I'm gonna vent, I don't really have anywhere else to post this. No irl or online friends.
At one point in my life I had everything going for me, and everything to live for. I never expected this would become my life, not one bit.
In 2019 I was top of my game, just graduated with a pretty decent degree, began studying for a competitive masters course that was a miracle that I got on - it guaranteed me a comfy job with great pay within the next 2 years, had a part time job. Had friends. Life was intense but I had a lot of fun I think and I was doing well for myself.
late 2019, my apartment burns down and I lose everything. then life becomes a series of unfortunate events. Living in hotels, having to quit my job to keep up with my studies. Then lockdown happens in 2020, placements at my hospital get cancelled. lectures are put online.
Around april or May 2020 I have an episode of what is believed to be psychosis. was picked up by police, found wandering the streets in my pajamas. Barely remember this. Apparently get took to the local police station and then the hospital. from then on get sent to a mental health hospital 50 miles away from my apartment. Have little memories of this. They shot me with a drug that caused me to be paralysed (clopixol), and then they gave me another drug that nearly finished me off. then i have a complete blackout for about 6 weeks where i couldn't remember anything. Got sent to another hospital and then at some point they discharge me. cant go back to my apartment, have to live with my parents. The drugs they discharged me on gave me the worst case of akathisia and general restlessness. Think - ok ill just go back to uni next year. the anti psychotic i was on kinda changed my personality and made me angry and just not myself - but I was still functional, I had a relationship. that ended by the end of the year. gutted. come of the medication shortly after, feeling much better.
I Fail a fitness to practice meeting for uni in early 2021, get kicked off the course. cant return. Now in a shit ton of student debt from my first degree and now my masters which i partly had to pay out of pocket anyway. No refunds. coping hard.
A couple of months later I'm basically friendless and decide to get a wagie job at the local factory to save up some money so I can go back into education or learn to drive as I was 24 and still hadn't learned. I planned to do it as soon as I finished my masters before I started employment, but Life eh?
Wagie job started okay, I had done some part time work at the factory before ranging from admin and working some machinery. This time it was an admin gig, but because I was an agency worker they got me doing all sorts of shit that i shouldn't have been doing, working incredibly long hours. Make a friend there and one of my old best friends reconnects with me and so I have some socialisation in and outside of work.
Lifes alright, jobs shit but im not saving up. Whatever, I start looking for jobs elsewhere that I'd actually be respected in or where there would be some progression after working 12h shifts for almost a year.
March 2022 - im off work from the wagie job with a flu of sorts, incredibly unwell. develop strange paranoid feeling, travel to my best friends house with a bible, complain of insomnia, cant remember much. Apparently my eyes were flickering from side to side. apparently I was really paranoid. in the morning i feel pretty weird. have one auditory hallucination that lasts like 10 seconds, a wave of panic comes over me and call my dad to pick me up. Get home and aparently I'm just blank staring and not eating any food. I remember at one point I got a lift to the gym, but in there I felt like something bad was going to happen, did about 2 mins on the cross fit thingy get back into the car. My mum has phoned the mental health team at this point, she tries to give me a sedative anti histamine but I dont take it. I feel incredibly physically ill but also in a weird haze of sorts.
At some point I get took to the local hospital, My mum tells me I'm just blank staring and wandering around. wait for about 12 hours, she just tells them I've had a flu and i havent been right since. Still waiting to be seen,
the next morning (ironically april fools day) I'm sat still waiting to be seen properly, I for some reason decide to leave my mum in the hospital and run home. I'm in such a daze at this point. Everything feels like a lucid dream. Get back home, and my dad puts me in the car and drives me back to the hospital. upon exiting the car outside the hospital, 4 police throw me to the ground and handcuff me and take me into the hospital, I dont remember talking to a doctor. for some reason I couldnt understand what the police or anyone was saying. Apparently they had no beds at the infirmary, and no beds at the local mental hospital, then suddenly a bed became available. I just remember being escorted to a police van where I was took to the mental health hospital and my bed is in a literal spare room that should not have been fit for use. I still have the flu and I just want to lie down and rest in the dark. Get disturbed every hour by someone checking on me and putting the lights on. my folks bring me a suitcase full of clothes. and this becomes the beginning of the end.
I get placed on a section, which means I cant leave. At this point I feel incredibly blank and i havent slept in almost a week, I cant get to sleep for the life of me. I'm not hearing voices or having delusions or anything of the sorts. I just feel slowed down, and I cant think. Managed to message my best friend at that point and basically ask them out once I get out of the hospital. I was slow to type, I kept telling the staff that I couldnt think and i couldnt function and that I'm not sleeping. I get moved into an actual room but theres no bathroom door because what is privacy. I can barely function at this point. I get placed on a higher section which means they can forcibly medicate me. I'm given promazine, then quetiapine which doesnt help me sleep. then aripiprazole (which in the past caused the restlessness) and then some depot shot. (find out later its the same stuff that paralysed me in 2020) My parents visit me, my best friend and kinda partner now visits me but I have nothing really to say. I'm basically a zombie. At this point I havent been outside in almost 2 months. My brain is decimated. I still complain of insomnia, I get given max strength zopiclone which does nothing. Then zolpidem, which doesnt make me drowsy but if lie down i can get about 5 hours of sleep before being snapped awake. At this point I'm a shell of a person. worse than a shell. Showering takes me a long time. I dont speak. I feel out of it, my long term memories have faded and my short term memory is awful. I get given an hour leave per day - three 20 minute walks outside the building. To which the staff remind me 'if you run off, we'll have to bring you back' sometimes I consolidate it when the friend/partner comes and I sit in his car. all I can do is give him a hug and complain about how i feel.
