Sectioned in Hospital - 5 months 2 days

Written by Fox.

DAY 156 - 10th January, Friday

Another late morning though I can't say I really blame Keri. Her hallucination of a non-existent crying baby kept her up most of the night. She didn't get to sleep properly until gone 7.30am, then the staff had to wake her up before 12pm so she could speak to Dr. Harland. Less than 4 hours sleep and Keri's spent half the day trying not to just go to bed. Now it's gone midnight and she's wide awake! I took the opportunity to have a cigarette before writing the blog and the body feels tired. I think it's Keri's mind that's racing a mile a minute that's keeping her awake.

She had a one to one with Dr. Harland instead of going into a ward round. I think she seems a nice woman. She definitely seems willing to learn more about DID so that Keri can be kept on this ward rather than be moved. There were a few moments where Keri just thought "well, what you said is just crap" but not as many moments as I thought there would be considering it's only the third time Keri's met with her.

Matt and Keri both reviewed my blog post from yesterday. Keri's not happy because she knows I'm honest about things that she'd like to keep quiet. For instance, the staff didn't know that if Keri seems unusually perky or happy that is normally quite a bad sign. Now they know. Which has also led to Keri's unescorted leave being taken away from her for the weekend. Let's face it, if Sally's going to walk out and help Keri with her suicide, she's going to walk out. Keri doesn't have the guts to leave without permission unless extremely distressed but Sally couldn't give a damn about the consequences. If I'm honest Keri would probably be glad if Sally got her to that remote bridge again. The downside to this is that it does take a while to get up there, even if Sally gets Keri up there without getting lost. At least the staff know that Keri understands her leave has been taken away so if they see her walk out the door then she'll have dissociated. God help them if they call "Keri" back inside the unit again!

Keri's psychotherapy session was actually quite constructive. Keri doesn't even have to express her depression or suicidality in words anymore, you can just tell by her posture. Her psychotherapist noted how unusually tense Keri looked compared to most of the other times they've had appointments together. People have been talking a lot about hope and stuff today and Keri's just not interested. Dr. Harland actually asked Keri whether she'd considered jumping off that bridge when she last ran away when there was no trains coming, the answer was an obvious yes. It appears, according to Keri's psychotherapist, that looking at the video that was recorded Keri had actually been sitting on that bridge for a while, not just the fifteen minutes we'd thought. She talked about how she'd been sitting perched on the edge just staring down at the tracks and how peaceful they were. Her psychotherapist said that it's possible Keri could've slipped into some kind of dissociative or trance-like state so that a lot of time went by but Keri didn't even realise. Put it this way, she was so fixated on that track she didn't even notice when a group of police officers gathered behind her did she?!

With spending a lot of time in her room, Keri's been struggling to stay awake so her key nurse, Emma, suggested getting one of her DVDs and putting it on in the main lounge and watch it with the staff. Most of the patients had gone on a day trip to Weymouth. Besides Keri, there were only two other patients on the ward, both of which were in their room a lot of the time. It was unusually quiet.

It's weird hearing Keri and Sally talking together at the moment because they're actually agreeing with each other! Agreeing on the wrong thing I'll admit that much, but they aren't arguing. That's one stressor gone. Although I prefer it when they're arguing, at least it shows Keri's got a bit of fight in her. She's playing on her guitar hero at the moment on her Wii. It's gone midnight and suddenly Keri's no longer tired. How the hell does that work? She needs something to be able to slow her mind down, although with the amount of medication she's on you'd think it would've been slowed down to the point she was a zombie... At least playing on her wii is keeping her distracted. So far, no hallucinated baby cries. Bonus.

Quick note, we still haven't heard anything back from the meeting that happened on Wednesday. The police haven't visited to talk to Keri and the ward manager. I'm probably right in assuming we probably won't know much about it until Monday. Everyone skives on a weekend!

Sectioned in Hospital - Day 118

Written by Fox.

DAY 118 - 3rd December, Tuesday

Keri hasn't been out at all today. She woke up as Clarissa. Staff nipped into her room during her hourly obs and said that they'd arranged a nurse to escort her to her physio session. Clari turned around and said she's never done any physio. Immediately the nurse asked who Keri was which was when Clari introduced herself and it became fairly obvious. While Clari was pruning herself, the physio turned up and had a chat with Clarissa. Clari told her she might be able to do stuff with Keri tomorrow but couldn't promise anything. 

