5150

I knew I needed help, but I was NOT expecting this. Here I was, sitting in the Emergency Room waiting area of the hospital five minutes away from my house, waiting to be called back, my dad by my side. It was nearing midnight and I was wearing the same thing I had been wearing for several days in a row now, an oversized college t-shirt and black shorts, my usual pajamas. My mind was reeling with activity, I felt like I was literally going insane from the sleep debt I had accrued over the last five days. By this time, I had been battling with the depression part of my bipolar disorder for quite a while. I was diagnosed with the disorder at the usual time for a female: her early twenties, and now, I was several years into it at twenty-five years of age. I could usually manage the insomnia and get by with a few hours of sleep a night, but this time was different, it had gotten extraordinarily bad. I was running off of a total of twelve hours of sleep, spread out over five days. This didn’t mean that I slept for a few hours, lumped together, every day for five days. Oh no, that would have been blissful. No. This meant that I would sleep an hour here, be awake for six hours and sleep another hour there, and then be awake for another several hours, only to finally get to sleep, and sleep for barely thirty minutes. Days. It went on for days. My psychiatrist had given up on me at this point regarding the insomnia. We had tried everything: anxiety meds, sleep meds, muscle relaxers, tranquilizers, over-the-counter sleep meds, and even the more natural pathways like melatonin and meditation. Meditation never worked, my mind could never focus on my breathing long enough to settle down into a meditative state, so I considered that treatment crap-treatment. I even tried exhausting myself physically by exercising. Nothing worked. Nothing put me to sleep and kept me there long enough to get sufficient rest. My body would shut down, but not my mind, so after five days of suffering through hell, I went to the emergency room. I could not stop fidgeting and my knees just continued to bounce up and down, my feet tapping to music only I could hear. I had plenty of anxiety going on, though I didn’t know that is what it was. My thoughts were all over the place and finally, when the nurse called me in to be triaged, I said the stupidest thing I could have said in a hospital. I told her about my situation and that I was really desperate for sleep, so desperate that “I would take a whole bottle of sleeping pills to sleep if it would help, but it wouldn’t, so I wouldn’t take them.” BIG mistake.

The nurse immediately took me back to a part of the ER that I had never been in before, a more secluded area away from the other rooms and beds. I got a bed on the right, out of four beds there, each enclosed with curtains. They gave me a pair of disposable scrubs to change into instead of the customary hospital gown when I walked in, which I thought was a little strange, but I went with it. I got an IV put in shortly after, which is an anxiety attack all by itself with me. I don’t have a problem with needles, I have a problem with needles going into veins. My dad was with me and stayed by me the whole time (except when I changed of course). I don’t remember if I saw a doctor or not right then because my brain wasn’t really taking in what was happening, I suppose I did because the next thing I knew, I was getting a good dose of Ativan by IV to put me to sleep. Finally, some sleep.

Sometime later, I woke up and noticed there was another person in the “cubicle with curtains” two down from mine. I wasn’t aware of how much time had passed because I was so drowsy from the medicine they gave me. The nurse’s station for this specific area was right in front of me and I could see the monitor on the wall with all the patients’ names to the left. By inadvertently eavesdropping on my two-down neighbor, I learned that they weren’t in a good place mentally and they were having them sign some papers to be Baker Acted. It still hadn’t hit me yet, why I was in a separate and different part of the emergency room than I’d ever been in before, and why the nurses were talking in more gentle voices than assertive ones. I looked on the monitor above the nurse’s station and saw that my neighbor now had a BA next to their name, and two down from that was my name, also with a BA next to it. Wait a minute, I was being BAKER ACTED?! When did that happen? When had I signed the papers, the ones my fellow patient had signed? And when was it discussed that I needed to be transferred to a mental facility? As it turns out, while I was asleep from the Ativan, I was woken up to sign those papers, the ones that meant I was involuntarily being committed to a mental facility for a 72-hour suicide hold. I had no recollection of being woken up or signing anything. Was my signature even legible? My dad told me soon after the realization hit me, that I did in fact sign them, but he didn’t know that they were for a Baker Act and transport. He later saw a lawyer after this whole debacle, and had papers drawn up stating that if I was unable to make a medical decision myself due to being incapacitated in some way, i.e. drug induced sleep, he would make the decisions for me. This ER visit was full of lessons.

