Another Day in Paradise

March 24, 2016

6:30am

I am an introvert with isolationist tendencies and darkness is a friend that gives me hugs whenever I need one the most. At home, I never open my curtains unless I have to and, if I had my way I’d open the door only when the pizza deliverer brought my latest attempt to quell my pain. I am also seldom awake at this time of the day unless I have been awake all night. So, the fact that it’s so bright in here at 6:30 in the morning with not a window to be found is unsettling, to say the least. Neither my body, nor my mind are, accustomed to this and I am struggling to make sense of my surroundings. The word that comes to mind is “antiseptic”, which I suppose is not a negative thing, especially as far as the staff is concerned I suppose. That said, being up so early has made me wish I could see the sunrise this morning. At the very least, it may give me a feeling of change, rebirth, of hope.

They took away all of my clothes when I was admitted to the hospital. A pair of light pants was courteously, and laughably, offered but their meager size rendered them useless to me. So, I am wearing two hospital gowns; one with the untied opening to the back and the other with the opening to the front, like an untied kimono. They are far too short and I seem to be constantly threatening to flash anyone who walks past, even when I am lying on my gurney with a blanket over me. It’s the closest I’ve gotten to wearing the kilt I’ve wanted to try on since I first saw a video of the highland games.

As uncomfortable as my outfit is making me, it’s the socks which are the most frustrating. I am not a sock person and footwear of some sort is mandatory here. I like my feet to be cold and these things are like little ovens for my toes, so much so that my piggies are beginning to resemble bbq pulled pork, I’m guessing. Sure, they aren’t cheap and even have a rubberized non-slip tread complete with happy faces but they are making me quite uncomfortable.

I’ve been up for three hours now and since no other patients are awake, the nurse on duty has allowed me to sit in one of the interview rooms to write this. I am very appreciative to her for the slight rule break. It’ gives me a small sense of normalcy, something I didn’t realize I was missing until right this second. Sitting in an uncomfortable, cheap office chair from 30 years ago is a comfort I never thought I’d appreciate but considering the pain I deal with every day, I suppose I should have gotten to this point before now.

I don’t think that most people understand the irritating and embarrassing feelings that psoriasis sufferers deal with on a daily basis, the flakes, the crusty skin itch and the constant pain of arthritis. From a secondary point of view, it’s hard to ignore the blatantly obvious flakes of skin but I have to wonder how many actually understand the embarrassment which accompanies them. Of course, those flakes come from plaques which often cover large percentages of our bodies turning our skin into, at the best times, an itchy hive-like scab and at the worst of times are akin to setting our skin aflame. What’s hidden from everyone is the arthritis which often comes with the disease, as it has with me, and has been a literal pain in my ass since my early twenties.

Psoriatic skin flakes get into and onto everything. It doesn’t matter how often you vacuum, how often you change the sheets or how often you clean your entire home, there will always be flakes you missed. As a child, the flakes that my mother would leave on the floor, especially in my parent’s bedroom fascinated me. I would look for the big ones, often the size of dimes, and study them. They were light yet thick. They were almost crispy, the way they would crack in half when I applied pressure to their outside edges. Some kids pick their scabs and are fascinated in this way. I had an almost unending supply to make me wonder about the way the skin worked, growing and healing. It wasn’t until my later teens that the flakes began to show up on me. Like dandruff, it was coming off my scalp and suddenly high school became a battle against my own body. How many 17 year olds do you know who carried around a lint roller in their backpacks? At choir competitions, I would lend it out before just before we performed ensuring that I was the last to use it because if I had used it first, by the time I got it back only a couple minutes later I would need to use it again.

I found myself near constantly brushing my shoulders, pulling at my shirts and letting them pop pack to my shape in hopes of forcing the flakes to release from the fabric. The battle of the snowy shoulders is one that you can never win, so at some point you just accept it and do the best you can. You begin to avoid dark and solid coloured shirts. You accept that others are going to see the flakes and immediately judge you with rather pity or disgust. When I turned 19 and began going to dance clubs, my friend pulled me aside one night and pointed out my shoulders. They were alight with little star-like sparkles, my psoriasis flakes glowing in the black light that was popular back then. I was horrified because even in the near complete darkness of cigarette smoke filled clubs, my shoulders were shouting “I’m a gross slob!” to anyone I would meet. Women get stared their chests stared at and to a degree I understood how they felt because my shoulders were getting stared at. The difference is that one attracts members of the opposite sex while the other repulses them.

As bad as my scalp psoriasis was, my cousin had it far worse that the same age. At twelve years old her head was covered in a layer half an inch thick over a four to six inch diameter area. Her early teen life was an exercise in finding equilibrium between the pressures of burgeoning womanhood and trying desperately to not have her entire school know her secret. She was however lucky in that it remained only on her scalp and was able to find medication which would control it enough to keep it at bay until her body grew out of it. I was not so lucky.

