I left off with what happened to me in the beginning of my 10 grade year. It totally messed me up. Being brought up catholic I thought I was unclean now, going to hell and could never be loved. I couldn't tell anyone. I became very aggressive, didn't listen to my parents, started fights , failed classes, got kicked out of one school then transferred to another. In the other school I found the worse kids, skipped classes, didn't do my homework. I just really didn't care. Started being extremely forward with boys as what did it matter anymore I was already damage goods. Got in fights with my Mom over not being able to do anything my friends where doing. Ended up going to a friends house after school and not telling my mom I was going there. When she found me I said I wasn't going home so she sent the cops to come get me. When I got home I went to go into the house and my bother stopped me and my Mom said to get in the car. They basically manhandled me into the car then drove me to the hospital and had me Baker Acted. (If you don't know what that is it is where they can legally hold you for 3 days because you are a harm to yourself or others.)
I freaked out at the hospital about them leaving me there and started screaming that she wasn't my Mother and never loved me if she could do this. Which all that got me was restrained and a healthy shot of Thorazine. I was put on meds, so many that I had to take meds for the side effects. When I left the hospital under the care of a psychiatrist and my parents. I went back to school but was still failing because I could stay awake or remember anything the teachers said. All my friends thought I was stuck up but what they didn't realize was that I was so medicated I couldn't do anything. I had cramps at night in my legs and back and could barely walk. I was really depressed and made the mistake of telling the psychiatrist that I didn't want to live anymore, but I meant like this but they don't take it that way. The next thing I knew I was back in the hospital because I was going to kill myself. The psychiatrist told my Mother that I should always be on meds and needed to be sent to a mental hospital for the rest of my life. I was 15 at the time and 5 days before I turned 16 I was on a plane flying to Hartford, Connecticut and a Place called The Institute of Living
I was put in this place by a psychiatrist and my parents with the thought that I would be there for the rest of my life. I had never tried to harm myself or others. I had only said that I didn't want to live the way I was feeling anymore. But My Mom said that hanging out with any boys and my friends, wanting to go to all night skating, was harming myself. Now to be a bit fair, my Mom was old enough to be my grandmother and when she was a kid in the early 1900's girls didn't do any of that. But this was the 1970's 80's so things were different. I wanted to go to dances and parties at friends house and skating etc with my friends. I also once on the meds stopped caring about any of it, had really weird dreams and heard things That I'm sure wasn't real. Never tell that to a psychiatrist, because then you end up being labeled schizophrenic and manic depressive.
Anyways, It was 5 days until my 16th Birthday and I was told to tell my parents goodbye as I wouldn't see them or any family for at least 6 months to a year. Then I was taken by underground tunnels to a unit and into a room told to strip and was searched. Told to take a shower and when I got done my clothes and stuff would be in my room. I had until the dinner bell to put everything away. I didn't have a roommate on that unit. I could stay in my room or go out into the common area if I wished. Dinner was in a 1/2 hour. Then I was left alone. I slowly unpacked my stuff from a laundry bin they had put everything in because they had search it and they keep your suitcases in a locked storage area. I sat on the bed holding my Tom stuffy cat my Dad had got me from the hospital at home and waited for the dinner bell. I didn't feel I could deal with seeing anyone I was very scared. I ended up not being able to eat when dinner time came around, not because I didn't like the food, just because I got freaked out around the other 30 plus people on the unit. So I ended up siting on a couch by a window hugging my knees and rocking until it was time to take meds and go to bed. Now med time was interesting because it is the line outside the nurses station and they give you a little cup with the meds and a little cup of water or OJ. The nurse got me to actually laugh because she had never seen anyone take as many meds as I had at one swallow. I was on 70mg of one meds 3 times a day, plus zinc and a pill of side effects so that's 9 pills at once that I downed. She called me the M&M lady and I laughed. Which made me feel better because I knew there was at least one person I could go to. And on that note I'm stopping here.
Remember to hug your loved ones often.
Huggs,
Cleary (Cie)