Things seemed to move quickly after they told me that I was being transferred to a mental health facility for my 72-hour hold. A private ambulance took me to the facility where they put me in an office complete with a desk and a couch. That’s odd, a desk AND a couch? I was still heavily under the influence of the Ativan they gave me, so I wasn’t completely aware of what was going on. They turned the lights off and allowed me to lay down on the couch while they finalized things with my dad and the EMTs whom transferred me. I still had the ugly green scrubs on they gave me in the emergency room. A woman came into the room after a bit and asked me questions, probably pertaining to my mental state at the time, and got me all signed in for my stay. She asked me to strip down nude so that she could document my tattoos and other visible marks that could identify me. I have several smaller tattoos, so I stood there longer than I wanted. It was taking everything I had in me to remain standing, why couldn’t they do this while I was laying down? Very irrational thinking on my part but this was all happening during the Ativan haze, and really after about a minute, I didn’t care anymore. She was probably a nurse, and she was probably nice, but again, that haziness didn’t allow me to remember everything that happened. All I wanted to do was sleep. When were they going to let me sleep?

I was then taken back to the Adult 1 Ward at the facility and put in a suicide watch room, complete with cameras. There were only two beds in this room, and I was the only one in the room at the time, so that made it a little easier to take in. I arrived sometime in the morning having spent the night in the ER, and after I checked my stuff in, it was time for vitals. I wasn’t allowed to have my personal belongings, just those ugly green, disposable scrubs. I wasn’t even allowed to have my bra since it was underwire. They took my blood pressure, pulse and took some blood, which caused another panic attack because of the needle in vein thing. The nurse told me she would try to make sure this was the only time I was stuck for blood while I was there, and thankfully it was. I was off to see a counselor next. There were two waiting for me in a tiny white room with three chairs, a table, and a computer. I told them that I was bipolar and was recently battling with my depression and sleep, but I absolutely was NOT suicidal and never had been suicidal. Of course, that is what they probably hear from every depressed patient that comes through the doors, even if they are suicidal. So, they watched me.

I mostly spent my time in my room reading my Harry Potter book that my mom brought the first chance she got. She wasn’t allowed to see me yet but was able to drop off reading material. I’m an introvert so I kept to myself, and I tend to be a people watcher, so I watched everyone else. I learned that I was in the less severe of the two adult wards at that facility, the other ward being for more serious patients. I was surrounded by other depressed, bipolar, and slightly delusional people that just needed some rest and mental healing, with the occasional long-term patient thrown in there. I just watched and listened. By this time on day one, that ER dose of the Ativan had worn off and I could pay closer attention to what was going on. One middle-aged woman insisted that she was getting out in another week and was so excited to finally be going home, and that she was looking forward to painting her room a new color when she got there. I’d watch her tell everyone she could, over and over, the same story. Someone working in the ward later told me that she had been saying that every day, for the last four months. I felt sorry for her when I found out. There was another woman, older than the first, that gave off the “senile” vibes. She snapped at everybody and a few of the other patients told me I should just steer clear of her. Okay, no problem, avoid the mean old lady.

