Coping with Schizophrenia: My Experience in the Psych Ward

so you were just recently hospitalized how did that happen um I don't know if I'm even in a position where I've done enough processing to really do this video but we decided that it was probably best while it was still fresh in my mind or more recent but what led to the hospitalization so I guess first off if you haven't seen the three or four previous videos on our Channel I was hospitalized um recently for a psychotic episode and I've done a lot of thinking about what led to it or why it happened and I'm still not totally sure because in the past when I've had psychotic episodes it is I think always been because I stopped taking my medications but that wasn't the case this time I had I had been on my medications as prescribed and had been taking them regularly and so that wasn't what went wrong you know at surface level I got really sick you know like had cold sick about four weeks ago a month ago and I got my period I have PCOS polycystic ovary syndrome so I don't typically get that so that was probably a big stress on my body and so perhaps those two you know stressors on my body played a role in terms of falling into a psychotic State and struggling more with my schizoaffective disorder but I think just equating it to that is doing a disservice to the complicated factors that I think were involved in terms of other types of stress and yeah I think just stress in different facets of my life really led to slipping into a state where I just really didn't feel like myself how long had it been since your last hospital visit um that makes me sad to think about because I had beat my record of three years and it had been four years since I was last hospitalized I was last hospitalized in 2019 and it's now 2023 I don't know maybe it's silly to think too much about streaks out of the hospital and stuff but it felt good that I was on my longest streak of you know Wellness in terms of not being hospitalized and so that's been kind of tough I think someone commented you know it was three years now it's four years now it's five years so sure I'll I'll go for a five-year stretch I hope longer than that this time you know I don't want to plan for a hospitalization in five years even either so one of the things that was unique about this Hospital experience for you is that you made the decision to go it wasn't kind of forced upon you how did you know when it was that you needed to go to the hospital this episode was both more difficult and easier because of the fact that I kept kind of bouncing back and forth between having insight into what was going on and not being kind of lost to the psychotic symptoms and I say this was more difficult because when I would bounce back to having insight and being aware of how I was losing my grip on reality and how I was behaving and thinking in ways that didn't feel like myself it felt almost crushing you know I would I would just be kind of bawling and apologizing to you Rob and and scared I think ultimately is what it came down to I would when I gained Insight I would be really scared because I knew that I couldn't really trust my mind and I talked about that in some of the videos where I was documenting this happening and that's a really scary and difficult thing to experience the idea of feeling like you can't trust your mind and you can't at any point trust that your experience of what's happening or what you think is happening might not be reality and wrapping your head around that is really really difficult because you know your reality is real to you and so to to think about the fact that it's warped or shifted or not grounded in the reality that other people are experiencing is really difficult and scary and so back to the question of why I decided to go to the hospital I had these periods of insight where I knew that I didn't want this to be happening and I wanted help getting a better grip again on myself and on my understanding of reality and I think the thing that actually really tipped me to deciding to go to the hospital even though the hospital historically has been a hugely traumatic place and experience for me the thing that kind of tipped me over was I was I was really really paranoid and I I had never until this point have experienced symptoms around my kids but the day I decided to go to the hospital or maybe the night before I decided to go to the hospital I started having paranoid feelings around my kids and you know that's a really hard thing for me to admit because I think I really really really try to insulate my kids from my illness and protect them through all of this and you know it's never really been a problem before and so the second that happened even though it wasn't like anything at all like I wanted to harm them or I felt they were going to harm me it was just a little bit of a paranoid inkling that they were on Rob's side who was conspiring with who knows who you know doctors whatever out to get me and there was just that little paranoid inkling around them and that was kind of what made me realize okay I'm I'm not feeling like I can manage this anymore and I need some additional support and so that's that was the really big thing that pushed me to be like okay I need help managing these symptoms I need help getting a grip again on my reality I think though that there were also experiences with you that you know when I flip back into having insight and kind of being crushed I felt immense guilt over because I was thinking and behaving in ways that I would never typically do and it was ultimately harming