Hospital computer access…woo hoo

Suprisingly since my last admission, the hospital has bought a computer for patients …and it has internet access. Only ONE computer though, in the 71 bed hospital. But as a great chunk of the hospital is mental patients and geriatric patients, so far I haven’t encountered much competition to use it.

And it’s mega modern and FAST. It’s great. No messenger though. That’s probably for the best.

Well I came in last night. About 6pm. Darkness is always hard for me. It makes me scared and depressed. So coupled with feeling alone, in a new environment, and like I’d made the wrong decision, I was quite upset and cried a lot. In my room. yeah well. I think I feel better now. I know it takes time to adjust.

I keep trying to remember not what the opposing sides of my brain say (you aren’t sick you shouldn’t be here…you are sick but you still shouldn’t be here) and listen to a new THIRD part of my brain which hopefully is more rational and stable, and tells me what is a better truth.

That is, the thrid part of my brain tells me that I am sick, and that being here is the right thing to do, because it’s going to help.  Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean that I think I deserve to be here….just that in some way I think it will help.

I met some of the other girls. One young girl was here when I was here last. She’s still in the same room. She hasn’t gotten better. She’s been in here (WITHOUT any sort of discharge and re-admission)…permanently since January I think. That’s a LONG time to be in here. Many of the girls have given up thinking she’s going to get better. Hmmm. she needs a change somewhere. To push her into recovery. Because at the moment she’s not living at all. Only existing.

I haven’t eaten any meals since I’ve been here. And everynight when they put the next days photcopied menu sheet in my room, I make sure my eyes don’t read any of it. I douse it fully in water in the sink, and screw it up and walk a long ways to a waste paper basket in the other wing, and throw it out. Tonight they got me another copy and told me I had to fill it out as was part of the program. I said I couldn’t look at it, and they could fill it out with whatever I’m supposed to order (follwing the dietician’s meal plan of one protein, one carb etc etc). the 2 nurses said, no, we can’t fill it out. I started crying and said I want to talk to my Dr then, becuase I really can’t do it.

I’ve never done this (screwing up my menu form) before. But I can’t facing looking at it. Or ordering. Or eating. I am lining up and getting my meals but I won’t look at it. And I’ll sit there wondering how on earth this is going to change. But I have faith it will.

Apparently my admitting psych doctor thought I was requesting re-admission when I saw him for the outpatient appt last week. I WASN’T. I was intending on beginning oupatient sessions with him again. He didn’t think this, and so errounously assumed I wanted admission. When he said, "So it’s okay if I put you on the waiting list?". I just ummed and ahhed, and turned my head away and said, okay. Now I know that he thought I was requesting it, it makes me feel like maybe he wouldn’t have suggested it just naturally. Pah, I know I shouldn’t be thinking like that.

I already had my GP and other long-term psych suggesting IP admission left right and centre and calling hopsitals. So surely that is justification enough in my mind.

Anyway…Off to watch TV. The meals of the day are over. Hmm, except supper. More coffee. Yum.

I am finding the groups helpful by the way. And I am reading "How to recover and face your eating disorder blah blah blah" books. I think every bit of input and exposure and environment change I have is like a raindrop of recovery falling into an empty bucket.

Gradually, very gradually, that water is going to add up.

Elizabeth