Acting Out

I have been the loudest person on the psych unit, wailing my heart out at times of tremendous pain that had been so built up over my life; breaking shit and cutting in front of people so impulsively; getting restrained; and arguing with people, instigating and once pouring a bottle of Ensure over a girl's head . Basically taking up the most time and attention.
Did I know I was doing that?
Hell no. I had no awareness of what I was doing or thought at all of the existence of other patients. I was going through something major, life-altering that until then had never been talked about. 

I was in a place in my life where I believed in the depths of my heart that I can't trust anyone because everybody leaves. In addition to that, I my Self was not a solid being. I existed only in the eyes and the physical being with another. This created a dilemma. Trusting people who can't be trusted in order for me to exist. I would spend every day making people promise they weren't leaving even if just for the day to return first thing in the morning when I woke up. This went as far as asking if a person who just went into the next room was still real. I recall one nurse who would tuck me into bed at night with her childhood stuffed animal to calm me down.

I was this 20 something screaming and begging and in desperate need of containment at all times. I was like a psych ward infant people had to take turns holding.

At the unit I am in today I am not loud. There are many disorganized and aggressive patients here needing constant redirection from staff. It takes up all of the staff's time. But when I finally asked for help like they're always telling me to do I asked for some more support and the nurse answered Sorry, we don't have time." That felt like a smack in the face for someone who hates bothering people, who then cut her wrist, and was being told, it felt, that my feelings don't matter. If I acted out louder no one would have turned me away. There should have been one person available to help those who weren't in crisis, patients who, though silently suffering, were suffering just as much. 

There is the urge to go back to my old ways and really frrak out the unit. It's tempting to not have to use words or explanations or fill out chain analysis papers. There are days I regress, especially in therapy, for sure. But I'm here because I was desperate and I just need to find a way to get what I can and when I am steady enough on my feet, to get the hell out.





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

object permanence or lack thereof

All of my life I have struggled with something as basic as object permenance that toddlers learn; that people and things continue to exist when out of sight. When I was in long term care it was at the point where I would be in the same room with someone and have to ask, crying, if they were still there. If my doctor, when behind the desk and out of sight, still existed. My nurse would tuck me in at night and leave, returning the morning, and it was as if I would never see her again. And when I was alone it felt as though I had stopped existing because there was no one there to reflect me back. This was crippling to me. I never learned to internalize the presence of others. I lived in fear, I could not be alone without feeling as if I and everyone I loved stopped being when I couldn't see them. This is absolute agony. My first experience of being mirrored back happened with my therapist Jason. He would look at me and I could see myself in his eyes. It was terrifying at first, almost...
Read more

on drama

Image
Growing up I was the least dramatic. Silent, not speaking. Not expressing pain in medical procedures, learning to deny all physical pain altogether to others and then to myself. Denying wants and needs. Not expressing emotions, thoughts, feelings to anyone and then diminishing them to myself, discounting, telling them to shut up, that they weren't important, werent even real. Learning never to complain or bother or exist.  Cutting when I was in the unbearable emotional pain I told myself I had no reason to feel, a cut being a reason something was wrong, something to point to. Bandage and fix. Proof of something. No one could know. Then people knew and I got horrible reactions from medical professionals but no reaction from my family. I was bad for doing it and crazy and deeply ashamed of hurting myself. I was fucked up. Then I was screaming with it, more and more extreme and outrageous and reckless attacks on myself but then witnesses to hurt and scare to share my horror my death ...
Read more

the invisible girl

I have been in a lot of treatment and met many people who got the help and attention, intervention, early on. I am not one of those people, though I needed that help desperately. My mother describes me as a very young child to be outgoing and bubbly, scaring away other children in the playground with my overwhelming friendliness. I was afraid of nothing. But by the age of 5 there was a split in who I was. That happy child morphed into a sad, depressed little girl. I shut down completely, lost my voice and rarely spoke. My kindergarten teacher commented to my mother that she was concerned I never smiled. My third grade teacher also expressed concern. My mother's response? "That's just how Caitlin is." I would cry at night and not have the words for what was wrong and she just would get frustrated. I was wordless. The Unsayable had me destroyed. But that's not who I was originally. My trauma changed who I was. It altered the person I was supposed to be, suicidal tho...
Read more