Today I thought that I would share one of my more coherent diary entries from when I was in hospital. This was written on the 10th of April, 2012.

3:30am and I’m wondering, yet again, if I can do this.

You don’t know what it’s like to be a psychiatric patient until it happens. Here everything has the facade of being a friendly family oriented institution. But if you look past the queen size beds, comfy couches and children’s play equipment, it is still a psychiatric institution where they have control, and you do not.

You have ask to shave your legs here, so eventually you stop bothering. You have to ask to dry your hair here, so eventually you stop caring. Every time you go out you have to complete a ‘risk assessment’ form, where the person accompanying you is referred to as your carer and has to take full responsibility for your actions (because you are not deemed responsible enough to take care of your own actions). Your room has a low water temperature, a peephole on the bathroom door, and a window on the door. And don’t forget the locks.

In two days I will have been here for four long weeks. Four weeks of waking up alone, without Hubster there. Four weeks of crying every single day. Four weeks of strong medications…yet not being able to sleep. Four weeks of being cocooned from the outside world.

I felt ‘stoned’ yesterday. That’s the only way I could describe it. My pupils are huge. Everything is overwhelming. The colours. The brightness. Sometimes I look around and feel I will physically collapse because there is just SO much. Doctor said it’s a medication hangover. Bloody Zopiclone. I refused it tonight….which is why I’m awake. It’s a no win situation. I don’t sleep, I get worse. I get worse, I don’t sleep. I take sleeping pills, I don’t sleep. I take Zopiclone, I sleep but feel awful the next day.

Diazapam, Lorazepam, Olanzapine, Quetiapine, Phernagen, Lexapro, Desvenlafaxine….this is my language now.

Hubster keeps telling me to take my time. That he would rather I stay another week than come home prematurely and be re-admitted a month down the track for another three weeks. I know how hard it must be for him. He goes from home to work to the hospital then home every single day. Some days he doesn’t even have dinner. But he never ever complains.

The thing is, I have been trying hard, I really have. I WANT to get better. I’ve done the meditation, the CBT, the medication. Yet something is just…..not right.

God, I’m so sorry.