(continued from part 1) Seven Days in the Psych Ward
With the winter Olympics on the small overhead TV every night, my first stay on the psych ward was imbued with an eerie sense of monumental circumstance. The Olympics, this universal worldwide event that interrupts all normal broadcasting and takes over everything, was happening at the same time as this catastrophic storm in my head. My normal broadcasting was interrupted too. I was in this str…
"Your experiences are helping people. Nobody is writing about it more honestly. Isn't that empowering?"
"I hadn't really thought about it. I'm just trying to get through one day at a time."
"Well, think about it."
Joe and I had this conversation last night, talking about the blog and the reactions that I'm getting both on Facebook and offline. I'm touched by all of the positive feedback and enco…
I went into the psych ward three times, under three different circumstances. The first time I have little recollection of, but the bits I do remember are supercharged. Being handcuffed to a gurney in an ambulance, running naked down my front stairs. A collage of images all mixed together in some slick roundabout in my memory was actually a prolonged psychotic episode that took place over a week, but in my mind it was one night. I don't know…
The first time I went into the mental hospital was in early 2014. I'd been fired from my job at the end of November, which sent me spiraling into depression with bouts of anxiety. By the new year, I'd been unable to sleep at all, and that's when I began to experience the beginnings of what later would be called a psychotic break.
The night of February 14th, when Joey called the ambulance, I had begun hallucinating. I was running ar…
