- Depression, Migraine, Traumatic Brain Injury, Uncategorized

Incompetence Continues, and Paranoia Sets In

Paranoia Anxiety Depression
Paranoia Anxiety Depression

Group Therapy

After my wife left, I attended 3 required group therapy sessions.  I don’t consider them group therapy, but as disseminating information to a group of people.  The sessions were, conflict avoidance, how to tell if you’re making good decisions, and one so memorable I can’t remember what it was about.  I just know it didn’t have anything to do with my problems.  My idea of a group therapy session is you sit down with a group of patients.  You talk about their problems, and lead the group in how to solve these problems.  You refer back to previous sessions to see if the solutions worked, and discover reasons why they did or did not work.

In these sessions, the moderator gave out information, and asked some questions.  Apparently, up at the Nurse’s Station there is a notebook that has worksheets in it.  If you did the worksheet on the session that you were attending, you would know the answers.  The existence of these worksheets was news to me, and it seems like it was news to a lot of the patients in these sessions.  You would think that, at least, this would have broken up the monotony of my day, but my headache had turned into a Migraine, and I was in no mood/condition to attend or participate.

Incompetence Continues

Around 4:30 PM I went up to the Nurse’s Station.  Nurse Ratched had left for the day, and the night nurse was there.  I told her that an order had been put in for something for my headache, and asked her if it had come in.  She checked, and told me that no orders were in the system.  I told her that my headache was now a migraine; I needed to go to the emergency room so they could give me something for it.  She told me no, they could only do that with a doctor’s orders.  She said she would call the Physician On Duty (POD) and see what was going on, to check back with her in 15 minutes.

I went back 15 minutes later.  The night nurse told me she couldn’t get hold of the POD, but she sent him a text, and for me to check back later.  A short while later my wife arrived for her visit.  I couldn’t wait to get into the visitor’s room so I could get my Excedrin.  We get in there, the nurse leaves, and I ask my wife for the pills.  She told me she left them in the locker.  She was afraid we would get caught, and she wouldn’t be able to visit any more.  It was at this point that I really started to get agitated.  I understood why my wife didn’t bring them in, but I was in great pain and I just wanted some relief.

After my wife’s visit, she and I walked up to the Nurse’s Station.  My wife told the nurse she had my pills in the locker, and asked if she could get them, give them to the Nurse to verify they were indeed Extra Strength Excedrin, and the Nurse could give them to me.  The nurse said no.  My wife then offered to drive to the nearest store, buy Extra Strength Excedrin, return to the psychiatric ward, and give the nurse the unopened package.  The nurse said she couldn’t do that.

I Devise a Main Plan, and a Backup Plan to Escape

Now, I am highly agitated.  I decided that I was going to check myself out the next morning and no one was going to stop me.  I am locked in.  They have complete control of me.  I know if I make any threats of any kind they would determine that I was a threat to myself or others, and commit me.  There was no way I was going to let that happen.  I started to devise a plan to escape if that happened.

Whenever my wife would leave, she would go to the exit door and wait.  The nurse at the Nurse’s Station would press the buzzer to open the door.  I thought, if I stood far enough back, the nurse wouldn’t be suspicious, and when my wife opened the door I would make a run for it.  The elevator is right in there, and I would press the button and, hopefully, the elevator would get there before anyone could try and stop me.  If people did get there first, I would fight with every ounce of my being to keep them away until the elevator did get there.  If it did get to that point, they would have to subdue me with brute force (I don’t think they had enough brute force on the ward, and it would take a while for security to get there).

My backup plan was to use one of the wire frame chairs to smash the glass at the exit.  I don’t know if the glass is shatterproof or not, but even if it was, if you hit it enough you can knock it out.  I would use the chair to keep at bay anyone that was trying to stop me.  Not quite as elegant as my primary plan, but in my agitated state it was the best I could do.

Another Night, No Relief

About 7:30 PM I find the night nurse and ask her if she has heard back from the POD.  She had not, but she made a call.  She told me the POD was very busy, but he would put in an order for something for my migraine.  I know I won’t get any relief tonight.  I go sit in the dayroom and anxiously await 9 PM so I can go to bed and try to get some sleep.


I would love to hear your thoughts.