One Year Free From Inpatient: There's Gotta be More to Life
I used to make this psych ward my home. I made it my sanctuary, my evergreen refuge that I could summon in times when I was crumbling and couldn't ravage my soul for extravagant epiphanies.
Instead of epiphanies, my mind was locked in the cycle of crafting my epitaph instead. A psych ward was once more like my essential myelin sheath that insulated by vessels from the electrifying hate that pulsated as fervent blackcurrant waves; so unrelenting it literally made blood vessels in my face spew out like blossoming blood in pools of water. One year on, I am so grateful to be free from this pseudo home I made within alleys of gurneys shipping patients to the great unknown, the cackle of misshapen metal meal trolleys and wheelchairs. As I witnessed the humans of the equator create the passing of seasons in sunny as heck singapore, I looked out of my barred windows into the shard of scenery I could glance at as a reminder that I was not completely isolated from society for 120 days.
I saw the garden patch start with winter weeds, to the harvest of greens and eventually springtime stars that studded the shrubbery. Summertime sadness was my anthem as I woke at 0700 to the chirping of medicine tag scans. Falling back to the harsh reality that while all my friends were travelling the world with glee, I was travelling the uncharted parts of my mind with fear. It took me the fantastic four of admissions to realise that this was not supposed to be my home, nor should the shell of my demons assume that pedestal in my heart - it was in every cell of my being, my rib cage that harboured my hopes and dreams and the webbed interlocking of my fingers that were going to be all the home I needed for my eternity.
I once held this sick idea that staying in the ward was my safe bubble for eternity.
It was the venue to escape every failure I have pockmarked the ostentatious front I tried to present before the outside world. It was denying that I ever needed to confront my demons because people would help fight for me (though not entirely, obviously) in the ward. I did not want to leave this bolster canopy that would catch me every time I slipped through the branches. I did not want to be uprooted from the epicentre of empathy and enter a world of dismissal and unmediated triggers.
Little did I know that the tree with deep roots had barren charcoal engraved in its groves and hollow woods that encased nothing but empty promises of a better life. Instead of justified fear, I did not want these things in irrational anxiety for the unknown world outside my burrow. How could my sanctuary truly be as Elysian as I had made it out to be when it made me feel so "degraded"? It was no way to live victoriously (and honestly, with the bare minimum of dignity). Why on earth would I ever want to go back to being watched and monitored as a case study?
A scientific specimen of sorts?
A patient and not as a person with fundamental privacy rights?
I understand how whatever the hospital did was to get me back on my feet when I was incapable of making lucid decisions to function rationally.
(A progressive representation of my spirit at the start, middle and end of my admission)
However, I will undeniably shun the prospect of ever going back to being slapped with cold red sticker buttons on the nurse board which allowed everyone to know how I was emotionally unstable as "on Suicide Caution (SC)". I will never want to go back to have the "attention" and "awe" of earning the status of "Rest In Bed" or "Complete Rest in Bed (CRIB)" when I lost weight. How on earth could I regard a label of a baby 'crib' be a source of pride when I had so much more to me as person than my ability to self-destruct?
I am beyond being wheeled to places which are merely 5 steps away just to preserve calorie expenditure. I am beyond the degrading use of bed pans on my bed. I am beyond worrying about people watching me strip down to nothing as they weighed me/did safety checks for self-inflicted injuries/used the toilet. I am beyond being held captive behind restricted access doors. I am beyond having people I love feel worried sick over for with my depressing words.
I am way beyond that version of my life and this is a chapter that I will never want to re-experience.
I am beyond this "life". I no longer miss the monster I used to be. I used to kick the bed and doors in rage and wail loudly, condemning everything in my sight. I threw things around and wrecked havoc to my supposed demure persona. I threw a middle finger at a nurse once who didn't allow me to change before my supplement and made me change after instead just because I hated her for making me confront my bloated stomach. I used to inhale negativity and exhale aggressive hatred at everyone within my radius.
I used to live with anger underpinning my disdain for my existence.
I got scolded multiple times for breaking the rules of the ward. I used to wake up in the middle of the night to do hundreds of crunches, only to be enshrouded with shame with the subtle chastising of the night nurses.
I was banned from having the luxury of showers like everyone else - because I kept doing jumping jacks and etc weird af exercises and purging while the water ran, they issued an ultimatum to me - either a nurse stand inside the shower with me for the rest of the two plus months or I get timed for 5 minutes for showers. Instead of the anxiety I would experience as the invigilator announced that we had 30 seconds left to finish our essays, it was now a nurse who announced it to me through the door, else she would open the door and I would be butt naked. Let me just say, this was immensely stressful but I managed to turn practised my fruit ninja skills in the shower to preserve whatever pathetic dignity I had left.
