Sectioned in Hospital - Day 29 & 30

Written by Fox.

DAY 29 - 5th September

Wow, where do I even begin? Keri was up before 5.30am and pacing around the bloody garden again! I don't mind it when she's awake early but the pacing is ridiculous. I don't know where she gets the energy. I mean she does eat but most of the time it ends up with her throwing it up down the toilet. And when she actually gets food it's from Clarissa eating chocolate! Not exactly the healthiest lifestyle. Keri's personal diet is diet coke, coffee and cigarettes (plus vodka if she relapses into her binge drinking). Very nutritional eh? 

She perked up a little bit when a staff member came to her and asked whether Keri could charge their phone by plugging it into her laptop. She was quite chuffed to be trusted with a staff member's phone!

One of the patients who was admitted last week has had a very big impact on Keri. Lucinda (patient pseudo name) thought she was pregnant. Keri's instinct was no it wasn't true, but of course she didn't say this out loud. The outcome was that she wasn't pregnant but she made a big song and dane about it for most of the day before agreeing to the test. The problem was that Lucinda was talking a lot about pregnancy and everything associated with it which triggered Keri. Keri's been pregnant 4 times (although only 2 she knows about, the other 2 were taken on by 2 alter personalities so she has no idea they even happened). The first time she was pregnant she miscarried (I won't go into the other times as it's not fair on Keri for me to talk about that). She knew that it was going to be a girl (female instinct?) although of course she didn't care about the gender. Her child was due to be born the first week of September roughly and Keri mainly manages to hold it together each year. The first year she went off the handle and ended up in a secure unit by the end of the month. This year was going okay up until the point Lucinda was saying all of this stuff.

By late afternoon Keri was very distressed and crying so the staff gave her some Lorazepam. A member of staff took her and another patient on a walk around the grounds so that Keri could get off the ward and get some air. However near the end of the walk Keri spotted the group of guys following her and kept turning around and staring at them. The staff member stopped and noticed Keri's change in behaviour. He walked over so he was standing next to her while the other patient waited several feet away.

"Keri? What are you looking at?" he asked, looking a bit concerned.

"Those guys behind us," she replied, thinking that it was a stupid question to ask.

"Where?" he said, turning around to look where Keri was looking.

"Right there by the lamppost," she said.

"Can you really see people over there?" he said, turning back to Keri.

"Yes!" she said, getting panicky.

"Keri, there's no one there," he said, looking concerned again. "Do you trust me?"

"No," Keri blatantly replied. 

They carried on walking until they got back to the unit and Keri was left feeling quite paranoid, more so than usual. Although she doesn't think she's paranoid.

With no food in her stomach all day and a cocktail of medication you'd think Keri wouldn't even have the energy to pace, but she went at it for 4 hours! The only break she had was to go and get her night time medication at about 11pm. It was clear how distressed she was and she spoke to the staff, Cat (one of her key nurses) was working and Keri vented to her about things. After this it was back to her rigorously pacing the garden. By the time it got to midnight things hadn't improved so she was given another dose of Lorazepam. This worked a bit and she did start feeling a bit wobbly on her feet. She managed to get dressed into her pyjamas and then sit at her desk and draw what was on her mind. By about 1am her eyes had started going a bit blurry and unfocused so by the time it was 1.30am she was able to lie down in bed and fell asleep fairly quickly, even after the distress she'd had. I think being on a constant spiral of adrenalin all day had exhausted her and by the time her body actually let her lie down the exhaustion just hit her like a brick in the face. At least she got some proper sleep!

DAY 30 - 6th September

Today Keri hasn't been herself at all. Her teddy and bracelet are still locked in the back of her wardrobe but I intend to get them out and put them on her bedside table for when she wakes up tomorrow morning. She woke up quite late because of all the medication she had last night but when she did wake up she was in a horrible mood. She thinks she's got nothing left to lose, so refused her medication, paced around the garden, refused to speak to anyone and then spent an hour sitting on her bathroom floor in the dark before her psychotherapist arrived for their session today.

Because her psychotherapist didn't have a key to Keri's bedroom door, a staff member had to open it as Keri had it locked. That was when they found her crying on the floor of her bathroom. Her psychotherapist when she saw Keri was very quick to make sure that it was Keri who was crying on her bathroom floor and that she hadn't dissociated into someone else. Vex seemed to be of the opinion that it would be better to force Keri to get up, knowing she'd refused her medication in the morning. He tried to move her arms away from her face and tried to get her standing up instead of huddling in a ball. Why physically do that to a patient who's already clearly distressed? He offered to go and get her some Lorazepam but she refused to get involved with any pills. She thinks they're all placebos. Vex and her psychotherapist stayed with her for a while before Vex left and her psychotherapist grabbed a chair and sat next to Keri.

Keri just cried. She felt like she was being left in a cage. She hasn't had anyone visit her or been able to go home since Sunday and the triggers from yesterday were still really strong. She told her psychotherapist that she'd given up and that she didn't feel like she had anything to fight for anymore. After about an hour of Keri being on her bathroom floor, she got up and they went outside so Keri could smoke. Her psychotherapist sat with her for another half an hour, finally persuading her to take her medication. She offered for Keri's other personalities to take part in the appointments if they wanted to so they didn't feel so trapped so it's been decided that I get to have Keri's appointment on Monday. Brilliant for me as there's so much I need to talk about!

She's made a request to appeal against her section. She asked for written proof to keep which the staff gave her. I'm taking photos of all her paperwork and keeping them on her iPad, just to be safe. She's been known to go off on one and just tear everything up so those photos might end up being very important!

Besides that it's been pretty quiet. Keri's burned herself again though, which she also did last night. I can't believe the staff are letting her do this! Understandable that they think it's a coping technique but when it gets to the point she's got the whole of her left lower arm bandaged because of the amount of burns? That's just beyond ridiculous. It's really annoyed me! But oh well, trying to stay calm for Keri's sake. The nurses seem to be getting concerned about the frequency of it happening this evening and are getting the doctor to see her when they come in about 11.30pm. Maybe she'll have to be supervised smoking or whatever but they better do something!

I don't know how much longer she can take in this place before she has a massive kick off again. I really hope that her foster parents are able to get her home for some leave this weekend but i just got a message saying they'll see her on Monday? Doesn't look like home leave is happening! If that's the case then Keri is going to end up going completely off on one. Keri's feeling quite torn about whether her foster parents want her or not. Of course they do! But she's sunk into that level of depression where she thinks she's worthless, unloveable and a waste of space. :(

P.S. Here's the drawing she started on yesterday evening...