This was the first day that I have been out of the hospital. It was nice. I got to meet with my psychiatrist and we went over my medication plan. She doesn’t want me taking too much trilafon for a long period of time and I told her soon as I stabilize on the abilify, I should be able to come off it. So far today, I haven’t needed it so I am hoping that is a good sign.
I went to Starbucks today and typed out my admission experiences. I filled in where I felt I needed to. I thought it was cool to write it down but didn’t expect it to be so long, so I am sorry about that.
It feels so good to be back in my own bed, take my meds when I want to rather than on a schedule and also to have my pain meds when I need them. I flared up my pain over the last few days because I did too much. My ankle is pretty swollen and hurts really bad so I am hoping to stay in the house tomorrow and do nothing except edit my book, least the few pages that I have already done so. I feel that I need to get going or this thing is never going to get published.
I am glad the fog has lifted enough for me to write this blog. It was so painfully difficult to write while I was in the hospital because my head was out in outer space. The few lucid moments I had was when I was writing my experiences or writing to my therapist. I honestly have no clue what I wrote to her.
This hospitalization was a scary one. I have never felt unsafe on the unit before. Usually it is my safe haven. But the paranoia kind of got out of control and things went from bad to worse with in a few hours. I was needed more support than I ever did during this admission. I never was so scared before as I was this time. I hope that I never become as psychotic again. I told my psychiatrist today that I don’t want to mess with the abilify dose at all anymore. I can’t afford a melt down when the dose is lower. She agreed with me. I also have to work on my stress levels. I can’t get overwhelmed too much because it always causes havoc in my life. No matter how insignificant it might seem, I always become psychotic when a little stress enters my life. This book is a big deal to me and I know it is stressful but I have to take it in spurts and not do it all at once or I will end up back in the hospital. The sad part is that not too many staff knew about psychosis and so I wasn’t treated properly. They wanted me to use grounding skills, like if I was having flashbacks or other trauma symptoms. Psychosis is not a trauma symptom. It is its own illness and the staff didn’t get it. My treatment team did for the most part but the nursing staff could use a little more training. I should have written that as part of the exit interview thing I had to fill out before being discharged.
I did have a good staff member that did understand. She wants a copy of my book so I will send it to her when it gets published. So far she is the only one that seemed interested in my work. I had a few patients that were interested so I gave them the website to my blog as there will be information as it becomes available for it. I am hoping to get it done within a month or by the end of the year. It all depends on how quickly I can go through the editing process and have at least two people read it to make sure there aren’t horrible grammatical errors or repeats in information.
I still can’t believe how much I was doped up while in the hospital. But it was a good thing. I didn’t harm myself or barricade myself while I was there. I did try to manage what I was eating but that was difficult. I did go to bed after I took my meds because my day always started off early and most nights I was there I woke up around 330 in pain. I am so glad I can take my pain meds now and not have to bother anyone with it or tell them my scale of how bad it hurts. I can just pop two pills and be done with it. I do have to find another flavor or powerade or Gatorade though. The ones that I have been using suck after the first sip. My taste buds have been awful lately. Nothing really tastes good. Even the coffee and donuts I was eating today was terrible. I know part of the reason is because I am still depressed. I just hope this phase passes soon. This is the first depression in which my taste buds are affected.
midnightdemons7 