me and austin state hospital (part 01)
i was admitted to austin state hospital in october of 1996 and was discharged in january 1997. this is what i remember–the best that i can after all these years and all those drugs. i am in possession of a small amount of my medical records from there, which has helped me get super specific on some occasions.
names and certain identifying details concerning individual persons are going to be changed.
friday. smoking an entire pack of marlboro reds in my driveway. i ended up going to HCPC and for whatever reason, i came right home. and i told my mom i would be dead on monday. i was fifteen years old, and there might have been a suicide note in my locker at school.
i couldn’t stand it anymore. or i thought i couldn’t. i was hearing voices, seeing things. the voices were the worst though. i was paranoid. extremely paranoid. everyone was talking about me. i was being followed. the weather was depending on my mood before it would make up it’s mind. my teachers, my friends. my family. they were all coming. everything and everyone to hurt me. there was no hope left. i couldn’t sleep. i was a zombie. i was heavily medicated. i cut. i cut. there might have been a storm coming that night. the sky was red. i remember.
i woke up on monday. everything was the same. everything felt the same. my mom was taking me to my doctor. the drive took forever. i remember that we stopped on the way and i got a soda. the checkout girl was cute, and she smiled at me, and it broke my heart.
i didn’t want to go back to charter, or bellaire, or champions, or any of them. i wanted to go home. i wanted to sleep. i wanted the fucking voices to shut up. i wanted to be a normal teenager who wasn’t staying up all night writing the worst poetry you have ever seen, peeing out of my second floor bedroom window, talking to myself, pacing, crying, cutting, singing along to whatever was playing, watching little things that i don’t remember passing in and out of my bedroom. and i thought i could bullshit the doctor and tell her i was fine. i could tell her that i would be okay, i changed my mind, i was no longer a danger or threat to myself and we just needed to keep chugging along with the medicines.
yes, i am hearing things, i told her.
what are you hearing?
everything. everything that is probably wrong.
tell me about the paranoia.
i can’t.
why not?
because you might kill me.
(we giggle.)
i see my parents out in the waiting room, talking. they are talking about me, no doubt. i tell my doctor her phone is tapped. don’t discuss me on that phone. fuck no.
but other than that, i am peachy.
i see it in her eyes. she’s buying it. without even trying, i had pulled it off. i might die the next day or even thursday or friday. but i wasn’t going back to the hospital.
she was shuffling through papers. she stopped. read. groaned.
i had threatened suicide. she must have missed that the first time around. that was enough. i was going back in.
i asked her to send me back to bellaire. i could do that. i knew the staff there. they were okay. i might still have friends left there. and she told me no. apparently they get serious when you hit a certain number of hospitalizations and no progress has been made. i couldn’t go to west oaks, because i might escape. she told me i was going to austin.
how long?
probably a few weeks. a month. depends on how you are doing.
when do i go? tomorrow?
now.
i can’t go now.
you’re going now.
my parents were in there. my dad asked if they could drive me up.
no.
the police would take me.
why?
she smiled at me.
there’s always the possibility you’ll jump out of a moving car.
she was fucking smart.
my dad went home to fetch me some clothes.
the voices started again. i got scared. i had lived in houston for almost three years. i had never been to austin. there was no way this was legit. i didn’t trust cops. i didn’t trust this doctor. i really didn’t trust whatever cop was coming to get me. i would never make it to austin. he was going to take me somewhere else. maybe dallas. maybe the desert. i knew it. i began to think of ways i could escape this. there was no way. she let me go outside. smoke a cigarette. it was a beautiful day out. it was awful. there was no going back. this was serious. i wanted to run. the police showed up. it was a sheriff. he looked like a sonofabitch.
i think i was cuffed. don’t quote me on that though. he put me in the back seat. he took a route that nobody in the world would ever take. it took us four or five hours. he was a horrible conversationalist.
when i checked in, my temperature was 99.7 degrees. i was currently on 1200 mg of lithium, 300 mg of effexor, and .5 mg of risperdal.
per day.
i did my interview. the staff guy was young. nice. i told him my meds were all screwed up.
Presumptive Diagnosis:
Axis I: Schizophrenia, Paranoid Type R/O Schizo-affective Disorder
Axis II: Borderline Personality Traits by History
Global Assessment of Functioning: 32
i was suicidal so they took my shoelaces, my belt, and pointed to a mattress in the middle of the day room. i wasn’t allowed to sleep in my pants. they told me i would get a room the next day.
i went to sleep, more afraid than before. the place smelled like shit. it was old. the walls were freezing. i could feel the crazy in the air. pretty sure i cried some before i finally fell asleep, with the staff members watching me.
alltheavenueslookugly 