Miss Bells

4 medical facilities and 4 therapists and psychiatrists. These are how many people and places I’ve been to in the last month. I’ve never talked to a medical physician about my mental health in my life. And yesterday was the first time I’ve finally felt heard. Yesterday I met a therapist named Zoe.

Zoe was great because she listened. She didn’t just shoot down my ideas and assumed she knew best because she was the professional and I the patient.

I told her that I want to come off my Lithium. I take 300 mg twice a day and I hate it. I would stop taking it today if I could do so safely. I despise it.

So why am I on “I’m so happy ’cause today I found my friends
They’re in my head
I’m so ugly, that’s okay, ’cause so are you
Broke our mirrors
Sunday morning is everyday, for all I care
And I’m not scared
Light my candles in a daze
‘Cause I’ve found God,

YEAHAHAHAHAH YEAHHH”

(Nirvana fans understand)

The reason I got prescribed Lithium is a long story, one that is very laborious for me to tell. The third medical facility I was at was called Spartanburg Regional. It was a very big and very nice hospital. Here is where I actually recovered from my orginal issue of intense insomnia and debilitating stress.

Room 445 felt like MY room, just a place I could chill and be myself in. Anyways I was transferred here from a hospital named Pelham. I liked this hospital too because they allowed my dad to come stay with me.

That first night at Spartanburg regional was hard. I was in four west wing which is called the rehabilitation wing; really the rooms can be used for anyone that may need the care of medical professionals but don’t need to be in a room meant for people in really unstable shape. I couldn’t fall asleep until a little after four am.

I was sufferering from insomnia and I never felt so physiclly and mentally drained yet something was blocking my mind from taking the final leap into subconsionsness. At one point at around maybe midnight I finally told one of the nurses on call named Leah that I had spent enough time practicing my insomnia and I was ready to fall asleep. I asked if she had any kind of medicine or melatonin to give me.

She brought me melatonin.

So the next morning marked day three of not having spoke to any psychiatrist or therapist. The whole reason this whole hospital saga started in the first place was because I was concerned with my lack of sleep.

When the physiatrist, whom I can’t even remember her name, finally came to see me around 10 in the morning I was on the phone with my aunt. That first facility didn’t allow phones so I felt very alone and scared that night. I wanted to talk to my Aunt Lisa.

So I stayed on the phone when she came in, I knew I wouldn’t be on the phone much longer. She stayed for about two minutes and I stayed on the phone for about three more minutes after she left.

After I was done I went to go seek her out because I was so excited to finally have a therapy appointment of some kind. To my horror Leah told me that she was gone for the day but she’d be back tomorrow.

One thing I should mention is that when you deprive yourself of sleep for over a week, time starts behaving…strangely. One hour will feel like ten. And one minute of stress will feel as though you just ran a marathon.

I was internally devastated. I knew I had unintentionally caused her to leave. I felt ashamed. My mom and dad who were going to be returning later in the day would be so disappointed. Still, I put on a happy exterior and accepted it. Not accepting it would have only put a target on my back. I don’t want you to think that I was paranoid, because involuntary commitment is a real thing and something that psychiatrists at big hospitals have to cross off their list when they make their rounds.

When my mom finally got back to my room she asked if anyone had come to talk to me, I of course told her what happened. She seemed to think that I sent the physiatrist away with deeply annoyed me because I longed to talk to someone and planned out what I was going to tell her. I was ready that morning.

A nurse named Adam who my mom talked to and told that I needed to see someone today. Eventually he got a lady named Devon to come talk to me. She came in with a useless red recorder on her phone, the same one the P.A.’s use at my university’s health center.

When Devon finally came in it had been several hours since the physiatrist came and left. These hours were bad for me. The mornings were when I was at my clearest and most well rested. I didn’t want to talk to a random lady named Devon, even though she was really nice. By the time she came in to see me I felt like a certified freak because I had sent away the other lady.

Those hours betrayed me, and so did my mind. It wasn’t even my mom’s or little sister’s fault who were in the room but I honestly wish they hadn’t been there. When Devon started asking me questions I could hear and feel myself answering too fast. I was just so fucking tired of being asked the same shit over and over again. I knew all the answers to the questions she was asking me, because they were all about my life! I definitely was talking a little too fast, in a way that could be put under the category of “mania” but hey if she didn’t want to hear it, I would have honestly told her to just get the fuck out.

