Welcome to the Nut Hut
I have been an inpatient in a mental health facility three times in my life. All times I was put there at my own request.
These hospitalizations have cost money and they've ultimately cost credibility and respect. When you tell someone that you've been hospitalized or if they find out on their own, two things happen. First, they tell you how brave you are for dealing with your issues head-on and creating a better life for yourself. Second, they shift uncomfortably in place and immediately register you in the "loose cannon," category in their head that is usually reserved for street wanderers and senile elderly relatives. You become and brave liability. You could snap out at any given moment.
People that have never spent time in a mental health facility have somehow become the experts of how it works, too. Armchair Psychiatrists will spout the latest thing that they've heard or read - and they'll pander to the idea that mental health disorders are a sign of poor character, weakness or laziness. They disarm your beliefs - because if you have been unwell you can no longer have the same power of intelligence and reasoning. Or if you do, you become this weird idiot savant.
Oddly enough, too, you can be categorized as, "too crazy," to be able to relate to other's mental health problems. Because I have crossed the invisible and arbitrary border of treatment, I have also relegated myself to conversations like, "well, yeah...but I mean...I'm not as bad as you were," or the classic line, "I don't need as much help as you do." If there is a contest to be won of mental health treatment sought (there must be, because why is anyone saying this to me?) - I guess I won it. I would please like to have my fucking trophy right now - because it is the first one (and likely the last) that I will ever receive.
Because so many people have never been in a facility for an extended stay, the stories and experiences that I have been given as a result are so much more precious to me that I realized at the time that they were bestowed. They are a part of my spiritual makeup - even though that seems like a totally ridiculous statement. And while there have been many, they often fall into archetypal categories. It is our choice to learn from any experience we have - although, sometimes it takes a while to figure out what the lesson is. Here it goes...
1. There are going to be people there with WAY more fucking problems than you. Do what you want with that information.
So yeah, maybe it's a gratitude exercise it some twisted-ass way, but you will be faced with people that are very, very ill. One of the best moments in my life was when I was sitting with one of the therapists in the activity corral (I have no idea what it was called, but this seemed like an apt name) and there was a guy in two crumpled hospital gowns (you get gowns for the first twenty-fourish hours...until you can prove that you're not going to fashion a noose from anything you've brought in with you) and he was having an entire police chase and arrest going on in his head. The therapist (a giant hilarious African American man) turns to me and says, "Girl - you think you got problems...," and we laughed like banshees. Insensitive? Totally. Exactly what I needed to hear in that very moment? Also totally.
2. Crazy people can be dangerous - and guess whomst you're on lockdown with? Stay alert.
Doctors and nurses don't put mental health patients in harm on purpose, but often until a patient proves that he can't handle it, everyone is hanging out together. A middle-aged man once started flinging around pool cues (Why are there pool tables? Why not just board games? The pool table seems like a generally bad idea, but all facilities have them, it seems) and proclaiming that he was, "King of the Universe," while we all ran hurriedly back to our rooms and patients banged on the glass windows of the nurses' station to tranquilize him. Three days later, he woke up and had breakfast with us. Talk about a Buzz Killington attending that meal.
3. Your roommate is here because she has problems. Be kind.
Twice, my roommates were there because they had attempted suicide. One had to have her insulin pump removed because she tried to overdose. The other got shock therapy treatments because she tried to turn her car into oncoming traffic. These women were mothers and wives and someone loved them. I legitimately judge everyone. I note that as a real problem in my life that I work on in therapy. In those instances, though, I have never judged someone that needed help as badly as they did. My heart poured to them because they felt so helpless in the face of having tons of people that loved them. My compassion was on overdrive.
It was also tested when the diabetic started having a "relationship," with the destructive twenty year old that was ducking arrest by agreeing to inpatient treatment. Mental hospital romances are desperate and passionate and confusing. And weirdly plentiful. I rolled my eyes but remained open to the compassion for these two broken people.
4. Drug and alcohol abusers/addicts will be at any mental health facility to avoid jail or treatment facilities.
No judgement here, either. No one intends to have a substance abuse problem when they start their lives. The burden of addiction is felt by more than the addict, but the compassion of treatment is so important. Sometimes I forget in my day-to-day.
I remember there was a twenty-something kid that showed up after a bender and his parents and girlfriend arrived to visit him that next day. He later recounted that his girlfriend dumped him during that visit. I hurt for that guy - it doesn't matter if it was the right decision of her or not. It is sad for both of them.
