hall is driving me insane. I don’t know how the nurses can stand it here.
It must be around 8:30 a.m. if I had to guess. I’ve already showered, gotten labs drawn, vitals done, and had my meds with breakfast. Today they gave me oatmeal and cold cereal, neither of which I ordered. I had to bother the nurse for coffee and peanut butter, which I ate with a banana I’d stashed in my room on Monday. Thank goodness my sister brought me protein bars from ALDI.
What is my goal for today? To attend all groups? To eat more? I’m looking a little thin in the bathroom mirror, even to me. Yet there’s a thrill too. I keep joking to others that a benefit of the psych ward is losing weight, but it’s not really a joke and they know it.
I’m the worst.
My medical team wants me to commit to residential treatment. The supervising doctor is soft-spoken and hesitant to hold my gaze. He reminds me of a mouse.
Some residential programs take a year, he mutters, Which we think can be necessary.
I manage not to display my disbelief. What world does he live in?
I’m afraid that isn’t feasible, I say after some consideration. Financially, I mean. I don’t get support. Maybe partial hospitalization?
What I don’t say: How about you take a year off your life and see how it feels?
We agree to discuss options later.
A group of medical students observe as I am interviewed by a resident doctor about my mental health history. I sit at the head of a conference table and answer the questions like I’d been born to do it—or at least hosted a mental health podcast for the better part of a decade. (My cohost, Lauren, is going to get a kick out of this when she hears.)
Afterward, I feel a sense of fulfillment and purpose. Even though I’ve known for awhile that I want to tell my story, it surprises me to feel this level of validation. Even though I came from the psych ward and rocked a bare face and leggings, I still felt like a professional when I was in that seat.
Professionally insane, maybe, jokes my inner voice. I let myself chuckle.
Maybe there is a place for me in the world, fucked up brain and all.
I miss playing piano. I miss editing the podcast. I miss sitting on my balcony. I miss trimming my cuticles. I miss chewing gum. I miss my bathmat. I miss my favorite bra. I miss biting into apples. I miss vaping. I miss walks.
When I get out of here, I want to get serious about my writing. Keep getting serious, I mean. That means doing journaling and applying for contests, spending time crafting essays.
Also: I want to be skinny. I want to vape. I want to smoke weed. I want to get on disability.
These things may have nothing to do with each other. Then again, maybe they’re all connected. It’s hard to know when I’m zoomed in so close.
day 5
I am told by my resident doctor that I can go home today if I wish. I’m so excited my stomach begins cramping and I need to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, my roommate is sleeping right next to the toilet. I can’t wait to get home so I can take a proper shit. Not for the first time, I wonder why I care so much about others hearing my bodily functions.
I’m glad I told my sister about my Benadryl stash so I don’t have to deal with that once I’m home alone. I’m also glad I have weed. Maybe the five days’ break will have caused my tolerance to slip.
Always looking on the bright side.
I remember that I am supposed to be starting PHP next week. They probably wouldn’t look kindly on me smoking. But that’s a problem for future Chris.
I had my veggie burger for lunch and now I’m ready to leave. I sit in a plastic chair outside my room as a social worker talks to my roommate. All day long I’ve been carrying around a large print crossword puzzle book that the recreational therapist gave me the other day. It’s hard and makes me miss my mom, who shares my love of word searches. Right now I’d love to sit with her at her kitchen table and laugh about nothing in particular.
She doesn’t yet know that I’m getting out today. If she did, she’d probably be a little worried. I don’t blame her. I am a little worried myself.
The resident who volunteered me for the interview earlier swings by my room on her way out.
I just wanted to thank you again, she says while clasping a clipboard to her chest. Her nails are buttercream yellow with perfectly manicured almond tips, striking against her dark skin. I wonder if they’re press-ons.
You didn’t seem anxious at all, she says. Or if you were, I couldn’t tell.
Oh, I’m always anxious, I joke, looking down at my Vans. I guess I’ve been talking about this stuff so long it’s easy to pretend.
Oh yeah, you said you do a podcast!
She looks genuinely interested, and I give her the name when she asks. Secretly I hope she’ll tell her peers. Apparently they all had good things to say about me.
When the doctor leaves my room, I let myself smile big.
I’m glad you’re safe & glad you’re writing 💙