Yeah I have been hospitalized but I certainly don't see it as making me more ill or less ill. I personally think most of them were just me overreacting and admitting myself out of fear. I think it's good you haven't been in the hospital, it shows you have learned to cope with your pain. That doesn't mean the pain is not there. It just means you have some good strategies like outpatient support to keep you from inpatient. and believe me, hospital is not fun. They many times treat you horrible, even though I've always been voluntary. And it goes on your record, your job finds out as you're away, and all sorts of stuff.
I think it's fantastic that you've never been hospitalised, it really shows a lot of courage and inner strength that I'm sure many of us would like to have. Personally I believe the admissions I had when I was a bit younger for depression/self harm stuff, before psychosis made hospital unavoidable, would have been avoidable had I been a little maturer, been a bit more of a fighter and engaged in therapy better. Sometimes I do sense a bit of competition on RYL, but honestly, for me feeling 'inferior' for never being sectioned is easier to deal with than causing myself more harm and getting sectioned, hospitals are horrible places at the best of times!
Katie, I can really relate to this. I struggle with feeling like my problems are not as legitimate as other people's because I've *only* been diagnosed with depression or because I've *only* been emotionally abused.
And part of me knows that's ridiculous - only depression? only emotional abuse? There's no "only" about it! Looking at another person with those same issues, I'd never deny the seriousness of them. I know how much they can affect a person's life!
Yet, I still feel like my problems are less legitimate, less real. Like I'm exaggerating and somebody's going to see right through me and tell me I'm just being dramatic and to get over it. I guess those fears probably stem from back in high school when I wasn't taken seriously.
It's like my problems were invalidated so much that now I crave that validation. I need to know that someone takes me seriously. That my problems are legitimate, and I'm not just making it all up.
But it seems like no matter how much validation I get, it's never enough. I'm still afraid someone's going to turn around and accuse me of making it all up. So I can understand the wanting a label or wanting to be hospitalized as proof that things really are that bad.
(Crazy thing is, I have been hospitalized, and still feel like I need proof...)
To The Light My blog on "Mercy Ministries, mental illness, self-injury & other important topics."
Wow.
I don't think that hospital admission is anything to be proud of, at all. I think that it can actually be a dangerous thing, making people iller, removing all responsibility.
I know that when I have been in hospital, I've found it very hard to adjust to being back in the "real world" even only after a couple of days, because everything just seems so so difficult, you don't have people there all the time to do things for you. So I want to echo everyone else and say that it's a great reflection on your strength that you've avoided hospital, and if anything it shows that your struggles have been as hard, if not harder than those who have been admitted.
I have had points, and to some extent am in the situation now, where I want to be in hospital, I want someone to take over the responsibility of making me okay, making sure I don't do anything stupid. It's not because I think it's "cool" or it is something that I "should" be doing to get my struggles vindicated to an extent, it's because, as horrible as it may be, it's easier than facing up to stuff, as I say "in the real world".
"I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Make us all feel wonderful. We'll never forget."
Wow! Thank you so much everyone. I wasn't expecting so much support. How can I begin to do justice to your kindness and respect in my reply?
Excuse me for choosing one reply to quote for now - I'll come back later and respond in more depth to everyone. Irene -
Quote:
Originally Posted by Morrigan
Well I don't have much to add to the points already made, but I am proud of you for so bravely confronting your illness and the way that you constantly challenge it. Am sure it must completely exhaust you at times, but I believe that it is your sheer determination and refusal to just sit back and take it which has kept you out of hospital.
None of that means that your struggles are lesser and I think people have a reasonable notion of how hard you have to work to stay afloat.
XX
It is so much work to stay afloat. It is a struggle a lot of the time. Being in public, around people, is especially hard for me. Back last Summer I couldn't bear anyone even slightly looking at me, it felt they were staring at me, and I felt way too exposed and vulnerable and frightened and behaved in a way from this that incited people to stare at me more, and laugh at me. Thankfully my homeopath found a remedy that helped ease this. But even when it was at it's peak, I somehow managed to keep going to work every day and do my food shopping. It was torturous though.
E_Pluribus I don't think you're understanding. It's NOT an attention thing, really it isn't. I couldn't bear the scrutiny or exposure of a hospital admission. It would actually make me more ill, not less. Nor is hospital admission an accurate guide to 'sickness', really, at least as far as I understand it, and as some people above have said.
Sure, some people are more ill [whatever that means], and may need more sedation and being watched and restrained etc. Some people have less internal locus of control for psychosis symptoms, less insight, maybe, less support in their immediate environment, less coping skills, less options. If I'd been living alone at the peak of my breakdown, for example, who knows what would have happened?
What I don't fully understand is how so many young people here have had hospitalisations. Maybe it's not jealousy as such [although part of my personality feels that way, it is not all of me, and I feel misunderstood that it might be seen so.] but more confusion. In my awareness professionals work extremely hard to keep people out of hospital.