An alcoholic befriended a coke addict and told the rest of us all of the adventures they were going to have when they got out. Ted, the coke addict, told people that, "he could make a Valium nervous." He wasn't wrong. I was just glad that they both lived on the other side of the city from me.
5. There are plenty of people that are there against their will.
One of the loveliest women I met while in treatment was a retired teacher that was placed because her landlord came to fix something and found that she had a hoarding problem (note that this was before the show gained such massive popularity and this term became a frequently used slur). The county was called and her friends rallied to clean her house while she was getting better. The shame that surrounded her was immense, but she could see that she needed help. I think about her from time-to-time and hope that she stuck with follow-up care.
A man that was "302'd" by his wife offered to buy us all cars in the manic state of his undiagnosed, untreated and deterioratingly horrible Bipolar disorder.
An old woman's dementia became far too much for her brother. He cared about her, but it was easy to see that he needed a break. I saw them at the mall together the week after I got out - the same faraway look in her eyes. The same tired struggle in his.
A sad and sweet woman recounted her husband's physical abuse that lead to her drinking that lead his bringing her here and wanting to take her child away and file for divorce during her hospitalization - sneaky shit. She cried for three days before talking to any of us.
6. There are plenty of people that work in mental health facilities that do not give a rat's ass about helping people. They are quickly overshadowed by people that do.
There was an eighty-year old nurse that taught Tai Chi and mindful walking to a group of us. He wrote a book that I have read and shared with my friends that uses sailing metaphors to talk about dealing with mental illness. He talked the talk and walked the walk. No joke intended. His presence on the floor immediately changed the air. It changed my heart.
A nurse that noticed how many terrible romance novels I read what I was inpatient (there were not a lot of choices on the book cart) loaned me her personal copy of, "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy," and I still reference the lessons that it taught me many years later. A copy still sits on my book shelf. She could've left me to read Harlequin, but a small gesture changed the way that I think about my anxiety forever.
There are a million other things that I could say or stories I could recount, but they are kind of mine. Maybe I'll write about them later. And another story - the title of this post was taken from a tiny note that was scrawled on the side of a pencil box in the breakfast room. Once you're welcomed to the Nut Hut, you're a member for life. It is your choice about how you want to view your membership.
These hospitalizations have cost money and they've ultimately cost credibility and respect. When you tell someone that you've been hospitalized or if they find out on their own, two things happen. First, they tell you how brave you are for dealing with your issues head-on and creating a better life for yourself. Second, they shift uncomfortably in place and immediately register you in the "loose cannon," category in their head that is usually reserved for street wanderers and senile elderly relatives. You become and brave liability. You could snap out at any given moment.
People that have never spent time in a mental health facility have somehow become the experts of how it works, too. Armchair Psychiatrists will spout the latest thing that they've heard or read - and they'll pander to the idea that mental health disorders are a sign of poor character, weakness or laziness. They disarm your beliefs - because if you have been unwell you can no longer have the same power of intelligence and reasoning. Or if you do, you become this weird idiot savant.
Oddly enough, too, you can be categorized as, "too crazy," to be able to relate to other's mental health problems. Because I have crossed the invisible and arbitrary border of treatment, I have also relegated myself to conversations like, "well, yeah...but I mean...I'm not as bad as you were," or the classic line, "I don't need as much help as you do." If there is a contest to be won of mental health treatment sought (there must be, because why is anyone saying this to me?) - I guess I won it. I would please like to have my fucking trophy right now - because it is the first one (and likely the last) that I will ever receive.
Because so many people have never been in a facility for an extended stay, the stories and experiences that I have been given as a result are so much more precious to me that I realized at the time that they were bestowed. They are a part of my spiritual makeup - even though that seems like a totally ridiculous statement. And while there have been many, they often fall into archetypal categories. It is our choice to learn from any experience we have - although, sometimes it takes a while to figure out what the lesson is. Here it goes...
1. There are going to be people there with WAY more fucking problems than you. Do what you want with that information.
So yeah, maybe it's a gratitude exercise it some twisted-ass way, but you will be faced with people that are very, very ill. One of the best moments in my life was when I was sitting with one of the therapists in the activity corral (I have no idea what it was called, but this seemed like an apt name) and there was a guy in two crumpled hospital gowns (you get gowns for the first twenty-fourish hours...until you can prove that you're not going to fashion a noose from anything you've brought in with you) and he was having an entire police chase and arrest going on in his head. The therapist (a giant hilarious African American man) turns to me and says, "Girl - you think you got problems...," and we laughed like banshees. Insensitive? Totally. Exactly what I needed to hear in that very moment? Also totally.
