Psych Ward Nostalgia
“I miss the kinds of people that I’d meet in the psych ward. It was like camp for sad people.”
Except that we were sad people who discovered light in the unlikeliest of places. It was in the confinement of what initially seemed like a prison that spawned the beginning of my life.
Mostly, I had long admissions - 50/40/10/120 days. In my longest admission (March-July 2016), there were times when I felt pathetic as I stayed in the ward while my friends spent their youth rightfully globetrekking on road trips, I felt incredibly left out as I saw my childhood bff take off with another girl in our trio of the three musketeers. I felt like such a loser albeit my jokes about how I've stayed inpatient for so long that I've seen the garden outside my grilled up window go from withered weeds to green to blooming flowers back to weeds and green again. At first, I resented the sheer youth I missed out on being locked away on suicide caution. I thought that that would be quintessential to fulfilling my life - wrong.
Though I never want to be admitted again, there'll always be that glimmering saudade that will continue pulsating through me like life support. Sure, the memories I made in the ward served as the kick start to make me believe in my ability to start living again - but I can't help but long for the comfort of my once familiar protected safety bubble.
Times when we watched horror movies, binge watched horror series' with all the lights off, getting horror movie recommendations from the therapist team/nurses, and having the daylights scared out of us when nurses interrupted us with our anxiety medication found right at the climax of the horror/thriller movie.
every night was a sleepover
Baking therapy together as we encouraged each other from the start to end.
Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, raisin cinnamon rolls, blueberry streusel scones, muffins, brownies, chocolate fudge cake, shortbread, jam thumbprint cookies, pb&choc oatmeal bars gosh etc!!! With the ever used model answer "I would like to encourage ____ for enjoying the process." And that "I would like to challenge myself to a snack portion and not the sample one next week." (But lol always chickening out unless another girl did it with us).
Camwhoring nights after rants, late night "meetings" to gossip lol on each others' beds to keep ourselves sane while we all suffered through taking in close to 4K cals a day to gain. We were soul sisters because while they say "blood is thicker than water", we refute back with "resource is thicker than blood" - once you down resource 2.0 together like vodka shots, you are related on an unprecedented spiritual level hahaha
My #fuckuna sisters gosh. And how we make do with celebrating our bæ's 18th birthday in the ward coz being unable to leave the ward could never stop our love for each other.
Watch the link below 😂
https://youtu.be/iH-1sB_mxlo
Sneaking into the shared activity room where we ate all our meals after lights out to play blind mice
As we fawned over the hilarious drama and rooted for Lenox and other awkward beaus on antm cycle 21 in 2014
When we'd challenge ourselves to take more calorific drinks and well overestimate our ability chug this whole frappe down with our snack in 10 min?!?! Haha ...*enjoys the snack*..."you have 5 min left"...*and my friend and I looked at each other with that immense horror like shit how to chug this down in time?!* hahah nonetheless we did it because we are determined AF not to get topups hahah!!!
Though I felt like my IQ was dropping Day by day with countless kindergarten like activities and questions, they made me do the things I had lost touch with - the simple things.
"You make my heart race...when you do this to me in jenga."
Collective tattoos to motivate us and heart arrow ones to point to the right position for the nurse to take blood from us every Monday at 4am
When the best nurse in sg designs his own sg style Tikam tikam monopoly where everyone gets random money if they buy Geylang or rolls a number he likes LOL 😂
Seriously, this is barely close to describing all the memories I made in ward 46a but I thought I preview was better than nothing!
What I miss right now isint so much the memories but rather the feelings attached to the memories and more importantly, the daily affirmations.
Back then, if you cried, they'd force you to talk about it eventually, if it wasn't right then, it would be during morning rounds/a psychologist session or simply during the many many group therapy sessions in program. I kinda missed that - there was no way you could accumulate the negativity because they forced me to confront it and I could not shove it aside like I do now.
Having fighters with me to put down each negative thought with words that counter/defy each condemnation of past hurtful comment embedded in my mind
When i had horrible body image and immediately after had friends trace the reality out for me and remind me that I'm beautiful no matter what size
As we passed around our paper round the group and no matter what, you'd get a few affirmations to help you stay afloat for one more day
Giving us boxes which we could fill with tags done up by each member of the group, decorating them with the oh so overly used lol daiso wares.
Even folding origami from meal tray napkins
I miss making art or writing poetry subtly tryna bring across a struggle - and actually have people pick it up and ask if I had urges to self harm after making the above piece signifying split open skin and blood that I wished to see again. I would be cared for when I was hurting.
I miss having the time and permission to express my thoughts constructively without any obligations to other tasks in life
I miss the motivation board I could count on every time we sat down for a meal/supplement/snack.
I miss the angels who would doddle stuff like this on my worksheets
When they'd offer to give me their artwork (paint by numbers) which is super tedious for impatient people like me hahah as a farewell present
Whenever anyone went on a weekend outing, they'd come back with gifts/customised stuff like these and I cannot even :')
We even had recovery advent calendars envelopes!
Lol when they give you a bunch of magazine pages to make collages and you do this for your special friend who loves epic meme worthy cards like you
Which means "thank god it's over" - which we rehearsed like mad the night before and tried to shout it collectively once after breakfast to see if the doctors next door would question us when we walked in for daily morning rounds hahaha
Ahhh the memories...
Above all, I miss the person I was praised to be in program/inpatient. I was kinda like the life of the party and I felt like I was someone and not a nobody.
I shared so openly and spoke with confidence because I had grown so close to everyone there who I knew wouldn't judge me because they've already seen me at my worst. I mean legit. Hahaa I threw a middle finger to a nurse once omg. I miss the regard and belief every therapist had in me. They expressed so much confidence in my ability to write that one of them actually googled British council courses for me to join, they made me believe that I was strong and worthy because they expressed their awe as I related the many pains in my life story in a matter of fact way. They constantly referred to me as if I was the ambassador of SGH's EDIT (Eating Disorder program) having gone for a record of idk 25 weeks lol. They would always "sabotage" me into introducing prog to the new girls in feedback group because I knew the prog inside out so well that when I gave my description, they wanted to record it lol for future use??
I miss leading epic ideas like outfit coordinating and strutting into the room of 20 therapists with sass
Matchin muchkins - when my friend bought me a matching romper when she could go on home leave but I was stuck in the ward - I miss having people thinking of me just so we can make a statement together in group session LOL
All black for the week!
"We wear all black to remind you not to mess with us because we're already all dressed for your funeral"
Pink bows
Pajama pants
With my sassy plastics and yes upon seeing the text, my psychiatrist inched her chair away to play along with our mean girl reference lol !!!
Romper Mondays
On Wednesdays we wear pink
whenever you remember I hope you'll smile - y'all all may have moved on and forgotten these times but know this: I will never forget the people who built me back up - the home that I had when I didn't have one.