2.5 months in and I get told that I wont be returning home to my parents, I didn't want to stay at my parents forever, id lived independently before but this time I had 0 cognitive function. no thoughts and a blank mind. my day consisted of getting up, showering, sat blankly observing in the communal room, getting meds shoved in and down me, having food, walking around the building and then lying in bed awaiting some sort of sleep. I never felt rested. I couldnt talk with the other residents and the staff didnt neurologically assess me or send me off for testing. They could see I wasn't okay. The staff didnt talk to you, they just gave meds and generally didnt give a shit.
I go to pilates, i go to the relaxation group where i realise i dont have my mental imagery anymore 'Imagine you're on a beach, feel the sand between your toes' people falling asleep and im just sat there closing my eyes, not getting tired but just seeing nothing.
At one point, I get tasked with making a meal on a budget in a kitchen room, I get escorted to the shops and buy ingredients to make a burger. I really struggle with this task as if id never cooked a meal in my life before. I'm dazed and confused.
At some point, a staff member tells me about this rehabilitation place/hostel I could go to, I had a meeting with the manager the next day. I was pretty out of it but i think I said 'when I'm well id like to go back into education or an apprenticeship of sorts, retrain' - when referring to being well, I wasn't talking about in a mental health sense, I meant in a cognitive sense, when I regained my function, my emotions, my memories my co-ordination. The next week, I was booked in for a visit there. On the day I was meant to go I had incredible chest pains - not anxiety, on top of all my other symptoms. The psychologist who was accompanying me was uninterested and hurried me along to the taxi. (bare in mind, 2 nights before id watched one of the people who was on the ward have a heart attack and drop to the floor and then had to be rushed to the local general hospital) I arrive there and a crack fiend looking woman is all pleasant, shows me to my room which is tiny, I'm one of the lucky ones who have a shower and a kitchen. I say that im suffering from incredible side effects of the medication, the staff there dont really give a damn that im a zombie, and after a couple of hours spent sat outside, not speaking to the other residents I get took back. On the way back the psychologist informs me that she went to the same university as me, asks me how I liked it, I tell her i don't feel right in myself and say I dont think im ready to go anytime soon.
A week later, i get told I have an overnight stay at the hostel/rehab. And a potential discharge date. My parents were at the majority of the weekly meetings with the psychiatrist and they argued that i wasn't ready to go anytime soon. This wasnt a matter of mental health, this was a matter of phsyical health now. The psychiatrist thought I was suffering with side effects from the medication in my zombiefied state, but he said it would be for the best to send me there. I have my overnight stay, get brought to the rehab, sit in the lounge and stare at the tv and then at 10pm I get given my meds. the room im in is the hottest room in the building. I take my meds and 5 hours later I get snapped awake. I get dressed and go downstairs and wait for my taxi back to the hospital. a resident says ' you'll love it here when you come, theyll bring you out your shell' looking back I should have responded that I am the shell, you cant bring me out of it.
Close to my due date, I keep asking will I ever feel normal again, I say im going to struggle to look after myself. cooking meals everyday. just existing. Staff just say 'you might not, mental illness changes you' I didnt feel like I had mental health issues, i felt neurologically destroyed. after the last meeting with the psychiatrists my parents were told they couldnt come in. My discharge date was set, i said i didnt feel well enough to go, they said they needed the bed here for someone else since I wasn't showing any mental health symptoms.
I should have refused the visit to the hostel full stop, they said if i didnt go there they might have sent me somewhere out of the area. looking back that would have bought me more time.
The day i was set to leave i protested, i said i didnt want to be discharged on the depot medication, i said i was a zombie, they came in and prepped my room. i had my last meal at the hospital and they bagged up my stuff. My partner at the time gave me a lift to the hostel and that was it. I was sent packing. when I arrived I had no food in and asked for a food parcel, I got given garlic bread. Then I got ready for bed. I just had clothes, a hairdryer, my phone and toiletries. staff would come in and give me my sleeping pill at 10.
The first day at the hostel, I wake up and decide to go to the shops, Its the opposite end of my hometown so somewhere i should be familiar with, there's a retail park nearby. I walk, but im in a daze, I enter the nearest supermarket like its the first time ive been in a shop. I realise my vision has deteriorated and i have visual snow. I then make the relisation that I havent actually felt hungry or thirsty in a long time. I look like a mentally disabled person, i struggle with crossing roads. I feel like i'm high or drunk without the euphoria. I get back to the hostel.
At somepoint within the next couple of days im informed i have to pay to stay at this hostel, now it probably seems apparent, but I was never told this. I realise im short of money so I have to apply to Universal credit (benefits in the uk) I get help with this since this accommodation is 'supported' however, i received little support in all. I get an advance payment and then i have to go to the job centre, one of the staff comes with me. And I have a work coach although I am not fit to work in the slightest. I cant remember what was said but I had to keep sending 'fit notes' from my doctors every month to receive about £350 a month. I had to collect them from the other end of town, near where my parents house was.
Each day I spend majority of my time lied down in my room, thinking and feeling nothing. My hair is also falling out. My partner at the time comes to visit, sometimes i stay at his house but i am not with it at all, zombiefied. anhedonic. sex is the last thing on my mind, i dont have a libido . my genitals dont feel the same anyway. It would be like making love to a corpse. He tells me I'll be better when the meds are out of my system. I just want actual sleep to return, to feel tired, to think and feel.
