“I’ve been trying hard not to get into trouble…but I’ve got a war in my mind.”
~Lana del Rey

I always think of this quote when I think of my time on steroids. Dark….self destructive…delusional. I found it hard to listen to my loved ones rather the voices in my head. I own a few more physical scars than I did when I was admitted. I angered easily with the staff, and when I did I screamed and swore. Half of me wanted to raise hell, the other half fought for sanity and safety and freedom from a locked ward.

But sometimes that side lost.

One morning I woke to be told that a surgical procedure arranged to ease the significant pain I was canned, after I had taken all the relevant preparations. I broke.

I had existed through the night practically counting the hours between oxycodene and the minutes until the procedure. I couldn’t live with the pain anymore. I ran for the exit. I was still on 1:1 supervision so my nurse ran after me and asked where I was going. I told her I was leaving. She told me she would call security.

“I don’t give a fuck!” I screamed back at her before running up the stairs. And that was that. Alarms went off, staff gathered. I half walked, half ran through the hospital, my nurse beside me still trying to reason with me. I looked behind me and was surprised to see six other staff following.

A part of me dissociated, and I saw myself from above. Haring through the hall, bare feet and pajamas, screaming, my speech peppered with profanity. This isn’t me!

Soon enough we met with security. Five of them for little old me with a limp and a catheter strapped to my leg. Instinctively I tried to dodge the guards, and instinctively they blocked me. They treated me like a wild, potentially dangerous animal. They raised their hands like traffic cops and asked me to sit down…they just wanted to talk.

It was about now I realized I had lost. I had 5 guards and 7 staff members who were going to take me back to hell. But even then I couldn’t let it go. In the middle of a circle of authority I yelled. I told them how crappy their hospital was. I ranted about my pain, I showed them my catheter, screaming that I couldn’t even pee by myself. “You have done this!” I shouted, gesturing to my self. Then, defeated I collapsed on the floor sobbing.

Two security guards lifted my limp body into a wheelchair, and wheeled me back to the ward.

It was only there that I realized what I had done.

Fuck.