Hold your breath ya'll, this one gets a bit dark.
It was the summer before my 10th grade year and I was attending band camp everyday. This meant 12 hours of grueling marching and practicing in 100 degree weather. I was in the color guard that year so while most of the band would just take five or so steps in each segment we, the color guard, were dancing around them twirling and tossing a flag. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life at the time. Our band director was a perfectionist so we frequently spent hours doing the same ten seconds of a song over and over until she was satisfied.
At the time I was seeing a psychiatrist for bi-polar disorder and depression. My doctors office was through UF so every few months my doctor would graduate and I'd get a new one. The doctor I had that summer had prescribed me the maximum dosages of two different medications that were not meant to be combined. It has since been proven that those medications, when combined, cause violent mood swings, chemical imbalances, hysteria, suicidal thoughts, and rage in teenagers.
It was a a Sunday morning the day before school started back when my sister woke me up and told me to get dressed for church. Even before my memories started slipping away I couldn't have told you exactly what had happened next. I was told later exactly what had happened. I reached under my bed and grabbed the aluminum baseball bat that we kept for emergencies. I chased my sister screaming in a blind rage. I remember a flash of standing over her as she cowered in the corner of our bathroom floor but not much else. Mom managed to pry the bat from my fingers and push me aside. The jolt to my system helped me gain some semblance of my sanity. I watched as she rushed Beth and Harry from the house, leaving me inside. I sat and cried. I couldn't fathom what could have possibly come over me that could cause me to lose control like that. My relationship with my sister had never been very strong and I hated needing to go to church every Sunday but that shouldn't have been the end of my world as I knew it. Mom called the cops and had me Baker Acted. I don't blame her even though I used to. I was mad for years that she could call the cops on her own flash and blood. But now, with my rational-adult eyes, I can see how scared she was to have me around her other children. And I know I wouldn't be where I am today if she hadn't sent me away.
The cop came in with his hands up all slow and calm, like I was a wounded animal that might attack him. I was distraught and hysterical over what I had almost done and I cried until I threw up. He sat with me all through that and calmed me down. He asked me if I wanted to visit a nice place that could help me, a hospital specifically made for people like me. I don't remember if I said goodbye to mom but I know I didn't see Beth or Harry.
In the back of the cop car I ran out of tears and just stared out the window. The officer tried desperately to make small talk but I just got nauseous again and he gave me a walmart bag to throw up in. He asked if I liked Pearl Jam and even though I had never heard of them I lied and said I did just so he'd stop trying to talk to me. We listened to their CD all the way into Gainesville.
We stopped at a place called Meridan first when I sat on a bench in a concrete room for fifteen minutes before the cop came back. They were apparently at capacity already and couldn't take me. I could hear people screaming through the walls so I was glad we weren't staying.
We finally made it to a place called Vista, the youth mental ward in particular. I started crying again when the cop left just because he was the only thing familiar. They locked me in a tiny square room with a table and chair to wait for the doctor. After almost an hour someone came back and asked if I was hungry. They brought me a cheese sandwich and some soggy broccoli which I ate with my hands because I wasn't allowed to have silverware. After the doctor finally showed I spent what felt like hours answering questions about my usual habits and my medications. They took me to an area with five other teenagers. They took my shoes away and gave me "hospital socks". I sat and colored in a Disney princess coloring book until dinner time. At bed time they showed me that I had my own bedroom and bathroom, complete with white padding over the metal surfaces abd everything was bolted down. They made me drag my mattress off of the bed and into the doorway so that the nurse could watch me sleep from the desk. They called it Suicide Watch.
I was so scared that sleep was hard to come by but eventually, after I was trying to drown myself in tears, a nurse came over and gave me a shot. I fell asleep almost immediately. I spent a total of eight days in Vista. After the first night I was allowed to actually sleep in my bed instead of in the doorway. I went to therapy sessions which my family showed up for. I even got a visit from my father, which was a pretty big deal. He flew in just to spend a could hours talking with me. We sat out in the courtyard which had fifteen foot high concrete walls. I spent quite a lot of time with the other kids there and it made me realize just how good i had it at home. Some of those kids had some gnarly horror stories to tell about what led them to be at Vista. One boy had already been there for a month and he didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon. He was on Suicide Watch every night. The nurses were not very kind. If I got up to use the bathroom they would come knock on my door after sixty seconds and check on me. Even during my showers I would have to stop every few minutes and show my face to a nurse. I was hooked up to a heart monitor at night so when I had a nightmare it would beep like crazy and a nurse would come running to calm me down. On my second night I woke up to a nurse shaking my shoulders trying to get me to stop screaming.
Since this happened on the day before school started back I was missing the first week of school. My therapist thought that the stress of school would be too much for me so Mom signed me up for virtual school. I started doing that for a few hours everyday. After a week my doctors were convinced that I wasn't a danger to myself or my family and that my ridiculous medications mixed with the bodily stress of band camp had caused the episode. I was free to go. But the home I came back to wasn't quite the same. My sister avoided me like the plague and everyone seemed to be walking on eggshells around me. They went out of their way to make sure that I wasn't left alone with Harry for quite a while. That hurt the most but I didn't blame them. I didn't go back to school. I stayed home and did my school work on a computer. I spent hours playing Guitar Hero with my cousins. And we all avoided talking about the baseball bat hidden under my sisters bed.
I got a new psychiatrist, his name was Dr. Gomez, and he was the coolest doctor that I had ever met. He even had a Ken doll made to look like himself that I could throw across his office whenever I was angry, which never happened. Talking with him made me better then I had been in years. Rather then test out a new medication on me like all the other doctors had he prescribed me a medication that had been in use for twenty years. And it did worlds of good for me. It was the only medication I took until I went off to FLYCA~ but that is a story for another time.
No comments:
Post a Comment