I can’t put into words how long those three days felt. I felt prepared in the morning but in that moment I was being caught off guard, and I was ready for them all to leave. So I talked fast. I thought I was being efficient. They thought I was being…manic.

So Devon deemed me dire enough to need the physiatrist to come back. She was looking at my mom when she said she recommended(not really a recommendation as much as it seemed like a requirement.) antipsychotics which would be a 6 month minimum medication or Lithium. In the moment I was just so fucking tired of not being heard and could feel how fragile my situation was getting. Call it paranoia but these professionals were apart of a large hospital. They are used to seeing a lot of different patients a day and having to make diagnoses on the fly. When Devon said something about an involuntary psychiatric examination, I went deep into my energy reserves to calm myself all the way down.

Externally, after she dropped that, I shut the fuck up and became very stoic and calm. (even though I was calm the whole conversation but whatever) Looking back I am fuming. I am very angry at those two right now for just looking at my mom when she was not the patient.

So it was either the Lithium or antipsychotics, and as someone who knew nothing about either, I wanted to choose what I thought was the lesser of two evils, the Lithium. I know Lithium from the third sing off of Nirvana’s Nermind. It’s also a medication that’s been around for almost two centuries. This was the main and sole reason why I was somewhat okay with taking it. That and I had to get on board whether I liked it or not because these two ladies were talking at and not with me.

Hey Devon, hey random physiatrist lady,

FUCK YOU.

I usually try to be a nice and positive person but they were not very understanding to my situation at all. They made me feel like if I missed a dose I’d die.

I also am particularly irritable right now because I’m suffering awful headaches from adjusting my dose (not taking it in the mornings). Lithium sucks especially when you don’t need it. I won’t allow my hubris to grow so large as to say that I never needed this medication or that it didn’t help me in any way. I’m aware that she went to school for many years to be able to treat people. However, how could the physiatrist know that this is what I needed after spending all but thirty minutes with me. Especially after she deemed it was okay for her to come back tomorrow, something that I had accepted. I felt vulnerable, I wasn’t manic.

Let me say this again, the only manic and rushed thing in my hospital room that day was the diagnoses she gave me: Bipolar type one.

This leads me back to the very beginning, Zoe. She told me that to taper off safely I will take 150mg twice a day for a week then 150 mg once a day for a week. I wish I could just stop it now and be done but that would be unwise.

I will also insert here that Zoe was the first medical professional to explain to me what Bipolar type one even means. Those two didn’t explain it to me at the hospital nor did the doctor who discharged me. Funny and very nice of them not to explain a diagnosis to someone before sending them on their way home.

When I got home and finally read my discharge papers I didn’t even want to look at that ugly diagnoses. I realised in that moment how that whole conversation with Devon and the physiatrist went way over my head. It made me feel upset and angry. It felt like they hid (whether intentionally or not is irrelevant) the reason of why I’d be needing to take the Lithium. When I left the hospital I felt hopeful and fine about it, now it’s…complicated.

These complicated feelings, in my opinion, could have been avoided it they had been upfront about what they were diagnosing me with and what that diagnoses even meant. Now, my mind has discredited their diagnoses completely, because they discredited my agency.

Lithium is a much tougher medication than I originally thought. It’s been around forever but that doesn’t mean it’s an easy thing to just stop taking. If one was to need Lithium for the rest of their life it would require a blood test every six months for the rest of one’s life. Yea, I got enough IV’s in those three days to know that this is not something I’m cool with.

All’s this to say that I am very relieved and excited to have finally had a NORMAL and PRODUCTIVE therapy session. My first ever real therapy session! This was all I was looking for during my stint at four medical facilities in a row. All I wanted was a same day evaluation, maybe some TEMPORARY medication to help me get to sleep. When I finally was examined at the hospital, I was in an infinite worse state than on that first day. I believe this affected my mental state enough to prompt a false diagnose.

Silly me for trusting the system I guess.

Thanks for listening to my rant, I really hope that after tapering off this Lithium I will feel mentally and physically better.

-Ms. Bells