Dignity Health & Lost Hope

A month has passed since my last post and that is for a few reasons:

• I was angry, and anger is draining.
• Thinking about it sucks, and it hurts. And I would rather do other stuff. Like try to take steps to move forward with my life. I need a job, first and foremost. And as I always do when I talk publicly about these things, I fear it will effect my employability. Checking a potential candidate’s social media/Googling them is part of the norm these days, so I get a pang of regret when I post about my mental health issues and experiences. But, then I’m like, “Fuck it.” Maybe it’s a little martyr-y, but I figure if talking about it costs me jobs, oh well. But also please please please hire me.
• Reason #3, I’m cynical. In a way that I don’t think I’ve felt in my adulthood and in a way that makes me feel incredibly lost and small. Advocacy, to me, has given me purpose for the past 5 years. I felt like I cared so, so much that there would be no other option or outcome but for me to change the world in however small of a way. My confidence came from a practical place. I was in my late 20’s when I began developing projects that addressed mental health, exercising my mental health advocacy muscles. And I cared a lot. A lot, a lot. So much so that I spent almost all of my free time outside of my full-time job learning about or thinking about or raising money for a cause that benefited the projects that I was developing. I spent all of 2016 raising money for my mental health awareness project In This Together. I got up at 6am and called total strangers on the east coast (cuz of the time diff.) before I went into work at my full-time job. I called people who worked for mental health non-profits or who were CEOs of corporations that I thought might be interested, or called donors who had given substantial amounts to other mental health related non-profits. During lunch at work I took calls with those people and tried to sell them the mission of In This Together, and I did. In 2016 I raised $12,000 for In This Together, which at the time was just an idea. It was an idea that I pitched and pitched and pitched and believed in very, very much. So, when I say my wanting to change the world as a mental health advocate came from a practical place, I just mean I did some math and figured I could make a difference, for sure, in my lifetime. If I dedicated myself in the same way that I dedicated myself since my late 20’s…if I can make it my full-time job to advocate and create an anti-stigma non-profit, which had been my dream for a while, then I have, like, 40 yearsto give to this cause. And if that’s the case, I thought there was no way I wouldn’t make a dent somehow, if I continued to be as passionate and driven as I had been for the remainder of my working life. But, last year, I realized working the way I worked on In This Together in 2016 is not a sustainable way to work on a thing. Not while keeping myself in a professional bubble and not with having zero experience on how to build a non-profit organization, and not with the HIGH COSTS of hosting a festival every year (I raised $12,000, but spent around $30,000 of my personal funds so that In This Together could become a reality). For a while I had been thinking about how I can re-imagine In This Together, never really letting go of it completely. Right now though, I’m so cynical and I feel so totally and utterly lost. And I gave up. Maybe I should just move to Nebraska and work in a factory, I don’t fucking know. I don’t know what my life is without mental health advocacy, but it’s not possible for me to operate with an advocate heart right now. I feel cynicism deep in my bones. Like nothing I’ve ever felt.

Anyways, my experience as a patient at Dignity Health in Glendale, CA sucked.

There was one nurse, Maria, that I met on my 3rd day in the psych unit. She printed some crossword puzzles for me. The next time I saw her was my second to last day in the unit. We had REAL talks. I told her about how much I loved Oprah, and I vented to her about the staff and about the other patients that were in the unit with me. She told me that, honestly, she was very worried about me when I first got onto the unit, because I seemed really out of it, and because she knew there were predators on the unit. A male patient, specifically, a sexual predator.

This guy was probably in his mid-forties, and crossed almost every boundary with every female in the unit. The most disturbing part to me was that the prominently male staff would “bro out” with him about women and sexuality. I didn’t understand their dynamic at all. The day staff was made up of a couple black men, a black woman, and an asian woman, from my recollection. This male patient, I’ll just call him Thomas, but I’m not 100% sure that’s his name, would have racist outbursts. On one occasion he called a member of the staff “nigger” over and over again. The staff member just took it. No more than an hour later Thomas would be high-fiving the same man that he called a nigger, bullshitting with each other about something or another.

I think the staff is just bored and Thomas was manipulative, also bored, and a chauvinistic pig who always tried to be on the staff’s good side.

This specific manipulative, chauvinistic douchebag, Thomas, tried to “get in good with me” at first, as he did with every female. He kissed me friendily on the cheeks on my first day there and I was like, “okay”. When I was lying down in the hallway he kinda strattled my legs and that’s when I was like whhaaaaaat, no I don’t like. A staff member told him to back off.

I remember a teenager, no older than 17, came onto our unit mid-week. I saw later that Thomas GAVE HER AN ADULT ROMANCE NOVEL AS A GIFT.

