Psych!

Walk in, large metal doors close behind you, there is no getting out now. You walk down a overly bright hallway, open doorways along the way, and are seated in a lone chair right in front of this window that held the nurses. You sit there about fifteen minutes as a bunch of patience walk past you and stare as though youre new meat, then youre taken to this dark, stuffy room to sign and fill out a bunch papers, like what kind of things do they need to do if you have a meltdown. You then go meet the patients in the common room right before they all have to head to bed. You sit there, alone, exhausted, overwhelmed, unsure, until they finally let you sleep. I guess thats what you get for wanting to kill yourself.

Well, that was my first night. I was put into the south unit the first  night, which is for people who battle drug and alcohol addictions as well as mental health. Its an odd thing actually being in a room with a bunch of people that understand what youre going through. Being the new kid, though, all the patients were wondering how the smiling young girl that sat in the corner, knees to her chest, got drop in the crazy house. Several of them explained why they were there, "suicidal and heroin addict", "suicidal and meth addict", "suicidal and alcholic", you get the point. Anyways I said "I cut and and suicidal", that seemed to be a suffcient response to their questions.

The next day they moved me to the central unit, I can only describe the central unit as the crazies who arent the craziest, thats the north unit. Ill say most people in central are bipolar and depressed like me while the northies were more the schizo and violent. They walk me in through another set of large metal doors, you hear that click and you know that youre stuck there, locked in. I had nothing but the clothes on my back (I wasnt expecting to end up in the psychward when I got up or I would have prepared) no laces, belts, or drawstrings, but they give you zipties for your shoes, how sweet of them huh.

I was in the first room in the new overly bright hallway. I had two roommates, Rosemarie and Emma, Emma was the only person who was actually my age so we got along quite well, she was an odd one. Once you walk into the community room (they had all the cartons of chocolate milk you could think of, we drank alot of it) everyone is nice, once again wanting to know my story. Its weird how people can become family in only ten days, but those people in the central unit became family, we all looked out for each other, we also had a lot of real good laughs. No, they werent "crazy" they were normal people, just like me, well most of them. Even the regualr nurses were considered part of the family, even the ones we really didnt like, Adrian.

I spent ten days with the central unit. I had a few visitors, ate some pretty good caf food, played some basketball, went to every group session, went to all the personal sessions with my psyciatrist, took my meds out of my little white cup every day, I did everything I had to do to get out of there. Im gonna be honest, it gets real lonely after about five days, you just want familiarity, but people have lives and cant go at the weird hours to visit you.

After the ten days, and a few tearful goodbyes, I was on my way...to out patient. Out patient was way more laid back, group of about five of us, Emma being one of them, groups all day, but I had to drive out to Kirkland everyday which was a pain in the butt.

When I was completely done with the program, I felt good, not like I wasnt depressed anymore, but I guess I had a minute of hope, hope that maybe I could stop self harming and get better. Obviously that didnt last, but a month, but Im on my way again. I did learn alot from my experience in the psych ward, many coping skills that worked for me, I even learnd about being bipolar and how our mood swings go and such. I really enjoyed being there, I wouldnt recommend it to anyone, but it was a good place that put me on the right track to recovery.