I was trapped for 10 days.
The following story is true. About 6 mnths ago I was in the hospital for 10 days. A mental institution. That sounds official. Too real. If you have ever in been in one. I’m sorry. For some ppl it may help. but how I got there and what happened when I was there..scared the hell out of me. Let’s start at the beginning...
I worked at walgreens.Third shift. I would work a week then have a week off and tried to keep my photography business going. i was failing..my health started getting worse. I would sleep for 2 hours at a time. MAYBE. and most the time I would lay down, close my eyes and that would be it. i would slide into a dream state. but not sleep. I wasn’t getting any REM sleep. i was dropping weight like crazy. bruising easily, hair falling out. I was getting worse everyday. This all happened over a month. I began to become very paranoid. everything was a way to get a me. I was irritable and not myself. I thought demons were in my house. I even hallucinated things. and this is where it got scary.
If I couldn’t sleep before it was getting worse now...I was dreaming while awake. not sleeping at all. Sleep Deprivation. I had no control. I cried over everything.I began to get very quiet. I stayed in my head. Feeling I could talk to ppl inside my head. I started going to my moms house and just sleeping not remembering how i ended up there. I didn’t know what was real and what was fake. One night at work started my episode. Still not getting any sleep. I imagined myself figuring out a mystery. It’s blurry to me now, but it was some sort of conspiracy my mind made up.I began to sort out patterns and try to put things together that weren’t true. I thought I had to show my boss what was going on. but even further I was going to call the police. i sat in my car trying to figure out what to do. I began crying hysterically and called my mom. after a long conversation with her taking past my lunch break, I decided to leave to go over everything I found. I had papers and papers of numbers and lines. mostly on the back of receipts. after waking my parents up at 3am. arguing that something bad was happening to walgreens. they finally talked me down and i decided to go home and sleep. but I still couldn’t
I got home and don’t remember anything but trying to sleep. still tossing and turning. still having all these other hallucinations dark hallways and tiny spaces I felt so afraid. But at the same time. I thought I was dreaming. and that is what is hardest to explain. it seemed as though I knew what was going on. but i didn’t I had lost control and I didn’t even know it...that night is vivid bc the only time i felt safe was when david played and sang to me. I cried hard tears that night but I remember being happy bc i thought we were leaving to go somewhere. we went to bed. me staying awake beside david just wishing i was sleeping as hard as him. I was talking to david while he slept and assumed he was listening. but I was dreaming again. 3 am came david woke up for something and I woke up in a panic wanting to leave for my moms. i frantically got dressed still thinking while I’m dressing I’m communicating with david in my head. I was dreaming that he knew what was going on. I just knew I could leave and he would show up at my moms later. i grabbed my guitar and just left...I didn’t realize thats what I did. i woke up in my moms bed around 6am. confused. I thought I had a doctors appt for some reason. so i asked. my mom took my to the doctor. I was so far gone by this point I had not slept in a week but maybe 3 hours. this part is what I barely remember but after countless hours I’ve been able to remember it.
I remember bright lights in my eyes. and my doctor saying take me to the emergency room. I was trying to ask for help in my own way. but it came off as crazy. I was too far gone by that point. my mom took me and as I signed my doctors last name instead of mine i became confused. the next thing was another light. a nurse was examining me. a little background story. I had got in an accident 5 years before that where I ran myself into a tree...that was a hard thing and I recovered gracefully. realizing how selfish i was. the nurse asked me something. i remember saying something told me and after that...its a blurr. I had said the one thing that paved the way. Instead of the nurse or doctor realizing i needed sleep. they immediately feel I’m crazy. they were sending me to palmetto behavioral health. this part I DIDN’T know. i saw a police officer outside my door. I can remember eating arby’s ha. but i still was dreaming, wasn’t I? I hugged my mom crying. then I was in a cop car riding over a long bridge singing old hymns. I showed up in a room talking to a doctor I said i knew what was real and what was not and God told me. I was so far gone I thought everything I was saying was in a dream. I had no idea it was making it worse. bc when you saying anything about “voices” to a doctor they don’t care to listen just feel you’re a danger. in my case I did not know what I was saying. only that I was dreaming. I can’t press that enough I THOUGHT I WAS DREAMING. sleep deprivation had taken over. but to everyone else I was quite awake and just acting crazy. but the truth was is that i was trapped. dreaming. over the next few days. I started to realize i wasn’t in a familiar place.I woke up to a red flashing light and david not there.i didn’t understand. what i had done. bc i thought i was dreaming. They knew I was not sleeping. they gave me medicine to help me sleep but i still wouldn’t i had to find david. but he was not there. my parents weren’t noone i knew. just ppl who looked at me questioning why i was there.
In my past i was on a lot of medicine i didn’t like it made me not myself so i stopped taking it and took control...decided i would never take it again. then i was told in that hospital that if i didn’t take it..i wouldn’t be able to leave. so I took it. risperdal. and i have to say that was an even worse decision. but thats further in the story.i finally slept. for two days. woke up with blue nails( meaning i was look=sing oxygen to my brain) and freezing So i spend ten days there. my family and david came to visit. it was so hard. i didn’t know why i was there. bc to me I was dreaming I didn’t remember everything. this place was a prison anything i did was watched and recorded. If only someone could explain what had happened. by the second time they visited I was much more myself. crying begging to come home. they wouldn’t let me.I finally remembered what happened towards my last few days there. I remember crying in my room hysterically. feeling like a failure. no one could understand.how would i explain i thought i was dreaming. it just sounded crazy.It was the county that put me in the hospital. not my mom or anyone else. they took it upon themselves. i had no say nor did my mom. I had to go to court there. they finally did say that everything that happened was sleep deprivation. they saw i didn’t need to be there. i was literally helping other ppl overcome fears and singing and being my self in there. thats all i could do. there were ppl in there that had this happen to them but it was a real all the time thing. it shocked me. I felt lucky and blessed. but mostly broken. it puts so much into perspective. i finally got to go home. it was the happiest day of my life. i was nervous bc i knew i had to explain it somehow to david. he wouldn’t understand why i left and how it was not bc i wanted to. i was dreaming. or so i thought. ppl i can’t tell you how important sleep is. i can cause so many problems. and maybe not what happened to me. but it can. My recovery has been difficult. its taken me 7 mnths to be able to talk about this and remember it all. I have PTSD from this experience. with time everything will get better but the memories are hard to fight. hopefully this makes sense. bc its all true. i haven’t posted on here in a long time. but i wanted someone to hear me. just someone i don’t care who.
