Processing the Ward

It is 3am on November 5th, 2021. I am currently drinking a hot cup of coffee and guess what? I'm still trying to process what happened the past two weeks. I'm not sure what to say. I have one awful story after the next but some good ones too. I don't even know how to continue this...

3:30am. I finished my cup of coffee. I've just realized this is gonna be my second day out of the hospital.

It feels like I've changed worlds. One slow and monitored, and the other fast and less secure. It's really messing me up. I want to take today to process my emotions and past emotions.

3:45am. I am exhausted. Let's start with how I got to the ER in the first place. I made a suicidal comment at work and then a week later my managers got together to call a crisis line. I told the crisis line that I was fine, I had just come out of my depressive episode, but I just didn't want to be at work. The crisis line called an ambulance to have me sent to be assessed at the hospital. The on-call psychiatrist said I was a danger to myself and I had to go to inpatient. I was in the ER for another day until a bed opened up at Riveredge hospital. I arrived to Riveredge at about 11pm. I can't do a day by day but I have some highlights and lowlights.

5:30am

TW: sexual language

First big thing that happened was what happened with my psychiatrist. i saw him about 3 times. In 13 days. Each interaction was worse than the last. The first time we met, I told him I was trans. He immediately shifted focus from my mental health to how sexual partners viewed me and a bunch of transphobic questions and comments. Such comments included

“are you sure you’re not just a boyish woman?”

”when your partner sees your vagina do they see you as a woman?”

“does your partner like breast play?”

I didn’t report him at first and I met with him a second time where he told me I would be able to leave before Halloween because that was important to me. He said my lithium levels were high but I’d still be able to go home.

I then met with my therapist who told me i couldn’t go home until my levels went down. So I’m not sure who to believe at this point but then I reported him. I was scared to report him because I didn‘t want to stay longer but after reporting him to different shifts over 2 days I reported it to one of the kindest MHA’s there. He helped me by contacting the supervisor and the supervisor changed my doctor.

So I thought I wouldn’t see him again….until the third time I saw him. It was Halloween and I was having a bad day. I wanted to be with Eliot and I had a costume ready. Everyone knew to treat me with extra care that day. After crying most of the day, I had finally settled down. Then he showed up. I was no longer his patient so he had no business talking to me. But he calls me from the day room and says

”Oh why are you still here? You were supposed to go home Saturday because I knew Halloween was so important to you. If you hadn’t changed doctors you would‘ve gone home Saturday.”

So obviously I started sobbing, but then I composed myself and said “thank you“ as monotone as possible. I ran into the day room crying and an MHA came in and took me to a different room where I continued crying on the floor of a conference room. Once I stopped crying, I walked back to the day room. I had left my notebook open on a blank page, and when I walked up to my table after everyone left, I noticed there was writing on the page.

”try and get some sleep joey“

”goodnight and sweet dreams”

and some drawings and signatures.

7:45am highlights

• From then on I was alright. I wrote an appreciation letter to my homies and read it to them the next day.

• I sang a song I wrote. (coming soon in a blog post)

• Everytime someone new came in, I would welcome them and tell them they can sit at our table if they wanted.

• And last of all; There was an older Polish woman, who could not speak english very well but understood it. I speak english and and understand Polish. So I was a great translator so she could get better treatment. I made her a paper crane and hopefully she gets home soon.

• Got to call Eliot 3 times a day :)

So that was my inpatient summary of important events and highlights!

It’s good to be back.

love,

-JOS