wildflowercloud
Member
- Jun 6, 2023
- 70
Hey guys 
We are currently in the psych ward, we've been here for over 2 months, and it is rough going.
The hospital itself is actually good, like most of the staff are really professional and really approachable and open-minded and non-judgmental and friendly and funny and genuinely caring and supportive, and we know we are so incredibly lucky to have the support we have as we know so many people around the world have the complete opposite experience, so we definitely are very lucky, including with the support from our community mental health team, they're absolutely amazing too.
With all that said, we are in the darkest most hopeless space that we have ever been in and that's really saying something. We have said that line multiple times throughout our life of trauma and mental illness as it has worsened over the years, but we can honestly say this is different. This feels final. It is final. As a system we have all 100% promised each other that we will die by suicide, and that is pledged, and it is irrevocable.
We had a very close call suicide attempt in early February. We ended up in the bathroom with a blade we found and cut into an artery, it went exactly as we imagined it would in our head, but still the initial reaction was panic so we reached for the call bell but it didn't work, and at that point we just accepted that it was a possibility / probability that we were going to die because the blood loss was so severe, it was a very bloody scene and it just kept pouring out and we didn't even try to stop the bleeding, just sat there, eventually lay down and shut our eyes, it felt like a while until we were found but we don't actually know how long it was. But the alarms pulled, staff come rushing they try to sit us up and then we must've blacked out from the blood loss because next thing we know everything went dark and then we woke up on our back with our legs being held in the air to help with blood pressure we think, and fuck the whole thing was chaos. They called the ambulance and an ICU nurse came up too, they were trying to stop the bleeding and it was so painful but we kept going in and out of awareness. Got moved onto some blow up mat to then get onto the stretcher, taken to the Emergency Department where we saw the orthopedic surgeon because of a damaged tendon and saw the vascular surgeon because of the cut artery, thankfully didn't have to go to theatre and they treated it with a pressure bandage and then stitches. The issue that stuck around for longer was that our blood pressure was very low, so we had to stay in the observation unit for the night and following day getting fluids and blood transfusions. Our blood pressure got down into the 70's/something we can't quite remember but it was very dangerous waters. The weird thing, is that once we made the decision to make the attempt, it was so fucking easy to just let go.
Since then we developed pulmonary embolisms and had to be put on blood thinners, and we came up with a plan that our psychiatrist here thinks is very likely to result in being a completed suicide, which is waiting for a bit for the blood thinners to work and then jump the fence on the ward, go to the location we've chosen, and cut into our artery again and now that we know what to expect we can make it worse and possibly cut the artery on the other side too, and with the blood thinners it'll make it much harder for our body to stop the bleeding, and then yeah. Hopefully peace, freedom, safety, and rest.
Unfortunately though because we were honest that we had this plan and if triggered enough would likely do it, we got moved to the more secure psych ward where there's no way out. But we're holding that plan so close to our heart and soul and have every intention of carrying it out when we get a chance too.
Aside from suicide stuff, we've been getting various treatments here from medication, ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy), therapy with a clinical psychologist (who is brilliant), regular catch ups with our psychiatrist, and ketamine injections.
We had 12 rounds of ECT and it did next to nothing for us, so our psychiatrist decided that ketamine is the best thing to try because it treats PTSD / Complex PTSD, depression, and suicidality, and he said it has a 60%-70% chance of being effective. The only issue which we've discussed with a friend who also has DID and went through ketamine treatments, is that the doctors tell us that the dissociative effects of the ketamine only have residual effects for about 2ish hours after the treatment, but for us with DID the dissociative effects have persisted and made our DID even more intense and having more vivid switches between alters and just generally higher levels of dissociation, but there doesn't seem to be any research done on ketamine with DID. We know our psychiatrist is absolutely incredible, like world renowned for his work with trauma and has done so much to help the PTSD / Complex PTSD population, and we trust him immensely. The only issue is that he doesn't seem too familiar of the DID experience, but he is very open minded and he absolutely believes us, I think it's just more in a general sense there's not a great level of awareness. But we're going to talk to him about what we discussed with our friend and see his views on it. We personally think the ketamine isn't going to be as effective because of our DID, like our brain is wired differently from the trauma and is different to the pure PTSD / Complex PTSD experience, and we think it would take a lot more treatment for things to be overtly effective, but we're just guessing here.
Honestly, as screwed up as this is, we don't want it to work. We want suicide. We need suicide. Treatment can only do so much, the trauma is never going to go away, that's impossible, and we can't live with the knowledge of our trauma and what's been done to us and knowing the level of human depravity that exists in the world, it's too fucking painful.
Our existence is agony and honestly that doesn't even feel like it gives it justice.