3 weeks in, I get called to have my depot shot, at the other end of town, when i get there I refuse it. I say ive had this 2 years ago and it paralysed me and i should never have been on it. The nurses try and coax me into taking it and i just say no. In the hopes that id feel better. 2 days later i get an appointment with the local psychiatrist, as soon as i get in there he starts talking about antispychotics and what I should be on, mentions olanzipene and risperidone (something ive had a bad reaction to also) I say i dont need an anti psychotic and describe my blank mind symptoms, loss of thought process, feeling in a haze, not feeling with it ( you get the jist by now) and he says 'i think you need to be on something' he prescribes me sertraline, an antidepressant. He also prescribes me temazepam for sleep because ive been on zolpidem a while. Temazepam doesnt do anything for me, a strong benzo and it has no effect whatsoever, no drowsiness, no nothing. I tell staff at the hostel and theyre like 'muh trust the professionals' 'maybe it will work if you take it for a few days' 'just have a shower and a hot chocolate you'll feel tired. tfw they dont realise i havent felt actually sleepy since march 2022.
The antidepressent doesn't do anything for me, my symptoms dont change and i just get prescribed increases until im on 150mgs I call my gp and when i mention the lack of thirst and hunger they decide to add another antidepressant into the mix. duloxotine. This changes nothing and causes my pupils to become massive so I stop taking it.
Shortly after, I arrange a face to face appointment with the GP, I'm due for a fit note. The receptionist tells me i dont look very well. Upon entering the GP's room he asks me how I'm feeling, i name everything how I'm feeling. He looks at my notes and says ' well anon, you were hospitalised for drug induced psychosis which is no small feat' I said thats not the case, i had a flu, I was off work, things went strange, I got sent to the mental hospital, they didnt drug test me and now I have cognition problems, i can barely function, I dont get tired, hungry or thirsty - I think I need a brain scan. He replies somewhere along the lines of 'I'm sure you do but I cant refer you to one even if I thought you needed one, I dont think theres anything i can do for you and you should talk to the mental health team' He gives me a fit note that says 'paranoid disorder' on it. And I'm sent on my way. Incredibly frustrated, i go back to the hostel.
The job centre stop asking me for fit notes and give me an extra couple of hundred a month because I'm deemed not fit to work, On top of that I receive a healthy tax rebate which I decide to book a private mri scan (without contrast) in the hopes that something will show.
The 8th of september 2022 I go for my MRI, two weeks later I receive my results that everything is normal, I'm disappointed. The staff at the hostel are like 'oh thats good news see everything is fine' I say to one staff member i feel like i have a disability now, she says 'sometimes mental health can feel like that' I said 'I dont have the capacity to have mental health problems, i cant function is what's the problem.
Again, i spend my days lying down, feeling blank or sat outside feeling blank. ordering goyslop. sometimes I do scratch art to pass the time. I buy cigs so i can share them out with the residents, I say the same thing over and over again. If im not complaining about how i feel, im not saying anything. my brain feels blank.
A girl I was in hospital with moves in and she says ' I remember you from hospital, you could tell you were really unwell then' she was implying mentally not psyically, I Just said i dont think im gonna get better.
My parents continue to help me shop but I only make microwave and toaster meals, I start vaping not because it feels good or i enjoy it but as something to do. I pretty much hope that I don't wake up at this point when i lie down.
So for most people, after the hostel place, they move on to get their own place and live their lives in the world, most are functioning but have varying degrees of actual mental health problems, I had a social worker who was like 'anon at one point, you were living independently, lets aim for that' she dismisses how i feel and I get put on a housing registry. Most people do want to move on and get on with their lives but at this point I had no life. Eat, stare blankly, cant follow tv, cant have deep conversations, feel hollow, 'sleep' repeat. I then have a meeting where my parents are involved about moving me on, I barely remember what was said, they said there was a supported acommodation for mental health near my parents end of town, I'd have my own full size apartment and could get a pet if i wanted to. My mum said ' they moved anon too quick out of hospital and now you're moving anon on without getting them sorted' They replied with that the hostel was a short term stay and that 3 months is what people get (however some people had been there a year and a bit) I didnt have much choice, I was going to move there.
At one point after that the work buddy gets in touch and wants to see me as it had been half a year. When they saw me they were pretty much in shock. they were in disbelief at how much id changed. They saw me struggling to cross roads and they took me to the precinct for food. when we left the food court I they noted how i pretty much had no internal compass as I couldnt tell them which way was home. I was pretty mute. we used to shoot the shit and chat for hours in the past, on various different topics. They were going through their own problems at the time but they said it was nothing in comparison to what I was going through. I looked like shit, I felt braindead and i was a dead weight. I feel a sense of embaressment and feel ill need a carer at somepoint.
In my last days at the hostel, some of the staff try and convince me I should get a pet when I move to help with my recovery, Id never actually owned a pet but I thought maybe it would give me something to do. maybe spark some joy in my life, maybe bring me out of this walking coma. I decide to get a cat, easy enough to look after and 2 of my old flames had cats. I told my partner and he said that would be a good idea maybe. I wish hed talked me out of it now. but more on that later.
One of the staff members was addiment that I had actual depression and this was the cause of all my symptoms ' her source? a quick google search of depression' another staff member accused me of drinking alcohol with another resident despite the fact I didnt drink. Another staff member asked me the last time I used drugs after i repetitively complained of how I felt, I figured id get nowhere complaining of my symptoms any longer and just waited till my leave date.
In october 2022, I moved in. I still got observed taking my medications but after 2 weeks i was told I could do my own medication, I then started the process of weaning off medication. Before that I did visit a psychologist who I saw in hospital, who didn't listen once again to my symptoms and just said i was depressed. he also just decided to stop the temazepam despite me being on it for 3 months, and although I didnt feel any therapeutic benefits I did get physical withdrawl symptoms where I felt like I was going to have a seizure.
