I'm not insane for God's sake. I'm Scared.

Still no retuned phone calls from anyone at any agency I’ve called, requesting help. I would be laughing if it wasn’t so serious. We are the outcasts of society. Make it so hard to find help, and when you do, take away their rights. Commit them without their knowledge.

That happened to me. A few years ago, I presented at a local emergency stating I needed help. I was rational, cooperative, and non combative. I had had a self-harming event a few days earlier, I was crying, not sleeping, obsessing, and fearful. I asked them to “Please help me.”

To my great relief they said yes and after some questions back and forth, asked if I minded being admitted. Since I had come requesting help, of course I did not mind and said yes.

Two days later I wanted to leave the floor to get coffee at Starbucks which is in the lobby. The clerk asked me to wait while she checked me file. She was just as sweet as could be, and popped up and said, “You can go with an escort, do you have one?”

I stood for a moment trying to absorb, and understand what those words were she just spoke. Why would I need an escort? I hadn’t done anything, wasn’t resisting, wasn’t violent. I had in fact, been the one who brought myself in. So, I asked “Why?”

She replied, “Since you have been committed, you need an escort to leave the floor.”

I ceased to exist. Everything was black. I could not hear, I could not see, I could not think. The betrayal and pain by those who were supposed to help me, was too much. But it was bigger. So much bigger.

I WAS A PRISONER!!!!! Oh! my fucking God!! I am a prisoner????? What in hell did I do wrong??? God fucking help me, I am a prisoner again. Why? For God’s sake why?

I ask to be admitted for my huge anxiety and depression, and they put me in to a state of C-PTSD. The stuff of my nightmares.

Later I get to see the psychiatrist. He seems nice enough. He tells me he is a geriatric psychiatrist. That was a wee bit discomfiting since now I knew for certain I must be old. No more wondering. Then, not even 5 minutes in to our session he states. “Don’t you think at your age, that self-harming is rather juvenile?”

Okay. I have come for help. Now, I have no rights, they activate a huge panic thing with being locked up against my will. Then tell me I was acting or behaving juvenile. Criticism. All the time. You ever live with someone who criticized you constantly? By screaming 2 inches from your face and spittal spraying while screaming, “You can’t do anything right.”. At that moment, he became her. The entire floor was my prison at home. No one there could be trusted, so I disconnected from me, and became who they wanted. I said yes when I meant no. Emotional flashback, I was was empty, and I was performing in the circus in order to suvive.

“Are you feeling better today?”.
“Why yes I am. I think I can go home soon. Thank youl”

“How is the medication working?”

“Oh it is working great. Thank you. You guys are awesome.”

“Would you like to do crafts today. It is vey beneficial and helpful to stimulate the mind?”

“Oh I love crafts. Of course.” I want to say “Go fuck yourself” I played this shit for 17 years.

Long story short, they reversed the committal. Their reasoning was it was for my own good, and their protection. I asked protection from what? The reply “you might change your mind and leave before the treatment was finished. We wanted to prevent that.” So I asked if anyone cared what I wanted?

So I ask my questions.
Did I give you cause to think I was going to leave?
No.

Was I uncooperative?
No

Did you ever think at any moment, or cause you concern that I was thinking of leaving?
No.

Then reverse it. The shrink guy, who only wanted to point out faults, asked why does it matter anyway. You want to be here and get help and you will.”

I can’t believe he would even ask that. I looked him right in the eye and stared him down.

1. Asking for help demonstrates an awareness that you are cognizant of your condition and are voluntarily requesting help.

2. Committal means against your will. Means you likely don’t agree and don’t’ want help and are resisting.

3. Being committed gives you a history on your medical . In three years I was retiring and would have to get new medical. Pre-existing would matter very much and one of the top 10 turn downs is MH hospitalization.

He simply said “I see.”

It was reversed.

So I need to go back but can’t. I will not be locked up. No, I will not be locked up. I am NOT INSANE.

