The end of my line..

I was very depressed and last week I had hallucinations (visual, they were just holes in the window.. it was quite odd) and I went to a hospital and checked myself in. The ride up to the unit was terrifying, especially when the elevator doors (locked) closed behind me and I knew I couldn't leave. It was the least restrictive unit (check yourself in, check yourself out) but they still try not to let you leave if you're not in good shape. I ended up reading the whole night in my room because I was so freaked out.

After that things got easier. Group therapy was very beneficial to me and it was nice to talk to other people who were local, some of whom had problems worse than mine. My psychiatrist was great too-- he was very smart and talked to me like an equal rather than like a walking case of symptoms or a medical project or whatever. He diagnosed me as having PTSD on top of the bipolar, from what happened to my mother and a lot of my symptoms (I.e. the hallucinations).

I was on seroquel the first day and it was awful. It made me grouchy, extremely tired and I had a hard time connecting words for speech. I got very frustrated when my boyfriend would visit and I couldn't talk to him very well. They took me off of that and now I'm on wellbutrin and periactin. The wellbutrin keeps me from being too depressed and the periactin has normalized my sleep schedule which is really going to help with my hypomania since my sleep issues seem to tie in directly with that.

I was there in total for five days. It was pretty scary but I am very glad I did it.. and now I'm going to be doing a partial hospitalization program starting friday. I'll basically be there during the day for the next two weeks doing groups and sessions to help me put together my plans for restructuring my life.

I had a lot of time to think in between therapy and group activities and I have come to realize that I need a lifestyle makeover. The medicine will help me I think but I'm understanding now that by not making sure my lifestyle was giving me the fulfillment I need that I was only putting off my inevitable break down.

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm doing okay and nothing bad happened.. and hopefully in no time at all I'll be doing even better

Post edited by: MissNikki, at: 06/23/2008 20:18

Unfortunately, my insurance doesn't cover partial hospitalization and it's like, 600 dollars a day. The nice part is that the hospital is going to pay for one week of it because they think I could truly benefit from it.. I was told that if they had known that it would be rejected by my insurance they would have kept me in the hospital for another five days at least and just had me attend the meetings and then sleep at the hospital instead of at home. Gotta love American insurance system, heh.

Post edited by: lobo, at: 06/27/2008 19:13