The next day there, I began to hear the same phrase repeated to me from various persons: nurses, patients, technicians, and that was “You don’t seem like you belong here.” Yeah, I know I don’t, but I didn’t say that out loud. I just kept to myself as much as possible, waiting out my 72 hours until I could go home. I never woke up early enough to go to breakfast and yes, by this time, they had given me some medication to get me to sleep for longer than an hour at a time. I had seen a doctor during my Ativan haze the day before. Do I remember what was discussed? Nope. Sleep was sacred now, if I was asleep, I didn’t want to be disturbed for something as trivial as food. I was ready for lunch though, when that time came. We could leave our ward and eat in the cafeteria! Though, shortly after that realization came the slightly depressing method of them getting us to the cafeteria. They walked us down the hall in a single file line. I felt like I was back in elementary school! I sat with the rest of the patients at the far table, noticing that the senile old lady sat by herself two tables away. The food was surprisingly good considering it was “hospital food” and they gave you plenty of it. After lunch was a counseling session and gym time. Before I was Baker Acted, I would go to the gym regularly to work out. I was looking forward to gym time but was disappointed to discover that it was only a half gymnasium, with a basketball hoop. I foolishly thought there would be weight machines and treadmills to work out on, not so! We were mental patients, in closed wards, no dangerous objects allowed. We had gym time at the same time as the other Adult ward’s patients. This was the only time the two wards’ schedules crossed. They were the patients that heard voices and had outbursts, but everyone got along well enough. They started us out with laps around the half gym, and then set up teams for basketball. I, in no way, liked playing basketball, so I didn’t participate. Instead, I sat in the corner where the mats were, so I could stretch and do crunches and push-ups. I wasn’t the only one sitting on the sidelines, which was of some comfort. I was never a team sport type of girl. My sport of choice was gymnastics, and it had been since I was about eight years old. After gym time, we were taken back to our ward, and I went back to my room to read some more. I just about finished my book while I was there. Dinner came and went, all of us still sitting at the same tables, and the old, senile lady by herself again, mumbling things under her breath.

By the third day, I was moved out of the suicide room and into another room, without cameras. Small victories! Again, I was hearing the “you don’t belong here” comments from everybody I encountered. They even added the “but you seem so normal” comments as well, I’d just shrug my shoulders in response and say “Thanks.” This day, I decided to wake up and try to go to breakfast, and I wanted to sit on my own. I didn’t really feel like conversing too much with the lady that kept repeating her story of getting out in a week, or with anyone really; I was not a morning person. To my surprise, the senile old lady sat down opposite me and told me her name. We had a very nice conversation, I can’t remember the details, but I learned that she wasn’t mean or senile, she mostly just wanted to be left alone. She had the beginnings of dementia, which is why everyone else thought she was so mean. Here we sat, just talking about everyday things. We were walked back to our ward by the nurses assigned to us and then received our afternoon medications. I was prescribed a new one that made me super drowsy, so I went directly to my room and slept. I barely made it to my bed, that’s how fast it kicked in! A nurse woke me up not long after I had fallen asleep, and my first feeling was anger. Anger that my sacred sleep time was bothered, but once I let what she said sink in, my anger turned to joy. She told me I would be going home today, and my mom was already on her way to pick me up. I shot out of bed so fast that my head was spinning. Still heavy with sleep, I ran out of the room, down the hallway, and to the nursing station to see if my mom was there yet. The doctor that signed my discharge papers told me to “slow down” because of the medication but all I wanted to do was get out of there and into my own bed, at home. My mom arrived and the discharge was quick and painless, and before I knew it, I was on my way home and this whole fiasco was over. I got home and went right to bed, barely making it up the ladder to my loft bed and slept for 12 hours straight. It felt like the best sleep of my life. When I woke up, it was Thanksgiving (how had Thanksgiving gotten here so fast?) and I was so ready for the food and normal family time. My parents, as it turned out, were pushing hard to get me released in time for the holiday, and I didn’t end up staying for the whole 72-hour suicide hold. The doctor recognized what the rest of ward seemed to see from the beginning: that I didn’t belong there, and my only real issue was my insomnia and NOT suicide. After I was home, my parents told me that the ER was just CTA: Covering Their Asses. Great, lesson learned. Choose your words wisely in a hospital!