They're talking #nerdy baby re: 48 hours in a nuthouse
DUDDESS!! Looky looky the email I just got ...
While I do believe that the medical system in the states is completely fucked [I have my own stories that would probably make your head spin] something about your nuthouse story has always struck me as odd and I am now calling shenanigans. Or at the very least, I would have to say that I believe you're exagerrating to make your story sound more dramatic.Firstly... Lithium, at the very least, takes a month to start having an effect on someone. The whole part where you say that you took it and your voice was outside your body, the side effects kicking in immediately - unless you actually are crazy I would say that did not happen because of the Lithium.On top of this, Lithium is typically used as a last resort medication for those who are prone to mania. So someone walking into a doctors office [nuthouse, hospital, whatever] is not usually going to be handed out a prescription for it just like that. Lithium isn't something to mess around with - it can be highly toxic and usually when it is prescribed, the patient is required to have blood levels checked on a consistent basis to ensure that it isn't doing any damage.So in all these movies where they romanticize taking Lithium, whether for actual mental disorders or recreationally, it's not like that at all. You could have picked any other drug, but you chose to use the one where it doesn't make any sense at all that they would just give it to you, and it doesn't jive with the rest of your story. If you were on Lithium, I doubt your only complaint would be that immediately afterwards you couldn't tell where your voice was coming from. I get that they can be quite free with their hand outs of certain medications, but to hand someone who's tried to take their own life [no matter how intelligent they may seem to be] a prescription for a drug that requires a lot of care and attention after the fact to take, is where you went wrong with your story.
OMG OMG OMG!! I am in the middle of an airport in Milwaukee responding to this .. and all I have to say is, oh HELLLLLLLLL TO THE NOOOOOO MOTHAFUCKA!!!
I was first given Lithium on the second day in the nuthouse after the evaluation. My voice wasn't outside of my body immediately, but I remember being back in Noah's house, on a sales call and very literally going insane because I could hear my voice outside of my body ON THE CALL!!!! It was the trippiest thing I have EVER experienced. Ever. Ever. Ever. It sounded like someone else had my voice, and I was listening to them - I don't know how else to describe it.
I very honestly don't remember the timing of that experience as it wasn't something that I documented.
I have no idea what the normal procedure is for someone who is given lithium. I just remember freaking out when I saw it on the piece of paper and immediately thinking of Nirvana.
This part of the story has never changed ... and WILL never change because it is the truth.
There were two people I dealt with inside the hospital. One was a case worker, the other was the shrink. I saw the shrink once, and the social worker was the one I went to multiple times asking to leave. The doctor however was the only one that gave permission.
I saw this man once ... k ... he took out his pad AND WROTE DOWN LITHIUM!!!!!!! I shit you not. I said my great grandmother might have been bi-polar. Dude, it wasn't even a definitive answer because I didn't have a definitive answer.
I was on lithium from Feb 2007 - May of 2007. I went off of everything for a few weeks, then went to the shrink that the hospital gave me a referral for, and they put me on lamictil, risperdal (was even on seroquel for a moment), and lowered my doses of xanax and klonopin.
In 2009 I came off all anti-depressants and anti-anxietys and was instead diagnosed not as having depression but rather having pretty hardcore ADD. It is of my personal belief that by not expressing myself creatively it fueled the depression, and by hanging on to so many things that happened to me in my childhood. I wasn't willing to let anything go - I adopted the victim's mentality.
Dude, I'm a corporate lawyer's daughter - you don't lie about dumb shit, and if I can figure out a way to get my records released I would have ZZEERROOOOO problem posting. I'm not ashamed of my history, just trying to point out how fucked up that situation was that I gave a SEMI answer, and was given LITHIUM!!!!!!!
Dude, I still spit bullets over that shit. Really really really angers me, and what I am trying to highlight is the fact that I never asked a single question. He gave me that piece of paper, and I filled the prescription. I am taking personal accountability for not asking questions. I should never have been on that medication in the first place, and I should have said something.
It's mandatory as well when you're released from a 5150 that they give you a referral to a shrink. So there was follow up care, for sure.
I don't speak in generalizations - this is MY first hand experience, and MY experience with being prescribed it. I cannot and will not speak for everyone or speak on how it "should" be done - rather, this is how it was done ... to me.
BOOM! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
#thatisall
oh and ps. they take your blood a couple of times in the hospital - but im pretty sure that was before I was given the prescription, and at the time I didn't have a PCP (primary care physician) so no, I never had a blood test - and the shrink they sent me to literally just gave you prescriptions. This whole system is pretty BS, in my humble opinion. Again ... not speaking for the world ... just me, Jen Friel, the person that experienced this and has now been off of everything for almost 2 years and a very happy little clam!