#psych wards

[lottiestudying]

08.08.2024—moments of clarity & peace in a chaotic day. back in psychiatric care

[tethered-heartstrings]

and now they're married <3

[schizomutual]

"i am so sorry. the client describes a paganism, involving guilttt and i serve a continuous traumatic trigger…"

blackout poetry made out of excerpts from my medical papers from the hospital

[spookcataloger]

Anons' seen the simulation screen (2018)

Anon went in too deep (2020)

[pjbifun]

Much of my years have been enmeshed with addiction, mental health crises, hospitalizations galore, treatment centers, and now, a psychiatric nursing home. To boot, I was legit kidnapped, held hostage for ransom, and lost all my many worldly possessions. This includes my vast library of books and vinyl. This includes torture and r@pe. Now, I'm on the other side of that and reclaiming bits of my life. In a real sense, downloading some of what I lost from Anna's Archive using Proton is a worldly salvation, a reconnection with meaning. Frankl knew of this better than I ever could in "Man's Search for Meaning." And for what it's worth, the little connections here on Tumblr mean so much to me.

[glitterizer]

Chelsea Bagnall has lived with excruciating pain for almost as long as she can remember. As a child, she was sick on and off with urinary infections, bouts of vomiting and bowel issues. When she was 15 years old, Chelsea's health took a sudden and scary nose dive. The bouts of vomiting became a daily occurrence and she began experiencing fainting spells. Chelsea's weight plummeted.

Instead of receiving answers, Chelsea was misdiagnosed with an eating disorder and placed in an inpatient program where she was force-fed for a year. Now, after years of suffering, Chelsea, 19, finally has the correct diagnosis: Median Arcuate Ligament Syndrome (MALS) and Superior Mesenteric Artery Syndrome (SMAS), two rare conditions that compress major arteries and make eating unbearably painful.

In 2021, doctors were so concerned about her weight that Chelsea was admitted to a NSW hospital. There, she was immediately fitted with a nasal feeding tube in an attempt to stabilise her weight.

"I was in there for a couple of days before a psychiatrist came to talk to me, but I realised quite quickly that I wasn't in a normal hospital room," Chelsea said. "I was put in a room with three other girls who all had tubes in their faces as well. I didn't quite understand at the time that I was already being stereotyped into something that I wasn't even aware of."

When she was seen by a psychologist, Chelsea said she was asked leading questions about her eating habits. "She was asking me questions, like, 'What do you think of your body image? Have you ever made yourself vomit? Do you starve yourself?'" Chelsea said. "Obviously, I answered with, 'No, I've never starved myself, I've never made myself vomit. I've never wanted to be thin'. I quite clearly said to her, 'I want to put on weight. I want to be healthy'."

Despite Chelsea's insistence that she did not have an eating disorder, doctors diagnosed her with avoidant, restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) and placed her in an eating disorder program, where she would spend months at a time.

Her mother, Emma Bagnall, told 9news.com.au she felt also pressured to believe in the diagnosis. "They pulled me aside and had separate conversations with me. They told me, 'She's going to do anything she can to get out of this. She's going make excuses. She's gonna fight to not be here'," Emma said. "There were tears, and she was begging me to take her home, and I'd have to calm her down."

As part of the program, Chelsea was weighed every morning and put in a room to eat her food in front of hospital staff with a timer. "If we didn't finish in time the food was thrown out," Chelsea said. "I was in there, and I realised these girls didn't have the same issues with eating as me, they weren't in excruciating pain. They were reluctant, and refusing at first, but eventually they gave in, because they realised they don't have a choice. I was trying to eat, but I couldn't keep up. Before I knew it, the alarm would go off and my food was snatched away from me."

When she did not finish her food in time, Chelsea said she was given a liquid supplement to drink, which she would often immediately vomit up. While other patients in the eating disorder program would recover and go home, Chelsea would be in the hospital for long periods of time, attending school there.

Emma said the treatment her daughter received was "inhumane" but just as worrying was the lack of other tests done to get to the bottom of her illness. "They should have had her seen by a rheumatologist, endocrinologist, and gastroenterologist. They didn't," Emma said. "No doctors did any tests, no one consulted her about anything else. There was no further investigation."

Things did not change for Chelsea until the family moved to Canberra, where confused doctors confirmed she showed no sign of having an eating disorder and began running gastrointestinal tests. Further testing has shown three areas needing surgery and Chelsea is set to finally get the help she needs with an operation in May.

Chelsea said she hoped surgery would give her a chance to live a normal life, but the experience of being left to suffer in pain for years by the medical profession had left her scarred.

To those struggling with undiagnosed health problems, Chelsea has a message: "You know your body. You know if something's wrong. Don't stop advocating for yourself, no matter how hard it gets, no matter how much you're dismissed, no matter how much you're gaslit into believing that you're fine. If you know there is something wrong, fight for it, because you won't get anywhere unless you do."

[one-mad-wolf]

worst thing about psych wards (ok not the worse),

but have you ever thought about all the little addictions everyone in society has, that no one really does much about because they're so commonplace and kind of considered no one else's business?

like sure there's a lot of psa's about cigarette smoking, and yet we all probably know a cig smoker and we just don't really say anything beyond "just don't smoke indoors?"

but then there's the innocuous ones.

like caffeine. phones. computer use.

well they take most of those away in a psych ward. give you replacements, like nicotine gum or inhalers for smokers, and usually the first coffee of the day they give you has real caffeine, but then it's decaf from there on out. some hospitals let you have your tech, but the use is highly lessened and often watched.

everyone on unit is already there for some type of instability. and then suddenly they're quitting cold turkey from any number of things and expected to be content, good patients?

dude my caffeine addiction isn't satiated by whatever little caffeine i'm getting in the morning. my first week here i'm getting withdrawal headaches.

not to mention the pack a day smokers who, ya, this is probably way healthier for them, but instead of thinking about it from a moral high ground, think about it from a human one. it fucking sucks. I don't know why they started smoking that much. but cigs are super hard to quit. and now they can't even go outside at all, are in close quarters with folks in various states of wellness, they're in withdrawal, irritable, and trying to play nice. some don't get approved for the patch or gum or inhaler right away. so they're going to nothing.

and then consider how much time you spend of your phone, and then getting it taken away on units they aren't allowed?

i don't know where i'm going with this. but. psych wards are already inhumane in so many ways. but I think people don't think about the more minor addictions everyone is on withdrawal from in places like this. not to mention the general lack of stimulation.