Almost every day of the week, my mom, my friend Melissa, and Oliver would come and visit. My friend Oliver brought me gifts, as he does because he is a treasure and an endlessly generous person. He bought me socks with cheese on them and socks with tacos on them.

A day or two later, I saw Thomas wearing those socks on his arms. He wore them inside out, with the sock end part cut out so he could wear them as arm bands. I’m pre-dispositioned to trust people, so though I did notice… half of me was in denial. Like, WHY would that be a thing a person does. So I ignored it. But about a day later it sunk in and I was like, no, this mother fucker stole these from me, and he gave my taco socks to another patient. A very vulnerable patient who did not speak english and couldn’t communicate with others and it made it pretty hard to ask him questions about where he got my socks.

I was roomed with a woman, prolly mid-forties, who was schizophrenic and would NOT SHUT THE FUCK UP. I mean, never. She was always talking. It was the bane of everyone of our existences, staff and patient alike. I was kind to her for the most part, but all-in-all she was an intolerable presence. I shared a room with her. A pillowcase held up with 4 tiny velcro strips was our “bathroom door”. Often times she would undress in our room in front of me.. Eventually, she started stealing my shit as well. She stole my Birkenstock sandals (I had to Google “expensive lesbian sandals” in order to remember the brand of the sandals).

At one point, Thomas and her were in the kitchen area, and he pulled back her tank top and exposed her breast in front of everyone. I made eye contact with the staff member who witnessed this, and he said nothing, did nothing. Ignored it. This was the general vibe of Dignity Health in Glendale, CA. The staff turned a blind eye to sexual indecencies, and could not be bothered with a patient’s needs. Because my stuff was getting stolen, they made me put all of my belongings (which existed messily in 3 paper bags) in their locked closet. And whenever I wanted to change clothes, or get my books or whatever it may be, I had to ask staff to open the closet.

I’m telling you, this staff member Tajh fucking hated me. When you’re a patient, you need to ask for everything. He always seemed so annoyed when I asked for my things from the closet, asked for water, asked to go to the group activity in the other wing of the hospital. It makes me livid when people seem so bothered to do their job, especially when their job is helping people.

When it was visiting hours and my mom, Melissa, and Oliver came, while we were saying goodbyes, Tajh told me that I could not hug my friends.

This same dude told a teenage girl not to cry while she was tearing up in the hallway. I don’t know her story, but she was so sad, and she was not ready for the reality of this place, of Dignity Health. What kind of mental health professional tells anyone, but especially a 17 year old girl, “Don’t cry”? And it wasn’t like a sweet “Oh, don’t cry!” kind of tone. It was definitely not that. If this is our lowest of lows, as people, as patients, why cannot we just cry? For most of my time there, I was too numb to cry. I wish I had a tear to offer, but I was too broken.

I know this is an big claim to make, but I think Tajh pissed in my chicken soup on my second to last day at Dignity Health.

Because of my broken jaw/broken teeth scenario that most people in my personal life know about, a lot of the solid food they served was hard to eat. I mean, I can eat it, but I look a mess when I do. So when I get a bottle of Ensure or mashed potatoes or chicken soup I am like “Score.” I drank the chicken broth out of the soup every time we had it. But the day before my release, after a week of getting all the vibes that Tajh fucking hated me, he served lunch, as he always did, and I opened the lid off the chicken soup and drank a little and…it tasted…not like chicken broth. I got a bad feeling about this, and a literal bad taste in my mouth. I put the lid back on the soup and didn’t touch it. When I returned my tray to the cabinet, for the first time ever…after having 5 breakfasts, 5 lunches, and 5 dinners at the hospital, he grabbed my tray when I put it away and inspected it. He said “Hold on…” and looked over my tray. Never before had he done this. He looked it over for a little while and then put it away, but, why in that one moment when I thought the chicken soup broth tasted maybe like piss….why was that the first time he inspected me tray. It was…interesting and disturbing.

The 6 days I spent at Dignity Health (Still not sure how much this visit cost…if my 2 day stay at the first hospitalization was $4,000, I’m guessing it’s no less than $8,000? For garbage on a stick in a dumpster in terms of “care”) were hell to me. There was so much more to it, but jotting down every single detail at this point is just, not where I’m at. I don’t want to itemize this event to the point where I feel like I’m back there again.

The help is not help. These hospitals have broken my heart into pieces. I want to file complaints, but I just don’t think it would matter or change anything.

So, yeah. I’m real cynical these days. And I’m totally lost. I am not sure where to put my hope. I’m grateful that I know there are people out there who are doing the work to take steps in reforming the mental healthcare system, but I’m just not convinced that it’s a solvable problem. At least not in my lifetime.