I don't see anyone else as I go about my day to day life struggle like me in public. Are they all in hospital? Overly sedated? Hiding away at home? Have those who're hospitalised ever experienced such raw sense of shame and exposure around people? Do people who're in hospital hate themselves more, or less?
Many times I've had random strangers tell me I shouldn't be out, that I should be locked up in hospital. I will fight against this. I don't want to be in hospital. I would hate it. Conflicted? Yes. I know that.
Alot of mental health probelms are serious and considered serious. However when it comes to hospitilazation it depends on alot of factors and not just how ill someone is, its not as easy, and is the last option for many people. Its not a way to show that someone is more ill than you are.
Its not about getting attention and recognition, its about getting the help you need and the halp that is available to you.
Last edited by typsee : 20-01-2010 at 10:19 PM.
Reason: edited to remove reference to a post that has now been deleted
"Its not how long a star shines, what is remembered is the brightness of the light"
... And using the help available to you to the best of your ability.
Thanks Mari.
The below is a reply to the above, and also elements of what others have said in posts above that. Sorry I'm not replying individually at this stage.
And, you see, the thing is, even if there is an element of needing care and attention, it is rooted in deep emotional neglects and lack of proper attention during all my growing up years. It's not something that is helpful to have pitied or shamed.
It is perhaps 'easy' for that ache to get translated by the vulnerable part of me into wanting hospital. I see how that is twisted.
And it is key that my father threatened prolonged psychiatric incarceration for me when I was very young. He projected his own 'poisons' into me, which added onto my own vulnerabilities.
But I, Katie, don't want to be hospitalised. In fact am deeply phobic about it. The rest of me is somewhat conflicted, and it's helpful for me to talk about it here and get perspective.
I think a lot of misunderstanding can come from confusing illness and vulnerability, emotional fragility?
I think maybe its the fact you see hospital as a way of getting support you cannot get outside of that, or that its a place where you can be complelty safe without the temptations of the outside would. Its a plce where you have no choice but to face your illness and get better, where as if you are not in hospital, you dont have to face it unless you go to therapy, unless you want to, its not forced, you dont have to face it.
if that makes sense.
"Its not how long a star shines, what is remembered is the brightness of the light"
For me though, 'outside', I have no choice but to face it. It's evident when I come in contact with anyone, in my 'shrinking and screaming and longing' at times when it's most intense. There's no escape. At least 'outside' I have some degree of choice and freedom - in hospital people's presence would be forced upon me and they'd be no place to hide when I needed to retreat from the exposure for a while.
The skin on my face is so raw you see, emotionally. It carries so many scars and hurts and pains.
I live with the conflict of aching for caring and contact, even from strangers [think lost little girl looking for everyone to be mummy], and fleeing it desperately because my projected self hatred screams through their eyes and attacks me and leaves me desolate.
The bottom line is that when I feel acutely vulnerable and frightened I really need protection from the harshness of the world and insensitivity of some people who don't understand emotional distress.
I think protection is key, rather than recognition or attention.
When I am ill I need positive attention, but my illness brings me negative attention.
Protection is something I never had in the right way whilst growing up.
But I know enough to know that hospital wouldn't provide that. But in that state of mind I have no other concept of what might be protection. In my steady, healthy state of mind I do. I have distorted ideas about protection, which I'm working to heal.
I also know that the only way to really heal and live is to be out here, in the world. It's hard. Sometimes it's practically unbearable - imagine what it's like when nowhere and noone feels safe, and where every look in my direction cuts so deep that I flee inside and attack back.
I am getting better.
How can we even define levels of illness? It's so subjective.
And yes, believe me it feels ... confusing ... when I see young people who have boyfriends, who have a wide social life and far more social confidence than I do, these people getting admitted to hospital. I don't want to be admitted. But do you see how that looks to that part of me? I'm nearly 40. I've never had a relationship, never had sex, never been to a club, don't have a circle of real life friends.
I struggle to be in the world.
That's what I need people to hear.
And I really appreciate that it is heard by many here.
i dont think you can define levels of illness.
my view on the young people being hospitalised (from personal experience) is that they are too young and immature to 'cope' on the outside.
I mean, if i had tried, i could have coped and probably been better if i had stayed home but at the time i didnt want help, i didnt think of consequences, i didnt care. i would be in and out of general hospital each week and in the end psychiatric care was all that could keep me from doing that. but it was immaturity, it wasnt that i was 'extremely ill'...i was ill but not terribly.
Now i can sit and think about consequences of my actions, think of other people and find other coping measures other than self destructive methods that landed me where i was before. I still struggle with all those behaviours but cope alot better.
I dont know if this makes sense?
I think young people will look back and have regrets about the sections and fighting against people who are trying to help.
