Back to hell

A few months ago, I felt the beast, the silent killer which I talked about in an earlier post. However, I never thought it would end this way, as in, I would end up this way, back in hell. Yes people, I’m admitted to the high care unit of the psychiatric clinic again, the one I resided in during fifteen weeks last year. And again they are doing the same things to me: locking me up, robbing me from my freedom and my integrity, humiliating me. Of course, they also take care of me, but that’s not the point. The point is that I want to be dead. And they won’t let me go. What’s even worse, as I wrote in an earlier post, the sword of Damocles is approaching me even more day by day. My psychiatrist approached the CIB (Centre of Intensive Treatment) and they have planned to visit me on the eighth of September. I don’t want to go there. I’ve been traumatised enough in my life, if you ask me. Hell no, I’m not going there!

You see, I understand that people want to protect me against my own destructive thoughts. However, it’s my freaking life, so why do they stop me? Also, the separations are devastating me. I know that my behaviour was far from acceptable. I hit a nurse and kicked him. But it’s not me, really, it are the demons inside of me. Those demons are seizing control over my body. There’s nothing I can do. So now I can get out of the cell for about one hour, and then I have to go back in that sh*thole and wait until the nurses come back for me. It hurts and it’s destroying my already fragile heart. I’ve been in the isolation cell since last Monday. That makes 5 days already. Too long, if you ask me, but I still have a way to go. And what will happen once I can walk freely on the closed ward? That door will trick me again, I know for sure. Well, of course it’s not that door, but the stupid voices and the demons inside of me.

I’d expected something completely different from my psychiatrist. I've known the guy as a calm and intelligent man, one who always thinks things over before taking action. But what he has done so far, has troubled my mind about him. I don’t know what to think of him any longer. I’m disappointed in the guy. He has reinstalled the separation policy I told you guys about earlier (that is, last year), which means that I’ve been in the isolation cell since Monday – now is Friday afternoon – with only small periods of time that I can be out of the cell. It’s horrible, I can tell you that. When they give me my extra meds, then I’m mostly calm. Without the meds, the voices can’t be handled. In my head it’s one heap of sh*t. They laugh, talk, yell… It’s like my head is not my propriety anymore.

The demons are also constantly nagging about the fact that I should attack the nurses. It never stops. Never ever. The images are richly detailed and very sharp. Sometimes I see what I have to do in slow motion, other times just at a normal rate. When I saw my psychiatrist again I talked about a subject the voices want me to avoid: the medication. Maybe it’s time we did something about it. I have some ideas, but my psychiatrist didn't gladly follow my ideas. Anyhow, this just has to stop. Not only for myself, but also for the people around me. I just heard from someone from our astronomy club that she had been crying and someone else hadn’t slept during the first night they knew about it. You see, I make people unhappy, but I don’t want to. I want to relocate myself on the map, if you know what I mean. 

The question is: Will this place save me like it did the last time? However, back then I needed a bloody 15 weeks! Now this will not be the case. They will send me to the CIB before that. And that, I can't handle. No CIB for me, thanks! 

I had an appointment with my psychiatrist. I hoped he would somehow be reasonable and that he would let me out of the isolation cell. I'm so freaking tired of it, especially because I always have to change clothes. Every time I get in, I have to wear special clothes for the isolation cell, and when I get out, I can wear my own clothes. It's a nasty thing, an isolation programme. But what the hell can we do about it? In any case, he didn't change anything about the programme...

I just had a visit from the court, judge included. They confirmed that I'll be here for at least the next three weeks. I'm quite pissed off, although my lawyer had prepared me that this would be the outcome. There was nothing else to do. Also my psychiatrist was very convincing in his sermon. There is a slight possibility that it'll be less than three weeks, but then my condition has to get better real soon. 

Anyway, life sucks, once again. Once again, I'm back in hell, the place no one wants to be. I feel so lonely because I'm not allowed to have visitors, not since Monday and today is Friday. I'm just desperate. I've been mulling things over in my head, but there's no way out. I think the word I use most during the day is "help", because this is an unequal fight: the demons against me.  

The silent killer

When I opened my Facebook last week on Monday morning, I was confronted with the news that one of the best comics, one of the best actors of my youth and childhood had passed: Robin Williams had died. Apparently he had committed suicide. He´d been in and out of a depression for years, and yes, people, depression can kill you. Depression is a silent killer.