The good news was the shop was on the doorstep. But I didnt really make any friends properly, I saw my partner more but all we did was watch some tv and then he'd sleep and I'd just lie awake, I relied heavily on him to cook meals and to just generally help with tidying.
I saw a GP who took some bloods who found my folic acid was low, so i started using supplements. I also started taking herbal supplements in a morning in a hopes to feel better. I signed up to the gym because id become overweight and weak. the biggest in my life. I bought a cat. The accom allowed me to have a pet (they shouldnt have done imo) By christmas 2022 i had weaned off all the medication without the staff being aware.
I spent christmas at my partners house and he reassured me that within no time Id be back to myself and sleep would return along with everything else. not much else changed in the meantime. except I had a cat to take care of. I wish i could say we bonded but we didn't. I still felt nothing. I still stuggled with all the things I did before and I felt pretty much hopeless.
Months passed and at the end of march or april, I forget, things ended with my partner. I was once again alone in the world and had to fend for myelf. I hadnt been myself for so long. I cant blame them really.
The only routine I now had was my 5.30pm call with my mother which was pretty much ritualistic since Id left the hospital. I got back in touch with work buddy and they visited a few times before going back to their life. I tried to make friends with people here but because I could barely hold a conversation that didnt work. The memory loss got worse. the blankness didnt improve. no spontaneous thoughts or internal monologue. no mental imaging. I wasnt going to the gym. my life was back to how I was in the hostel only this time I didnt have people checking on me about 4 times a day. I had no hobbies or interests, I used to be big on gaming and though I had my console and pc with me I had no interests in playing. my co-ordination was off anyway.
I realised I hadnt checked my mailbox for months and I had council tax bills from the rehab and here.
I had to do a weekly planner with staff from then on, they considered me for an autism referral though any autistic person was functioning better than I was. Everwhere on social media I saw people living happy lives, getting married, having children and I was just stuck as a shell. Staff didnt have much to compare me to, since this version of me was all they knew. They found out I wasnt taking my medication and the mental health team was brought out in summer. I could barely speak at this point. they said I should consider taking sertraline again. I said it hadnt worked for me and i needed neurological assessment. Something that I had tried to get from the mental health team prior. But they didnt follow through.
I had a key worker I saw weekly but I had nothing to say 'just waiting to see the doctor' ' I havent been right since hospital' she speaks alot about spiritual stuff and what sort of career i want in the future. I have no memories of my studies. I can barely remember my relationships and each day is pretty much the same. not progressing, just stagnating or getting worse.
Summer was a haze. I had visits from old flames and people I used to talk to, They couldnt grasp the gravity of my situation. They just commented on how different I was, how i used to be full of life and always had something to talk about and now i was a mute zombie, barely able to string a sentence together. I felt more and more sad. even though sad was not an emotion I could really feel. I cant cry, I cant feel scared or worried. I dont have the capacity to feel any of that. An old friend came to visit who at one point in my life would talk to on the phone for hours. 'They really cabbaged you' he said.
In august 2023 I went to the doctors again. I went with my mum and saw a different doctor. Upon explaining my symptoms once again, he tried to pie me off with depression meds, lexapro. I said ill take them. just so i could say i could jump through hoops and say 'hey i tried it, now can we try something else' Staff now came in my room every morning and oversaw me take my medication. I couldnt see any improvement. still no hunger. no thirst or thought. still cognitively disabled. just more fatigued.
I saw a pharmacist 2 weeks later under the mental health team. Upon describing my symptoms he said 'that sounds neurological' My mother said that's what we've been trying to say this whole time. He then added I should probably up the dose of the anti depressant and asked some stupid question about ' why do you eat if you're not hungry' I said because if i only ate when I felt hungry i wouldn't eat, id also end up not drinking either due to adipsia. I decided to wait until i saw my doctor again, who was handling the situation.
It's now september, nearly october 2023 and I feel like a fraud for living in this accomodation. I dont feel as if i suffer with mental health problems. hell I kinda wish i heard voices so i could hear something, or hallucinate because then I'd have an actual diagnosis. My life now consists of lying in bed, sometimes kinda sleeping but i never feel tired, never heavy eyes. then lying in bed for hours upon waking up because theres not much difference being awake when you have no imagination or imagery or memories besides semantic thingd. I lie there for hours each day. I'll research my symptoms and find anyone like me, I feed the cat. I make very basic meals. i shower. i cant enjoy music or tv because i cant keep up and just think how i cant have feelings or be normal. i take my med. i lie back in bed. sometimes I shop. I look awful, I feel awful. I then forget everything thats happened in a day or in a week. The hours pass so quickly now. I feel like the least functioning person in history. I'm angry the hospital misdiagnosed me, Im angry they washed their hands of me and sent me on my way without thinking how I could be affected by it. I miss my functioning brain, my personality but I dont remember it. litterally barely functional npc mode. i miss my memories. I miss the feelings I used to feel. I miss how motivated i once was. I just need a diagnosis or someone to take me seriously. I would CTB but being here theyd be like ' oh anon was depressed' fuck you. I'm not depressed. I havent been right for more than a year and a half AND NOBODY HERE CAN SEE OR UNDERSTAND THAT. I'll never have a normal life either way. least functioning person right now.
I don't feel anything but bitter and frustrated. My dad doesnt believe the extent of my problems. The only person who does is my mother.
I see the doctor on tuesday. Maybe ill update this thread on what happens. I just want to have my cognition and capacity back.
