DAY 91 (13 weeks) - 6th November, Wednesday
Keri set her alarm for 6.30am and also asked the night staff if they could give her a wake up call as well. They're idea of a wake up call is a quick knock on the door. Keri heard it but hit her snooze buttom when her alarm went off and rolled over to go back to sleep! She kept hitting snooze until about 7am when she finally needed to get out of bed as she was being picked up at 7.30am.
After two iced coffees and nearly half a pack of cigarettes, her personal advisor and Liz turned up to get her in the car to take her to court. Keri was bricking it! There was no real problem getting Keri in the car and she spent the journey with her headphones on, music as loud as it would go, and slipped into a dissociative state until they finally arrived at the court just before 10am.
Keri panicked right away after getting out of the car because she still has her paranoid hallucinations and was terrified of the five guys that had followed her from the hospital to court. Her foster mum reassured Keri that she was safe and that no one could get into the building and to the room they would be in without security or a key card. This didn't reassure Keri very much but she trusts her foster mum so tried to trust her judgement.
Keri was shown the video link room, a different one from the last time she was there. She also met the judge, her barrister and the defendent's Queens Council who's 6 foot 8 inches! He was like a giant! Keri was a little intimidated by him. He didn't look as empathetic as the defendent's other barrister. Abz had made her own way to court and the judge had given permission for her to be in the room with Keri while she gave evidence just in case something happened (considering she's still sectioned), while her foster mum and PA had to wait in a room next door. So Keri and her intermediary sat in the video link room while Abz and one of the witness care team sat just outside.
Keri found the QC's questioning a lot harder going than she had during her last cross examination with the other barrister in the same court case back in May. Even so, she didn't dissociate (only short periods of spacing out) and was allowed several breaks. The day was again booked out purely for her to give evidence again so that she didn't have to come back and so that she wasn't rushed through, the judge was the same as last time and was very sensitive towards Keri's complex needs.
Last time when Keri had finally made it through the cross examination she walked in to her outreach worker and foster mum who had been sat in the witness room next door with a big smile on her face. This time she was tense, anxious, and felt Sally brewing. Before they left Abz gave Keri some Lorazepam (the nurses had put together Keri's medication in a bag along with her emergency Lorazepam). After that, Abz, Keri, her foster mum and her PA strolled back to Abz's car, with Keri getting plenty of praise from everyone about how well she'd done. She didn't feel like she'd done well at all.
They got to the car and Keri immediately sparked up a cigarette, unfortunately Sally was trying to get out and her foster mum saw the warning signs straight away and knew what was going to happen. Sally suddenly burst out and tried getting away from the car except Keri's foster mum, Abz and her PA had all been ready and just restrained her. Abz really did not help the situation as she kept calling Sally 'Keri', as she's reminded us most of the evening! Sally's main goal was to get to Keri's dad and throttle him with her bare hands but when she finally realised there was no way anyone was going to let go of her she decided to wait. She wasn't going anywhere while she was being restrained and she knew they weren't going to let her kill anyone, even if it was Keri's dad.
Keri came back and suddenly collapsed, but Liz and Abz caught her as they'd still been holding on from while Sally was out. Remember yesterday when I wrote Keri couldn't get herself to cry? It finally came out. She just burst into tears; a mixture of relief that it was over, guilt that her dad might end up in prison, and anger that Sally was trying to mess things up. Abz and Liz got into the car with Keri and once again she put on her headphones and slipped into a dissociative state again. Getting her back on the ward was easy enough and she's just medicated to the eyeballs again.
Blondie knows Keri's DID very well, having met several of Keri's alters. She kept Keri out of the HDU. She ended up playing five games of pool, two with one of the patients she gets along well with, Denny. Then a further three games of pool with Blondie, then played table tennis for a while before Keri went out and smoked. The point of all this was that Blondie wanted to keep Keri in the communal areas to help prevent her dissociating if possible.
Everyone is completely exhausted. Sally seems to be the only one who's gotten over her downfall and is getting wired up for her next "trick". Unfortunately Keri's been puking for the last couple of hours this evening. She can barely get herself up off her bathroom floor half the time so I think when she finally goes to bed then she's going into a coma! With so much medication and the mental and emotional exhaustion, and the puking, she's totally drained. Just one look at her face and you can see just how drained and unwell she is. Let's just hope court finishes okay and there's nothing that could go wrong. I couldn't handle Keri's reaction if something else went pearshaped.
No comments:
Post a Comment