New Beg. (further cont'd)

So back to where I left off, I was put into the close observation unit. I ended up staying for a week. When you're put in close observation, you are confined to one small corner of the unit. You are dressed in bright yellow scrubs, socks, (a sweatshirt if you're cold), and you sleep in a room with nothing in it but a bed, which contains no sheets, a pillow with no pillowcase, and one thick blanket. I endured it for the first couple of days, then on a saturday, I had enough of it. So I managed to rip the entire sleeve off of the sweatshirt I was wearing (while "sleeping" under the blanket in my room), and they caught me as I was in the middle of trying to strangle myself with it. This was a bad idea, as they then put in me a paper gown, as I couldn't even be trusted with clothes. I wore that paper gown for 2 days. It was truly embarassing, but they were doing whatever it took to keep me safe. They let you shower every other day, but anytime you are in the bathroom, someone is in there with you (for protection measures). It was not a fun experience. I finally convinced my doctor that I was ready to go back out into the unit. In addition to the complete lack of privacy, there wasn't much to do. So you could either sleep...or write, or they had playing cards (that I shuffled over and over and over because there was no one back there that wanted to play with me). It made for a really long week. I was so relieved when I got out. Once I got out, I still had suicidal tendencies, I just didn't act on them in fear of having to go back to close observations. In this particular hospital, they had privilege rankings. If you were an A, then you couldn't leave the unit, which meant any classes that were off the unit, you were unable to attend and you had to eat your meals that were brought to the unit on trays instead of going to the cafeteria. If you were B, then you could go off the unit, so long as you had a staff member accompanying you. If you were a C-, you could go anywhere on the grounds by yourself, with the exception of going outside on walks. If you were a regular C, you could go on walks outside by yourself, and anywhere else in the building by yourself. I went back and forth with the privilege levels during the course of my stay. About 3 weeks after I arrived, I finally got my B, and a day or two later, I recieved my C. Which I was pretty happy about because when I got there on March 31st, they were undergoing a process of making the hospital a smoke free environment. (I smoke.) So until I got my C I couldn't smoke because by then only people with their C could go outside to the designated smoking area and smoke. This lasted a week. Then they made the hospital 100% smoke free. No more smoking at all. The only time I smoked was when my parents came up to visit me and I was given day passes to go off hospital grounds with them and I would smoke then. Backtracking a little bit, the first weekend I spent there, my parents came up to see me. Since I was still an A at this point, we stayed on the unit in the library the whole time. But April 3rd was my 22nd birthday, so they came up to "celebrate" my birthday with me. We just talked, played cards, and they would go out and buy food from somewhere and bring it in to me. When they left, I had a major breakdown, I didn't want them to leave me there. I cried so hard I shook and can still feel the pain of them having to leave. My mom usually ended up in tears too. It took a good half hour before they could actually leave because I was so upset. It was so hard. Now back to getting my C. I maintained my C for quite some time. I went to my classes like I was supposed to. Then after a period of time (I couldn't be sure of exactly how long), I began feeling the urge to self-mutilate again. (I have a history of this.) So I began doing self-injury again. I started on my upper legs. Then it became addictive. Once I had done some on one leg, I began doing it on the other leg. By the time my doctor put a stop to it once and for all, I had cut on both upper legs, my wrist (the inside, so when I wear my watch, it covers up the scar), my stomach, and my shoulder (all places where no one could see the scars in plain view. I think I counted twenty some cuts in all. I fessed up to my doctor every time I did it, and finally she threatened to put me back in close observation if I kept at it, and sure enough, I cut one more time, and I was put into close observation for a day. I told her I would stop and she trusted me so she let me back out. And I haven't cut since. I lost my C when I was put back in close observation. So I had to earn it back again, but I think I earned it back within a short period of time. All this time, I was going to classes. I was learning Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, I was going to a class called "co-occuring disorders" which was about struggling with substance abuse as well as mental illness, I was going to fitness (usually I played basketball with a a couple of fellow patients), I was making things in crafts (a leather belt, a leather bracelet, a leather keychain for my mom, and a few other things.) But nothing was working. I still felt the emptiness, the hopelessness. I still viewed myself as a lost cause. By this point, I was doing one on one therapy with an amazing therapist who was also my clinician. I was beginning to open up to her about my abusive relationship, about how I still couldn't move past the death of my grandmother, of how I wanted to go drink when I was released. At that point in time, I had given up on trying to stay sober...the only reason I had stayed sober during that period of time was because I didn't have a choice. Slowly, she worked with me. As she learned more about me, the way I thought and the way I had been thinking throughout my entire life, she was able to help me more and more. However, I still struggled. I still had breakdowns. I still had days where all I wanted to do was isolate. I'd cry myself to sleep. I'd call my parents and realize how much I missed them and have a breakdown on the phone. It got to the point where I was no longer allowed to call my parents, because I was calling them constantly and just causing unnecessary stress on both ends. They called me though, quite often. I was getting letters and packages from family and friends. My cousins and their kids (my second cousins) came down in June to see me. My parents came every month and stayed for about 2 1/2 days at a time. This was something I really looked forward to. But each time they left, I took it extremely hard. I hated being there not because of the staff or anything like that, but becauase for the first time in my life, I was being "forced" to look in t the mirror and face my problems. And I was being told that the only way to deal with them was to look them straight in the eye and get through it in a healthy way. I then entered my angry stage. At this point, I began punching my hand into the wall. Not just once, not just twice, but every time I walked into my room, I would slam my fist into the wall (which behind the paint was cement). And I mean every time. This really got me into a lot of trouble. I craved the feeling I got when I punched the wall. I don't know if it was feeling of finally having control over the pain (even though it wasn't the emotional pain I had control over), or if it was simply that I was angry and I didn't know how else to get it out.

Need to go, more later...keep reading, I promise there's a good ending...just have to take you through everything I had to go through to get to that point... thanks for reading!