At one point in my life I had everything going for me, and everything to live for. I never expected this would become my life, not one bit.
In 2019 I was top of my game, just graduated with a pretty decent degree, began studying for a competitive masters course that was a miracle that I got on - it guaranteed me a comfy job with great pay within the next 2 years, had a part time job. Had friends. Life was intense but I had a lot of fun I think and I was doing well for myself.
late 2019, my apartment burns down and I lose everything. then life becomes a series of unfortunate events. Living in hotels, having to quit my job to keep up with my studies. Then lockdown happens in 2020, placements at my hospital get cancelled. lectures are put online.
Around april or May 2020 I have an episode of what is believed to be psychosis. was picked up by police, found wandering the streets in my pajamas. Barely remember this. Apparently get took to the local police station and then the hospital. from then on get sent to a mental health hospital 50 miles away from my apartment. Have little memories of this. They shot me with a drug that caused me to be paralysed (clopixol), and then they gave me another drug that nearly finished me off. then i have a complete blackout for about 6 weeks where i couldn't remember anything. Got sent to another hospital and then at some point they discharge me. cant go back to my apartment, have to live with my parents. The drugs they discharged me on gave me the worst case of akathisia and general restlessness. Think - ok ill just go back to uni next year. the anti psychotic i was on kinda changed my personality and made me angry and just not myself - but I was still functional, I had a relationship. that ended by the end of the year. gutted. come of the medication shortly after, feeling much better.
I Fail a fitness to practice meeting for uni in early 2021, get kicked off the course. cant return. Now in a shit ton of student debt from my first degree and now my masters which i partly had to pay out of pocket anyway. No refunds. coping hard.
A couple of months later I'm basically friendless and decide to get a wagie job at the local factory to save up some money so I can go back into education or learn to drive as I was 24 and still hadn't learned. I planned to do it as soon as I finished my masters before I started employment, but Life eh?
Wagie job started okay, I had done some part time work at the factory before ranging from admin and working some machinery. This time it was an admin gig, but because I was an agency worker they got me doing all sorts of shit that i shouldn't have been doing, working incredibly long hours. Make a friend there and one of my old best friends reconnects with me and so I have some socialisation in and outside of work.
Lifes alright, jobs shit but im not saving up. Whatever, I start looking for jobs elsewhere that I'd actually be respected in or where there would be some progression after working 12h shifts for almost a year.
March 2022 - im off work from the wagie job with a flu of sorts, incredibly unwell. develop strange paranoid feeling, travel to my best friends house with a bible, complain of insomnia, cant remember much. Apparently my eyes were flickering from side to side. apparently I was really paranoid. in the morning i feel pretty weird. have one auditory hallucination that lasts like 10 seconds, a wave of panic comes over me and call my dad to pick me up. Get home and aparently I'm just blank staring and not eating any food. I remember at one point I got a lift to the gym, but in there I felt like something bad was going to happen, did about 2 mins on the cross fit thingy get back into the car. My mum has phoned the mental health team at this point, she tries to give me a sedative anti histamine but I dont take it. I feel incredibly physically ill but also in a weird haze of sorts.
At some point I get took to the local hospital, My mum tells me I'm just blank staring and wandering around. wait for about 12 hours, she just tells them I've had a flu and i havent been right since. Still waiting to be seen,
the next morning (ironically april fools day) I'm sat still waiting to be seen properly, I for some reason decide to leave my mum in the hospital and run home. I'm in such a daze at this point. Everything feels like a lucid dream. Get back home, and my dad puts me in the car and drives me back to the hospital. upon exiting the car outside the hospital, 4 police throw me to the ground and handcuff me and take me into the hospital, I dont remember talking to a doctor. for some reason I couldnt understand what the police or anyone was saying. Apparently they had no beds at the infirmary, and no beds at the local mental hospital, then suddenly a bed became available. I just remember being escorted to a police van where I was took to the mental health hospital and my bed is in a literal spare room that should not have been fit for use. I still have the flu and I just want to lie down and rest in the dark. Get disturbed every hour by someone checking on me and putting the lights on. my folks bring me a suitcase full of clothes. and this becomes the beginning of the end.
I get placed on a section, which means I cant leave. At this point I feel incredibly blank and i havent slept in almost a week, I cant get to sleep for the life of me. I'm not hearing voices or having delusions or anything of the sorts. I just feel slowed down, and I cant think. Managed to message my best friend at that point and basically ask them out once I get out of the hospital. I was slow to type, I kept telling the staff that I couldnt think and i couldnt function and that I'm not sleeping. I get moved into an actual room but theres no bathroom door because what is privacy. I can barely function at this point. I get placed on a higher section which means they can forcibly medicate me. I'm given promazine, then quetiapine which doesnt help me sleep. then aripiprazole (which in the past caused the restlessness) and then some depot shot. (find out later its the same stuff that paralysed me in 2020) My parents visit me, my best friend and kinda partner now visits me but I have nothing really to say. I'm basically a zombie. At this point I havent been outside in almost 2 months. My brain is decimated. I still complain of insomnia, I get given max strength zopiclone which does nothing. Then zolpidem, which doesnt make me drowsy but if lie down i can get about 5 hours of sleep before being snapped awake. At this point I'm a shell of a person. worse than a shell. Showering takes me a long time. I dont speak. I feel out of it, my long term memories have faded and my short term memory is awful. I get given an hour leave per day - three 20 minute walks outside the building. To which the staff remind me 'if you run off, we'll have to bring you back' sometimes I consolidate it when the friend/partner comes and I sit in his car. all I can do is give him a hug and complain about how i feel.