Eventually, parts of my body other than my scalp had breakouts, especially my back, stomach, groin and shins. I began having to tuck in my shirts or avoiding black pants as flakes began to appear on my hips if I was wearing my shirt loose. If I had been wearing my shirt tucked in to contain them, the minute I untucked it a blizzard would appear and it no longer mattered what I was wearing because there were so many flakes that I would leave a patch on the floor below me. What had once fascinated me as a kid exploring my parents’ bedroom had become an embarrassment so bad that I refrained from going to pools, waterslides or the beach. I was terrified of what strangers thought of me already due to my anxiety but now I was actively turning down invitations out with friends because I was worried what they would think of me.

My bedroom was becoming uncontrollably dusty. Entering it was like going in search of the home movies of your childhood, packed away years ago. On them were the images of a carefree childhood, now so distant that you can’t recall the emotions which made you smile at twenty four frames per second. Replacing them was a constant reminder that I was different, judged, and, as far as I was concerned, unlovable. While my friends were having relationships, I was the guy sitting in the corner longing to be them but certain that I could never be. Looking back now I can see that women were interested in me but I couldn’t conceive of that being real so even when women threw themselves at me, I didn’t even respond. The girl giving me a picture of her with her phone number on the back was just being nice. The roommate climbing into bed with me one night was just being playful, not wanting me to stroke her body. The girl in the bar standing two inches from me with her hand on my chest and dragging her fingers across my skin was being strange.

I had gotten used to the assumption that I was different than everyone else. It isn’t that this feeling was without merit for there were times when people would ridicule me for the strange patch of skin on my forearms or my shins. I also didn’t blame them for feeling this way. I can easily understand how a bad patch, or plaque, would look like a communicable disease. People with eczema or shingles are treated in a similar, despite general knowledge of these diseases in the public being far more prevalent. We tend to fear of what we don’t understand. This evolved response has protected us through the millennia but I have seen it used far too often in today’s society, to justify prejudice, bigotry and willful ignorance. The error I made was assuming that because one percent of people were judging me like that, so was everyone else.

One day at work about ten years ago, while waiting on a table a child of about eight years old pointed at the large plaque that had recently formed on my forearm and asked me what was wrong with it. His mother immediately scolded him for being so rude. Had I left the situation like that, the boy would have learned the lesson that his innocent curiosity was something to be curtailed, that trying to understand the world around him is not something to be embraced and encouraged. Neil DeGrasse Tyson says that “We spend the first year of a child's life teaching it to walk and talk and the rest of its life to shut up and sit down. There’s something wrong there.”

To the parent’s chagrin, I corrected them, getting down on my knees to be at his level so as to minimize the trepidation on the child’s part. I softly explained that I didn’t mind being asked and what the sore on my arm was, why he couldn’t catch it and asked if he had any other questions about it. I find it very important to speak to children about these types of things at their eye level while talking to them as you would an adult. You don’t have to use big words but there’s no point in dumbing it down either. It’s surprising how many “mature” things you can talk to them about without upsetting or overwhelming them. Unfortunately, the parents didn’t agree with me and lodged a complaint for contradicting them to their child. I hope that boy learned something from that interaction before his parents had the chance to drill it out of him.

One thing I hadn’t counted on when the plaques first started to appear was how uncomfortable they could be. At their best, they are best described as a slightly sensitive sunburn; mildly itchy and painful at the same time. At worst, they are like poison ivy rash covered in bee stings. And the things which can turn them from mild to hellish are varied and seldom predictable. What does not affect them for 364 days will send them into a firestorm on that last day of the year. Eating a tomato can do it. Being around a smoker. The wrong soap can set it off. A single stressful moment at work or a bad night’s sleep. It’s virtually impossible to nail down what single thing triggered the inflammation but it is not ambiguous when a flare-up occurs. I have had nights where I lay in bed desperate to not scratch, only to find myself unconsciously doing so to relieve the itch and then discovering that my sheets and legs are covered in blood in the morning. I once had a friend tell me that my scratching was making her uncomfortable because I the sounds I would make as I relieved the itch were like “someone is sucking on your dick”.

Trying over the counter creams were a laughable attempt at stopping the plaques from becoming so irritated often making things worse rather than being helpful. The few topical choices which would work were by prescription only, difficult for two reasons. Firstly, I could not afford the steroid sprays which worked the best, over a hundred dollars for a two week supply for only my forearms and scalp, and second because getting them would entail me paying for my medical insurance and actually going to a doctor. I hadn’t been to a doctor since I cut my hand after falling on and shattering a drinking glass when I was 13, requiring emergency surgery, seventy stitches and two nights stay in the hospital. Perhaps the only thing worse than my anxiety triggers of women was when I was forced to deal with doctors and dentists. It didn’t matter that they were professionals who had surely seen far worse. Opening my mouth wide or disrobing in any manner was to be avoided at all costs, lest the other person in the room voice their displeasure with my appearance.