****

Another day is gone, and no call for me.  We won’t go there. I am proof of how important I am to them. Thank goodness, a little Pink Anxiety and I feel better. Thanks to desperation, I became a pot taking grannie, but that will be story for another day. Any judgements, Pfft! Go away. Do some research like I did. Unlike you, now I have experience.

My friend Bingy came over and we did looming. I should say I taught and watched. Such a pal I am. Yet she comes even when I don’t want her to. She is one of the loyal ones. The good ones. Stuck like glue ones. It’s because she understands with me having to say a word. She has been where I am. I get lost and she knows the way home. Without saying a word. Funny how that happens. It’s so rare to find people who can love you how you are, and where you are, where ever, however, and whatever you are. Dolly, is my first besty girl. Others and come and gone.

We did one of our ways to waste time. We watched YouTube videos. Well, we were really watching educational videos. We felt so much smarter after.

It’s getting dark. At 11:10 I will have been sober 30 years. I am mixed. Or just a day. Shouldn’t it be like momentous. I mean the thought of being sober 30 minutes was tough. Well, after a certain time. Anything good, Anything I have achieved, well the joy or accomplishment just get stolen. So, I feel dead and wish I was drunk. When I was drunk, the overwhelming fear was gone. Now I feel it all the time. I’m sober because I love some folks. And in return, they give me my just rewards. Their hate and derision. Public shaming. Mocking. Ridicule. And I love them. On a quick aside, do yourself a favor and do a little research on the odds of a high ACES score child with C-PTSD becoming an alcoholic. In fact. It would have been stranger had I not, and it has nothing to do with choices. I’ll just leave that there for another day.

Oh, I know what they will all tell you, and they will be right, but it happened 30 years ago. I’ve apologized, verbally, in writing, in public, been in counselling, treatment. I’ve let them rage and say what they had to. But I already hated me more that they could hate me. They confirmed it. The pros had all kinds of advice. I did them all. There is nothing left except a constant reminder of a lifetime of failure.

Some of my judge live back in the past. They are correct. I was those. I haven’t been for 30 years. They don’t know me now because they refuse to see or hear me. They will have to work through the pain I caused them I can’t fix them, and I can’t wait like I do, with the control and power I allow over me. I won’t live in guilt any longer. At some point, captives go free.

Others are the flying monkeys in mama’s tree. Some grew up like her. Some are little twigs off the branch, then a whole bunch of them. They are the people of lie. Exactly like Scott Peck’s book of the same title. Everything about them is a lie. They were about appearance or covering up. Ah yes, and they do not like to see the black sheep succeed. They constantly find ways to destroy you. Not merely bring you down but destroy you. The Golden child(ren) grows up and becomes them, the other flying monkeys do their dirty deeds. I finally know “who is who” in this flying circus, and I have torn the masks off.

Exactly as I was groomed, I played the scapegoat really well. I wore the shame, the embarrassment, the humiliation, the laughter, the unbelief, the lies, and anything else you wished to throw at me. For far too long I have been advised to cut the ties. I couldn’t because I loved them. I grieved.

I was told I did not know what love is, and I told them “Oh, I do indeed know. Do you wish to feel my heart? Do you want my mind that I don’t know how it remains sane? Do you want my sleepless nights, or my tears?” Oh yes, I thought love was all about feelings.

It has taken a long time. I am taking that step and cutting off. I have been grieving for too long, and for the others, 65 years is far too long to live in fear. Mama was 80 when she died, and she was still terrified. I am starting to understand.

I fear this blog will be like a jigsaw puzzle. A piece here and a piece there. I hope it will be interesting enough to stick around, and that you might find a commonality, a hope, a connection, or just know we all have crazy mixed up lives. Some are a little crazier, and some are horrible, and some are frightening, some are painful, and some are a painful, horror filled nightmare from which you feel you will never wake.

Trapped in a dream of my life. Please don’t trap me with your walls of fear when I cry for help. Don’t do it to others like me. We have been through hell and you need to stop making our walls unbearable.