you Rob and so being able to come into moments of understanding that I think also was an impetus to realize I need help managing this because I don't want to harm the people I love I don't want to not trust the people I love I don't want to slip into this reality where I'm alone so not to like drag you through the mud here but I I think it would probably be valuable for people to understand a little bit more about like what that experience is like like when you're talking about how you know you you hurt me yeah so you know for example one instance probably the worst instance was I was not grounded in reality I was in a psychotic State and I was having a hard time and I used to go off driving when I was in these states which is probably not the safest thing to do I'm not condoning that I'm sorry I know that but it's a poll that I have and so rob it was it was bedtime and Rob was going upstairs and he said you know I'm trusting you I'm leaving I'm not gonna hide the keys I'm trusting you and I don't know something in my mind took that as threat or uh I don't know it I don't know I can't really rationalize what I was thinking this time because it wasn't rational and that's the truth of it and so he went upstairs and I took the keys and I left and something important to note before this was that I had taken a PRN of an antipsychotic that I have for when I'm needing a little bit of extra medication I guess and so it's one that really sedates me and so I had just taken that and I went off and I drove off and you know jump in here if I'm not telling that's right but Rob got really worried I think because I had taken this sedating antipsychotic and I was off driving and so he was worried for not only my safety but other people on the road safety and you know it's hard to talk about this because as I am right now and as I can understand the situation I can identify that the way I acted in this situation was for all intents and purposes abusive to my partner to the person who I love you know I ignored his text messages while he was frantically texting me and calling me I was ignoring him and I I was I was you know kind of blinders on focused on what I felt I needed to be doing in that moment and just wasn't really understanding or thinking at all about or you know able to comprehend at all the impact it was having on my partner Rob and so he got really stressed you know all three kids were home and so he couldn't really leave to go look for me or whatever and so he told me he was going to call the police and that triggered more paranoia in me and I just became even more fixated on whatever it was I thought I needed to be doing and you know this is getting longer than it should be I think important to note at one point he said you can come home and we can forget about this so I forget what exactly you said but I think that was something that reached me in terms of like oh like this is getting out of hand and we can make this better by just doing this but for whatever reason I didn't but actually I started going home and I don't know the details of this are fuzzy for me but I eventually got home and I wouldn't get out of the vehicle and Rob was outside sitting on the steps and he called the police I couldn't get you out of the vehicle and you know the doors locked and you still had the keys so yeah and so I heard him on the phone with the police and I didn't want the police to come and take me to the hospital so I got out of the car and I in a fit of anger and confusion and I like altered state of mind through the keys across the street and went inside I think the point of telling this is because what I've shown you guys on the channel has been you know partly criticized for you know me being relatively put together and articulate about the experience and calm and appearing pretty rational but there have definitely been periods of this psychotic episode that I haven't put on the internet that have been difficult and painful for both myself and the people who are supporting me primarily my partner Rob and so perhaps normalizing that a bit for other people who are watching who are supporting someone with this who are like well that's not my experience no they're not as agreeable as you are or they're not as put together or have as much insight as you you know there are periods where I really really really intensely struggled and put myself and Rob through the ringer I still love you very much I'm sorry but I think that it's valuable for people to I think I think a lot of people probably wouldn't guess that that would happen or could happen with you with what you experience so the day after that that's when you decided to go to the hospital in the afternoon and can you kind of talk a little bit about what the like going to the hospital experience is like it's kind of fuzzy I don't remember details so perhaps you can fill in details but packed up for the hospital because every other time I've been carted off by police or ambulance unsuspecting and so I haven't been able to bring you know change of clothes and toiletries and stuff that would make a hospital stay more comfortable but anyway packed my bag brought that to the hospital went to the emergency room which is is not a great place if you're experiencing a mental health crisis and it's really unfortunate that in order to get Mental Health Services you need to go through the ER process because it's kind of awful and they don't prioritize mental health cases and you know Perhaps Perhaps rightfully so you know if someone comes in bleeding profusely you need to stop the bleeding