Bloodletting Read Online Free Page B

permission.There were other requirements but they seemed unimportant. It was a boilerplate contract, designed to cover a range of patients. Dr G highlighted the clauses relevant to me.Were I to break the terms of this contract it would give him, as my specialist, the authority to ask me to leave or,chillingly,to have me ‘scheduled’.To be scheduled is to be placed, involuntarily, in a state mental hospital (in some states this is called ‘being sectioned’). Once there, only your doctor or a mental health review board can decide when you leave.The doors are locked, the windows are barred and the patients can be violent and psychotic. Understaffing and underfunding mean that these places can be more akin to jails than hospitals.
    Like an obedient child, I signed on the dotted line and promised to behave myself.This was the beginning of a period of learned helplessness. Suddenly, after a long struggle to maintain the appearance of coping, I didn’t have to look after myself. Someone would remind me to take my medication. I would be given afternoon tea, morning tea and supper, as well as cooked meals. Dinner was at 5.40 pm in the dining room, so supper at 8 pm was a necessity. Breakfast was between
    7.30 and 8 am.The only people allowed meals in bed were those too unwell to get up. I wasn’t considered one of them.
    Over the next few weeks my days were filled with group therapy, which I grew to hate. I really wasn’t interested in the other patients. I wanted my problem solved; I didn’t care about theirs. I began to behave like a fourteen-year-old, alternately giggling and sullen.The environment seemed to encourage this behaviour.
    I discovered that three of us in the Acute Ward had problems with self-mutilation and were there for observation and our own protection. What we had in common was gender, age and no confirmed psychiatric diagnosis.Annabel,Jessica and I were simply unhappy.Selfharm, or specifically self-mutilation, isn’t classified as a disorder in itself. It is seen as part of something else, such as depressive disorder, an eating disorder, or some kind of personality disorder.
    The women I’d seen on that first Saturday weren’t really representative of those on the ward.They were just the ones who didn’t have anywhere to go. In Acute—where I’d been placed—people suffered from a range of conditions, most with frightening names and very specific treatment regimes. Some patients had severe clinical depression, others were changing medication, and there were also those who were waiting for medication to kick in. There were those with bipolar disorder who were in the manic phase and had to be sedated to curb their behaviour which could be extremely damaging. Some believed they could fly, or were extremely promiscuous. Others had delusions of enormous power. Given this mix of patients, the ward was surprisingly quiet. I don’t think this was just a result of the sound-absorbent carpet.
    The girls and women who suffered from eating disorders were on the floor upstairs.There were no men up there. I watched them walk into the dining room, accompanied by nurses who made sure they didn’t hide the food in their pockets or under the plates. After meals they were made to lie down to let the food digest.Those who had been there for some time looked healthy—not exactly plump, but no longer thin. Others, newly arrived, did not look like young women. Their hair was lank, their features gaunt and their posture stooped. One girl could no longer walk and instead sat motionlessly in a wheelchair. Looking at them, I knew I’d had a close call.
    But then I’d chosen another fork in the road to self-destruction.
    There were only two places you could meet people from the other wards: the dining room and the recreation room downstairs.While people didn’t tend to socialise when eating, they did chat as they played pool or smoked. Smoking was the norm; if people didn’t when they came in, there was a fair chance