I certainly do, even though i took a positive thing away from each admission i wish i had never wasted so much of my teenage life in hospital.
So i dont think hospital can define peoples level of illness.
but i do think people that havent been in hospital and suffer with such complex problems such as yourself are so inspirational. I know you struggle so much but you are still here and you still battle through each problem as it arises.
Through the dark, a strand of light, the light continued to get bright, with it came the strength to fight (Gem)
I think so many young people have been in the hospital either because they have met overzealous professionals who think hospital is the way to stop mental illness. Or the fact that the world has changed and many teenagers have seen suicide as almost normal and so they become more and more determined to do it no matter what anyone says, making hospital the only possible resort to keep them from dying or seriously harming themselves.
It's that the stigma isn't as much there as it was twenty years ago (it is, but there are circles of friends who accept mental illness almost as cool whereas that didn't really exist before), so I think young people are more comfortable really hurting themselves. That's not to say their problems aren't serious, but I think they have less restraint since it's more accepted in some subcultures, so they are in need of more desperate measures. so they are probably ill, but they probably wouldn't have actually acted on it quite as much had it not been for society.
And it can become a competition thing among teens who feel they have nothing else. I don't judge people for that, it's just an unfortunate turn of young society. It also could be a form of rebellion. Teens are naturally prone to rebel against their parents/authority, and so acting out on suicidal thoughts rather than seeking help can be a form of rebellion. I am NOT saying this is the case with all teens/young adults, but I think it might explain your question as to why so many young people have been through intensive treatments.
i think it is brilliant that you have stayed at home. staying in the real world must really help you deal with your illness, and help your recovery. hospitals never really help anyone, they just artifically keep people safe while they can't do it for themselves.
i think it also shows the gap between the care that the private sector provides and the nhs.
well done!
i dont think you can define levels of illness.
my view on the young people being hospitalised (from personal experience) is that they are too young and immature to 'cope' on the outside.
I mean, if i had tried, i could have coped and probably been better if i had stayed home but at the time i didnt want help, i didnt think of consequences, i didnt care. i would be in and out of general hospital each week and in the end psychiatric care was all that could keep me from doing that. but it was immaturity, it wasnt that i was 'extremely ill'...i was ill but not terribly.
Now i can sit and think about consequences of my actions, think of other people and find other coping measures other than self destructive methods that landed me where i was before. I still struggle with all those behaviours but cope alot better.
I dont know if this makes sense?
I think young people will look back and have regrets about the sections and fighting against people who are trying to help.
I certainly do, even though i took a positive thing away from each admission i wish i had never wasted so much of my teenage life in hospital.
So i dont think hospital can define peoples level of illness.
but i do think people that havent been in hospital and suffer with such complex problems such as yourself are so inspirational. I know you struggle so much but you are still here and you still battle through each problem as it arises.
I can only sort of relate, I've been sectioned once (for 28 days) & that was after my fourth OD, & that made me worse either way, but I've been extremely unwell, I was very unstable & I wasn't sectioned or hospitalized, even after more serious OD's.
In the year I was sectioned, I had overdosed continuously & I wasn't sectioned or placed in hospital again even though my OD's were ongoing & some were quite bad, & I was also severely self injuring.
Mentally, I was a mess.
& people say that I seem to be doing better however I still am very unstable.
I can relate a little.
When people say they've been sectioned so & so times, I wonder if it means they're more ill than I am & I'm not ill enough, despite how ill I have been & still am...
Like you, I also do not want to be in hospital, but I think it's the fact you are sectioned/placed in hospital rather than actually being in hospital that stands out more. If that makes sense?
Thank you both.
I'll get back to this after work. [Yes, I'm going to work. I'm tired, stressed, and likely to cry or panic if something or someone upsets me, but work is kind of therapeutic for me. Rather like a therapeutic community type experience, I would think, at least in my attitude.]
One thing I've been pondering. A lot of hospitalisations seem to be from severe self harm or severe eating disordered behaviour. This is naturally something which would be highlighted on a self harm support site.
However severity of self harming isn't really a reliable indicator of severity of mental illness. It's one indicator.
But then what about feeling unsafe in the world, extreme despair that doesn't lead to suicidal behaviour, but more insidious dangerous acts? What about feeling persecuted, severe paranoia which isn't flagrantly psychotic, but is more borne of trauma and extreme hyper-vigilance? What about being so vulnerable and sensitive that every sound, every vibration, grates on the very core of your skin? What about when you feel that you have no skin? What about not being able to bear the close proximity of strangers, without fight-flight-or freezing? What about feeling so alone and feeling so out of control it feels unbearable?
It seems that maybe one 'flavour' of illness leads to hospitalisation, and other 'flavours' don't. Not because they're less severe, but because the attacks on the person and other people are less, well, obvious.
I'll add more later, and reply properly to people's responses.