 

 

 

Before the Second Psych Hospital Visit

I’m writing this from Rocco’s, a sports bar in my dear sweet neighborhood of Culver City. I’m watching the Packers play their first regular season game and listening to “Praying” by Kesha so as to block out the bar noise. This is the nature of my precious writing process, mmkay?

Preceding my second psych hospitalization, shit got scary. I would say, mostly for my family because they knew I wasn’t getting sleep and I called my mom nightly so she could talk me down from my panic attacks, but there was not much else they could do from thousands of miles away. Shit got scary for my friends also, who also could not get a grip or grasp on what was going on with me.

Just to paint the quickest snapshot that I can of my headspace going into the second hospitalization- I had not slept for about a week. I was having panic attacks one after another, to the point where it was basically just one, horrific week long panic attack. I was having repeated episodes of dissociation, and I had started hallucinating the most horrific scenarios.

I thought my best friend Oliver had died, I had thought my therapist had died, and I grieved those two things, alone in my apartment, as if they were real events. I cried an animalistic, soul cry for a whole night and into the morning.

It was getting to the point where I was not eating, and sleepless day after day after day…. The friends I was in touch with at the time estimate that I had not slept for about a week.

After day 3, 4 or 5 of no sleep, my body started physically failing.

I was so exhausted, and my breathe had become so faint and small that I feared if I went to sleep that I would likely stop breathing in my sleep and die. I called 911, but when 5 super bulk intimidating dudes showed up from the fire department, I was triggered by them, fearing they would bring me somewhere unsafe and not take care of me, and I didn’t trust that they would. I didn’t and wouldn’t allow trust for anyone but a small circle of my friends and my family. Everyone else, as far as I was concerned, could go fuck themselves if they wanted to help me. A not-so-great attitude from someone who sorely needed help? Ya. But I don’t know what to say to you except that, because of a series of terrible, traumatic moments, I wasn’t feeling very open-minded.

I did know, I desperately needed sleep. Where does one seek “emergency sleep?”

What I really wanted was someone to hold me and tell me everything would be okay. I felt such loneliness and a lack of affection when I needed to be loved so badly. I was scared and traumatized and panicked and now, very hyper vigilant. Every noise was jarring, the outside light was too bright, the outside everything was too much, and I didn’t trust that I was safe, even though my friends and family kept telling me a thousand times over again “You are safe, you are safe, you are safe”. I felt chronically unsafe.

There’s a lot of important details I’m skipping over, partly because it is JUST TOO MUCH and partly because I don’t feel ready or willing to share. But I kept on insisting that I needed my safe circle of friends to come be with me. So my friend Oliver, from here in Los Angeles, and my mom and friend Melissa flew in from Wisconsin. I didn’t know what “help” would look like once they got here, I just trusted that once we were together, it would all be okay. I trusted things would be okay so long as we were together.

You can’t force a person to sleep. And every time I came close, I started convulsing, processing the trauma of the day or week or whenever, and it would wake me up instantaneously. I couldn’t sleep with all this intense stuff going on in my mind.

Bottom line, they thought it would be best to bring me to a psych ward in Glendale, called Dignity Health. I wasn’t aware of their plan. When they all arrived together I just sighed relief and trusted that wherever they were gunna take me, help would be there. And I had insisted to them time after time after time, that I was not going fucking ANYWHERE to then be separated from them.

I was totally conscious when they started to “admit” me to the hospital, I have perfect memories of what happened. I had to get my picture taken for admission, I had to pee in a cup, even though I was completely dehydrated and had not a drop to give. And they took blood, but couldn’t, because I was completely. And utterly. Dehydrated.

I do know, though, the moment I was ACTUALLY admitted to he hospital, my brain broke in that moment. I trusted my family/friends to keep us together. They did their best and I don’t blame them. But when were were separated and I was admitted as a patient, I don’t remember a thing after that. One or two days were erased from my memory. It was too much.

A lot of people around me have said they can’t believe the year I’ve had. This shitty, shitty year. First an accident and a broken jaw, broken teeth, etc. Before and during that, a spell of depression that lasted a few months, it was a kind of depression that I hadn’t felt in probably 10 years. Unemployment for a collective 2 months in 2018. I live for my work, so this was really hard. I am lucky to have the privilege of having parents that can help me through this, financially, I’m ashamed of the privilege.

But I’m telling you, the worst thing I’ve had to endure this year outside of all that was to be admitted to Dignity Health in Glendale, and it’s so unfortunate because that is what all of my loved ones thought was best for me.

The Packers came back from a 20 point deficit and won the first regular season game against da Bears. Yayy

Part 3, Mental Health Patients’ Rights

This is going to a be lengthy post, but I’m getting burnt out on re-living and reciting this (first and initial) nightmarish experience. So let’s just get it all out of the way.