As a result, the psoriasis plaques spread over more and more of my skin, eventually beginning to form on the backs of my hands, so long sleeve shirts no longer covered them. The spots on my shins expanded from the tops of my feet to my high on my thighs, wrapping around to the backs of my legs and knees, a particularly painful and itch place to have them. They also began to show up on my face, neck, eye lids and ears. The once small spot in my groin turned into a patch which ram from the top of my bum crack all the way down and up again, reaching 3 inches above my genitals. The one half centimetre patch on the tip of my penis was like the pièce de résistance. At one point in my early twenties, I had begun a sexual relationship with a girl I had known since I was 14. She’d had a crush on me since we were that age so I was able to accept that she would consider a physical relationship. Unfortunately, her claim of a latex allergy meant that our dalliances were done without protection, and the patch of psoriasis made sex incredibly painful at times. One night it was even so painful, as if there was an Exacto knife and a vat of battery acid in her vagina, that I had to fake orgasm so that I could end it.  

If I had been able to keep the flakes at bay and hide the plaques under clothing I would, at the very least, be far more comfortable going out in public but eventually the patches began appearing on the backs of my hands, my now quite bald head and even on my face. People had begun to stare at me, not like a man stares at a woman in yoga pants or a dog makes eyes at a piece of pizza from across the room. They were staring in wonder, fear and in some cases, revulsion. When I had finally convinced Chrissy to go out with me, after years of trying, it turned out to be a one date and gone situation. I found out through a mutual friend a couple years later that her friends had convinced her that I wasn’t ”pretty” enough for her, confirming what I had always feared. I was being judged by women, including the ones who were very attracted to me, the way I had always feared except that now it wasn’t my weight or my looks. My skin and immune system had conspired to keep me single and although it was something that that I had always felt I deserved, to that point I had still had hope that I could change it. That day I acquiesced. I was going to be alone. Forever.

Morning in the Loony Bin – Part two

March 23, 2016

8:30am

I don’t think there is much I wouldn’t do for a couple pieces of bacon or a thick slice of ham right now. Despite their knowledge of my allergies I have been served two boiled eggs and a biscuit of some sort. The nurses can’t tell me one way or another if there are eggs in it. At least the tea is hot. I’m hoping to scam a fellow patient of two out of their fruit cups so I can get more than a kiddie sized box of milk for my breakfast.

The TV is tuned to the news this morning, perhaps not the greatest choice considering the state of the world right now. The refugee situation in Europe has brought out the worst in some people resulting in three bombings in Brussels last night. At least 31 are dead and over a hundred are injured. I’m hoping they change the channel soon so that I don’t have to watch those numbers tick up, like a telethon’s tote board. They will rise. They always do. This is the earth after all and the human ability to hate and attack each other seems boundless.

The news is talking to people jumping to assign blame to the refugees themselves, not even considering the possibility that it was right wing radicals trying to make their point, and this brings to mind two thoughts.

The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by sixteen non-refugee men. In the fifteen subsequent years, how many attacks have been on American soil have been carried out by Muslim extremists? One, perhaps two (what I wouldn’t give for access to the internet right now so I could find out for sure) and neither of those were carried out by refugees. Instead, it was men and women living in the country by completely legal means.

I am trying to focus on something of consequence rather than the minutiae of life but my brain has other ideas. Did the Canucks win last night? #teamtank My blood pressure was way down this morning. 131/81 is almost normal and far less terrifying than the artery bursting 171/104 reading that I got last night while being admitted. It makes me wonder what meds they gave me last night. While my heart beats are better, I have heart burn. I really do need more than milk. Dry toast is even appealing at this point.

I know I had a second point to make about the bombings but it has left my mind. My brain is often like this and it’s why Dr Jahmeel tried me on Ritalin when I first got my depression diagnosis. Even as a small child, I remember my mind being four or five steps ahead of where I was. Every possibility opened before me like a branching tree, reaching skyward for the sun. Early in grade school, this meant that I was not only ahead of where the class was in whatever lesson we were doing, I was often ahead of the teacher. When we were doing addition, I could already see how subtraction worked. I was reading at t third or fourth grade level while the concept of “sun”, “fun”, and “bun” rhyming was just becoming apparent to the rest of the class.

