Flashbacks

My reflection is staring at me from the computer screen as I type. I look old today, the three lines in the middle of my forehead from furrowing my brow too often appear deeper, the circles under my eyes darker and the skin of my eyelids seems to sag heavily as gravity slowly gets the better of them. 

It has also been exactly 2 years since I was released from my two month psychiatric hospital stay after my last suicide attempt. Those years have mostly passed quickly in a memory-less blur. For many, many months following my release I felt nothing. Semi disassociated from the world, my feelings were numb and it was as though I merely watched myself going about the motions from a safe distance.

I have had to learn to feel again, learn to love my family and friends again. It’s like they were from someone elses life where I had just watched the training video and then was expected to step into the main character’s role without any actual experience.

Blocking out the painful stuff is a tactic I learned in childhood, ignoring bullies didn’t make them go away but ignoring my feelings worked well, replace the pain with food and fake laughter only letting it creep back in at night time when I was alone and could cry myself to sleep. Some traumas could for the most part be shut out altogether, I remember ‘refusing to think about that’ and mentally changing the subject, but avoidance only takes you so far.

Real feelings have been sneaking back in, memories lost or blanked out reappear suddenly and startle me, usually in that twilight haze just as I begin to fall asleep. I find tears flow randomly and seemingly without provocation, tears for a life that was saved but perhaps lost after all.

I have been having a lot of flashbacks to my time in the hospital, the fear and humiliation of not knowing where I was, of being stripped to nothing but a gown in a ward full of big psychotic men and being made to sleep on a mat in the middle of the common room floor like a dog for weeks on end because by trying to end my life while in their care I had betrayed the trust of the doctors and nurses.

I think about what could have been done differently, what I could have done differently, I had the option of returning to a different mental health unit when I was released from intensive care and I chose to go back to where I thought I would feel safe and familiar. It didn’t work out that way. I was the enemy now, I had tricked them and no doubt been the cause of a great deal of paperwork and legal meetings. But that wasn’t my intention, I just couldn’t live with the pain anymore.

My psychiatrist added a new med on my last visit around 6 weeks ago when I started to fall back into depression after being brought down from my manic episode, it is a low dose of an anti-depressant. There was always the fear that it would make me manic again, but touch wood that hasn’t happened. The tablet is possibly working, I think I am less suicidal than I was – suicidality is always lurking in the background for me, it’s more a matter of how often I think about it than ‘if’ I do. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell how far I would have crashed if I hadn’t started taking it. 

The new med is kindly only giving me a few side effects, carb cravings that scare the hell out of me because I CAN NOT gain weight, my labido got up and walked out and one that seems to unfortunately be getting worse by the day which is shocking night sweats. I wake up freezing and drenched as though I have been running on the treadmill for hours its really gross and I’m tired all the time from the constant broken sleep. But I’m not manic and I’m not dead so I suppose I should be thankful.

Sorry, this got whiny fast. That wasn't my intention when I switched on the computer! It's 1pm now, I should really go hang out washing, clean up my bomb site of a house and do a water change on the fish tank but instead I think I will curl up back in bed and watch a movie while playing hashtag games on twitter.

The Old Man on the Psych Ward

It’s nearly 3am and I should be sleeping, but there are so many words rushing through my head right now that all I want to do is write. Tell some more of my stories, talk about the old man in the psych ward high dependency unit who hit his head slowly but firmly against the corner of the wall, threatening to kill himself and the nurses in his shaking, elderly voice.

I don’t remember his name anymore, the old man. But I do remember how he shuffled up the corridor at snail’s pace in an attempt to go after the nurses, bare bum hanging out of his hospital gown, his creaky threats to kill fading to background noise by the time the nurses forgot he was coming for them and he would suddenly appear, grabbing on of them from behind.

Surprisingly strong for someone appearing so fragile, it took several nurses to dislodge his hands from around one nurses throat. We all wondered why he was even there, he seemed so out of place with the young schizophrenics, drug addicts and manic depressives. I guess there was no room in the acute care dementia ward that week for a psychotic octogenarian.

Maybe I would have written about the old man sooner, if I hadn’t have somewhat erased him from my mind. It was almost comical after all, or perhaps it would have been if it weren’t so goddam sad. But I had blocked out the thought of his shaky voice rasping threats of “look out, I’m coming! I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to. I’m sorry, but I have to kill you…”

Yes, I had blocked out the way he wrestled so hard and out loud with inner demons that he couldn’t remember properly from one meal to the next; and how he would bang his head repeatedly until crimson red blood trickled down his wrinkled forehead and onto the floor.

The way the doctors and nurses just ignored his blatent self harm until somewhere between compassion and exasperation I couldn’t sit by and watch anymore, running up to him and putting my hand between his head and the sharp corner of the wall as he cried out “no, no, no, stay back, I don’t want to hurt you.”

I tried to forget the way the nurses pulled me back telling me to keep away from him and stay out of the way even though they had done nothing to stop him. The fact that this happened time and time again, his seemingly weak threats mocked by staff until he had one of them by the neck.

Then there was the night I was unable to silence the hallucinogenic sounds of Mary Poppins music playing over and over through the heating system and the old man grabbed a hold of one of the physically smaller, younger nurses so hard and so suddenly that I was sure she would be crushed.

The way one of the other nurses yelled at me to “Go to my room” like a child after I had jumped up and tried to physically get the old man off of the young nurse. I wasn’t trying to interfere or get in the way, I just wanted to help. I was honestly scared he would kill her.