ultimately first or you know whatever but it's just not an environment that's conducive to healing and it probably exacerbated by symptoms to a degree we waited to see a doctor for I think it was like five or six hours um finally got in to one of the mental health sectors of the emergency room and spoke with a doctor and this was getting to be late at night and he was nice you know I I didn't mind speaking with him I felt relatively heard and understood by that interaction but there were no beds available on the mental health or on any mental health Awards in the city and so I had to stay the night in that ER room and they didn't give me any meds or anything Rob had to go home to get my regular meds that I take just so that I could have something at least and brought that back to me in the ER and then he went home to sleep um but again just being in that environment was really really I felt kind of exacerbating my symptoms and making it worse and I just felt like I wasn't really getting any help you know like no one was really even talking to me and I was just kind of left to lay there drowning in my symptoms and The Psychotic episode that I was experiencing and you know what I was hoping to get from the hospital was um meds like you know alternative Med Med changes and stuff to help me get pull me out of this and I wasn't even getting that and so it was like midday the next day or perhaps late morning where I was like the heck with this I'm out of here like this is not the help that I need this is not the help that I wanted or expected or needed you know and so I he grabbed my stuff and I left also important to keep in mind that I was really in an altered state of mind still at this point and you know my psychotic state had gotten worse since being at the hospital and so I was incredibly paranoid and I like turned off location services on my phone so that Rob couldn't track me or couldn't know where I was I ordered an Uber to the hospital and like lurked and hid around bushes and stuff so that no one could see me or find me or bring me back to the emergency room and I got the Uber I booked a a hotel and I took the Uber to the hotel and I just kind of bunkered down in the hotel really scared of everyone and everything and just kind of retreating and hiding I was really really scared now might be a good time to talk or begin the story or interject about how your hospital stay went from voluntary to involuntary yeah so I thought that because I was voluntary it wouldn't be a big deal for me to leave the hospital I could do that I had that right I went there asking for help I didn't feel I got it so I could leave turns out that's not really how it played out and it turns out that the doctor who had seen me the previous night found out that I left the hospital and proceeded to certify me or for me or make me an involuntary patient that needed to be escorted back to the hospital by police and so I still didn't know that but they called Rob and Rob asked them you know what was going on and they told him that and so again I was being not the best partner and not the partner I want to be in terms of putting stress and Trauma on rob in terms of ignoring his calls not telling him where I was because ultimately I was really afraid of him too and I couldn't understand that I could trust him you know it's it's hard to explain the state of mind to people because it's so far from how I typically am and understand my world and my thoughts and feelings and whatnot it's so far from that and so foreign and scary but anyway I I forget how eventually you got me to answer the phone I don't remember I don't remember how I got you to answer I think actually well what happened was I found out where you were right because I checked your credit card statement well that's how you got it okay this is brand new information I should not have shared how did you get my credit card information I I got onto your computer how do you know my one password password you can just use your finger my finger oh your finger I didn't think of that I thought I was in the clear thought I shouldn't have told you this this is the material for the next incident where like I just really won't be able to find you so perhaps that's why I answered the phone because he knew where I was I mean I don't remember if you told me I didn't tell you I was first I went to the place that you were the hotel and then I just called you and I had kind of hope that I would need to call the police that I'd just be able to call you and explain it to you and have you come back to the hospital with me right I don't remember that I remember watching you pull up to the hotel but you still hadn't told me that you knew where I was but for some reason I knew you were on your way and I watched you and I was like I know you're downstairs so he came up and we talked and I cried and it was scary and eventually we decided well you decided and I agreed to go back to the hospital and that yeah things kind of continued to be tough in the ER from there got back to the hospital had I felt a good chat with a nurse in a nice room and then was told I had to go spend some time in the like isolation room mental health isolation room in the ER there's like always one of these I think where there's like cement brick walls there was a toilet out in the open with a wind like just horrific metal bed if you can call it that I have a lot a lot a lot of trauma in these rooms and so I was like terrified of going back into this room but they insisted and so you came in with me and they let me bring a chair to the edge of the room