So, it seems that I'm crazy. Well, I've been on an acute psychiatric ward for 9 months with major depression and PTSD. I think that counts as being not quite right. My medication includes quetiapine and chlorpromazine, which non crazy people don't know much about....
'CRazyy' is not a very in vogue term. But it's short and snappy. It's definitely easier to type than 'experiencing an episode of acute mental illness'. When you put it next to that mouthful, 'crazy' is so much better. Don't you think?
My life has been far from sheltered. But in here I've learned about things I had no idea existed. I've seen more violence, more anger, more drugs, more verbal abuse, more heartache and heartbreak, than is right to see on one 18 bedded ward. This isn't prison. This place isn't full of bad people. It's full of hard people, living hard lives. It's loud, it's raw, it's unpredictable and chaotic. At times, it's downright terrifying.
It's full of people you probably turn your head away from on the bus.
But, do you know what? Most people get better.
Granted, most of them come back. Some after only a brief few weeks. But the pills and the environment are enough to return people- usually quite quickly- to the community. Within a month or so, the schizophrenics don't think the food has been tampered with. The bi- polars can have a conversation that isn't so chaotic and pressured that your head spins just trying to listen to it. And the depressives get out of bed. And everyone- but everyone- keeps their clothes on!!
It's amazing what a month can do.
This blog is about my recovery. Slow and faltering as it is. It's also about life on an acute psych ward. It's just too human not to write about. It's too human to ignore.
But it's also about life on an acute psych ward. It's too human not to write about.
And, you know what, most people get better. Granted, most people come back after quite a short time. But, for sbrief p
Chlorpromazine? That's an old one.
ReplyDelete