It was 4pm on Monday at this point (still sleepless from the day before), I asked about seeing a social worker and a doctor (the psychiatrist who will prescribe meds). The women in the nurses station (the source for all of your questions to be answered in a psych ward, and the gatekeepers to your needs as a patient. There are usually 2-3 psychiatric nurses that home themselves here) said that the social workers would be back in at 11am the next day (Tuesday), and the doctors were also out for the day. So, in other words, “buckle in and keep your needs on hold for tomorrow”.

I think they gave me pudding with a nilla wafer in it? I was so exhausted and hadn’t eaten so I scarfed down whatever was scarf-able. I think my eyes finally caught Zzzzs at 6pm for a couple hours. It’s hard to keep track of time in these places. Everything is so mundane and empty.

I think when I woke up a couple hours later, I asked about getting my phone for the next day, and they said I could do that; I just had to ask the morning nurses (at shift change) at 8am and they could help me get my phone. I wanted to check to make sure my bosses at FOX understood I might be gone for a while. I wanted to talk to my friends, and I wanted to talk to my therapist (my rock for my mental healthcare since March).

The next day at 8am I promptly asked the new nurses that came in for their morning shift if I could have my phone as soon as possible. The other 2 psych wards I’ve stayed at in the past made this process easy, so I wasn’t too worried about it. They just….go to the lock box where it is held and they get your mother fucking phone. After all, the Mental Health Patient’s Rights were on my side:

• To have reasonable access to telephones—both to make and to receive confidential calls or have such calls made for you

Do you know your best friend’s number by memory? Your therapist’s number by memory? It’s 2018 baby, I don’t even know my parent’s home phone # or their cell phones #s by heart. I needed my cell phone to gather these important reaches of contact for me, for my sanity, and I would then gladly release my cellphone back into their hands and make calls on the resident telephone (there is one landline phone in the ward to use, shared between the 10-12 patients, so you have to and should be conscientious about the amount of time you spend on the phone so others can make their calls).

Sometimes I can be tasteful and withholding of my crass language…. but…. this one nurse was a total bitch about me getting my cell phone.

I asked for it at 8am on Tuesday morning, it’s just in some lockbox downstairs, but they act like it’s been shipped to Timbuktu and they cannot possibly get it back to you that day or even that month without it wreaking havoc on every nurses’ personal and professional life. The nurse snapped at me “Everyone asks for their phone, why don’t you write down these numbers? You should prepare these things!!!” she yelled at me. I’m not making colorful dialogue for the sake of the story. She yelled at me.

Does anyone who is picked up by an ambulance get wrung out by the EMTs for not preparing to be in a crisis situation? Fuck this lady. I told her to stop trying to argue with me and to focus instead on doing her job. I wasn’t a nightmare person about this. I bet you could imagine a patient who is so belligerent and rude, harassing the nurses to the point of abuse. I’m sure there are psych nurses reading this who are very familiar with this kind of person. I wasn’t that. I was persistent, because it became crystal clear that no one was advocating for me, but me. My own persistence was all I had in there.

The patients who had been in there longer than I, instilled this into me as well. This dude Johnny had been there god-knows-how-long. He told me if I wasn’t getting a response from this person, to go to this other person instead. Find my case worker. He showed me her office. Ask her about seeing a social worker and about seeing a doctor. If that fails, talk to Ruben, he’s a nurse who actually gives a fuck. He said it’s illegal for them (the mental health professionals) to ignore you, to not treat you. Just keep bugging them, he told me. He told me this place sucks, and I already agreed.

The nurses said the social workers wouldn’t be in until 11am, but when they did come in, they’d let me know. They said the doctor would be in shortly after, and when he arrived, they’d let me know. While I waited, I ate breakfast and watched TV in the communal room.

There was a woman, Priscilla, who was 23 years old, but looked no older than 14. She was shorter than me and had the face of a teenager. She was summoned to the nurses station for whatever reason, and when she got up from her chair, the back of her green hospital gown was soaked. I ignored it and kept watching the California fires or whatever the fuck was happening on the morning L.A. news. About 10 minutes later I noticed a puddle in her chair. This 23 year old woman wet herself.

She acted like she didn’t even know it happened. I say “acted like”, like she was putting on a front about it or something. But, honestly, I don’t think she knew that she wet herself. She just, did. I pointed it out my homie, the nurse Ruben, and he cleaned the chair and Priscilla took a shower.

At 11am, I asked the nurses again about talking to a social worker, they said it’d be a bit longer. I asked for my phone, they said they would get it. Lunch came and went. At 1:30pm I asked about seeing a social worker, I asked about my phone, I asked when I could see a doctor. Soon, soon, soon. Maybe at about 2pm?