Clari went to the supermarket twice today (she's now got two half hour unescorted leaves). She bought some Christmas lights to put in Keri's room as a surprise, a shirt for David plus some shoes, a pair of boots for her, some more coat hangers, food for me and one of those plugs that you can plug more plugs in. She was pretty tame with her shopping. The problem is she tried buying vodka. When that didn't work and she got asked for ID she got quite annoyed. It's probably good that Keri doesn't have ID at the moment!

I came out at about 6.30 this evening. Apparently Clarissa told the staff earlier in the evening that I was likely to come out so they were given warning. She knew I'd be out so I found a sandwich which she bought me. Thank you Clarissa for thinking of my appetite for once! I haven't done much. I put on a video in one of the lounges (there's three of them) so I settled on one on my own for an hour or two which was quite nice as I was out of our bedroom. I'm feeling very tired and I'm now back in our room with some comedy DVDs. It's very likely Keri's going to wake up as herself tomorrow but Sally's not doing well so Keri will have one hell of a headache!

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 74

Written by Fox.

DAY 74 - 20th October, Sunday

What a foul mood Keri's been in today! The nurses tried several times to get her out of bed but Keri just turned around and refused, saying she felt horrible and didn't want to get out from hiding under her duvet. At one point she got so fed up with it that she told one of the nurses to fuck off. Nice going Keri. Somehow one of the nurses managed to get Keri to at least temporarily sit up to take two doses of medication at 1pm. Then she was half asleep again for a couple of hours before finally getting up. She would've stayed in there longer but she had another nightmare and woke up in cold sweat, and she was completely soaked through, her hair was sticky, her pyjamas felt like she'd been standing in the rain and she even had to change her bedding. It was the worst and most vivid nightmare she's had in a while. It scares me. I didn't experience the dream myself but I've seen flashes of it that she's had during the day and even that has terrified me.

Keri kept herself isolated and eventually went to the desk to ask to go out on leave. She wasn't laughing at any of their jokes, she wouldn't look them in the eyes, and she looked like she was going to burst into tears.

"I'll just check your leave," one of the nurses said. "Right, it says here that you can go out twice a day for half an hour as long as you're assessed by the member of staff in charge beforehand."

Brian was the charge nurse and he came out of the staff office and sat on the desk next to Keri.

"Right, can I have a chat with you before you go?" he said.

"I don't want to talk," Keri said.

"Well can I at least ask you a few questions?" he said.

Keri shook her head but Brian took her to one of the small rooms to have a chat with her anyway. Keri said she wasn't planning on hurting or killing herself, or running off. Brian decided to let her out. Keri dissociated for a few minutes but we don't know who it was. She noticed that the bus stop sign said that a bus was due in a few minutes and Keri decided to have a cigarette and wait for it. She was getting more and more panicky as the guys following her (her paranoid hallucinations) were getting closer and closer. In the end Keri's adrenalin just said "run" and she sprinted in the only direction she could go to get away from the guys that were scaring her; back into the hospital grounds. By the time she reached the entrance to the unit she was verging on a panic attack. 

They didn't bother searching her so I'm hoping that means no one bought anything. But Keri had a panic attack down in the HDU garden and then went to ask for some PRN. She was given some Lorazepam and had a chat with a nurse in the clinic room. She said she'd rather Keri asked for Lorazepam rather than do anything impulsive. It's written on her chart that Keri can have 2mg of Lorazepam a day along with her regular Diazepam. She got calmer but remained in the HDU for most of the rest of the day.

Fortunately she got a surprise phone call from her foster mum which went on for about 45 minutes. It's the most I've heard her talk all day, even including a few laughs. It was lucky she managed to get hold of Keri as Clarissa has been dying to come out for this evening, so she might end up having our therapy appointment tomorrow. I'm fine with that as long as no one lets her off the ward to buy alcohol or drugs! If that happens then Clarissa will stay out and get wasted and then Sally will take the opportunity to sprint as quickly as possible up to the suspension bridge. Goodbye Keri. Thankfully for our sake Keri's psychotherapist is very perceptive and knows what Clari is like! She'll make sure she's not let out on leave, although Clari is good at impersonating Keri. She won't get away with it with Fiona but may do with some of the staff that haven't learnt so much about Keri's DID.