DAY 25 - 1st September
Before you point it out, yes I missed out a couple of days. Keri was pretty zonked out on her medication increase so it was pointless me saying much! About the most exciting thing that happened was that she went to the supermarket with her foster mum, and even that felt like a marathon to her. On the bright side though she's been sleeping very well at night and even snoozing during the day. Unfortunately those effects are starting to wear off. Or maybe they're not and Keri's got this half-Keri half-Sally thing going on at the moment. The medication Keri is on effects her a lot when it's changed but doesn't effect Sally and this evening Keri and Sally have been out at the same time! The characteristics of this are that Keri becomes very angry with everyone, doesn't want to speak, kicks out at things and is generally rude or verbally abusive without realising it.
Her foster mum came to pick her up about 12.30pm which had been planned. She was going to go for some home leave which I thought was going to do her some good. In some ways it did but in other ways it just showed her exactly what she's missing. Her and her foster parents had some long chats, at times having a sense of humour or just talking casually (you've got to have a sense of humour sometimes!). What came out of the conversation was that Keri quickly realised that it was unlikely she'd be discharged at her ward round next week when her section is due to expire. Her foster dad was trying to get Keri to believe that what she's experiencing is psychosis (although of course they try not to use that word around her, I'm just using it to get to the point). In other words, not real. It didn't work. I have to admit I was listening to the whole conversation and her foster parents were doing a really good job at being logical with Keri but she wasn't having any of it. Like I often say, you can't have a rational argument with an irrational person. That's exactly what psychosis is, it's based on irrationality. There were some good times though when she wasn't focusing on her foster dad's drill or watching the guys she sees out of the living room window spying on the house. It wasn't all bad. The only reason I'm mentioning a lot of the bad stuff is because I'm trying to make these blogs as close to Keri's head space as I can and all she had was a black mist. She's in her own psychotic world and no logical argument is going to get her out of it. She did laugh a few times with her foster parents when they managed to temporarily draw her out of her head for a bit. They have a wicked sense of humour!
When it was time to go Keri just sat there and said, "I'm discharging myself."
She was sat outside with her foster dad who said, "You can't discharge yourself."
"It's too late," she said. "I already have done."
This ended up in about a 20 minute conversation with her foster dad trying to persuade her to go back to the hospital. She hates being sectioned and her foster dad quite rightly said, "You've been sectioned. You have no rights." Rights as in she can't discharge herself or make any form of decision without talking to her overseeing psychiatrist as she's not deemed to have the mental capacity. Well, that's how I understood it anyway. He could've meant something completely different! She eventually went with her foster mum in the car back to the hospital. She didn't want to go but if she didn't it would've resulted in the police having to take her back instead which would've provoked Sally, which would've been big bad news.
When she got back to the ward she hadn't even walked through the entrance before the whole "half-Keri half-Sally" thing started happening. She didn't speak to anyone. When someone did speak to her she told them to fuck off. She even refused her evening medication and spent a couple of hours pacing around the garden smoking and talking to herself.
She did manage to calm herself down a bit at around 8.30pm and went and asked to speak to staff. She got a good nurse (let's call him Brian) and he sat and chatted to her for a while. Her talking was at super speed because she was so frustrated and her head was whirring around so fast she couldn't slow down her words. By the end of her chat she agreed to take her medication which she was supposed to have taken 3 hours earlier. She was grateful that Brian had found the time to talk but also frustrated over the fact that he said it was likely she'd be put on a 6 month section (she's still not allowed any unescorted leave) and also because he said she had delusional thoughts and psychotic thinking. Mention the word 'psychotic' and Keri goes off on one!
She calmed down a bit afterwards but is still very tense as Sally is still like a walking time bomb. It would be good for Sally to come out so she could blow off steam in a safe environment where Keri won't get hurt but she doesn't seem to want to do that. Maybe she knows that she won't be able to do anything to Keri and won't fully come out for that reason. Who knows. All I know is that right now, Keri's been crying over the fact she just wants to be discharged and go home. She has no freedom, she has no rights, she has no privacy. But she's in a safe place and no one is going to let her drill a hole in her head or do anything life threatening.
Oh yeah! Forgot to mention her care plan! She was given a copy when she got back from home leave which is what I think triggered everything to go off completely. She thought it was absolute bullshit and scribbled corrections all over the place, swearing and cussing and calling all the nurses fuckers. What annoyed her most was the part that said she says she requested a tribunal however no one has any record of this. She asked three nurses about wanting a tribunal three days after she was admitted, one of which said it had been recorded and put down! That's the part that tipped her over the edge, and Sally for that matter. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better and calmer day.
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