and kind of sit on the periphery edge of the room and just kind of stare at the person who was supposed to be staring at me and I took a photo of you which is exactly the same as the photo of you because you've done this before the previous hospitalization where you get a chair and you sit at the edge of the room yeah we joke it's now my yearbook photo four years between photos I would like to point out but yes that something that I do anyway they promised they would get me out and back into the regular or not regular but the other mental health room that's less horrific and probably an hour later I don't know what it was they did they brought me back I spoke with another psychiatrist but you know again at this point I was very very paranoid and not not grounded in reality and so I was very scared of the psychiatrist I was very combative and I just wanted to leave and I felt that it had become very hostile from the medical team's perspective and just didn't feel like a safe space or a safe place to be and so I really wanted to leave and they weren't letting me and I don't know I just remember them coming in and being like Lauren we've escalated your case and you've got a room now so I suppose if you want to get a bed faster be the squeaky wheel be the chaotic patient that they don't want in the ER anymore um that's kind of what did it for me what got me a room in the psych ward upstairs so they bring me upstairs it's like the following night at this point from when I came to the ER and I don't remember a lot about that you know I was pissed off that I was an involuntary patient now again I was so proud of myself going into the hospital on my own as a voluntary patient and to have that strip for B and now be an involuntary patient and being told I couldn't leave felt really violating and really scary and anyway they finally gave me medication they opt my regular dose of antipsychotic and they gave me a PRN of Haldol which you know over the course of several days really did a good job of snapping me out of the psychotic episode and kind of bringing me back so I would say that the rest of your hospital stay was kind of uneventful and we'll kind of get into more details there but one of the things that was I think pretty big for this Hospital stay is that our kids came to visit you can talk about that experience yeah the last time I was in hospital was 2019. I met you and them in 2018 so we were engaged at that point but it was still it was still new and they were young they were like what four and six sort of thing the first time I was hospitalized and so they didn't come that time and I was also perhaps in a worse State the last time too but anyway this time they knew I was in the hospital and I don't know how you guys decided to come visit but like how did you talk to them about it I mean they know that you live with mental illness we talked about how you needed to go to the hospital but you know I I think there's always a question of trying to keep it like age appropriate like trying to make it something that they'll understand and one of the ways that we I think explained it this time was about the food I was really paranoid about the food that they were offering me in the hospital thinking that it was I say this now and I'm embarrassed but thinking that there was some sort of mind control agent or something in them that they could control me through or that they could harm me through or whatever and I really spiraled into this delusion around the food and the water at the hospital and so Rob kindly and other people in my life brought me food from outside that I could feel more comfortable eating and brought me bottles of water that I felt comfortable consuming and so I guess you explain that to the kids as being something that I was struggling with and kind of giving them a bit of a understanding of what one of my symptoms can look like it was really really wonderful having them visit in the hospital and you know being able to share that side of my life a little bit more normalizing it normalizing it yeah you know showing them that this is something that I deal with and I do need some extra help with it sometimes but that's okay you know I'm still I'm still their mom I still love them incredibly much I'm still there for them they can still rely on me I just also deal with this and my youngest is two so really a lot of this obviously flies over his head and I'm sure he was just excited to see me you know regardless but the older two are now 8 and 10. and so you know I could see them thinking about what was happening a little bit more and since being out of the hospital my eight-year-old in particular has had questions more questions and has been more curious about my experience and what my illness is and so I actually talked to him about he asked me you know when were you the most sick and he asked me questions like what what is it like for you you know like what do you experience and so I started to talk to him about some of the symptoms that I experienced because of my schizoaffective disorder and that feels heavy to talk to a kid you know an eight-year-old about that but it also felt really good to be able to be more open and honest about that kind of big part of my life that I don't I haven't hidden from my kids but I've wanted to kind of shield and protect them from as much as possible and so having this new space to kind of explore that a little bit in a safe way with them has felt kind of good so you went from voluntary to involuntary and then through another uh interview with another psychiatrist your your main