At this point I learned that “soon” or “later” were horse shit terms. I learned that my roommate, Melissa, was told she would be going home on Sunday. It was now Tuesday afternoon and she still didn’t know when she would be released, or why she was still there, even. I told myself, “that is NOT going to be me. I’m going to get the fuck out of here.” The social worker aspect became moot. What could they possibly say to me at this point that would heal my wounds? I admitted myself specifically because I had an episode of dissociation. I was way past that.

Every Wednesday at 8pm, I saw my mother fucking therapist and that was an actual real life help to me. My attitude shifted from finding help from the inside to getting the fuck out and in time for my therapy appointment the next day. I had talked about dissociation with my therapist, she helped me learn to recognize those spells as they occurred and that they were my body’s way of protecting myself from trauma or bad memories.

It was approx. 3pm. Melissa and Johnny told me I should tell the nurse Ruben what was going on… That I’d admitted myself at 9am yesterday, and still have not received any treatment from a social worker or a doctor, or gained any access to my phone to call my outside support. So I asked Ruben to talk to me privately, we went in the laundry room. I bitched and moaned, he listened and told me he would make sure when the doctor came in, that I’d be the first patient the doctor would see.

Waited some more. Finally, 7 hours after I asked for it, I got my phone. I wrote down my close friends’ numbers, my parent’s #,  and my therapist’s number on a piece of paper.

I checked my email and there was one from my boss sent at 9:53am – Are you feeling better?

The story of the next 24 hours could get quite detailed, long, and drawn out. I know we’re in an era of short attention spans, so I’ll adjust for that the best I can.

I called my friend Jake, my parents, and I left a voicemail for my therapist. I was being totes passive aggressive towards the nurses when I left the voicemail for my therapist (they were sitting 7 inches behind me). I can’t remember my word-for-word complaint to my therapist, but I made it abundantly clear that this place was trash, that the nurse was being a total bitch and being the opposite of helpful, and that I was doing everything I could to get out of there so I could see her at 8pm tomorrow.

Because the nurse Ruben had my back, I was in fact the first person the doctor saw. Because Ruben had my back, I would be discharged the next morning. This nurse helped me get special care. None of this would have been the case if I just took what this facility was giving me. Shutting up about my phone, shutting up about seeing the social workers and doctors. I bugged the shit out of all the staff and made friends with one of the good guys. I read and re-read the Mental Health Patients’ Rights in the hallway for my own  amusement, but also with a broken heart.

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT:

• To dignity, privacy and humane care.
• To be free from harm including unnecessary or excessive physical
  restraint, medication, isolation, abuse and neglect.
• To prompt medical care and treatment

• To have reasonable access to telephones—both to make and to receive confidential calls or have such calls made for you.

The whole list is here, if you’re curious or want to have a good laugh: Mental Health Patients’ Rights

 

At about 10:30am the next day (Wednesday), I was released. They wrote me a script for Abilify. When I went to go get it at CVS Pharmacy, CVS told me they needed the doctor who wrote the prescription at Southern California Hospital at Culver City, to call them and verify the prescription (something about a pre-auth?). When I called Southern California Hospital at Culver City, I was thrown around a phone tree that would make any sane person see red. I had to call 5 times in order to get to the right person… who happened to be the nurse of whom I hated her guts, and vice versa. She said the doctor was too busy to reach out to CVS, and that I would have to pay the out-of-pocket cost of $600. I said “Isn’t that…illegal????? For you to just tell a patient ‘Sorry, the doctor is too busy to help you go fuck yourself and pay the $600’.”

Wouldn’t you know it, using the phrase “That’s illegal” seems to get their attention. The doctor would contact CVS, the prescription would be filled in the next few days, covered by my insurance.

What if I were to of said “Sigh, that sucks.” Click. How often do you think that must happen? To just give up after after everything you’ve been through and to not even know if what they’re doing is illegal or a violation of your patient’s rights? Shouldn’t one just expect that the source of care will take care of you, the patient?

At 2pm that day, I wrote an email to my bosses:

Hey guys, I’m on the mend. I think coming in tomorrow will be good, and I can work through the weekend to make up for the couple of the days I missed. Would that work?

At 8pm I flopped like an abused animal onto my therapist’s couch. While I was in the waiting room a minute earlier, I saw her come around the corner and when she saw me, she shuddered. Like, a human shudder that told me she actually cared about me and cared about what happened to me. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with me because of the hospital’s nightmarish phone tree. When she asked the nurses if I was there at the psych ward, they said I wasn’t listed on their roster of patients. For all she knew while all this was going on, the worst had happened. I hate to think about it, but I fear that she feared that she lost a patient to suicide.

