Again.

So. It turns out that the lithium was causing the weeks of hives and itching, which prevented me from sleeping, and was probably the cause of the return of the mixed-state type of mania (overwhelming anxiety, agitation, irritability, sensation that I could not breathe or swallow, inability to sleep, SI). I asked the psychiatrist repeatedly for help, especially for the itching, but she was indifferent, and rather horrid. She told me to go to the hospital. The therapist also scolded me about being  "medicine compliant" although I was incredibly compliant, to my detriment, as it turns out. I was such a good girl that I ignored my own intuition, based on my history of living in my body ("The lithium is not working! It might be making me sicker!"), and my diligent research (yes, lithium does cause itching and allergic skin reactions in some people! see all the articles in Pub Med!).  The Day Treatment people could see that my condition was deteriorating, and tried to help me get into a non-hospital setting, but there wasn't a bed for me. So last Friday night, I checked myself into the hospital, for a third time. I was in really bad shape. And I also stopped taking lithium, and immediately got better.

What is one of my biggest mood triggers now? having to petition and beg for help from people and institutions that do not follow through on their purported job functions or expertise, who routinely lose my forms, don't reply, brush me off, or treat me as if I am the problem rather then trying to be partners with me in finding ways to manage my problems. It's enough to make you crazy.

Being in the hospital is simultaneously safe and hellish. It is NOT a place one wants to go, except as a very last resort. This time, I had a psychotic patient invade my room while I was asleep; I hear the door open, wake up and squeak "Get out of my room!" three times. The staff then rush down the hall, swarm around and then gently herd the patient to a "secure room" (one with a lock), but I am left with an anxiety attack and must take a sleeping medication, because HOW CAN I GO TO SLEEP WHEN PSYCHOTIC PEOPLE CAN INVADE MY ROOM WHILE I AM SLEEPING? There is no lock on the doors because the staff check every twenty minutes to make sure you are still alive. I felt compassion for the psychotic person, but I was having my own mood-disorder panic attacks, so I couldn't shrug it off.

Other patients are hallucinating from detox or crying uncontrollably for hours. In this particular unit, the OT and group activities feel like baby-sitting, and I stop going because I just start crying from frustration. After a few days, I finally get a book I can read, so I can at least read. Because there is nothing to do: nothing, nothing, nothing, for hours and hours, days and days. No privacy, no escape from the endless horrendous noise of overhead announcements (phone calls, come to the desk, code whatever), no escape from the misery of other people's suffering. In exchange for tolerating this overwhelming sensory and emotional overload, and after the lost two days of the weekend (note to self: do not go to the psych ward on a Friday night. Do it during the week, if at all possible) you get access to a psychiatrist who will actually change your meds: I'm now taking Seroquel instead of lithium. It has its own issues (helps me sleep 7 hours: good! leaves me groggy for the first few hours of the morning: not so good!)  but I am incredibly thankful to have no more violent itching, no more panic attacks, no more overwhelming urge to die, no more sensation that I cannot swallow or breathe for hours and hours.
While in the hospital, I also got access, after insisting on it for days, to a social worker who could help me schedule appointments for a different psychiatrist so I could be seen in under two months. The social worker revealed, in our last interaction as I was being discharged, that she was mad at me because she thought I didn't like a therapist I used to see, which was why she hadn't met with me at first (WHAT?? WHAT?! Whatever, bitch, I am out of here).

Right now, it's as if I were wet, and now I am dry. Most of the symptoms just stopped. I'm sitting here, panting, hoping this peace will last, this time. And I'm NOT going back to THAT hospital again.

So: don't stop being my own advocate. Don't stop looking for a respectful doctor. Don't heroically hold out for days even after it has gotten really bad, because: why? Next time I have to go to the hospital, pack more books and my own art supplies, also: earplugs.