2. Crazy people can be dangerous - and guess whomst you're on lockdown with? Stay alert.
Doctors and nurses don't put mental health patients in harm on purpose, but often until a patient proves that he can't handle it, everyone is hanging out together. A middle-aged man once started flinging around pool cues (Why are there pool tables? Why not just board games? The pool table seems like a generally bad idea, but all facilities have them, it seems) and proclaiming that he was, "King of the Universe," while we all ran hurriedly back to our rooms and patients banged on the glass windows of the nurses' station to tranquilize him. Three days later, he woke up and had breakfast with us. Talk about a Buzz Killington attending that meal.
3. Your roommate is here because she has problems. Be kind.
Twice, my roommates were there because they had attempted suicide. One had to have her insulin pump removed because she tried to overdose. The other got shock therapy treatments because she tried to turn her car into oncoming traffic. These women were mothers and wives and someone loved them. I legitimately judge everyone. I note that as a real problem in my life that I work on in therapy. In those instances, though, I have never judged someone that needed help as badly as they did. My heart poured to them because they felt so helpless in the face of having tons of people that loved them. My compassion was on overdrive.
It was also tested when the diabetic started having a "relationship," with the destructive twenty year old that was ducking arrest by agreeing to inpatient treatment. Mental hospital romances are desperate and passionate and confusing. And weirdly plentiful. I rolled my eyes but remained open to the compassion for these two broken people.
4. Drug and alcohol abusers/addicts will be at any mental health facility to avoid jail or treatment facilities.
No judgement here, either. No one intends to have a substance abuse problem when they start their lives. The burden of addiction is felt by more than the addict, but the compassion of treatment is so important. Sometimes I forget in my day-to-day.
I remember there was a twenty-something kid that showed up after a bender and his parents and girlfriend arrived to visit him that next day. He later recounted that his girlfriend dumped him during that visit. I hurt for that guy - it doesn't matter if it was the right decision of her or not. It is sad for both of them.
An alcoholic befriended a coke addict and told the rest of us all of the adventures they were going to have when they got out. Ted, the coke addict, told people that, "he could make a Valium nervous." He wasn't wrong. I was just glad that they both lived on the other side of the city from me.
5. There are plenty of people that are there against their will.
One of the loveliest women I met while in treatment was a retired teacher that was placed because her landlord came to fix something and found that she had a hoarding problem (note that this was before the show gained such massive popularity and this term became a frequently used slur). The county was called and her friends rallied to clean her house while she was getting better. The shame that surrounded her was immense, but she could see that she needed help. I think about her from time-to-time and hope that she stuck with follow-up care.
A man that was "302'd" by his wife offered to buy us all cars in the manic state of his undiagnosed, untreated and deterioratingly horrible Bipolar disorder.
An old woman's dementia became far too much for her brother. He cared about her, but it was easy to see that he needed a break. I saw them at the mall together the week after I got out - the same faraway look in her eyes. The same tired struggle in his.
A sad and sweet woman recounted her husband's physical abuse that lead to her drinking that lead his bringing her here and wanting to take her child away and file for divorce during her hospitalization - sneaky shit. She cried for three days before talking to any of us.
6. There are plenty of people that work in mental health facilities that do not give a rat's ass about helping people. They are quickly overshadowed by people that do.
There was an eighty-year old nurse that taught Tai Chi and mindful walking to a group of us. He wrote a book that I have read and shared with my friends that uses sailing metaphors to talk about dealing with mental illness. He talked the talk and walked the walk. No joke intended. His presence on the floor immediately changed the air. It changed my heart.
A nurse that noticed how many terrible romance novels I read what I was inpatient (there were not a lot of choices on the book cart) loaned me her personal copy of, "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy," and I still reference the lessons that it taught me many years later. A copy still sits on my book shelf. She could've left me to read Harlequin, but a small gesture changed the way that I think about my anxiety forever.
There are a million other things that I could say or stories I could recount, but they are kind of mine. Maybe I'll write about them later. And another story - the title of this post was taken from a tiny note that was scrawled on the side of a pencil box in the breakfast room. Once you're welcomed to the Nut Hut, you're a member for life. It is your choice about how you want to view your membership.
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