You see, depression can happen to anyone, believe me, anyone. Robin Williams seemed to be always laughing, always happy, always rejoicing, but apparently there was this thick layer of sadness in his life. When you ask my dad about suicide, he´ll gladly tell you that it doesn´t count. That Robin Williams or whoever did it to himself, so that it doesn´t matter at all. What my dad doesn´t seem to know - although I can hardly believe it - is that his own daughter - that is, moi - has tried it once and has been thinking about it for years, and that the topic is actually pretty vivid in her thoughts once again right now. Would he talk so easily about it if he knew? I don´t know. I doubt it. My dad never goes to funerals when someone kills himself. Does that mean that he wouldn´t come to my funeral??

Depression is a monster. It lurks in the shadows, and no-one, not even the one who suffers from depression, knows when it's going to attack. Many people who killed themselves did it in an impulse, but there are also others who have been thinking about it and who have been preparing this for months, maybe even years. In my case, if I would ever kill myself, it would be a combination of the two. You see, I have written a few letters already. I have written my own obituary. I've been thinking it through. But still, it would be an impulsive decision, I think, because at the moment, I'm kind of depressed, but not enough to kill myself, if you know what I mean. If I would kill myself tomorrow, then something awful would have to happen today or tomorrow so that there would be enough reason for me to kill myself. 

I told you I've tried it once before. I was barely 18 when that happened and yes, it was in an impulse. I was at the psychiatric youth clinic and things were getting worse day by day. They threw me in the isolation cell a few times a week and I didn't see any progression, rather the contrary. So I decided that it was enough. I wrote a letter to say goodbye, a really short letter, put it at the end of my bed, and I tried to hang myself. Just when I was at the point of doing it, a nurse knocked on my door, and I said no. She didn't come in, but I was already doubting. Why the hell did she have to knock on my freaking door when I was at the point of making the most important choice of my life?? So it happened that I started to doubt about my decision, which was actually my biggest mistake. She knocked again five minutes later. I should have been dead by then, but again, there was this nagging doubt. Again, I said no. And this happened a third time, but then she came in, saw me standing there on my bed, with a rope around my neck. She panicked slightly, asked me to step back, but I refused and so I jumped. But she was fast, I only hung there for a couple of seconds and then she held me up. 

Of course there have been various opportunities in which I wanted to kill myself but I couldn't. I've been wandering around at the railway station, I've taken more pills than prescribed, I've cut myself hoping that it would be fatal... Numerous are the occasions in which I wanted but I just couldn't kill myself. You see, something like that is not that easy. 

The problem is when you get these images, and that's exactly what's happening now and what's been troubling me the past few weeks when I was at home in Belgium. I saw myself doing it. I saw myself going to the river with the counterweights from my telescope, saw myself binding one counterweight on every leg and saw myself jumping in the river. That's annoying, you know, especially because, yes, I was feeling unhappy and depressed, but no, I didn't want to kill myself. Well, not really. If it were only that easy and if it were not painful...

And so it happens that, when you are a psychiatric patient, you've lost lots of friends to the silent killer already. In my case, only three that I know of, which is in fact not that much. But every life counts, especially if you know that none of these people were older than 45, the youngest one in his twenties. The loss of Robin Williams is a big loss to the world of entertainment, and he will be remembered. Whatever other people say about him and about his addictions and depression, he is and will always be the man that put a smile on my face in movies such as Mrs. Doubtfire, or kept me in suspense in movies such as the Dead Poets Society... Oh Captain, my Captain...

What's your fear landscape?

For those who have read the book "Divergent" by Veronica Roth, I don't have to explain what a fear landscape is. However, I think there are many others among my readers, so let me explain shortly what it is. It's a simulation where you have to go through your toughest fears. You are confronted with them, and you have to deal with them, and only when you can deal with the first one, you can go through to the second one, etc. In the book it's praiseworthy if you haven't got many fears, but for most of the initiates, it keeps being a difficult task to go through a fear landscape. 

While reading the book, I was wondering what my fear landscape would look like. What are my biggest fears? So I thought I could write a blog post about it, just to have a view.

First of all, my biggest fear is that all the people I love, and my parents in particular, will die. Of course they will die, but I mean soon, within a couple of years or even months. What's more, my biggest fear is that they will die in a car accident when they come visit me in Leiden, or from a scary disease such as cancer. My dad smokes a lot, and I'm afraid he will die of lung cancer. I'm afraid that people in particular will die, but most of all my parents. You could say I'm afraid of the deaths of all the people around me. I'm afraid that everyone around me will die and there will be no one left so that I'll be all alone. 

