Life Happens

Life Happens

We live in a world of changes.
“Life happens,” as they say. My life went wrong. Up, down, left, right, it
turned inside out. Where did life take me? Did you think of me? Did you miss
me? I lost myself in life. Work, family, living…

                I wake up in hospital. Confused,
not knowing who I am anymore… “How did I end up here?”

 Life Happens…

 BIPOLAR DISORDER – up and down mood swings.
One word: “Hell…”

I speak to
people I don’t know, slurring, confused. Blinded with numbness, stumbling
around like a drunk, drinking his last drop of hard liquor, longing for
more.  I know everyone looks at me and
think I have a drug addiction, going cold turkey.

I’m in my bed,
just lying there, or sleeping. I’m supposed to attend: “Happy Classes”. “I’m
not unhappy with myself? I’m not a bad person? I’m Bipolar.”

I don’t feel
like eating, so at least they bring my food to my room. I still don’t want to
eat. I can do with losing some weight anyway.

I just felled
into bed, then it’s medication time. I drag myself to the nurses’ station, I stumble,
but no one helps me. “The nurses are not my babysitters”, so they tell me. I
guess they are just the “babysitters’ of my medication.”  Drug junky. “They change my medication twice a
day. Are you all idiots? I am on drugs; prescribed drugs, from a psychologist,
playing around with the serotonin in my brain, like ping pong balls.”

I can scream,
I forgot my water, they don’t care. I stumble back to my room. “What was I
looking for? Water, water, remember the water.” Stagger back, drink whatever
they give me. I don’t even ask anymore, just stagger back to my room.

“Am I
sleeping? Am I awake?” I get horrid, hallucinations’.  Screaming, dreaming of seeing people, things,
it is like demons being dragged out of my mind. “Stop, just stop. I don’t want
this anymore!” No one cares.

 Life happens…

I suffer, I
fight, I cry. I upset my husband, my family. They don’t understand. “I’m numb,
I don’t remember, I don’t forget. I’m scared. I’m confused. Every single day,
the same: “Sorry, this isn’t working, we will try this.” Mix all your ping pong
balls around again and again.

I am drugged,
beyond confusion. “What did I do yesterday? What did I say? Who did I speak
to?” I’m nauseas, tired. Pills, pills and more pills. I lose myself, my mind,
me.  “Is everyone happy now? Do they
think I’m getting better?”

I try to
attend a painting class, I know I’m busy talking, but I don’t know what I’m
saying… I’m taking 2 hours to paint the corners of a small little jewellery
box. “That’s so funny. I don’t want to clean my brushes, why can’t they do it.
I don’t care. I don’t care if all their brushes turn into one big pile of
colours, mixed, confused like me.” They change my medication again. I want to
leave. “Discharge myself”.  NO!!!!!!!!

I pay more per
day than a five-star hotel, with no service, just a rusk and tea at five in the
morning. They take my blood pressure. Pills, pills and more pills. Who am I?
Where is my life going? Two weeks of insanity, confusion, not knowing where I
am.

I’m going
home. I’m alone and must look after myself. My husband leaving my child with a
friend after school. Am I that incapable of looking after my child?

Life happens…

I lose it!
Phones, tablets, cameras. I don’t even know what else, broken into pieces.
Screaming, banging on the windows, wishing they will break and cut me open.

What now?
Public psychiatric ward. Lock behind security gates. To protect ‘yourself from
harm”. Doctors, students, studying to qualify to be psychologist. 

“What do they
know?” They ask me questions I can’t even remember. My medication is changed
yet again. “Again? What meds now? Will I feel better?”

The guy sitting
opposite me, has such an attitude. “What is he, a doctor, psychiatrist?” “What
is your name?” I ask him. “Who are you? Do you study or are you a doctor, do
you know anything?” He just looks at me. “I will be treating you. I look back
at him. “I still don’t know your name.” He looks agitated, but answers my
questions. Give his name and he is studying to be a psychiatrist.

“So, am I your
experiment and you are giving a report back to your professor every two weeks?”
He just looks at me once again. Start with his questions again. I let him be
for now. He thinks he is so important. He irritates me, already.

I share my
room with three other ladies. We don’t speak much and no one asks the other why
they are there. They have been there for a while, so maybe they have spoken,
but not with me. The one girl just sits and colour the whole time. It seems
like a good idea, since there isn’t much to do. There are no classes here. Just
time passing by and fear.

Fear, I’m
afraid. Terrified in fact. There I said it. My numbness of being highly
medicated turned into fear and terror. All I can think about is going home and
the empty feeling when the doors locked behind my husband when he left.

At night the
men are locked behind doors and we are locked behind doors, so no one can get
near the nurse’s station. Jail. I try not to look at the secluded room where
you get locked in. There is only a mattress on the floor.  “No! This is insane! I want to go home!”

We share
bathrooms with the men, that freaks me out even more. Obviously, the doors don’t
lock. How do you shower or use the bathroom, without someone walking in on you?
It’s dirty and disgust me.

At least the
numbness from the previous meds start lifting and I think more clearly, but
that makes my fear worse. I want to get out. My doctor doesn’t want to speak to
me. I need to see him to get out of here. I can leave out of my own will.
That’s what they told me. The second day he ignores me, I scream at him. He
refuses to speak to me. I just keep on screaming at him. His reaction is to
phone my husband. He wants him to come and sign some form of consent. I scream
for my husband not to come.

Life happens.

My husband
signs my life away. I hate him. I will never forgive him. Now I am really
locked in behind that big doors that I so longingly want to get out off. I can
only leave when the doctors find me “mentally capable” of leaving. “No, no, no,
this isn’t happening to me. Please God, I’m in a nut house, locked up. Help me,
help me…. please.”

It is with
despair that I go to bed. “How I wish I was home with my husband and child. How
did I let them talk me into coming here? I should never have listened.” I cry
myself to sleep. I wake up, shocked. “I’m wet, I wet my bed.” Like a baby I wet
my bed. I cry again. I search in the hallway cupboard for clean linen.

“I had it! I
hate my husband, I hate my family.” I write down the name of everyone I can
think of and take it to the nurse’s station. No one can see me or phone me. I
want nothing of them.

I sit and
colour. At least that is one thing my husband did right. He brought me
colouring books. So now I colour as well. Something I have in common with the
lady next to me. We have the occasional conversation now.

Life happens.........