⚠️TW: psychiatric hospitalization, psychosis, intense emotional distress
I drew this during my first inpatient hospital stay at a psychiatric unit years ago.
This was during I time I describe as harrowing, nightmarish, and even surreal.
A time when my own brain felt like a stranger, and we were at war.
I remember that day. Well, bits of it anyways.
I had been assessed by the doctor earlier. So, it must have been a Monday. Usually the docs are off on the weekends, so that would make sense…
Anyway, I met with the doctor in a small closet of a room right off the main lobby of our unit. I remember my name being called and a distant voice casually saying, “The doctor’s ready for you.”
Like it was any other day. Like I was just here for a quick checkup, maybe a flu shot. Like we weren’t in a being held in a hospital psych ward unit against our will. Like we haven’t been stripped of most our rights, dignity, and pride.
“Okay.” I said, and my footsteps followed hers, of their own accord.
I entered the closet of a room the doctor was waiting for me in.
Dammit. I ran into the table. This room is tiny. Immediately a barrage of paranoid thoughts began screaming in my head,
“They’re watching you!”
“They’re locking you in!”
And on and on they went.
I grabbed my chair and sat down as quickly as I could, trying to will myself into shrinking into oblivion. It didn’t work.
I noticed a lone clipboard and pen stacked neatly atop in front of the doctor who I have not looked at yet.
I tried to keep noticing it (the pen, the clipboard, the pen, the clipboard, the pen, the clipboard) to keep it in focus and pretend it was just me on my chair and those two things (the pen, the clipboard) on the table in this room.
But I could feel him. I eventually couldn’t take the pressure anymore…I had to look up.
And as I did, the room shifted.
He locked my eyes.
He did the stare. The one that was already beginning to feel familiar…to feel normal.
The piercing one that is trying to reach into your soul and grab out the piece of the puzzle that is missing…
Or the answers.
Or how to fix you.
Hell, I don’t know what they are trying to find but it’s that searching stare that they all do. Every doctor, therapist, psychiatrist- sometimes even the nurses or group leaders.
It’s the stare of someone trying to read you like a book. To figure you out.
To solve you.
It’s something that you come to know quickly in this sort of situation.
During that brief yet grueling meeting I was told I had psychosis (and a slew of other diagnoses pending, upon further investigation). It was the first time I’d been labeled with anything beyond my childhood ADHD, but it wouldn’t be the last. Over the next two to three years, I found myself bombarded by new diagnoses and medications, each one piling on faster than the previous.
These labels chipped away at who I thought I was until I couldn’t even begin to remember anymore. Each medication offered a chance at relief, but often came with side effects I couldn’t handle, manage, or understand.
Most of them made me feel like even more of a stranger to myself, made me forget more of who I was, shrunk me further into myself.
None of them freed me like they claimed they could.
But this drawing…it says more than I could say out loud at the time. It was my way of speaking when I couldn’t find the words.
And I just wanted to share this with people who may find something in it that resonates with their own experiences. We may not have all the answers, but sharing our stories, no matter how broken or confusing they seem, can help us understand that we’re not alone. Or broken. Or too much.
Just human.
Beautifully whole humans.
🫶🏻
-the mom with the forehead tattoo
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