That night, Wednesday, was another sleepless night. No sleeping pills were working, no method of relaxation music, none of it. I never received an email back from my bosses, but come hell or high water, I was going back to work. Working for FOX was a big opportunity for me. I realized though, that working my regular shift of 9am-7pm would be impossible with no sleep. I went through the options in my head:

1) Call in sick again (hell no). I’d lose the gig permanently, for sure.

2) Work from 9am-7pm, but do a shitty job and be totally out of it cuz I haven’t slept (hell no)

3) White lies! It was already 4am. I shot them an email and said I could work from 6am – 2pm, but (white lies part) darn it I forgot these appointments for my jaw and teeth (I have a broken jaw and some teeth are missing since June 2nd blah blah blah) so that’s why I need to come in early. Can still put in those 8 hours though, so hope that works thanks bye see you tomorrow!

I did #3 and went to Fox Studios before the sun came up to do my job and finish an edit. I finished that goddamn edit and let me tell you, it was good. I was tired, but I got a second wind eventually and had my eye on the prize.

I could tell my bosses were not thrilled with me. I wasn’t accessible during the week, I was giving them kind of iffy ideas of when I could be back to work (but as one would also do if they were battling a cold or flu, no? That’s how I was hoping it would come across).

And goddamnit, I was doing the best I could. I know that we are not there yet as a society where I could just tell them “Hey! I had a severe episode of dissociation on Sunday night, had to go to the psych ward and they made it impossible to be in contact with you via email because they took my phone and wouldn’t fucking give it back… and I dunno when I’m getting out, this one girl was supposed to leave on Sunday but she’s still here (Tuesday) so who the fuck knows when I can actually leave??! And if it wasn’t for this Maverick nurse, Ruben, I definitely would still be there through the week so fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I did the best I could. But you betcha Fox did not ask me to come back. They cited “miscommunications”. They can’t have a cog in their FOX machine. They totally did not interpret my 6am-2pm schedule offering as a symbol of how hard I will bust my ass for you and make things happen, even though my life is fucked otherwise. I was just unemployed before this gig for a month, and here I was unemployed again.

It sucked, but I did the best I could with the cards I was dealt and I tried not to get too down on myself. I knew this also meant my parents would have to financially support me for a while, and that was a hard pill to swallow.

P.S.- If anyone knows how to file a formal complaint against Southern California Hospital at Culver City – Psychiatric Ward, please help walk me through it. They did not treat me with dignity during my intake, I was isolated in the E.R. for 6 hours, and after 32 hours of being admitted, I still was not seen by a doctor or a social worker. From the time that I asked for my phone to the time that I got it, it took at least 7 hours (not counting when I had asked for it the day before, on Monday). And when I asked the nurse for the doctor to contact my pharmacy upon my release to authorize my prescription for Ability, I was told, “no”, because the doctor was too busy, and that I must pay $600 out of pocket. For someone who, on paper, was there because I was suicidal with a plan… I mean….

P.P.S. – I received a $4,000 bill from them a few days ago.

Will Never Go Back, Part 2 (AKA Fuck you Southern California Hospital At Culver City…Cont’d)

K, going back now to the E.R. where I had to falsely admit I was suicidal with a plan in order to be seen in the psychiatric ward at Southern California Hospital At Culver City, after a severe episode of disassociation (Google it again if you forgot what dat means).

I admitted myself at 9am on that Monday morning, my dog was at a kennel, my “heads up, I’m sick” email was sent to my bosses at FOX Studios. Phew, now I could get some help.

After the first 30 mins of intake, I was then left alone on an E.R. bed from 9:30am –  3:30pm. Six hours alone. For someone who was “suicidal with a plan”, I don’t have to be a doctor or a mental health professional to gather that this was pretty shitty. They had already taken my phone away, so I couldn’t even call my therapist or my parents or a friend. I walked out into the main E.R. area in my sexy green hospital gown 2 or 3 times, asking for a nurse, just making sure they didn’t forget about me. I felt completely invisible. Truly. No one acknowledged my existence. Honest to God, for a moment I thought I actually died while I was in there and was now some invisible angel walking about this leftover planet. That was the level of non-existence that I felt. I think at around noon, after being left alone for almost 3 hours, I bugged a nurse for my phone. It didn’t come quickly or easily, I gave it some time, and then asked a 2nd then 3rd time and was finally given my phone.

I called my therapist, realizing I probably made a mistake in coming here, and told her I didn’t feel safe, and I felt very alone and that I wasn’t sure how she could get ahold of me because they will take my phone away when I am sent upstairs to the psych ward.

