BS: stay afloat while others don't

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Dec 20 - 07:08 PM

Good to read, k.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 31 Dec 20 - 12:45 PM

This has been one heck of a year.
It's ten months I've been at this clinic.
The self-governing committees and activities
of the collective body of patients
has been the most heartbreaking experience for me.

One-on-one work with clinicians and therapeutic staff
has been the most satisfying part of my treatment,
although it took time and trouble
to switch from an unsatisfactory therapist and pharmacologist
to new clinicians with whom I am happier.

So, not a total loss: far from it.
Still, I am going into the New Year with a lot of sadness and disillusionment,
and seriously calculating the conditions
by which I can transition off the clinic campus.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Jan 21 - 08:23 PM

This week, the bedrooms at the in-patient residence
began getting re-wiring for the telephones there.
Including my bedroom.

The job took two days in my bedroom alone,
not because of what my room is like,
but because they checked the cables going from my room
through the wall down to the main electrical connections below.
And found cable with rotting wires in it,
so the cable had to be replaced ...

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Jan 21 - 01:20 AM

That sounds like a good thing.

"Is this supposed to be a good thing, Miri?"

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Jan 21 - 04:43 PM

Last week there was another failure-to-communicate deal
from staff to patients.

Noise of the conversational variety is still going on
about the patient who was kicked out one month ago:
more generally, this patient has become representative of
all the self-harming presentations amongst all the patients,
and this is a significant percentage of all of us.
Though I say it who shouldn't,
self-harm is not one of my issues --
I have issues, all right,
but I don't cut myself etc etc, as some do,
and I do not have intrusive suicidal thoughts as some have.

So, a communiqué which I will not quote here, went out,
a very bureaucratic memorandum-sounding thing,
in writing and posted where all could see it.
And to boil it down to the fewest possible words,
the staff (group facilitators and program managers, as opposed to
psychiatrists or psychotherapists or social workers)
demanded of the patients:
Help us help you.

And the response from many of the patients is ... unfit to print.
And I for one do not blame them one bit.


At this time a little over a year ago,
when I was admitted to this clinic,
I freely said that I dreaded leaving, that I was afraid to leave.

A year later,
I am afraid to stay.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jan 21 - 06:23 PM

Oh, dear. I can't think of anything helpful to say, but I wish I could help. You have been a sweetheart to me.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 02:49 PM

I'm going to show up for one of the infamous
Community Meetings today, heaven help me.
Because I probably ought to actually say something,
short and simple.
I will catch all kinds of flack for saying it, as well.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jan 21 - 09:15 PM

It made me feel better to see
Senator Bernie Sanders wearing his mittens at the inauguration.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Jan 21 - 09:22 PM

It was bound to happen, and now it has.
Nearly twelve months into the United States crisis over
the coronavirus pandemic
(which actually broke out more than twelve months ago),

the twice-a-week testing here at the clinic campus
has yielded positive-for-COVID-19 test results in three persons.
One works in the patient dining-hall kitchen -- yikes!!
One is a patient living off-campus, on a day-treatment plan.
One is a patient living right here in the on-campus residence hall.

Contact tracing began once the test results came out.
At latest report,
NONE of the three individuals with positive test results
have symptoms.
All three, wherever they live, are isolating in their homes.

Here at the largest of three on-campus residences,
not only is that one patient under quarantine,
but TEN other patients are now in isolation in their rooms,
as a result of the contact-tracing work.

The staff in the nursing/mental-health-worker department
are being run off their feet,
fetching meals on trays to the patients who may not leave their rooms.
The kitchen was understaffed already, and now it's worse than before.

Well, the whole purpose of twice-weekly screening tests has been
to catch the thing early so people don't fall seriously ill.
The three people are relatively young in years, and healthy.
Ditto for the ten people in isolation.

We will see ... what we will see.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jan 21 - 11:05 PM

Yikes. I have a stuffy nose... Not a usual 1st symptom, at least.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 11:24 AM

The weather outside is clear sunny dry and
very pretty to look at,
and bitterly cold today.

My internal weather is dreary with despair and depression.
I better do something.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 25 Jan 21 - 07:27 PM

On second thought,
what I need is a rest cure, and this is a better place than most to have one.
It occurred to me that
I'm recovering from four years of waiting to exhale
while the Trumpasaurus Rex, who did not get MY vote,
was in the Oval Office.
No wonder I feel overstressed.

Meanwhile,
the hearty extroverted kitchen staffperson
is still out and in isolation after his positive COVID test.
But the patient who tested positive (screening test)
and lives here in the in-patient residence,
has now gotten back negative results from the latest screening test,
and been released from quarantine.
Of the ten contact-traced patients isolated in their rooms,
all but three have gotten back
the negative results from their most recent tests,
and been released from isolation.
The other three, I gather, are still waiting for test results
but are asymptomatic.

Better too much caution than too little.
My latest screening-test results just came back negative (whew).

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jan 21 - 05:21 PM

Water started tasting horrible so I got scared, but then read the fine print on the antibiotic rinse I am using till allowed to brush again, and it says Don't rinse with water or it will taste horrible.
Whew again.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Mar 21 - 10:12 PM

Things are better now.
The weather is improving, not so bitterly cold or snowy.
We have sunny days now.

A number of patients have discharged.
Two staffpersons are getting ready to retire in a month or two,
and it looks like some others will follow.
After New Year's, suddenly we had
three new people to facilitate therapy groups:
new hires, all of them. Not sure of backgrounds,
they are not clinicians as such.

