i'm on the pursuit of happiness.

i've got a whole lot to say! since the writing of my previous entry, i have been locked away inside a psych ward. i was admitted sunday night, and stayed til wednesday afternoon. i have so much to say, but right now i'm about to see max, so i'll finish this up later today. just had to start so i'll remember to write about it.

actually i have a few minutes, so i'll start. max and i got into an argument over a friend of mine on sunday, and he pretty much broke up with me, saying he can't trust me and all that bull. i was already tight because he promised to take me to the hospital to get some psychological help (i had a breakdown the previous night), and then he didn't take me. but he had the audacity to get angry with me for getting angry with him. so when we got into this fight, i pretty much lost whatever i had left of my mind and cut myself. very very very badly. as much as anyone wants to believe i did it because of max, that isn't true. i did it as a cry for help. i know for a fact if i hadn't harmed myself seriously enough, i wouldn't have gotten any help. my parents just don't believe in depression, they don't think i have a problem, they think i can be happy if i really want to. well, clearly i don't want to be this way. i don't want to have ridiculous insomnia, not sleeping for days at a time. i don't want to be so empty and depressed every hour of every day. i don't want to have anxiety that literally makes me cry and shake. so. i cut myself. i was taken to lutheran in an ambulance, all the while hearing "you're such a beautiful young girl, why would you do this to yourself? you have everything to live for." well obviously i don't think that way of myself.

at the hospital, they stitched and cleaned me up, and then i was told to wait for the psychiatrist to evaluate me before i can go back home. that turned out to be a nightmare. max and i were fighting while i was waiting, and that made me literally go insane when it was time to see the psychiatrist. so i was given a choice: voluntarily admit myself to the psychiatric ward in the hospital, or i would be involuntarily admitted. that made me go even crazier. i ended up signing the form, though, because i was told i can discharge myself whenever i want to. what a load of bull that turned out to be. i couldn't sleep, couldn't eat the whole time i was there. my roommate scared me; she talked to herself, screamed shrilly at nighttime, urinated all over the floor, had a serious bout with bulimia, and stuffed oranges into the toilet. there were a few "normal" patients in there, and we kind of gravitated towards eachother. if i didn't find anyone even semi-normal, i probably would have lost my mind completely. i always believed i was actually a bit crazy, with the way i thought about everything, but being in that ward, i got to see what crazy really is. girls who eat pencils (but prefer the eraser because 'its like strawberries'), who jump out of windows because ghosts pulled them out, who attempted to jump off the non-existent world trade center, who believe jesus brought them to the psych ward by the hand, etc etc. me? i just have depression. it was so scary, i'll never be able to explain it. it's one of those things you have to experience for yourself to truly understand what it's like.

i kept begging to be released, claiming i'll lose my mind if i'm around these crazy people, that you can't put someone normal into a hospital full of crazies because they too will turn crazy. i tried to explain to everybody i could that i didn't want to kill myself, that if i really truly wanted to, i would, and i wouldn't tell anybody about it either. i'd just fucking do it. the way i cut myself? you can't die that way, unless you sit there for hours, letting the blood seep out of you. but nobody listened to me. that hospital makes no sense, either. they kept giving me pills every hour to help me sleep, and i didn't sleep, but almost OD'd on sleeping pills. what kind of help is that?! i begged my parents to do something, i even showed them how "my rights" clearly stated "upon being voluntarily admitted, you have the option to be discharged whenever you believe help cannot be given to you at the hospital. you have to request to be discharged in writing, and upon receiving the word, the hospital staff will discharge you promptly. if your doctor feels you aren't ready to be discharged, it is not safe for you, he has 72 hours from receiving your request, to get a court order to keep you in the hospital." but apparently that was a fucking lie. they just would not let me go! eventually my mother, with the help of her boss (lyn thank you so fucking much, you literally saved my mind), found me an incredible psychiatrist on the UES to see. Dr. Lauren Royce (god bless you) spoke with my psychiatrist at lutheran, and i was discharged after 3 nights in the psych ward. i actually had an appt with dr. royce yesterday morning, and i can honestly say i feel hopeful about all of this, and about her treating me. she told me to stop taking the prozac, and trazedone, and vistaril. and thank god for that because 1. prozac made me more depressed, 2. trazedone did NOT help me sleep at all, and 3. vistaril made me even more anxious, and it made it very hard to breathe. dr. royce put me on lexapro and ambien. last night i slept for 10 hours, and it was the most amazing sleep. lexapro hasn't had any effect on me yet, and i'm so grateful for that. antidepressants usually take 3-4 weeks, sometimes maybe even 2, to really start working. but with prozac, i felt it instantly, and it was so disturbing. i felt drunk, and not the good kind, but the kind where your head doesn't stop spinning, and you can't walk straight, and all you want to do is throw up and pass out. so now i'm on new meds, and very hopeful, and since i slept so much last night, i'm very energetic and chatty. i love it. my depression sucks all the energy out of me, but idk if it's the lexapro or the ambien that helped me sleep, but i actually had the energy to get out of bed today, and clean, and cook, and everything i felt like doing.

i wrote so much already. max should be here in 10mins. i'll finish up later today. i have a lot more to say!

thank you, dr. royce. thank you, lyn. thank you, pamela. thank you, mama. thank you, papa. thank you max. & thanks to dr. jean-mary, monica, timothy, louie, stacy, amy, edward, and that russian nurse who's name i can't pronounce or even spell. dr. j-m, you can suck my dick, but i'm glad you finally let me go. you're an ass and i hope you lose your license, and i hope you somehow get locked up in that fucking monster ward so you know what the fuck you did to all the normal people who hadn't needed to be there.

right, i'll write later.

x sasha