I called my mom. As someone who has actually “gone crazy” before, it is a good feeling to call someone and talk and to just keep asking “Do I sound lucid? I sound lucid, right?” My mom was a good one for that. She said I sounded lucid, I told her goodbye. I put on my favorite podcast Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend to keep me company as I tried to finally get some sleep, which I never did gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhkhkjhgfkhh… I just wanted to sleep. At 3:30pm, after 6 hours in the E.R. alone (good thing I asked and asked and asked for my phone, or I would have had nothing to help me cope), I was wheeled in a wheelchair up to the psych unit with a nurse and a security guard. I made a joke to the nurse that the aesthetics up here were GRIM, and my god were they grim. Think of the most stereotypically grim psych ward you can imagine, the saddest tones of beige and dirty white walls… a hallway lined with abandoned beds. Yikes. I did like this nurse, her name was Emily, and I told her I couldn’t believe what they had to put up with everyday. (The part I skipped past was about an hour where I was kept in the wheelchair in the main E.R. area. I heard people wretching, saw a homeless woman in a comatose state with her bags n belongings in her lap, by sight alone I couldn’t tell if she was dead or still alive. I saw all these nurses unphased, focused, tending to all of this mess of humanity that fell into their laps this morning. Of course, my being left alone for 6 hours was not in my best interest, but holy fuck. I had to muster a sense of appreciation for these men and women who were there, even though I felt like a neglected invisible animal a mere 5 minutes earlier…. but I could see that they were committed and focused on servicing this community, Every. Single. Day.) When I told the nurse thanks for doing her work, she said “Even on the worst days, we love to do it.” I remembered that. There are good ones, who just want to help.

When I arrived at the “intake” for the psych ward, they ask you a buncha questions and take inventory of your stuff…again (Even though my nice dude Felix already checked for any contraband downstairs in the E.R., but whatever). The intake occurs in the main hallway of the facility, right next to the nurses station. The security guards, nurses, and patients can walk right by, could pat you on the head if they wanted. I wouldn’t have hated a pat on the head in that moment, tbh. Bottom line though, you’re wide out in the open, no privacy.

The intake nurse started taking my stuff out of my backpack, my clothes and my underwear, and put them in my lap. My black Hanes, my plaid Hanes, my navy blue-striped Me Undies (because I’m loyal to my fave podcast sponsors…[inside podcast fan joke, haha]). In my green hospital gown, I had a heap of my unmentionables on my lap, she asked me questions that I could tell she wasn’t really listening to the answers to, she was just checking some boxes. She reached over and pulled down the left shoulder of my nightgown and put her finger under my sports bra. “And one sports bra”, she said. Itemizing my belongings. I told her she might not want to do that…just tugging at me and itemizing me like I was hers. She reacted, but it wasn’t an apology. More like an “Oh ya…”

My pants were on the floor, and I started to put them back on. She told me I might as well keep my pants off because I would be taking a shower. I put my fucking pants back on.

In these psych wards, they hang posters that list MENTAL HEALTH PATIENTS RIGHTS. I read it as I waited for them to get my room ready. I’ll cherry pick a few for you, but it reads:

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT:

• To dignity, privacy, and humane care
• To be free from harm including unnecessary or excessive physical
  restraint, medication, isolation, abuse and neglect
• To prompt medical care and treatment
• To have reasonable access to telephones—both to make and to receive confidential calls or have such calls made for you

I read these while I was waiting for my room, and said aloud “This is a joke.” The security guard behind me gave me an “Mmmm hmmm”. He and I knew were on the same page in that moment, a sad, ironic, but welcomed sense of camaraderie between him and I.

That’s enough for tonight.

 

 

My Recent Psychiatric Hospital Visits, And Why I Refuse To Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever Go Back (Part 1).

On the night of August 5th, I experienced a severe episode of Dissociation (Google it, it’s a psychological term and you will find several varieties of what dissociation can mean for different people). For me in that experience, I felt like my brain “broke”, and I was in a fog. This fog lasted all night, I couldn’t rest, it was about 10pm, but I already knew in this familiar feeling that I sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep that night, and I didn’t. I couldn’t.

One thing that I know is unsafe/unacceptable to do in our culture/society, as someone who has suffered from all sorts of mental health issues for the past 15 years or so, is to be honest with my employer (FOX Digital Productions, at this time). Flu? Sure. A cold that just won’t go away? Sure. But do I tell my boss that I have to take a few days off for a mental health emergency? Would you? Is our society “there yet” ? Fuck. No. So I told a white lie.

Quoted directly from my email – Sent at 2am, August 5th, a Monday morning:

Hey Important Exec. Dude #1 & Important Exec. Dude #2,

I was hoping I’d be well by the end of the weekend, but I came down with something just awful on Saturday and I’m realizing I definitely will not be in working order for work in the morning. Hopefully I can still come in some time this week, and so sorry that this causes any inconvenience. Will keep you posted.