I blocked out the humiliation I felt in that moment and how I just couldn’t take the whole fucking sad scenario anymore and I ran into my baron room, so desperate to die in that moment that I tried to strangle myself on the bed frame with a blanket marked ‘hospital property’.

I remember now how aggressively that nurse yelled at me again when she burst into my room and saw what I was doing, how she grabbed me and shoved me back onto the common room floor, a sobbing mess, where once again I would have to sleep on a mattress on the floor in front of everybody like a naughty dog, wearing nothing but a hospital gown.

As I lay on the cold plastic mattress listening to oblivious patients, snore like freight trains and the fading sounds of the old man moaning as his injection took hold, Fucking Mary Poppins just kept on singing “Just a spoonful of sugar…” Tears streamed down my cheeks so violently that I prayed they would eventually drown me.

I was emotionally numb for a long, long time after my stay on the psych ward. So many things happened in those months spent on the unit; small by other people’s standards but still traumas to me, I suppose.

Those forgotten things continue to haunt me now, waking me from sleep in cold sweats and when strange triggers open up hidden memories, bringing me to tears at the oddest moments.

Writing about this now brings me comfort; letting some peace flow into my busy mind. Perhaps now I will finally sleep.

Putting On A Face

I didn’t wear make-up at all until I was 27. I tried to put some on when I was around 13 but it didn’t look right and made my skin itch, it was awfully expensive and my mum didn’t wear any, plus all my friends were boys so I couldn’t ask them for tips, lipstick and hiking through the bush or skateboarding just didn’t seem to go together.

My teenage love life consisted of “drunk or stoned at a party sex” rather than prettying myself up for dates, I was fat for much of high school and not desirable to anyone sober, then when I lost weight and school boys began to take notice of me I was too involved in my eating disorder and working on my latest out-there manic project to have time for much else.

The 30yr old boyfriend I had when I was 16 did take me out on dates, but he never mentioned my lack of make-up, I was vegan at the time and definitely against animal testing so he probably thought that was part of it, there weren’t as many cruelty free products available back then.

My husband has always told me that I am perfect just the way I am and I don’t need to wear “Clown Paint”, it’s not even him just being nice, he really doesn’t like the stuff at all, in fact he was sending out death stares to my 16yr old niece when she put a little bit of lip stick and eye shadow on my 7yr old daughter on Christmas day!

At age 27 I was hypomanic, motivated and keen to get a full time ‘real’ job, I had been working in a pet store since I was 14yrs old. I landed a position in the public service where pretty nails and make up was simply expected. Suddenly I found myself in the world of manicures, eyelash tinting, brow waxing and was wearing make up every week day, my hypomania was ramping up and so was my eating disorder. A wardrobe of size XS nice work clothes, having my hair styled and wearing make-up made me feel pretty for the first time in my life.

I remember thinking that if only I had worn make up and had my hair done in high school, maybe boys would have looked at me a whole lot differently. Suddenly wearing make up to work became wearing it every day if I was leaving the house, then everyday if I was likely to get a glance at my own reflection.

Skirts, heels and cosmetics had become my mask and I felt hideous without them.

On one occasion I was off work as my hypomania and anxiety were causing problems and Hubby had to give me a lift into town for a therapist appointment. I woke up late and didn’t have time to put my face on or straighten my hair. I was beside myself. I had a panic attack and literally cried the entire hour long journey into town, then I ended up taking hubbies car and going to a shop and spending over $150 on new cosmetics that I applied in the bathroom at the mall, $100 on a new outfit and then went to a hairdresser and got a $200 cut & colour. 

I had spent nearly $500 I couldn't afford just so I could go to the appointment looking “good” and prove that I wasn’t too manic to work.

Shortly after this incident my mania peaked and landed me in hospital, where I was absolutely horrified that I would not be able to use a flat iron, run on a treadmill or wear make-up, I recall that I kept apologising to the other inmates for being so ugly and telling them that I normally wasn’t THIS bad, I just needed my face on and my straightener, promise!

The depression that came after that long manic episode drained me of energy and caused me to gain around 15kg but I continued using make-up for quite a while purely as a front when I went to work, when I wore it people thought I was doing well, they thought I was ‘normal’. I ran into a colleague at the shop on the weekend once, I was wearing shabby jeans, a now too tight T shirt and a naked face.

He took a step back and said “Woah, I nearly didn’t recognise you, you know without all your make up on!” I just laughed and said “Yeah pretty scary huh!” but I was nearly dying inside, my fears were confirmed I was fat, ugly, stupid and too lazy to even make myself recognisable. The depression got worse and I stopped going to work, stopped leaving the house and stopped wearing make-up altogether. It didn’t matter anymore; I was a lost cause.

After my suicide attempt and subsequent two months in the psych ward I returned home and eventually opened up my cosmetics bag again, Hubby was unimpressed “what do you want to wear that crap for? You aren’t working and you were pretty much fine until you started wearing all that stuff” he would say. He seemed to think that my wearing of make-up was to blame for my mania rather than the other way around.

When I was stable I started working again part time I wore make up to work but it didn’t own me anymore. Depression hit again, milder this time but I decided to quit my job for good. We didn’t suit each other. I am now back in a part time position in the pet store that is a big part of my soul, animals and fake nails are impractical, I have a uniform so I don’t have to worry about what outfit to wear. I don’t feel judged by my colleagues or customers and I look forward to every shift. 

So now sometimes I wear cosmetics and sometimes I don’t, but even on the days I do choose to wear make-up I know I am no longer simply putting on a face.