This skill had its advantages but, while I didn’t know it at the time, it had far more disadvantages. I was so far ahead in my assignments that I was often extremely bored and would get myself in trouble while trying to occupy my mind. I often found something in my bag to surreptitiously damage my desk, just to see what was under the next layer of fake wood. I got good at it. In the third grade, I drilled a hole into the front edge of my desk that was deep enough to fit an entire crayon in it, lengthwise. My chairs were a monument to scratching with makeshift shivs and extreme boredom. It’s hard to convince an 8 year old to do the lessons being assigned when he’s read six chapters ahead in the textbook and could teach the class if necessary, so the habit of not bothering with homework was well established, following me into high school. It was never that I was lazy but rather I was quite bored with most of school and what few topics and subjects which interested me never challenged me in any way. I really don’t like this about myself and it is something I have fought against nearly constantly since my diagnoses.

It is why going back to school and getting my high school diploma meant so much to me. It was the first time in decades then I had set a goal and followed through on it. It’s also why writing down these thoughts are important to me right now. I don’t know if they’ll be useful in the future but, at least for now, they are something I’m working on which has no specific purpose and is also a means to try and slow my mind down. Right now, in this place it doesn’t seem to be working.

My bed is in a specified area, my very own five by five space, separated from the person on my right by a curtain and a wall to my left. Halfway up the wall are stains in the paint looking suspiciously like a splatter of some bodily fluid. There are five or six of these of these spaces in a row, making privacy flexible and important but a complete illusion at the same time. However intrinsic and flawed the uncomfortableness of this situation is to me, I am one of the lucky ones. Just outside this are three gurneys lined up along the wall with no privacy whatsoever. I wonder if I get a curtain because I am not likely to need emergent care or if it’s because I just happened to get here first. There are also patients to whom a bed is an unattainable luxury for they await a better situation sitting in a hospital style recliner chair. About a half a dozen people have been in those all night. For them, I’m sure a goodnight’s sleep must have been a fantasy, unless of course the nurses were able to knock them out with a cocktail of meds. The only one I’m sure slept well in those chairs is the young man with the mark on his face. He seems to have been comfortably asleep throughout the night, his hat pulled over his eyes as a shade from the pulsating fluorescent lights above that I doubt are ever turned off.

There is one thing about the curtain beside me that I have not mentioned. I have been reluctant to do so for it is a reminder of why I’m here, more than the bed situation, or the bracelet on my right wrist. I could have easily deluded myself, created a delusion as to why those things are present. The curtain is of a cheap artificial fabric of some source, although I doubt it’s nylon as it has a tendency to go up in flames like a flamethrower. It must be thirty or forty years old, perhaps even the surplus from Super 8 motels from across North America bathrooms. I am in a section of the hospital where clean, new and soothing is not a concern because those states are reached through the use of Thorazine, Xanax and Valium. I am not meant to be comfortable. I am meant to be alive.

The nurse has taken pity on my empty stomach and found me a fruit cup and grabbed me a tea from her private stash. I don’t have the heart to tell her that I wish it was decaf.  It makes me feel completely uncomfortable because I feel like I’m getting special treatment as it is so to but in a special request is completely out of the question.

The mental image of me being on a fat camp reality TV show has jumped into my brain. I feel like I’m getting ready to do my last-chance-workout, all the contestants sleeping in the same room but I won my bed and curtain space in this week’s reward challenge. The state of curtain betrays that thought.

As I turn and lean on my left shoulder to hide these thoughts, I am faced by the discoloured wall. Twisting to keep my legs on the bed I am face to face with the one foot square section of wall which is now clearly a stain from arterial spray. I am currently both glad and upset at having seen so many episodes of CSI over the years. I can falsely speculate on speed and directionality based on the size and shape of the droplets. I think I can discern a void in the stain, as if there used to be something in the way; a person perhaps.

This is the beginning of page twelve in my notebook, which means I’ve written more in the last 16 hours than I have in a very long time, perhaps ever. Doing it curled up on a hospital gurney is very uncomfortable and my back is beginning to get sore. I only hope that, if not today, it helps me at some point. Otherwise, I’m just spinning my wheels again, distracted by my seething mind, destined to end up in the same place I began.

Morning in the Loony Bin - part one

March 23, 2016

7:30am

Morning has come, far too early for my liking. While snoring is rampant here, my little corner is full of people very much awake and yet somehow making less noise than those sleeping. In the hall are two people sleeping on the thinly mattressed gurneys they put you on in here. Presumably, mobility can become unexpectedly important, even in the psych ward. I'm curious if there are leather straps stowed under these but I'm just too nervous about the truth to try and find out. The small size could explain why I am curled into a ball, hugging my chest, trying to keep my bulky front from spilling over the side of the gurney. It's more likely that my extreme mental discomfort has me craving the fetal position. It also explains why my back and hip are killing me, although not literally. A large, vocal part of me is sad about that literally thing.

Close to me is a new recruit to our little encampment. Sitting up, he is talking to himself, embodying the lostness I feel inside. He is mumbling in Punjab or Farsi, I can't tell the difference. His face is frozen in a mask of concentration, as if spending all his energy trying to comprehend what is happening to him. In this matter he is a kindred spirit and I feel a little less alone.

