To hell and back

The last 48 hours have been a whirlwind trip to hell and back. The last post was written at about 1:15 am. A half hour later, for some unknown reason, I began taking large quantities of Valium. It got to the point where I had little cognitive ability left. I knew I had to get to the hospital, but knew I couldn't drive. I grabbed the house keys from my daughter's purse, my wallet and cellphone, then I walked to the corner.

I remember sitting on the rock that's there and calling 911. I asked what the symptoms of alcohol poisoning were. The man on the other end kept asking questions to figure out where I was. I remember trying to read the street sign which was on the opposite side of the street, but it wasn't making any sense to me. It didn't sound like the street I lived on. Eventually I saw a police car come down a nearby street fairly quickly, but he turned the opposite direction. Then another one came up the block towards where I was sitting and stopped.

The man on the phone told me to hang up and talk to the police. The policeman asked me to stand up so he could search me for anything I could use to harm myself with. I couldn't stand up though. I think I may have just handed him my driver's license and/or cell phone. I blacked out at that point because the next vague memory I have is of waking up inside an ambulance with at least three paramedics working on me, putting in an IV, asking questions I couldn't comprehend at all.

Unbeknownst to me, the cops had gone to my house during the same time and started pounding on the door. I didn't want my family involved, which is why I had gone to the corner in the first place. Apparently the police told my father that I was mumbling something they couldn't understand and that I didn't know my name or birth date.

The next memory I have is of waking in the ER, already transferred from the stretcher onto the bed, with hospital staff buzzing around me. They sat me up and inserted a tube through my nose and started pumping out my stomach. I remained awake for most of that. I remember my father coming in, but leaving right away because he was getting sick from seeing the contents of my stomach. I blacked out again and didn't wake until they started pulling the tube out of my nose. I was bleeding from that and remember holding tissues to my nose until it stopped bleeding.

Another black out and when I woke again, I was in the ICU, hooked up to a bunch of machines. It was about 10 am on Wednesday by this time. They finally got the okay for me to come off oxygen and was allowed to drink some water. Another hour later they were saying I could order some food. They gave me the menu but when I tried to order a salad, I was told I wasn't allowed to have any silverware, so I couldn't have that or most of the things on the menu. I told them to fuck off and I'd just starve.

A short time later, some guy who worked with the pysch hospital intake department came in and asked me a ton of questions. I told him I wasn't suicidal and wasn't trying to kill myself. I knew I had drank too much, but had no explanation for why I took all the Valium. He said he'd contact the pdoc on call and see if I should be admitted to the psych hospital. He later came back and said he was told to talk to my pdoc instead because he is on staff at the hospital. The guy said he would tell my pdoc that I wasn't suicidal, that I was following my aftercare plan and that I had started making arrangements to join a partial hospital program.

He then returned and said that my pdoc insisted that I be admitted to the psych hospital. I flipped out and started ripping off some of the cords monitoring my vitals. They were able to grab my hands before I ripped the IV out of my hand. I was just in the psych hospital, I didn't feel I needed to be back in there, but if I was going to be shipped off there against my will, I told them I wanted to fucking go right then and there. Another guy, a case worker came in and asked me if I was feeling suicidal, if I wanted to hurt myself or others and if I had any plans to do any of those. I said no to all of them, but still they were going to ship me off to the psych ward.

Once I got to the psych ward, I was finally given a copy of the involuntary admit form and found that most of the information provided on it was fabricated. They claimed I said I wanted to kill myself and that I drank the alcohol, the Valium and other medications (which were merely my normal nightly meds) with the intent of trying to end my life. They also claim my sister was a witness to my being suicidal, but there is no way they could have gotten in touch with her because she is out of state caring for our other sister's children while she's having surgery. Plus they had a wrong address for her, saying she lived in an apartment.

Had they talked to my sister or anyone else, they would have been told that I was not suicidal. My family knew I was finally stable on the meds from when I was in the hospital earlier this month. They knew I had plans to do things with my daughter and her boyfriend since they're on Spring Break. They also knew I had made plans for several diagnostic tests, including a mammogram. Those are not the actions of someone that wants to die.

I tried to get in touch with my pdoc at his office and asked him to be paged. One of the nurses said they had already had him paged and that they'd let me talk to him when he called. A couple of minutes later he called and the nurse that said I could talk to him spoke with him to get what meds I should be on, then handed the phone off to another nurse who whispered something into the phone and then hung up without ever letting me speak with him.

Turns out the fucking bitch nurse lied to him and told him that I said I was going to kill him. If there was anyone that I wanted to kill, it'd be the two fucking nurses that lied to me, not the guy I was trying to get in contact with. I even tried calling my therapist, told her what was going on with the story that I was suicidal being made up and asked her to try to reach my pdoc for me. She called back later and said she had another emergency to attend to and that she got the after hours answering service. I told her she was a fucking liar just like everyone else and hung up on her.

I then proceeded to call anyone I could think of that might possibly be able to help get me out of the hospital. I called the President of my NAMI chapter to see if he could help. I called the Patient Advocate (who is no patient advocate because her salary is paid by the hospital). I even called some Human Rights organization and left a message with their legal department about the falsified involuntary admit form. All were dead ends.

I'm still absolutely furious that a mental health worker can simply make up a story about me being suicidal even though I told every single person I came into contact with that I wasn't, and still be locked up against my will with no recourse. I can understand erring on the side of caution and admitting me for a 24 hour hold given that I did drink large quantities of alcohol and took a lot of Valium, but they falsified a court document. That's just plain illegal. I'm pissed off that so many fucking people lied to me and about me.

Anyway, before they called a code on me, I went to my room and tried to calm down. Tried to accept that there was no way I was getting out of the hospital that day and that I'd just have to wait until today because I knew my pdoc had to see me within 24 hours.

He took me off the Valium, though he doesn't know that I still have plenty on hand. He said something along the lines of questioning his ability to do his job properly if I was still drinking and he was prescribing me a benzo. That's the only med change he made, since I am stable on the meds as long as I don't drink two bottles of wine and get completely shitfaced.

I called my therapist back and apologized, so I'll see her tomorrow. On Monday I agreed to start the partial hospital program at the hospital instead of the one that my therapist had recommended at her center. I'm just doing the one at the hospital because it's closer to my home and my pdoc will be right there if I need him. If I don't like the program, I can always transfer over to the other one. The other one was just started in January, so no one really had any information on what groups they offer or anything. I'll try to get that info just so I have it if the program at the hospital turns out to be a piece of shit.

So I'm home, I'm feeling fine and already planning a full weekend, since I lost a couple of days of Spring Break do to a very serious error in judgment by drinking so damn much.