Sectioned in Hospital - 9 months 13 days

Written by Fox.

Well, after a fair few weeks Keri managed to start being weaned off her Diazepam and had managed to get down to 24mg a day (8mg three times a day). But due to her agitation (the staff found her on her floor this afternoon banging her head to try and make her visions go away) the nurses spoke to the psychiatrist and he decided to put her back on 30mg (10mg three times a day) as she'd already maxed out her doses of Lorazepam the staff had given her to calm her down, they've seen her level of frustration because she's still being checked on every ten minutes. When she was on hourly observation they thought she was fine as they only saw her for thirty seconds an hour!

If I'm honest I haven't seen her this bad. She's struggling to put her sentences together again. I would've thought that the additional 150mg of Quetiapine the doctor put up after her ward round that she'd calm down but that hasn't happened. Most of the patients have stopped trying to get a conversation out of her as they can't understand what she's saying. The nurses are pretty good as they've got a lot of patience and tolerance so they can figure out what she's trying to spit out! She can still text people fairly well but it's taking her a while to write anything!

I'm sat watching Family Guy. It's pretty cool. When I come out I don't have any chaos going on, unlike when I'm inside and Keri has all this stuff going on, means the rest of us have to experience it as well. It's not fun. At least when I come out I can actually rest for a while! The staff never pick up on the fact it's me, they just think Keri's refusing to talk. She's pretty quiet and subdued at the moment anyway so it's not really much different. For the people that know me they'd know straight away who I am but considering the staff don't know Keri well they haven't figured out when she's been switching personalities yet. 

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 106

Written by Fox.

DAY 106 - 21st November, Thursday

Keri managed to drag herself out of bed for her appointment with her psychotherapist today. She changed the appointment to today instead of tomorrow. They were talking a lot about risks and there's been a lot of conversation going on about Keri and how to help her progress to the point that they can transfer her to the rehab unit.

Keri had her first unescorted ground leave today! She was allowed half an hour but only managed to last ten minutes as she started panicking. However, on the bright side, she made it back to the unit in one piece so that's got to be a good thing. Clari has been moping all day because apparently her weed dealer ended up getting searched when he came back to the ward from his leave. I hope that means she's learned her lesson! Not holding out much hope though. 

Keri's mum's partner and Keri have been texting a lot this evening and ended up talking about tattoos. Keri's always wanted a phoenix as it represents rising from the ashes. Plus her mum is considering getting tattooed! From my memory she's always been dead against it so I don't know what happened there! Keri needs to start sorting out her mum's partner's tattoo as well. She has lots of ideas, it's just a matter of putting them on paper so that he can have a look at the rough drawings and then Keri will be able to draw it more accurately and neatly. 

And last but not least, no self harm today! Besides obviously Keri banging her head against the wall. The dose of antipsychotics she is on are starting to work. She now has realised her little brother isn't a demon (which has been a long term delusion) and has said that the bug inside her head is still there but hasn't been scratching so much so it's been bearable. She obviously doesn't think it's because of the antipsychotics as she doesn't know about her psychotic symptoms. Denial once again.

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 22

Written by Fox.

DAY 22 - 29th August

Keri had her CPA this morning. She was getting very agitated beforehand and as soon as she walked into that room tensions were already in the air. Keri knew they'd already made a decision as they'd been talking between themselves for an hour before letting Keri in. 

As the doctor was talking she was getting more and more hacked off. It was fairly obvious how annoyed she was getting, especially as Sally was lingering. They decided Keri's section wasn't going to be lifted, didn't even come close to discussing a discharge plan and her dosage of antipsychotics have been put up. 

In the end, Keri left in a proper pissy. She stormed through the corridor to go to the garden. I've never seen her so angry, unfortunately Sally was spurring her on. One of the nurses called after her and said, "Keri, lunch is ready!" And all Keri did was shout back "I don't care!" and went into the garden. Her frantic pacing just got faster and faster as she sparked up cigarette after cigarette. This went on for about 20 minutes before her foster carer, her outreach worker and her personal advisor came outside to see her (they'd been part of the meeting). She carried on pacing for a minute before her foster carer said, "Are you not going to stop and say goodbye?" Keri replied with a blatant 'no'. Her coat was sat on one of the benches so she went straight over and grabbed it, put it on and stormed past them saying, "We're leaving."