Two curtains over is a young girl talking in her sleep. Her words alternate between those expressing terror and bliss, like a scene from Fifty Shades of Grey, unable even in her sleep to escape whatever it is that put her in this place. Before I had realized she was asleep, I found myself wondering if she was masturbating but although I am quite sure that is not uncommon thing to happen here, I am now leaning to her being a scared little girl trapped in a no longer naive young woman's body. She's in pain, likely both physical and mental, her dreams desperate to understand anything that is going on, whether that be out here or in her mind. I doubt her perception of reality can tell the difference anymore. After all, they are both prisons.

I haven't eaten in over 14 hours, getting down only water and extremely unconcentrated orange juice. I don't find myself overly hungry but the bottle of Ensure I was offered a couple of hours ago is beginning to sound appealing, despite my distaste for them. I know a headache from not eating will be coming on soon, along with the stress and mindlessness which will accompany it. I am the person in the Snickers candy bar commercial who is "not himself" when he's hangry.

Mindlessness. In a world that seems to be pushing the concept of mindfulness on everyone, the idea of existing in an exact opposite manner sounds appealing right now. It is the premise behind self-medication, which I have done many times. The tears live just below the surface, held back now only by the paper I am writing on. They are a pressure bomb in my chest and I'm terrified of looking weak in here. I'm terrified of the meds the nurse will give me. I'm terrified of the others here seeing me as a target. I'm terrified of having to acknowledge that right now, this is where I belong.

~

The Ensure is like a mouthful of Buckley's Mixture cough syrup mixed with a pound of chalk dust. Buckley's was my mother's go to cough treatment and I half suspected that it's terrible flavour was her way of determining if we were truly sick and deserving of a day off from school. Over the years I had learned to tolerate it, even looking forward to the soothing feel of it running down my throat. I find it exceedingly doubtful that I should ever expect to get to the point of respect with Ensure like I am with Buckley's.

"What am I going to do now?" has popped into my mind and the tears I have been holding back are moistening the pillow beneath my head. I am reminded of the scene from Terminator 2, when right before leaving the group to kill the engineer Dyson, Sarah Connors carved the words "No future" into the top of the picnic table where she had been sleeping. I am that lost as to what will become of me. Do I have a future? What niche will I fill in the world if I even find an opportunity for another chance and a new direction? People have told me to be like Dory, the fish Ellen DeGeneres voiced in Finding Nemo. "Just keep swimming" they would tell me but keep swimming in what? If you drop a fish into a vat of Sulfuric acid should it just keep swimming or is it logical for it to panic? Where can it go? Even if it ends up in plain water, what would swimming accomplish? Is a life of simply being enough? Existence for the sake of existence? Without a destination, there is no journey to learn from unless you account for a final destination.

It's hardly a new idea or question. Is life's journey towards death a sufficient reason for continuing life? Is life for its own sake reason enough to keep moving from one moment to the next? While I don't have an answer for that question it is something worthy of further exploration.

As a bit of a hobby, I dabble in religious counter-apologetics; the examination and refutation of religious reasoning and justifications of believers' views. There is a concept within this sphere of study which deals with the sufficient and necessary. Specifically, is the concept of a god sufficient to account, not only for the universe we experience, but the entire universe we could ever experience? Can god completely explain the 5% of matter and energy we have an understanding of as well as the other 95% which we know is there but have virtually no understanding of, AND any materialistic or non-materialistic reality of which we may have no concept, imagination or ability to experience.

Further, it must also be shown that god is a necessity, that there is and could never be any other proposition which would account for existence. If anyone can propose a logically and rational concept which would account for our local presentation of the universe, then the idea of necessity is immediately falsified.

While I have opinions on these questions, I have neither the intelligence nor the education to take them on when dealing with the massiveness of our universe, let alone the possibility of the multiverse which has popped out of current attempts at super-unification. I can, however, apply these ideas to the question, "Do I have an obligation to live? “As I am an experimental materialist, I have no belief in a god, an afterlife or an immortal soul so the question of necessity can only apply to the universe I can experience and account for. To whom or what would a necessity of life be related to? When it comes to the nonliving world, it couldn't care less if I was alive. Further, when my eventual end comes, microbes and insects will likely be very glad to fulfill their destiny and consume my non-animated flesh. When considering the living world, I have no pets, no children, and no dependents of any kind. I hold no financial obligation to anyone. No one will end up on the street starving if I cease to be.

The emotional stability of those in my life, as far as I can see, is the only consideration which may satisfy necessity. I have few close friends, most of whom struggle with these same thoughts. Those who do not understand from experience have done well to understand by talking to me and have come to accept how hard my struggle has been. So, if my life were to end, by any means, it is safe to say that my friends would be able to move on with an understanding, and while it would in no way completely relieve the resulting emotions, they would be minimized with the knowledge that I had likely struggled as much as I possibly could. Their lives would move on without me.