psychiatrist at the hospital you went back to voluntary yeah well I don't even think it was that psychiatrist who really because I think I spoke with his student Doctor Who was a student whatever student doctor came to see me the day the first day I was in and I I was really emotional talking to her and I explained to her how I really I I couldn't show up in a meaningful way to receive care with the certification and the form and the involuntary status looming over me because that made me really clam up and feel like it was a hostile interaction with the hospital medical team and stuff and it was really impeding my ability to you know show up and accept care here she seemed to understand that and really empathize with that which I really appreciated and I think she advocated for me with this psychiatrist to remove the certification you know kind of under the understanding that I would stay and accept care and it would be a more collaborative nice interaction and so he did he agreed to lift the certification and I agreed to stay and continue with treatment until we both felt that I was in a better place can you talk maybe a bit about the balance between like receiving that care and trying to get to a a good enough spot to leave the hospital but also understanding that the hospital isn't a place where you're gonna get to 100 percent Yeah It's tricky because the psychiatrist kept saying you know I want you to feel like you again and I I want I want you to feel like you when you leave the hospital but the reality is that the hospital is not a great place to be you know there's there's not a lot to do you're surrounded by Medical Teams or other people who are in need of assistance in that period of their Journey with their illness and it's lonely it's it's not obviously what your real day-to-day life looks like and so I think that I was stuck in this place was well I'm never gonna really feel like me while I'm here so that's kind of hard to gauge when I'm feeling like me enough to leave the hospital and so that was kind of tricky to figure out when I felt stable enough to be able to rejoin my regular day-to-day life and not struggle or crumble you know under the increased pressures of that you know also I had a marathon that I was supposed to run in the mountains on the Saturday and I got discharged on the Wednesday and I I pushed for discharge I think partly because I really wanted to be able to do that and I think that that has been a big part of this hospitalization and this journey and has been a big part of the conflict I had with Rob throughout it all was around capacity and around understanding my own capacity and making decisions in line with respecting that capacity whether it's whatever it may be and that's something that I think I really really struggle with is being able to acknowledge and understand when my capacity is fluctuating and when it's diminished and understanding that maybe I can't do everything that I want to do when that capacity is Shifting or different or diminished I didn't end up going to the marathon anyway and foreign you know that that challenge has showed up in a lot of other ways to in terms of needing to better understand my capacity and that's something that I'm going to be working on for the foreseeable future is having a more realistic understanding and grasp on my own capacity because I like to pretend that I don't have schizoaffective disorder and I like to think that I can live my life the way I would if I didn't have it and it's hard to come to grips or come to terms with the fact that that's not true that's not the case I do have schizoaffective disorder and it does affect my life in pretty large ways I often talk about how acceptance is an ongoing journey and a really big part of living with a chronic illness like schizoaffective disorder and so that too is something that I'm working on around acceptance how did it feel coming home how have things been it's not like it's not like you're having a mental health crisis you're in a psychotic episode and you go to the hospital and and it's great they fix you you're fine you can go home and everything is the way it was before it's not like that it's a lot more complicated and messy and it's a lot more of kind of a gradient of wellness and so a weak post-discharge or you know I guess coming home I was very excited and happy to be home and back with my kids and home with Rob and that felt really good but I was still struggling a little bit and I think also historically for me every time I've had a psychotic episode there's been a subsequent dip in my mood and I struggle a bit with the depressive side of my bipolar component of my schizoaffective disorder and so dealing with that a little bit trying to be proactive in terms of not letting it get to a really bad extent um but yeah that's kind of where I'm at right now what was it like sharing this experience you know through the channel as you went through it yeah so it's kind of interesting that we choast or I chose to do that um I think it was possible because I was kind of bouncing back and forth between having insight and being able to understand what was happening with not and so in those periods of insight is when I recorded videos and shared them on the internet for everyone to see which felt very vulnerable and I want to thank everyone who offered support and encouragement throughout it I read a lot of your comments I couldn't keep up with all of them but I read a lot of them and they really helped me feel less alone throughout the experience no I was really trying to help other people