2.5 months in and I get told that I wont be returning home to my parents, I didn't want to stay at my parents forever, id lived independently before but this time I had 0 cognitive function. no thoughts and a blank mind. my day consisted of getting up, showering, sat blankly observing in the communal room, getting meds shoved in and down me, having food, walking around the building and then lying in bed awaiting some sort of sleep. I never felt rested. I couldnt talk with the other residents and the staff didnt neurologically assess me or send me off for testing. They could see I wasn't okay. The staff didnt talk to you, they just gave meds and generally didnt give a shit.
I go to pilates, i go to the relaxation group where i realise i dont have my mental imagery anymore 'Imagine you're on a beach, feel the sand between your toes' people falling asleep and im just sat there closing my eyes, not getting tired but just seeing nothing.
At one point, I get tasked with making a meal on a budget in a kitchen room, I get escorted to the shops and buy ingredients to make a burger. I really struggle with this task as if id never cooked a meal in my life before. I'm dazed and confused.
At some point, a staff member tells me about this rehabilitation place/hostel I could go to, I had a meeting with the manager the next day. I was pretty out of it but i think I said 'when I'm well id like to go back into education or an apprenticeship of sorts, retrain' - when referring to being well, I wasn't talking about in a mental health sense, I meant in a cognitive sense, when I regained my function, my emotions, my memories my co-ordination. The next week, I was booked in for a visit there. On the day I was meant to go I had incredible chest pains - not anxiety, on top of all my other symptoms. The psychologist who was accompanying me was uninterested and hurried me along to the taxi. (bare in mind, 2 nights before id watched one of the people who was on the ward have a heart attack and drop to the floor and then had to be rushed to the local general hospital) I arrive there and a crack fiend looking woman is all pleasant, shows me to my room which is tiny, I'm one of the lucky ones who have a shower and a kitchen. I say that im suffering from incredible side effects of the medication, the staff there dont really give a damn that im a zombie, and after a couple of hours spent sat outside, not speaking to the other residents I get took back. On the way back the psychologist informs me that she went to the same university as me, asks me how I liked it, I tell her i don't feel right in myself and say I dont think im ready to go anytime soon.
A week later, i get told I have an overnight stay at the hostel/rehab. And a potential discharge date. My parents were at the majority of the weekly meetings with the psychiatrist and they argued that i wasn't ready to go anytime soon. This wasnt a matter of mental health, this was a matter of phsyical health now. The psychiatrist thought I was suffering with side effects from the medication in my zombiefied state, but he said it would be for the best to send me there. I have my overnight stay, get brought to the rehab, sit in the lounge and stare at the tv and then at 10pm I get given my meds. the room im in is the hottest room in the building. I take my meds and 5 hours later I get snapped awake. I get dressed and go downstairs and wait for my taxi back to the hospital. a resident says ' you'll love it here when you come, theyll bring you out your shell' looking back I should have responded that I am the shell, you cant bring me out of it.
Close to my due date, I keep asking will I ever feel normal again, I say im going to struggle to look after myself. cooking meals everyday. just existing. Staff just say 'you might not, mental illness changes you' I didnt feel like I had mental health issues, i felt neurologically destroyed. after the last meeting with the psychiatrists my parents were told they couldnt come in. My discharge date was set, i said i didnt feel well enough to go, they said they needed the bed here for someone else since I wasn't showing any mental health symptoms.
I should have refused the visit to the hostel full stop, they said if i didnt go there they might have sent me somewhere out of the area. looking back that would have bought me more time.
The day i was set to leave i protested, i said i didnt want to be discharged on the depot medication, i said i was a zombie, they came in and prepped my room. i had my last meal at the hospital and they bagged up my stuff. My partner at the time gave me a lift to the hostel and that was it. I was sent packing. when I arrived I had no food in and asked for a food parcel, I got given garlic bread. Then I got ready for bed. I just had clothes, a hairdryer, my phone and toiletries. staff would come in and give me my sleeping pill at 10.
The first day at the hostel, I wake up and decide to go to the shops, Its the opposite end of my hometown so somewhere i should be familiar with, there's a retail park nearby. I walk, but im in a daze, I enter the nearest supermarket like its the first time ive been in a shop. I realise my vision has deteriorated and i have visual snow. I then make the relisation that I havent actually felt hungry or thirsty in a long time. I look like a mentally disabled person, i struggle with crossing roads. I feel like i'm high or drunk without the euphoria. I get back to the hostel.
At somepoint within the next couple of days im informed i have to pay to stay at this hostel, now it probably seems apparent, but I was never told this. I realise im short of money so I have to apply to Universal credit (benefits in the uk) I get help with this since this accommodation is 'supported' however, i received little support in all. I get an advance payment and then i have to go to the job centre, one of the staff comes with me. And I have a work coach although I am not fit to work in the slightest. I cant remember what was said but I had to keep sending 'fit notes' from my doctors every month to receive about £350 a month. I had to collect them from the other end of town, near where my parents house was.
Each day I spend majority of my time lied down in my room, thinking and feeling nothing. My hair is also falling out. My partner at the time comes to visit, sometimes i stay at his house but i am not with it at all, zombiefied. anhedonic. sex is the last thing on my mind, i dont have a libido . my genitals dont feel the same anyway. It would be like making love to a corpse. He tells me I'll be better when the meds are out of my system. I just want actual sleep to return, to feel tired, to think and feel.