White lies, but whatever. I needed to rally through this sleepless night. It consisted solely of tossing and turning. I feared that I was going crazy. I called my insurance company at 8am, found out there was a psych hospital 4 blocks away from my house. I packed a bag, dropped off my dog at a nearby doggy daycare and entered the E.R. of Southern California Hospital at Culver City (Fuck this place, btw. I know you don’t know the story yet, but just know that this place can get fucked. At least it’s psychiatric care ward. Fuck you. Except for a nurse Ruben, and a couple other kind souls that I wish I had remembered their names).

I entered the E.R. and was initially welcomed by a tiny group of very kind nurses. As someone who was fearing she was on the brink of a mental breakdown, it was surprising even to myself how much it healed just for people to be kind. They needed to take my vitals, and go through my belongings to make sure I didn’t bring in any contraband items (my contraband items they took, which I never got back, actually, so fuck them once again… were tea tree oil and a ziplock bag that held my over the counter Kirkland’s brand sleeping aid pills). Felix, the kind fellow/security guard who started rifling through my belongings, stopped what he was doing and apologized because he didn’t first introduce himself. He was so warm towards me, I felt in some part healed just by his respectful nature.

A doctor and a nurse came in and asked what brought me in today. I told them I had a dissociative episode, and felt some familiar feelings that made me feel like I was going crazy, and I just wanted to proactively take this step before things could potential progress any further or get any worse. The doctor told me that they only let people into the psych ward unless they are suicidal with a plan. Let me be 10000% clear and honest: I was not suicidal with a plan. I was desperate, though. I knew I needed the help of mental health professionals.

I told him, “I mean…. Whatever I need to say, man. I just need help. I’ll say whatever you want me to say.” We were at a crossroads with each other here, because I thought it to be important to be honest as to why I was there. He thought it to be important for me to say that I was suicidal with a plan. I wouldn’t say those words. I asked what the consequence of saying those words would mean. Would I be put on 51/50 (Google it)? Would this false information be held on a record somewhere that could impact me in the future or held against me in some other way? At this point, the doctor and I had an understanding – I was going to lie and say that I felt suicidal and had a plan, which was my only chance at a ticket into getting “help”, and he would know it wasn’t true, I would know it wasn’t true, we just needed to play pretend like a couple of fucking children. He assured me that in saying those incredibly important, impactful, deeply meaningful words that, in this individual case, I now have uttered the secret password to the secret club that hopefully had help for me behind it’s closed doors.

As I prepared to go upstairs, the nurse that witnessed this back and forth exchange between the doctor and I had congratulated me on voluntarily seeking help. She told me stories of how much of the time, people get brought in via the ambulance or the police involuntarily. I interrupted her and said “I know, I’ve been that person twice before. I came in today because I don’t want it to be a third time”. She teared up and patted me on the shoulder like she wanted to give me a hug. She had sat there and watched me be forced to confess that I was suicidal, but biiiiiiitch I just want to live! I want to live and to not for the 3rd time, be committed to a hospital involuntarily. I showed up for this for myself, as an act of self-love. I showed up for help. I wanted help.

I’m just writing off the cuff here, all of this is, in totality, a long-ass story, that I kind of need to tell at my own pace, on my own terms. When I hit moments in the story that are traumatic, I feel like I need to take a step back. This is one of those moments.

I’ll chronicle my most recent experiences with psychiatric wards in piece-meal, in writing. And I’m not sure how many people will care to read this, psych wards and mental health have never been a sexy or an easy-read. But I’m choosing to use my voice because I’m not sure what else to do. I’ve been a passionate mental health advocate for almost 5 years now. I’ve organized mental health awareness events, I’ve brainstormed documentary projects and raised collectively $15,000 independently for those two things, while also going into a lot of personal debt for these projects at a level that I won’t even speak of. But to me, it was an investment in my life’s work – Mental health advocacy. Stigma-reduction. I wanted this for the world because I thought it would make the world a better place.

But honestly, speaking from the depth of my heart and soul, I’ve lost hope for this cause. I don’t currently think this is a problem that will be solved in my lifetime. The mental healthcare system is broken. The psychiatric ward side, especially. The insurance side, especially.

There is dual-abuse going on in the psychiatric facility setting. Patients abusing the staff, and the staff, in a more turn-your-cheek/turn-a-blind-eye, sort of way, is mentally abusing and neglecting the patients. Then sending them out into the world again, with no hope but to repeat the cycle.

Giving up on this cause- of fighting the social stigma associated with mental health, and hoping to play a role in improving the mental healthcare system via documentary filmmaking (my art)… giving up on this makes my soul feel lost. I’m grieving hope, I’m grieving the fact that I know vulnerable people in droves, in the hundreds of thousands, in the millions, are being mistreated, mis-diagnosed, or mentally abused on their path to get help. And I just. Cannot. It hurts too much to know this as well and as personally as I know it now.