feel less alone in their experiences of navigating psychiatric hospitals and psychotic episodes and that experience but I really felt that I got that back from you guys in terms of not feeling alone while I was going through that experience as well so thank you very much for that I also just want to quickly say that I felt like such a fraud getting ready to film this video because I was putting on makeup I was doing my hair and I haven't done these things I haven't put on makeup in a good month and so I think that's something to bear in mind too about this is that you know I got criticized for looking really put together or whatever I get criticized for my appearance a lot and understanding that this is not what I typically look like going through this you know I'm very aware that I am presenting on camera right now and so I put in more effort than I typically would to look better perhaps just as a bit of a disclaimer that if you don't look this put together or whatever a weak post hospitalization it's okay neither do I I I'm having a hard time and so I feel a little bit bad that I cobbled together a look that conveys something else and so I'm sorry about that but my own narcissism and vanity led me to try to look put together for this and so a little disclaimer that it's okay if you're struggling to even take a shower or that kind of thing because that's where I'm at too okay so like one final question um would you go back to the hospital again if you needed to he said he had one final question for me to answer so that he could record it and so I'm assuming this is to show me when I'm like no I don't want to go to the hospital in the future the hospital is not an ideal place to be and I think that's just the reality I do think however though that this last hospitalization a week ago or whatever was by far my best experience in the hospital and I mean you guys saw the environment it was it was pretty nice and you know it was a nice place to be which was a different experience than my past experiences with other psychiatric Wards but it went beyond that it went it was more to do with the fact that I wanted help and I was open and willing to receive that help and that really changed the dynamic and my experience with the hospital for the better and so if I can offer any encouragement at all I think I think I'm fairly confident in saying this that Medical Teams at the hospital are there because they want to help you get better that's the point of hospitals and so trusting that and working with your care team to help get you to a place where you want to be is really crucial and beneficial and I think maybe I think maybe the Crux here is taking ownership over the help you want need and deserve and being advocating to receive it first of all but then being open to receiving it too and working with them to take care of yourself and accept help taking care of yourself as best as possible and that I think it really is ultimately what led it to be as least traumatic as possible and so yes I would be open to going to the hospital again if my mental health deteriorated to a point again where I felt that I needed that additional support so thank you for watching this long video um if you did this is probably kind of the end of this hospitalization series that has become a series um thank you again to everyone who offered support or words of encouragement throughout it it meant a lot it meant a lot to know that I had a community of people who were cheering me on and supporting me through it and so from the bottom of my heart thank you very much for that it it meant a lot I hope that sharing throughout this experience and doing this video talking about it again and talking about how I felt navigating it and you know talking about these things that often go untalked about I hope that that has been helpful because you know I even find this really difficult to talk about with people in my own life I haven't talked this extensively about it with anyone in my life not even Rob but definitely not you know my family and friends it's just it's a difficult thing to talk about and so I hope that by having these conversations on the internet I hope that it facilitates and opens up space to be able to have these kinds of conversations in your own lives lives and in and in my own life you know I hope that it's opening the door to make it more okay to talk about these things you know one last time if you have felt alone going through a hospitalization or a psychotic episode or whatever difficulty with your mental health or if you are currently feeling alone in that please know that you are not alone it's just unfortunately something that is difficult and shied away from in terms of conversation that we have and that's unfortunate and it's doing a disservice to people who are going through situations like this and I hope that we collectively become better and more willing to talk about these things because ultimately it's really just another part of the human experience and so thank you for listening to this part of my own experience and I really hope that you feel comfortable opening up about your own experiences like this thank you

Channel: Living Well with Schizophrenia

Views: 430,804

Keywords: schizophrenia, schizoaffective, schizoaffective disorder, mental health, mental illness, hospital, hospitalization, hospitalisation, psych ward, psychiatric ward, psychosis, schizophrenic, psychotic episode, my experience, living with schizophrenia

Id: m3GvAAI_vko

Length: 45min 16sec (2716 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 22 2023