I haven’t talked much about my hospital stay earlier last year except in some oblique references to some changes in my medications and just saying I was “institutionalized” for a stint. During my stay from April until June I not only got to go to the psych ward during my psychotic episode, but also be treated for a time, begin to feel modestly better, then I got to be unceremoniously told that my mind was not adequately wrecked to be kept on for intensive observation and that I was being discharged to a less well-staffed facility. (Trust me-It’s a singular feeling of discrimination.) “You’re too highly functioning” the shrinks- both of them foreign-born, each of whom spoke a “kind” of English offered, pointing out: “You you don’t look like these other people, you’re a writer- you’re a functioning person” All this was said with a look on their faces which hoped to goad me into agreement.
I suppose I do function in some small degree, but it still felt like a cold dismissal of the gravitas of my condition to the regions where I would no longer be their problem. Bipolar disorder isn’t just an affectation -it is a real, actual pain that is felt as acutely as electrical jolts in the head. Consider the insomnia that would keep me up, manic for four straight days and the schizophrenia it helped induce during those periods. The psychosis is perhaps the worst- having to question reality constantly is no damn fun. Clear thinking is impossible for the voices and visual hallucinations, mainly due to their frequency. The doctors even demurred from my more mundane (though thoroughly valid) questions about the future- when I finally did get an answer, it turns out that medication will for me be a lifelong endeavor of trial and error and my functioning will be forever altered by the unfortunate truth of a set of chemical reactions that they admit to not understanding in the least. Great to know these unhappy truths, even if you have to practically drag them out of your healthcare professional. I almost felt as though because I fairly resemble a normal middle class man, (nearly-on a good day) they thought I was somehow feigning acute suicidal psychosis, depression and mania to make life seem just a little more edgy and “interesting”. (If only) I seldom complain, but by all objective measure, I deserved and still deserve the same care, time and attention as anyone else with this horrible disorder and I don’t feel I got it during this episode last year. The only bright spot was an attractive nurse who was good-natured at my lack of restraint in doling out blatantly inappropriate comments to her (Like, “nice rack”!) and who seemed genuinely intrigued with my lack of judgement and respect for social norms. (Her husband might have been a little slow around the house-who knows?) Anyway, it helped to cement in my mind that life’s great when you can just say just anything that pops into your head..
