Well, the second psychiatric hospitalization went much better than the first, but was necessitated by an overdose of Lithium on my part. Overdosing on lithium is much like having an short term amnesia. I could hardly remember my name. I showed up for therapy that day pretty much out of it and my therapist contacted my psychiatrist and arranged for me to go someplace safe for a while. When I did have some wits about me I said NO Saint Lawrence. The psychiatrist did some wrangling with Blue Cross and said something to the effect that I was too stressed out by city life and I needed the country setting of beautiful downtown Owosso, subject of numerous songs by me. I was given an intake interview there in the ER and given liquid charcoal to drink to flush the Lithium out of my system.
Now Owosso is a small community about an hour away from Lansing, way out in BFE. I was dropped there by my soon to be Ex and had no way to get back home so the idea of sneaking out was not an option. Besides the floor was locked. I had no visitors this time, although my therapist, Pat, did phone me once to see how I was doing. The locked unit is referred to as the Stress Unit and not the loony bin. And the difference between them and the Saint One Flew was like night and day. Owosso's staff was good, responsive to patients needs and not antagonizing them like Saint One Flew. And there was structure. Right after breakfast the whole floor met as a group to assign jobs for the week (mine was to wake people up for breakfast) and have group. After group we had a break and that was followed by various forms of alternative therapies: art, music and more group. And, although I had quit smoking by then, the smokers' lounge was a great place for us to gather in-between therapies to talk amongst ourselves and engage with each other. I was there for two weekends and on Sundays the patients made dinner for ourselves. We had a meeting during the week to decide what we wanted to make and the staff bought the ingredients and we made dinner and dessert.
I was very anorexic then and I was about 95 pounds soaking wet. They had trouble getting me to eat and additionally I was sick with a UTI while I was there so I really had no appetite. I just wanted to go home. And the Lithium haze persisted for days while I was there. I kept trying to recall my passwords for work. I kept trying to call my Ex at home but I couldn't remember the phone number. And for the good that would have done me as the Ex was having yet another liaison and was never home.
The Stress Unit was kinder and gentler than Saint One Flew. The ambiance was nicer as well and they had like a atrium connecting the sleeping area to the dining and group areas. And the people on the floor actually needed to be there, not merely there for a rest. One woman, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Philosophy was there and she constantly picked the flesh off her face which resulted in nasty open wounds. She needed to be there. One man was there because he recently had a leg amputated above the knee and was suicidal. He needed to be there. One woman never spoke and was so withdrawn I thought she would never open up. By the time my week was over she did, in fact, speak during group and was starting to get better. She needed to be there. I needed to be there.
I spoke to one of the nurses about the Lithium Haze and she said it was not uncommon for that to happen with that kind of overdose and that the haze would lift in time. I fully participated, as much as I was able to, in group, art and even picked up a guitar in music therapy. Family night was Wednesday when the families of patients would come in and have a session with their loved ones and a staff psychologist. No one came for me. We saw movies on Saturday night, complete with popcorn. In other words, it was a good experience and I highly recommend the therapeutics of the place.
I finally got out on a Monday and realized the I was still not quite 100%. I kept repeating to my soon to be Ex that "I am doing okay, right?" I wasn't. I went back to work and kept a low profile. Soon a bank statement arrived and I actually looked at it and was surprised to find that a $5,000 withdrawal had been made and I had no knowledge of it. I went to the bank that day and closed the joint account out and opened my own account with what was left. I didn't tell the Ex that until the Ex tried to get more money out of the account only to find it had been closed. Pat, my then therapist encouraged me to move on with my life and within a week's time I had located a new place to live, thanks to my late buddy Jerry (I was going to be his neighbor in the condo building) and started packing. The only problem was I had three months before I could take possession of the condo. We acted as if we were still friends and the Ex continued to deny any affairs, current, ongoing or in the past. Of course the day I moved out the new love moved in.
Needless to say I didn't feel grounded. I went from and large home to a small condo; a place where I could lay in bed and see out the living room windows. I felt like the walls were closing in on me. I started drinking again. The Ex wanted to remain friends and I said that the only way I could hurt the Ex as much as the Ex did was to deny that relationship. (Years later the Soul Sucker told me she maintain a relationship with the Ex and two years ago said the Ex wanted to get together with me to work things out...another nail in the Soul Sucker's coffin).
In any event I commenced drinking lots and began giving stuff away, like my guitar, as I was seriously suicidal. By Christmas I was bereft and by the 6th of January I took another overdose of Lithium very impulsively, and immediately phoned my psychiatrist and the ambulance was at my door in a matter of minutes. And therein lay the next chapter of this narrative.
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