3 weeks in, I get called to have my depot shot, at the other end of town, when i get there I refuse it. I say ive had this 2 years ago and it paralysed me and i should never have been on it. The nurses try and coax me into taking it and i just say no. In the hopes that id feel better. 2 days later i get an appointment with the local psychiatrist, as soon as i get in there he starts talking about antispychotics and what I should be on, mentions olanzipene and risperidone (something ive had a bad reaction to also) I say i dont need an anti psychotic and describe my blank mind symptoms, loss of thought process, feeling in a haze, not feeling with it ( you get the jist by now) and he says 'i think you need to be on something' he prescribes me sertraline, an antidepressant. He also prescribes me temazepam for sleep because ive been on zolpidem a while. Temazepam doesnt do anything for me, a strong benzo and it has no effect whatsoever, no drowsiness, no nothing. I tell staff at the hostel and theyre like 'muh trust the professionals' 'maybe it will work if you take it for a few days' 'just have a shower and a hot chocolate you'll feel tired. tfw they dont realise i havent felt actually sleepy since march 2022.
The antidepressent doesn't do anything for me, my symptoms dont change and i just get prescribed increases until im on 150mgs I call my gp and when i mention the lack of thirst and hunger they decide to add another antidepressant into the mix. duloxotine. This changes nothing and causes my pupils to become massive so I stop taking it.
Shortly after, I arrange a face to face appointment with the GP, I'm due for a fit note. The receptionist tells me i dont look very well. Upon entering the GP's room he asks me how I'm feeling, i name everything how I'm feeling. He looks at my notes and says ' well anon, you were hospitalised for drug induced psychosis which is no small feat' I said thats not the case, i had a flu, I was off work, things went strange, I got sent to the mental hospital, they didnt drug test me and now I have cognition problems, i can barely function, I dont get tired, hungry or thirsty - I think I need a brain scan. He replies somewhere along the lines of 'I'm sure you do but I cant refer you to one even if I thought you needed one, I dont think theres anything i can do for you and you should talk to the mental health team' He gives me a fit note that says 'paranoid disorder' on it. And I'm sent on my way. Incredibly frustrated, i go back to the hostel.
The job centre stop asking me for fit notes and give me an extra couple of hundred a month because I'm deemed not fit to work, On top of that I receive a healthy tax rebate which I decide to book a private mri scan (without contrast) in the hopes that something will show.
The 8th of september 2022 I go for my MRI, two weeks later I receive my results that everything is normal, I'm disappointed. The staff at the hostel are like 'oh thats good news see everything is fine' I say to one staff member i feel like i have a disability now, she says 'sometimes mental health can feel like that' I said 'I dont have the capacity to have mental health problems, i cant function is what's the problem.
Again, i spend my days lying down, feeling blank or sat outside feeling blank. ordering goyslop. sometimes I do scratch art to pass the time. I buy cigs so i can share them out with the residents, I say the same thing over and over again. If im not complaining about how i feel, im not saying anything. my brain feels blank.
A girl I was in hospital with moves in and she says ' I remember you from hospital, you could tell you were really unwell then' she was implying mentally not psyically, I Just said i dont think im gonna get better.
My parents continue to help me shop but I only make microwave and toaster meals, I start vaping not because it feels good or i enjoy it but as something to do. I pretty much hope that I don't wake up at this point when i lie down.
So for most people, after the hostel place, they move on to get their own place and live their lives in the world, most are functioning but have varying degrees of actual mental health problems, I had a social worker who was like 'anon at one point, you were living independently, lets aim for that' she dismisses how i feel and I get put on a housing registry. Most people do want to move on and get on with their lives but at this point I had no life. Eat, stare blankly, cant follow tv, cant have deep conversations, feel hollow, 'sleep' repeat. I then have a meeting where my parents are involved about moving me on, I barely remember what was said, they said there was a supported acommodation for mental health near my parents end of town, I'd have my own full size apartment and could get a pet if i wanted to. My mum said ' they moved anon too quick out of hospital and now you're moving anon on without getting them sorted' They replied with that the hostel was a short term stay and that 3 months is what people get (however some people had been there a year and a bit) I didnt have much choice, I was going to move there.
At one point after that the work buddy gets in touch and wants to see me as it had been half a year. When they saw me they were pretty much in shock. they were in disbelief at how much id changed. They saw me struggling to cross roads and they took me to the precinct for food. when we left the food court I they noted how i pretty much had no internal compass as I couldnt tell them which way was home. I was pretty mute. we used to shoot the shit and chat for hours in the past, on various different topics. They were going through their own problems at the time but they said it was nothing in comparison to what I was going through. I looked like shit, I felt braindead and i was a dead weight. I feel a sense of embaressment and feel ill need a carer at somepoint.
In my last days at the hostel, some of the staff try and convince me I should get a pet when I move to help with my recovery, Id never actually owned a pet but I thought maybe it would give me something to do. maybe spark some joy in my life, maybe bring me out of this walking coma. I decide to get a cat, easy enough to look after and 2 of my old flames had cats. I told my partner and he said that would be a good idea maybe. I wish hed talked me out of it now. but more on that later.
One of the staff members was addiment that I had actual depression and this was the cause of all my symptoms ' her source? a quick google search of depression' another staff member accused me of drinking alcohol with another resident despite the fact I didnt drink. Another staff member asked me the last time I used drugs after i repetitively complained of how I felt, I figured id get nowhere complaining of my symptoms any longer and just waited till my leave date.
In october 2022, I moved in. I still got observed taking my medications but after 2 weeks i was told I could do my own medication, I then started the process of weaning off medication. Before that I did visit a psychologist who I saw in hospital, who didn't listen once again to my symptoms and just said i was depressed. he also just decided to stop the temazepam despite me being on it for 3 months, and although I didnt feel any therapeutic benefits I did get physical withdrawl symptoms where I felt like I was going to have a seizure.
