March 1st, 2022

It’s been a while since I updated. I realized that I was still processing my experiences and while I feel called to share my experience, I didn’t want to floodlight my vulnerable state. I always want to share from a genuine and authentic place so I took a step back for a little while.

Now, where were we?

While sitting in my uncomfortable room, which I luckily had all to myself, I continued to read Harry Potter, feeling that sense of comfort from the familiar storyline. Soon, a woman came to let me know that I needed to attend a small group meeting and that it would be on the involuntary hold side of the floor. My heart dropped into my stomach. I had already felt so uncomfortable and out of place with the patients on the voluntary hold side of the unit, how would I feel placed with those on the involuntary side? The time came for me to walk over. My grippy socks and I tip-toed over to that side of the floor and sat down quickly at an arrangement of tables, careful not to make eye contact with anyone for too long. They handed out a worksheet and short pencils for us to use to write our answers and then let us know we would go around the table and share our responses.

The worksheet was filled with questions like “I love _____, I wish _____, I would do _____.” As we went around the table sharing our answers, I finally looked up at these other human beings. What looked back at me wasn’t scary or strange, it was eyes from people who had seen real darkness, just as I had, and were trying to find a way to survive this harsh life. They shared their innermost thoughts and wishes. They didn’t sound crazy, they sounded like people who had been treated wrongly in their lives by other humans who weren’t looking out for their best interests.

Do you ever stop to think about that? Hurt is often caused by people who have been hurt, who weren’t given the proper tools to help them see the hurt that they had been through, so they couldn’t do any better for the people who came after them. Pain and trauma are generational. When someone experiences trauma, if they don’t heal from it, they tend to pass it on to the next generation. They truly believe they are doing what’s best for their loved ones and may even feel like their behavior and actions are being done with love, but that’s because they didn’t know any better. No one taught them better. They love the way they were taught to love through the love that they experienced.

We blame our parents for not doing better in raising us, but what if they didn’t know how?
What if their parents didn’t do better for them and in turn, they did the best they could for us?
What if that person in your family who was supposed to love you was severely hurt in their life and never healed from it, causing them to pass on that hurt to you in ways you wish you could forget?

What I found sitting around that table is that we’re living in a time where we are so quick to victimize ourselves without ever looking at things from the other person’s perspective. In fact, if you scroll on social media, you are actively told to cut anyone and everyone out of your life who hurts or harms you. This is not to excuse their behavior by any means, but it’s a different way to look at pain and trauma. We can’t expect to do better if we don’t look at where we are actively going wrong.

Dinnertime was approaching as we finished sharing our worksheet responses. As I got up, I realized that when I sat down, I was scared, but when I stood up, I felt at ease. These individuals didn’t care about their weight, their hair, their clothes, or which Kardashian just got a nose job. They cared about the state of the world, the trauma that got them here, and how we could do better moving forward. They saw that there was something bigger, something related to our entire existence on this rock floating through space.

Dinner was another full tray of food and I ate a little bit more than I had at lunch. They were monitoring my intake since I had already lost 8 pounds from not eating before I was admitted. After dinner, they had community time, but I retreated back to my room to finish reading Harry Potter. They wanted to move another patient into my room with me who needed to be close to the nurse’s station, but instead, they moved me to another (equally as depressing) room down the hall. As I read, I waited for a phone call from my husband who was supposed to call along with our daughter to say goodnight. Time kept ticking and there was never a call, so finally, I got up to see if the community room was empty yet.

There were still patients socializing, but the phone was free, so I used it to call my husband. He answered the phone, sounding frustrated. He had tried to call earlier but they refused to let him speak to me, saying that he wasn’t on my contact list, a paper I had specifically filled out when I was admitted. This was just the beginning of a really long, and really weird, night.

After we chatted, I headed to the medication room to get the meds that the psychiatrist wanted me to try to go to sleep. While the nurse was pulling up my list of approved meds, she commented on how many the doctor had approved. She had meds for sleep, anxiety, rapid heart rates, for nausea, and so much more on my list. It was strange to me that she didn’t discuss any of those with me. I asked for the meds for sleep and asked what they were. The nurse said it was Trazadone and it helped people with sleep. She didn’t let me know that it was an older antidepressant that was commonly used off-label for sleep reasons, that taking runs the risk of heart complications, and that it could lead me to a dependence on an SSRI for sleep. Instead, she handed me the pills with a cup of water and watched me take them.

I headed back to my room to continue to read Harry Potter until I felt drowsy. Once the meds kicked in, I brushed my teeth with a small toothbrush they provided for me and tried to sleep. If I thought sleeping at home was a challenge, trying to sleep in this room on the floor of this hospital was a nightmare. I know you’re probably thinking, “were you expecting a five-star hotel?” Of course not, but I think I was expecting a gentler and more compassionate place. Instead, there was yelling down the hall between nurses, the opening and slamming of doors, the randomly opening of my door by the nurse on duty every hour, and the flood of light that came with it. The Trazadone wasn’t helping me sleep and even if it did, the constant bombardment of stimuli wasn’t going to keep me asleep long.

The next thing I knew, the sun was coming in through the window and there was a knock at the door.

“Devin… are you ready to talk about your diagnosis?”

Was I ready to get some answers? Yes!! Little did I know, I’d have to wait much longer.

See you next time,
Dev

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