Obviously her foster carer turned round and said it couldn't happen but Keri was already shooting up the corridor and told the nurse that she was going out with her foster carer. As Keri was looking at the nurse, the nurse was looking over at Keri's gathering of three and shaking her head. They weren't going to let her out. Keri stood by the desk near the door while they signed out and the nurse said, "Do you want to come round the other side? We can show you out the back door."

As her foster carer, personal advisor and outreach worker started making their way round the other side of the desk Keri just completely lost it. She kicked the desk before taking a few steps towards the door and repeatedly kicking it with all the force she had. The staff tried talking to her but Keri was in no mood to listen. She power walked through the ward and out into the women's garden, grabbed the bin and carried it across the garden to put up against the fence. Keri had hardly got it against the fence before several members of staff came running out into the garden. 

She managed to get up on top of the bin before they reached her which meant she had a good grip on the fence to climb over. Unfortunately by this point the staff also had good grip on both her ankles and legs. 

"Get the hell off of me!" she shouted at the staff.

"Keri, you're not safe to leave the hospital. I know you've just had a meeting and it obviously hasn't gone well. Come on down and we can have a chat," said one of the nurses.

"Fuck off the lot of you! I just need to get out of here! Get off my legs!" Keri shouted back at them.

"We can't do that, Keri," the nurses said, still holding tightly onto her legs. She was still trying to kick them away while she had a strong grip on the fence but she had two nurses on each leg. 

"I want to leave, I don't need to be here. I don't want their drugs. I don't need to be sectioned. I just want to go home!" Keri cried as she started thrashing her head against the fence.

Because Keri refused to get down and was thrashing her head against the fence they had to pull her down, with great difficulty! She was restrained by two of the staff and they sat her down on a bench between them. At first Keri resisted but she was hyperventilating and crying, so in the end she stopped fighting and just sat between them while they held her arms. Another nurse ran off to go and get her some PRN medication. The two nurses with her spent a long time chatting to Keri to try and calm her down. 

The nurse brought out triple the dose of Lorazepam she normally takes to calm down so I obviously don't need to explain the ins and outs of exactly how distressed she was! The nurses talked to her a lot, especially about Keri's foster parents. They asked her what she'd do if the situation was reversed and she had a daughter that was doing 'this' to herself. They also talked about how they noticed she lights up whenever her foster mum visits and that the love in the family was worth more than any other love. Keri started crying again and just said, "I don't understand how they can love me like their own daughter if I feel like my own parents didn't even love me. I care about my foster parents so much and I just want to go home."

"It's rare to get people like your foster parents, Keri. Deep down you must know that they're only doing this because they care about you too much to see you get hurt. If I had a daughter who wanted to take a power drill to her head then I'd do anything I could to keep her safe," one of the nurses said.

"But they won't let me home and there's nothing wrong with me! All they've done is put up my medication!" cried Keri. 

"That's why it's better for you here, especially because you had to restart your antidepressants. We can watch you 24 hours a day, that's our job. Your foster parents aren't able to do that. That's what you need right now, 24 hour observation and treatment. We can see you're trying to work with us so hopefully you'll get out soon. We don't want to send you out too early or you'll end up back here again. It's like having a broken leg. Once it's healed you can't start running on it, you need to take it slow and recover. At the moment your leg is still broken. That's why you're here and why we're here. We're not your enemies. We care about you and don't want to see you getting hurt."

By this point Keri had only smoked a couple of cigarettes and already the Lorazepam was taking effect. She walked back inside with staff who went and got Keri her sandwich. By the time she'd finished actually eating her sandwich for a change she was a walking zombie. She barely had the energy to walk and was totally out of it. She also had her evening Diazepam which has doped her up even more. Add her cocktail of evening medication and she's going to be in a drug-induced coma tonight! That's why I'm writing this blog post slightly earlier than usual.

She's definitely going to be out of it for a few days until her body gets used to the higher dosage of medication. She normally gets quite sedated, her eyes are droopy and glazed over, and following simple conversations is very difficult. After those few days she goes back to normal though. Hopefully once her body has got used to the dosage it will stop her pacing so much or at least have some effect. The doctor hopes that the higher dosage will help her realise that there isn't a bug in her head and that it is just a delusion. She's still in complete denial and has no insight into her condition; an unfortunate situation when it comes to psychosis.