Obviously my family adds another level of thought which must be considered. My brother and sister have attempted to help me in the best way they can. Both of them being in the medical field give them an uncommon perspective on how my thoughts work and I have been very lucky to have them around. My Nephew has struggled with depression as well, including stints on anti-depressants over the years. My nieces are teens and have been brought up in the social media age where open discussion of topics once taboo are now commonplace. LGBTQ rights are a comfortable topic for them. So is personal sexual responsibility. Mental health is also a topic of which they are well versed and although I'm sure they want the best for me, they understand that the best for me may be ending my life someday.

My mother is, perhaps, the only trump card which I have to deal with. We have lived together since my first collapse in late 2012 and it has become obvious that she is uncomfortable with my illnesses in every way. She wants to listen, to be the one I can talk to but it is awkward and distressing for her, so I try to keep it to a minimum such as when things directly affect her or our relationship. I suspect that the anxiety issues hit far too close to home and that she's been dealing with many of the same relationship problems and thoughts as I do throughout her life. It just hasn't been acceptable acknowledge them personally, let alone discus them with others, until very recently. I'm guessing that watching so many people discuss so many personal issues without shame is off-putting, to say the least. While it is the one final thing that saved my life, is it necessary to remain alive because of the emotional turmoil that my suicide would cause to my mother.

I know she would do almost anything to want my suffering to end but does that list include accepting my death. I simply don't know.

Night One

March 23, 2016

3:30am

Surrey Memorial Hospital

Emergency Room

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services

Despite only getting forty-five minutes of sleep the previous night, I sit here this morning wide awake on only four hours of sleep, forced upon me by a double dose of Ativan and Trazodone last night. As I laid here, awaiting for the meds to put me to sleep, a woman began shouting at the top of her lungs. Her screams of terror were having an effect on me unlike anything I had ever felt before. I have heard screams of a person in horrific pain, form a broken leg or torn knee ligament. I have heard the screams of a person dealing with the loss of a person close to them, unable to control the overwhelming emotions of fear and loss. This was beyond terror, beyond pain and beyond any level of rationality.

Shouting at the top of her lungs, she was expressing her unbridled horror and panic of a mother who believed they're young child was going to be harmed at the hands of another, and there was nothing she could do to protect them. I use the word believed on purpose, for in this place, a person's perception of reality is just as likely to be false as it is true and the health care staff must take every claim seriously but cautiously.

The woman's claims came fast, loud and furious.

"I know this is a prison!" Not an untrue statement but also an altered description of where we really are. While the appearance here surely evokes that thought, at a quick, closer look, it is obvious it is something different.

"I need to see my baby! You left him with a child beater! He's with an abuser! You have to save my son!"

Her cries were akin to that of a banshee, cutting through every other sound in the room like a katana blade, through the air and also, somehow through ourselves. Every logical bone in my body told me that I needed to remain to myself, in the corner bed I was lucky enough to receive. The other patients only had curtains or nothing at all, waiting in the hallways and chairs, to give them the separation I now needed. More isolated from the furor in the center of the room by the two walls half surrounding me, I still felt the need to curl into a ball as I lay on my bed, a hand over my ear, eyes closed and begging for the Ativan to finally kick in.

But, as upset as I was from the woman's pleading outburst, there was a deep down need to put aside all of my discomfort to try and help her. Watching a person in pain is something I had great difficulty in ignoring and soon I found myself opening my eyes to look through the curtain hanging near my feet. Her tears were not slowing, smeared makeup covering her entire face. Her breaths were so shallow and laboured, they reminded me of an overheated dog on a hot summer afternoon, panting to try and cool itself. I felt my brow furrow as my empathetic side began to take over, glad it wasn't me but also wanting, needing to absorb some of that uncontrolled emotion into myself. Like the character John Coffey from the movie The Green Mile, I wanted to take her pain and worry into myself, cleansing it from her to create her a new reality. I needed to help her, and knowing that this was completely illogical made no difference whatsoever.

This was the thought I had when my medication kicked in and I fell asleep, to the sound of her softly crying, responding finally to the injection they had given her to calm her down.

March 22, 2016 - Not an option

March 22, 2016

10 PM

Surrey Memorial Hospital

Emergency Room

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services

It is surreal here. Four security guards and two nurses just went through a door, into a room at the same time. It's an unassuming door, other than its size, at first glance. A sign on the door labels the room Anteroom 6-7. A closer look at the door reveals how unique it truly is. It's solid steel, with no door handle. It's long, thin window with mirrored safety glass shows just how "not normal" this normal door is. It is a prison door, not the ones you see in old movies but, instead, is the ones they use in supermax prisons, in solitary confinement. I have watched many documentaries about modern prisons and know there are only two reasons to have a door like that; to protect the person inside, from others or themselves, or to protect others from the person inside. I'm thinking it's a combination of both in this case.