What this amounts to is
conditions are improving here.
Sure, there is still drama and breakdowns and all.
But some sort of balance is being found,
after the utter debacle of the year-end holidays
when patients were acting out like mad.

And some of the patients who have recently discharged
have occasioned great sighs of relief, as they were
causes of upset and conflict while they were here.

The holidays, I was quite safe here
but it was also rather sad and heavy.
Now I am getting a second wind,
and doing some really good therapeutic work with my clinicians.
Even when I find myself in a distressing situation with someone
( one of the staff, God help me),
I have plenty of support at every level,
including other managers and directors
who take my part, so I never have to feel isolated.

It's a good thing I stayed the course and did not quit.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Mar 21 - 06:28 PM

Bully for you, k!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Mar 21 - 10:07 PM

An earlier post reported
a distressing conflict with a staffperson. Today my request was granted,
and a brief mediation session was held
in which I aired my complaint with the staffperson,
with another staffperson present.
The person with whom I had the conflict apologized.
And it was all very civil and quiet,
and we all went our separate ways after.


The strange thing for me is how difficult it was for me to speak.
I felt like I was having to lift this impossible weight,
it was just this insupportable heaviness.
I said what I had to say,
but it felt almost unbearable.
I have been resting for the rest of the day.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Mar 21 - 10:58 AM

Did it feel like that weight was off your shoulders, afterwards, k?

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Mar 21 - 11:49 AM

I sometimes try but fail to work out what it's like.

I've had a couple of stays in mental hospitals.

The second, and longer one was probably around 2012 when I was in for an alcohol detox. It was a bit odd as I'd made, before admission, a comment about a demon that disturbed the consultant who wanted to see how I went for a week without alcohol. The end result was that for the second week of my stay, I was there and on no medication at all (and was given a clean bill of health).

Overall, I enjoyed (well after the initial higher doeses Benzodiazepines [Librium] were over) my stay and this is from someone who doesn't usually get on with hospitals. Yes, there were restrictions in getting out but very friendly staff, very nice (home cooking, I'd call it) meals and I found myself fitting in well to make up a group of (in jest) 3 grumpy old men who would sit in the canteen, go out for a fag (UK cigarette which, yes, was allowed then) and generally put the world to rights. Perhaps I could have become institutionalised...

I was saddened to read a few years later that the Hospital (Helesdon, Norfolk) had become part of the worst rated mental health trust in the UK as, during my time, I felt they did a lot right.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 19 Mar 21 - 10:24 PM

The deflating answer to your question, Mrrzy, is no:
that weight is still inside me.
I experience it as resistance to confronting conflict or disagreements.
The whole point of being in treatment here is that I don't have to deal with this all alone,
but they can't make it go away -- I have to confront the resistance inside of me.


Jon Freeman, destiny is a mysterious thing.
Although your hospital had a low rating,
your experience there was somehow destined to be constructive and salubrious.

I'm having, on balance, good treatment at this institution where the patient milieu is a little ... unpredictable.
I don't name it, as you see.
The institution for one thing
would probably be all up my you-know-where,
did they know I was describing them online like this.
For another this institution has a reputation to uphold:
within its niche of long-term residential treatment
it has made a name for itself. So, I withhold the name.

And it is no secret at all, however quietly told,
that some patients have come to this very institution
and have had experiences that were thoroughly unfortunate.
You just never really know how things will work out,
no matter how you plan.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 21 - 11:23 AM

I welcome confronting conflict or disagreements and think destiny is 20/40 hindsight but who says this is the way to go. I know overall it doesn't help but I do it anyway. Sounds like your way is a perfectly fine way to navigate this diverse world. Persona is more varied than skin color.
As for staying afloat I've mastered the dead man's float and save energy compared to treading water. ;^/ I know there is no cure for dyslexia and am fine with it.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Mar 21 - 11:55 AM

Well, k, years of therapy... Decades... helped me, so I have hopes for your future emotional-weight loss.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 12:40 PM

Requested, as an in-patient, and had scheduled for me at a local hospital,
my first colonoscopy.
Sound choice. Of course the bowel prep is miserable and all.
Much better to do it as an in-patient, with support,
before and after the procedure, from the clinic's nursing department.
The in-patient residence kitchen supported me during that day of fasting and cleansing
by heating clear chicken-soup broth for me.
All the comforts of home, really.
And they tell me -- at the hospital --
to come back for another procedure in ten years.
Thank goodness that's over.

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: Mrrzy
Date: 09 Apr 21 - 04:08 PM

Ooh no fun at all!

Subject: RE: BS: stay afloat while others don't
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Apr 21 - 06:31 PM

Nobody but me is gonna care about this, that's okay:
today, after months months months too many months,
the auto service and repair required
FINALLY got done, and done right.
Sure it was expensive. I paid in full.
It was the time more than the money that was an obstacle.
Being an inpatient at a clinic, and getting the car serviced ...
harder than I planned on.

But here in this part of the US, this week in April, for some reason, is a vacation week;
and all my clinicians took their vacation this week, so I said:
Fine. I'll take a few days off from the clinic, go back to where I rent an apartment,
and make an appointment for the service mechanics I have a history with,
to evaluate and repair/replace things on my car.
This included a manufacturer recall involving seat belts,
that is something one does not leave to chance.

So the work is done, the bill is paid, and in a few days
I can drive back to the clinic and get back into the schedule.
The weather, thankfully, has been cooperating nicely.

I just feel hugely relieved.