The good news was the shop was on the doorstep. But I didnt really make any friends properly, I saw my partner more but all we did was watch some tv and then he'd sleep and I'd just lie awake, I relied heavily on him to cook meals and to just generally help with tidying.
I saw a GP who took some bloods who found my folic acid was low, so i started using supplements. I also started taking herbal supplements in a morning in a hopes to feel better. I signed up to the gym because id become overweight and weak. the biggest in my life. I bought a cat. The accom allowed me to have a pet (they shouldnt have done imo) By christmas 2022 i had weaned off all the medication without the staff being aware.
I spent christmas at my partners house and he reassured me that within no time Id be back to myself and sleep would return along with everything else. not much else changed in the meantime. except I had a cat to take care of. I wish i could say we bonded but we didn't. I still felt nothing. I still stuggled with all the things I did before and I felt pretty much hopeless.
Months passed and at the end of march or april, I forget, things ended with my partner. I was once again alone in the world and had to fend for myelf. I hadnt been myself for so long. I cant blame them really.
The only routine I now had was my 5.30pm call with my mother which was pretty much ritualistic since Id left the hospital. I got back in touch with work buddy and they visited a few times before going back to their life. I tried to make friends with people here but because I could barely hold a conversation that didnt work. The memory loss got worse. the blankness didnt improve. no spontaneous thoughts or internal monologue. no mental imaging. I wasnt going to the gym. my life was back to how I was in the hostel only this time I didnt have people checking on me about 4 times a day. I had no hobbies or interests, I used to be big on gaming and though I had my console and pc with me I had no interests in playing. my co-ordination was off anyway.
I realised I hadnt checked my mailbox for months and I had council tax bills from the rehab and here.
I had to do a weekly planner with staff from then on, they considered me for an autism referral though any autistic person was functioning better than I was. Everwhere on social media I saw people living happy lives, getting married, having children and I was just stuck as a shell. Staff didnt have much to compare me to, since this version of me was all they knew. They found out I wasnt taking my medication and the mental health team was brought out in summer. I could barely speak at this point. they said I should consider taking sertraline again. I said it hadnt worked for me and i needed neurological assessment. Something that I had tried to get from the mental health team prior. But they didnt follow through.
I had a key worker I saw weekly but I had nothing to say 'just waiting to see the doctor' ' I havent been right since hospital' she speaks alot about spiritual stuff and what sort of career i want in the future. I have no memories of my studies. I can barely remember my relationships and each day is pretty much the same. not progressing, just stagnating or getting worse.
Summer was a haze. I had visits from old flames and people I used to talk to, They couldnt grasp the gravity of my situation. They just commented on how different I was, how i used to be full of life and always had something to talk about and now i was a mute zombie, barely able to string a sentence together. I felt more and more sad. even though sad was not an emotion I could really feel. I cant cry, I cant feel scared or worried. I dont have the capacity to feel any of that. An old friend came to visit who at one point in my life would talk to on the phone for hours. 'They really cabbaged you' he said.
In august 2023 I went to the doctors again. I went with my mum and saw a different doctor. Upon explaining my symptoms once again, he tried to pie me off with depression meds, lexapro. I said ill take them. just so i could say i could jump through hoops and say 'hey i tried it, now can we try something else' Staff now came in my room every morning and oversaw me take my medication. I couldnt see any improvement. still no hunger. no thirst or thought. still cognitively disabled. just more fatigued.
I saw a pharmacist 2 weeks later under the mental health team. Upon describing my symptoms he said 'that sounds neurological' My mother said that's what we've been trying to say this whole time. He then added I should probably up the dose of the anti depressant and asked some stupid question about ' why do you eat if you're not hungry' I said because if i only ate when I felt hungry i wouldn't eat, id also end up not drinking either due to adipsia. I decided to wait until i saw my doctor again, who was handling the situation.
It's now september, nearly october 2023 and I feel like a fraud for living in this accomodation. I dont feel as if i suffer with mental health problems. hell I kinda wish i heard voices so i could hear something, or hallucinate because then I'd have an actual diagnosis. My life now consists of lying in bed, sometimes kinda sleeping but i never feel tired, never heavy eyes. then lying in bed for hours upon waking up because theres not much difference being awake when you have no imagination or imagery or memories besides semantic thingd. I lie there for hours each day. I'll research my symptoms and find anyone like me, I feed the cat. I make very basic meals. i shower. i cant enjoy music or tv because i cant keep up and just think how i cant have feelings or be normal. i take my med. i lie back in bed. sometimes I shop. I look awful, I feel awful. I then forget everything thats happened in a day or in a week. The hours pass so quickly now. I feel like the least functioning person in history. I'm angry the hospital misdiagnosed me, Im angry they washed their hands of me and sent me on my way without thinking how I could be affected by it. I miss my functioning brain, my personality but I dont remember it. litterally barely functional npc mode. i miss my memories. I miss the feelings I used to feel. I miss how motivated i once was. I just need a diagnosis or someone to take me seriously. I would CTB but being here theyd be like ' oh anon was depressed' fuck you. I'm not depressed. I havent been right for more than a year and a half AND NOBODY HERE CAN SEE OR UNDERSTAND THAT. I'll never have a normal life either way. least functioning person right now.
I don't feel anything but bitter and frustrated. My dad doesnt believe the extent of my problems. The only person who does is my mother.
I see the doctor on tuesday. Maybe ill update this thread on what happens. I just want to have my cognition and capacity back.