I have just seen the psychiatrist on call and it did not go well. We talked about how low I have been feeling and how I ended up in this place. We also talked about where I would end up and the options are limited. I could wait for a room upstairs, which may take days or weeks. I could go to a place called CRESST for about two weeks, to give me a chance to sort some things out and start the journey of recovery a second time. He wanted me there but the spot that was open has already been filled.

There are two other options, be released into the general public once again, with no action being taken to ensure my safety. Although I am behind a large, locked door, it seems I am here on a voluntary basis and if I decide I want to leave, all I must do is fill out a couple forms and go. This thought disturbs me greatly. Being able to walk out the door any time I choose and facing things on my own is not something I would have chosen but it is infinitely better than my final option.

While waiting for a room upstairs, I would likely be transferred to Langley Memorial Hospital, the hospital closest to my home. While there, there would be a chance that I would fall under the care of Dr. Kogan, my former psychiatrist. This possibility terrified me, far more than I thought possible. Just the mention of it triggered an all-out panic attack, the likes of which I have not felt in many years. I'd had smaller, milder attacks but this was unexplainable to those that have never felt one personally. The closest I can get is to ask you to think of a scene from a horror movie, where a diminutive female is trapped in a corner by an overwhelming figure standing over her. Begging for her life, she loses all control, no longer to stop from shaking, from raising her voice, from being who she was moments before.

That was me, reduced to the eight year old boy who sat on the floor of the Museum of Anthropology, quivering and so afraid he couldn't explain what was wrong, not understanding what was happening to him.

"I can't go there. I can't do that. Do you see what you've done to me?"

"No, you did this to yourself," replied the psychiatrist.

I can't go to Langley. Ending up on the street is a better option than that but if I go out of here without a place to go, without having gotten some help, I will die; Either by my own hand or by simply not caring anymore. I have to get into CRESST because I simply don't see myself surviving without it.

March 22, 2016 - A locked door

March 22, 2016
7 PM

Surrey Memorial Hospital
Emergency Room
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
I have worked hard in the past four years to break these habits, these protective behaviors that have kept me in my own private dungeon. For a while I could see the outside world, the possibilities, a future that even I may have been able to find but right now, tonight, in this place I must face the fact that I have failed. I am once again in a dungeon but this one is far more literal than the one I once built from fear. 
There is a door beside me I am not allowed to go through.

Twenty feet away from me is a man strapped to a bed. The police were just in here with him taking a deposition, ensuring his safety or any number of other reasons. All I know is that he is not well.

Neither is the man sitting beside me. He seems off, something within him is making him act a little different: not quite right. He is not at ease.

Neither am I.

Across the room is another young man, a cut or sore on his face. In his hand is a Tim Horton's coffee, a traditional double-double no doubt. He is reclined in his chair, half covered by a blanket. His demeanor is that of nearly any twenty year old man lounging on a Sunday afternoon watching his favorite football team play. He is at ease and as much as I can his level of comfort rather than this anxiety I am feeling, there is an underlying thought.

I don't want to be that comfortable here.

I am in the mental health and substance abuse zone of the Surrey Memorial Hospital.Dr Khan, my psychiatrist sent me here after three minutes in my session with him. I broke down immediately after starting to talk to him and he saw I needed more help than a fifteen minute session could provide. The first thing I realized when I asked for help during my first breakdown was that if you are no longer thinking rationally, then you need to let someone else do the thinking for a while. You have to make the decision to hand off all your choices, all your responsibilities and trust the people around you. 

But it doesn't mean I have to like what they decide. I despise asking for help. It makes me feel weak. It makes me feel pathetic, deserving of the ridicule I hear from myself everyday. It makes me feel inhuman, reduced to a specimen in a lab experiment or a virtual creature in one of those Tamagotchies that the kids used to play with.

I feel like I'm in a ten year old's palm, as they feed, train and clean up after me, to see how long they can keep me alive, deserving of no more happiness of respect than the cursor blinking before me as I write this.

I can think of a thousand places I'd rather be, finding comfort. I can also think of another thousand places I'd rather be that would make me very uncomfortable. Think of the worst, grossest most disgusting they made contestants do on the TV show Fear Factor and I'd rather do that. OK, maybe not having to drink the donkey semen, but just a maybe.

March 22, 2016 - A beer or two

March 22, 2016

1 PM

Central City Brew Pub

I am sitting in the local brew-pub admiring the eyes of the waitress. The seats at the bar are very good for this. I don't mean ogling the waitress, far too young and completely out of my league, but instead I am participating in one of my favorite pastimes; people watching. Behind me, jovially humming to himself sits a man; obviously a regular but not so well known that the staff yells his name when he comes through the door. Fifty years old and quite overweight, he has, probably even to him, a full head of hair which minimizes the effects of the crow's feet that surrender the secret of his age to those paying attention.

