Posted by CEK on May 23, 2006, at 9:19:15
In reply to Re: I don't want to go to the hospital... » blueberry, posted by jedi on May 23, 2006, at 3:01:06
Blueberry, I'm sorry you're feeling this way. I feel the same. You try and try to find a med that will make it all go away and nothing seems to work. My illness is only getting me further in debt with no good coming out of it. Suicide is on my mind everyday. I've been hospitalized twice for the uncontrollable urge to end it all. The first time in Feb. of this year when I was in the hospital all they did was keep me on my same meds and kept me in a controlled environment where they thought it would be impossible to kill myself. They treated me like a criminal in jail. They even did a complete body search when I came in. I had to take off all of my clothes in front of two women!! They take away your shoe strings and if your pants have a string in the waste, they cut it out.( they don't want you or anyone else using these as a means of hurting yourself.) There were two wards, one for people like us, severely depressed and wanting to die, and then the ward for the more seriously mentally disabled that can be dangerous. I would meet with my pdoc for 5 minutes each day and about 10 min. with my councilor. The rest was group therapy which did absolutely no good. Most people didn't want to cooperate. There was no time to myself, where I could go and be alone. If they gave you meds that made you sleepy,like Klonopin (this was the first time I ever took it.)and you felt like you were going to fall out, they would not let you sleep. They would make you go to group anyway drugged up. There were no tvs in the rooms, only in the group room which was only on from 4-10 and then everyone was always fighting about what to watch. Phone time was limited to 5 minutes per call at certain hours which caused more fighting amongst patients. If you wanted to shave, heaven forbid, you had to do so with a nurse or tech in the bathroom watching you.(no thanks, I'd rather look like wooly mammouth.) Then they would send patients from the other ward over that they thought had progressed enough to be in our ward. Some were not ready to be there. There was this one loud manic I mean extremely manic bipolar woman that would not shut up and would follow you around. Crap! None of this was helping. And how can meeting with your pdoc and councilor for such a small amount of time help you? The pdoc, misdiagnosed me since she spent no time hardly with me and I received no benefit from my stay at all. All I got out of it was a $1600 bill for 6 days staying there.(this was after my insurance paid.) They gave me no literature about my illness or anything else benificial for me to read during their tv time and half the time when it was time to get your meds, the pharmacy didn't have them and you would have to go without. 3 months later and not feeling better, still not able to find any meds to help and money problems getting worse,(short term disability checks being stalled or coming 3 weeks late, not being able to afford treatment, regular bills ect.)I was ready to commit suicide again. It was such an uncontrolable urge and I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I knew I didn't want to go back into the hospital, but I thought maybe a different hospital would be different. That maybe there they could stablize my meds and keep me sedated or something until they started to work. I called my pdoc and he sent me to a different hospital. Basically, same crap, different day. This was April 29-May5. The only good thing about this hospital is that they allowed you smoking breaks. The other one put smokers on the patch and would not let them smoke which you know only made matters worse for some people. My pdoc before I went into the hospital had me on only Klonopin to help mellow out my anxiety until all the other meds they tried were out of my system. Then we were going to try something else. Well this hospital was completely anti-Klonopin and refused to give it to me for the first 3 days that I was there. For the first 3 days there, they gave me no meds other than my allergy medicine. Those 3 days, when I was the most suicidal of my life, they left me there with nothing to help. I was looking for ways to climb the chest of drawers to get to the lightbulbs to try to see if I could get one and cut my throat with one. I called my husband several times and cussed him and threatened divorce and everything under the sun if he didn't get me out of there. I would be damned if I was going to stay there and pay them tons of money to get no treatment! He thought I needed to stay. On my 4th day, my pdoc started me on Depakote 1000mg and would only allow me to take the Klonopin every 8 hours. If I dared ask for it, they would treat me like an addict and I would have to explain myself for why I was taking it and for how long ect. There were 60 people in my ward and it was very loud and nerve racking. And then there were the manic bipolars that would back you into a corner and not shut up. I just wanted to be alone and couldn't even get away from them! At smoke break (we would go out women only, then men only) all the women would do was bitch and moan and cuss about everything. That was the last thing I wanted to hear. You would only get to meet with your therapist once ever seven days and the rest was group which was filled with people talking amongst theirselves and the rest just wanted to complain in group about the staff at the hospital. There was nothing theraputic about that. On my sixth day when they would finally let me leave, I got the pleasure of having to go down to the billing office to find out about my bill.$3600.00 after my insurance paid, and again for nothing. Oh yeah, and they had major "crazies" on my ward. Two were cussing and punching walls and having fits all the time until they lashed out at the techs and tried to escape and got slammed to the floor. It was very scary. I was inches away from one of those experiences that involved this one wildeyed man that could've really hurt me. Hey, I was just wanting to do away with myself, not get the crap beat out of me by some out of control man twice my size. When I called my pdoc from the hospital about the experience, he was really ticked off and called the hospital about it. After all of that, he stopped the Depakote because he thought it was making my depression worse. Well, this is my story on my hospital situations, and yes, I'm in the south so things may be better else where. Right now, when the suicidal thoughts get too bad, I'll take enough Klonopin to make me sleep and try to sleep it off. I tell my mother and my husband and let them know how I'm feeling and let them keep watch over me. I will not volentarely go back into the hospital again. For now, I am just fighting it day by day waiting for something, anything to work. Blueberry, I feel your pain. I just don't know what to tell you to do to help. I wish I knew, then we could help each other. Try to keep holding on and I will too. I wish you the best. Love, CEK
poster:CEK
thread:647043
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060520/msgs/647243.html