A second fear is that I won't be able to make it on my own and that I'll have to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital once again, soon that is. It's just that I'm feeling so unstable and unsure about my mental health that I can't guarantee that it won't happen again. You see, the problem is that I feel that I'm losing the fight against my personal demons. I'm still fighting, still struggling, because I never ever give up. However, the fear to be admitted once again is real. And the fear to be put into an isolation cell is even bigger. You see, I have these moments in which I feel myself locked up again in an isolation cell. I can't explain how that feels, but I can guarantee that it isn't a nice feeling. 

Another fear I would have to face if I'd go through my personal fear landscape is the fear of fire. I'm extremely afraid of fire. When I leave my place, I'm always afraid a fire will destroy the place while I'm gone, and sometimes I'm afraid that one person in particular will cause the fire. Sounds crazy? You've got every reason to think I'm crazy, but believe me, when you see constantly images in your head in which that specific person throws a Molotovcocktail in your room so that it burns down to ashes, you get afraid. Also, a fire can happen because of short-circuiting or whatever. Accidents happen so easily, so often...

Maybe you wouldn't expect the next fear, but it is fear of myself. I don't trust myself, because I'm constantly under the influence of pills, and sometimes I have these moments in which I want to quit taking those artificial aids. I do know they help me to keep control, and I do know I need them, but can you imagine that, after 14 years of taking those stupid pills, I'm getting tired of taking them? It's a dangerous, unbalanced situation. In the past, I've done this before, unfortunately with bad consequences. However, it's learnt me that I don't have to quit taking my pills. But I get t-i-r-e-d of taking them, so freaking t-i-r-e-d... The fear is that, if I quit taking them, I will surely get a relapse and have to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Also, if I don't take my pills, I become a different person, a dangerous person, because then, the world around me becomes threatening. Then I can attack people, especially when I'm under the influence of voices. So that's why I'm afraid of myself... afraid that I will lose the battle with the pills. Afraid that I will lose the battle with the cutting glass. Afraid that I will lose the battle with my (in)sanity. So afraid...

Another fear is a little bit difficult for me to explain, but it's important that I tell about it. Many among you have probably asked themselves why I'm still single. I'm 31, and I've been single for 12 years now. That's a while, isn't it? Is it because I haven't had opportunities? Oh no, there have been opportunities. Is it because I'm a lesbian maybe, and I don't want to tell anyone? Oh no, I'm straight, I'm pretty sure about that now, although I've got a past with a lesbian girl. Is it because I'm afraid? Yes, damn sure it is! And why am I afraid then? Well, let me explain it to you. I'm afraid of the sexual deeds. I've had three boyfriends, and especially the first one has abused me sexually. That's why I'm afraid to have sex. And you know how men are. They just need sex. I don't know any man or boy for that matter who doesn't need sex in a relationship. And all the people in church say that there is a man for me, somewhere, because God created humans to be together, as man and woman. However, I know what happened, and I don't want to go through that again. I truly think that my fear of having sex is the reason why my last boyfriend broke up with me. I just couldn't give it to him. I was too afraid, too tense. Maybe I should have put this fear even higher up the list, but it's something I feel ashamed of. However, it's an important thing that makes Debz Debz. It sure as hell made me feel attracted to women for a while, but I knew that was a big mistake only shortly after that, because I can't imagine myself having sex with a woman either. If I could only find a man who would contend himself with just hugging and holding hands...

Another fear is fear of heights. I truly try to gain power over this fear, but it's difficult and dazzling when I'm up high. However, at the same time, it's amazing. It gives me some sort of adrenaline rush. I can say this is a minor fear, just like fear of darkness. You wouldn't expect that from an amateur astronomer, would you? In fact, I'm quite afraid in the dark alone, especially when I'm strolling through Leiden or when I'm in an unknown place. It helps when someone is with me, but still, I'm not feeling at ease. It's because I don't see well enough in the dark, I guess. These are some minor fears, but I'd still have to face them in my fear landscape. 

That makes six fears, which is in fact few. I'm sure there are more things I'm afraid of, but I'll leave it to these six. Now I'm very interested in your fears and in your reactions to my fears, dear readers. Did you or didn't you know about my fears? I'd be glad to read your comments here :)