The beer before me is quite citrusy, quite a smack to the palate from a pale ale. It reminds me of the vapours that fill the air when you cut into a fresh grapefruit, essential oils exploding from the fruit and settling up on everything like a soft, spring dawn mist.

I'm not supposed to be drinking. I'm not an alcoholic but I am medicated and those prescribed drugs do not retain their effectiveness when they encounter alcohol in their travels around my blood stream. I am trying to numb myself today, and this one beer will not do the trick. In matter of fact, I doubt any amount of beer will accomplish my goal but I have to try something because existing with a functioning brain that malfunctions is something I am unable to bear today. Another beer is on its way.

The chubby man behind me has stepped up the level of his musical game making his love for the classic Star Wars theme quite apparent. He has also added chatting to his repertoire, although his audience is a mystery as I am the nearest to him, and nothing coming out of his mouth is being directed in my vicinity. While it may be true that he has a secret earpiece in his right ear, currently facing away from me, I am guessing not.

On the TV is a baseball game. This in itself is hardly a remarkable occurrence. However, the history being made today will not be determined in any part by the numbers on the scoreboard in left field or even by the teams playing when the day is done. But, the political ramifications are lost on no one that is taking the time to watch and I suspect even a great many who are not watching. In the stands sits American President Barack Obama. Again, not normally a surprise but it is the location of this game and the person sitting beside him that make it a remarkable occurrence and even the most important sporting event in the last half century.

Raul Castro, brother of the once dictator of the island of Cuba Fidel Castro sits in the stands beside the American President as the Tampa Devil Rays take on the Cuban National team, in Cuba. This is the first time in nearly 90 years that an American President has visited Cuba and today we finally have some tangible evidence that the animosity of the Cold War is beginning to subside. Over fifty years of distrust is being pushed aside in an attempt to move forward from one of the most petulant intra-country relationships in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Once on the brink of nuclear war, these two countries have decided to open up a dialogue and, rather than focus on the hostility, errors, and tragedies of the past, they are beginning anew. Like the second game of a double header, the past will only effect the present if they chose to allow it.

If only we could do that with our own pasts. Another beer has arrived.

The martinis being served to the chubby man have not lived up to his standards. Not that I can blame him. A gin martini with a lemon twist should not be served on the rocks with a lemon wedge dropped into it. Rather than get angry, the man drank what was served and upon ordering the next round, specified instructions were sent to the bartender through the waitress. After all, a bartender working the day shift in a brew pub would have very little training and had never been taught to prepare such a refined drink. With a little patience on one end and an openness to education on the other, martinis will have a proper twist in them when ordered and everyone is just a little better off.

It's a nice idea. It's the idea we try to tell our children is important. It's the idea we tell our teens when they are being bullied. It's the idea behind every union negotiated contract in the last 100 years. It's the idea that our politicians should be striving to achieve. In each of these situations the price of the alternatives is just too high.

Teaching our children to talk through their problems prevents them from using violence as they mature as and complex problems arise. Teaching this to our teens prepares them for their upcoming lives in the business world, where conflict resolution has become a more important job skill with every passing day.

Frustration. Fear. Anger. Hopelessness. Despair.

I don't write about these things because I know how to solve them. I write about them because I wish I did, especially within myself.

I've spent my life trying to figure these emotions out and why they seem to affect me more than others around me. I've needed this not only for my own sanity (yes, I see the irony of using that word today) but also in hopes that someone, anyone will understand a fraction of the way my mind works. This feeling, whether it turns out to be true or false, has been the driving influence of my need to build the facade of lies. The wall that both protected me and provided me with the attention and approval I have craved but seldom found in my life.

I once had a friend tell me that everyone around me both liked and didn't like me: that the two people I existed as was far more known than I had ever realized. I thought I had done a good job of hiding it, but they knew. He said that the person I presented myself to be was the person everyone liked; the nice, giving funny person I always wished I could be. He also told me that the person beneath was detested by people. This was the terrified, emotional aggressive person I was trying to hide. He didn't know what was going on with me and how my internal conflict was tearing me apart but what he had done was confirmed what I had always feared.

People didn't like who I was. People liked who I pretended to be.

This was the person that knew me best in the world, even better than my mother knew me in most ways, telling me I wasn't worth knowing because he told me these things the last time we ever communicated. I had tried to be honest with him, to tell him of the turmoil in my mind. It was me begging for help, and he turned his back on me, never speaking to me again. In three and a half years, the pain he caused me has never subsided.

Now I have to go to my psychiatrist appointment and try to explain all of this. How am I going to do that when I can't even explain it to myself?