We admit defeat.
We are currently in the psych ward, we've been here for over 2 months, and it is rough going.
The hospital itself is actually good, like most of the staff are really professional and really approachable and open-minded and non-judgmental and friendly and funny and genuinely caring and supportive, and we know we are so incredibly lucky to have the support we have as we know so many people around the world have the complete opposite experience, so we definitely are very lucky, including with the support from our community mental health team, they're absolutely amazing too.
With all that said, we are in the darkest most hopeless space that we have ever been in and that's really saying something. We have said that line multiple times throughout our life of trauma and mental illness as it has worsened over the years, but we can honestly say this is different. This feels final. It is final. As a system we have all 100% promised each other that we will die by suicide, and that is pledged, and it is irrevocable.
We had a very close call suicide attempt in early February. We ended up in the bathroom with a blade we found and cut into an artery, it went exactly as we imagined it would in our head, but still the initial reaction was panic so we reached for the call bell but it didn't work, and at that point we just accepted that it was a possibility / probability that we were going to die because the blood loss was so severe, it was a very bloody scene and it just kept pouring out and we didn't even try to stop the bleeding, just sat there, eventually lay down and shut our eyes, it felt like a while until we were found but we don't actually know how long it was. But the alarms pulled, staff come rushing they try to sit us up and then we must've blacked out from the blood loss because next thing we know everything went dark and then we woke up on our back with our legs being held in the air to help with blood pressure we think, and fuck the whole thing was chaos. They called the ambulance and an ICU nurse came up too, they were trying to stop the bleeding and it was so painful but we kept going in and out of awareness. Got moved onto some blow up mat to then get onto the stretcher, taken to the Emergency Department where we saw the orthopedic surgeon because of a damaged tendon and saw the vascular surgeon because of the cut artery, thankfully didn't have to go to theatre and they treated it with a pressure bandage and then stitches. The issue that stuck around for longer was that our blood pressure was very low, so we had to stay in the observation unit for the night and following day getting fluids and blood transfusions. Our blood pressure got down into the 70's/something we can't quite remember but it was very dangerous waters. The weird thing, is that once we made the decision to make the attempt, it was so fucking easy to just let go.
Since then we developed pulmonary embolisms and had to be put on blood thinners, and we came up with a plan that our psychiatrist here thinks is very likely to result in being a completed suicide, which is waiting for a bit for the blood thinners to work and then jump the fence on the ward, go to the location we've chosen, and cut into our artery again and now that we know what to expect we can make it worse and possibly cut the artery on the other side too, and with the blood thinners it'll make it much harder for our body to stop the bleeding, and then yeah. Hopefully peace, freedom, safety, and rest.
Unfortunately though because we were honest that we had this plan and if triggered enough would likely do it, we got moved to the more secure psych ward where there's no way out. But we're holding that plan so close to our heart and soul and have every intention of carrying it out when we get a chance too.
Aside from suicide stuff, we've been getting various treatments here from medication, ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy), therapy with a clinical psychologist (who is brilliant), regular catch ups with our psychiatrist, and ketamine injections.
We had 12 rounds of ECT and it did next to nothing for us, so our psychiatrist decided that ketamine is the best thing to try because it treats PTSD / Complex PTSD, depression, and suicidality, and he said it has a 60%-70% chance of being effective. The only issue which we've discussed with a friend who also has DID and went through ketamine treatments, is that the doctors tell us that the dissociative effects of the ketamine only have residual effects for about 2ish hours after the treatment, but for us with DID the dissociative effects have persisted and made our DID even more intense and having more vivid switches between alters and just generally higher levels of dissociation, but there doesn't seem to be any research done on ketamine with DID. We know our psychiatrist is absolutely incredible, like world renowned for his work with trauma and has done so much to help the PTSD / Complex PTSD population, and we trust him immensely. The only issue is that he doesn't seem too familiar of the DID experience, but he is very open minded and he absolutely believes us, I think it's just more in a general sense there's not a great level of awareness. But we're going to talk to him about what we discussed with our friend and see his views on it. We personally think the ketamine isn't going to be as effective because of our DID, like our brain is wired differently from the trauma and is different to the pure PTSD / Complex PTSD experience, and we think it would take a lot more treatment for things to be overtly effective, but we're just guessing here.
Honestly, as screwed up as this is, we don't want it to work. We want suicide. We need suicide. Treatment can only do so much, the trauma is never going to go away, that's impossible, and we can't live with the knowledge of our trauma and what's been done to us and knowing the level of human depravity that exists in the world, it's too fucking painful.
Our existence is agony and honestly that doesn't even feel like it gives it justice.
We admit defeat.