I was doing a good job at surviving but this was far from being truly alive. I spent my 19th birthday last year in the ward without being able to choose my own cake or have the reigns of how I could spend my day. The choices were taken away from me - so how could this ward life be my forever life? Instead of cheering to a refreshing hipster drink I longed for, a viscous weight gainer milkshake sat in front of me. It jeered at me with pretentious heart-shaped ice cubes.
Despite the heartwarming embrace that the treatment team and my ward mates ambushed me with, I was not truly satisfied. Sometimes being greedy is a good thing - I did not want to settle for half-assed happiness and that drove me to strive towards striking sophrosyne (A healthy state of mind, characterised by self control, moderation and awareness of one's true self, and resulting in true happiness).
Plagued by one of the deadly sins of gluttony, I craved to ravage the pantries of majestic menu items - beyond the alternate Week A and B Menu items I was mandated to pick from for 120 days. I do not miss how I had to strategise how to break the monotony of my breakfasts from porridge, vegetarian beehoon, and have bread and eggs with Milo for 5 days straight.
I do not miss the stringent routine and being excited by the occasional banana corn bread. Why should I when I now have the world of food at my fingertips?
The pseudo nostalgia was not worth harping on or a reason to stay stagnant and go in and out of hospital for the permission to eat such "normal" breakfasts.
Now, I finally have the liberty to choose and choosing I shall embark on.
Why should I stay overly fixated on this level of satisfaction and remain stagnant in pseudo recovery just because I felt "comfortably satisfied"? Recovery is about being the most uncomfortable to achieve the level of comfort within yourself that you never thought was possible. I may quake with anxiety but this is the plunge I need to take.
As my intake increased and my hunger cues restored, I developed an insatiable appetite for a buffet of an uncharted life; one which I was meant to be alive for - to live and not survive. I decided it was enough - the "reward" of staying in inconsistent rapture hostage was no way to live with the overwhelming cost of permanent hostage. I fiddled with the ferns and mosses outside my safeguarded burrow. Within them, they entangled me in webs of risks and failures. However as I peered through the tendrils, I saw the morning glories that had interwoven itself in between and I realised that this Jacinta joy I had once felt was satisfactory possessed the petunia potential to emerge as the amazon of aeonian joy. There was greater happiness beyond what I was contented with in ward 46a. "We have a limited amount of time to enjoy ourselves, so we should take every opportunity with joy and enthusiasm. The greatest thing I’ve done since recovering from depression was letting deep, real love into my life—it’s opened my eyes to so many wonderful feelings that I want to spread to everyone. When I began to recover, the beauty I used to see in the world around me—in nature, in learning, in people—became crystal clear again. But that joyful renewal made my new life even sweeter than it was pre-depression because I knew what it was like not to see how wonderful life truly is. But life isn’t nearly that simple, and growth isn’t ever that clean. For every mile you journeyed forward, you were greeted by another reason to reconsider the walk. The act of growing, of breaking old habits like bones and allowing our bodies to heal, is harrowing, clumsy, and indefinite. But, somehow, you decided to stay."
Because Mondays were meant for groaning about Monday blues when I had work and not meant for wearing blue hospital gowns at 4am for weigh-ins.
Mondays were meant for me to be injected with caffeine shots and not concentrated glucose solutions to get my blood sugars up to a safe level.
Mondays were meant to have me pulsating with fiery liquid courage to face the week to come and not have blood drawn out of you with needles manoeuvring inside of me just so they can find the vein?!
(Who draws blood from a place so near a wrist bone omg it was so painful - this means so much coming from a self-harmer)
There is so much more in this big big world and I'm proud to say that I will cast aside the distrustful procedural safety checks and bladder scans because I want people to believe in my real self and all that I was meant to be after my illnesses.
Hold on dear fighter, it gets better; because the world is ours to grasp and we no longer have to play patty-cake with our demons
There is much more beyond our cages
Working Life
Volunteering Life
School Life
Plate by plate
You've crafted your guarded up front Each tessellation pieced together like platonic shards of land and water. As heat boils within your core and leaves eruptions on your continents, a blissful breeze of mendable strength sets in to halt the viscous flow of molten sadness and anger you've harboured within yourself underground. All of the strength of the greatest typhoon won't ever be mighty enough to break this epitome of self-empowerment and the courage to spring back to life and restore your amazons no matter how many times you've had the wind knocked out of your hollow bones. There were times when you collapsed into yourself, where you fall deep in the abysses and crevices of snare but I know, Candice, you have the language of the mind to push on, smell the daisies and let your mistakes go