Chapter 12

Previous chapters can be found here.

Christmas just concluded, I’m back at work, and REDACTED is out on home incarceration. I had to break continuity of my story and drop a trilogy on that situation. I decided not to share the last chapter on Facebook as I was concerned it could cause a complete shit storm. It can be read here.

So now I’ll continue on with my story where I last dropped off on chapter 8.

I was still going no contact with REDACTED. It really didn’t matter to her that I was legally not allowed to talk to her. She would compel me to talk to her using any means necessary. She wanted to have her cake and eat it too.

I had told my family I had planned on going in. I was at rock bottom and really felt like dying. All I would do is sleep my days away. Now, it was just a matter of putting one leg in front of the other.

REDACTED had a habit of using my sister to gain access to me. She was the weak link and most easily manipulated by her. She just has too big a heart and REDACTED exploits that.

So one morning, my sister opens my door while I’m asleep and tosses in her phone like a grenade. I think I would have preferred a grenade. Of course it was REDACTED. She bombards me with questions like what was going on, when I planned on going, where I was going, who was taking me, what I was doing with my car, etc.. She was starting the ground work of embedding herself back into my life.

I swear, when I’m at my worst she smells blood in the water. When I’m at my worst, my defenses are down, I need someone, and I have nothing to lose.

I begin driving up to the VA hospital. I figure if I was going on I might as drink a tall Budweiser on the way. I go into the ER and I briefly explain the situation. I am taken in pretty quickly and not long after I am back on seven north, the psych ward. I hadn’t been here in ten years. Same place, different staff.

I go into the intake room with a nurse. It’s fairly late in the day, around 8pm. Mornings on the psych ward are unbelievably early, so 8pm is very late. Intake here is about an hour. Nothing I haven’t done 8 times prior. About midway through intake another nurse comes in saying I have a phone call from REDACTED. I ask if it’s my sister or the mother of my child. They confirm it’s the mother of my child.

*Deep sigh*

I’m really not going to be able to escape her here and focus on myself. The nurse further explains that it’s probably best I prioritize intake and I firmly agree. I tell them about all my problems including my DVO.

I end up calling her when I’m freed up and I get a lot of rambling. Nothing helpful. I’m a captive audience. She jokes I’m in a place she can’t block me.

Finally I’m able to get to bed. Sleep here doesn’t come easy, it never has. I’m in a room by myself which is great, but I quickly notice they have a new procedure where the employee doing rounds shines a flashlight directly at me, often in my face, about every 10 minutes or so. If I’m not completely knocked out, it’ll bring me out of my lighter sleep.

I get sleep where I can. Breakfast is at 6:40, but that doesn’t keep everyone and their mom coming in my room to talk to me, even before 6 at times. It might be to take my vitals or other employees.

The first morning, shortly before 6, a woman comes in. I believe she was the nurse in charge, possibly a nurse practitioner. She introduces herself to me and tells me she has my meds put in. She also brings up the DVO against me. She took a very stern approach regarding this with me. She knew that REDACTED had called me the night prior. She told me contact needed to cease, that REDACTED can do whatever she wants such as reaching out to me or calling me on the ward, but she would suffer no consequences and that only I would be the recipient of consequences— like jail. A lawyer I had spoken with told me pretty much the exact same thing.

I fully intended on heeding her warning. Once I had fully woken up, I would tell the nursing staff no calls from her as well as call my mom to tell REDACTED the situation.

Shortly after breakfast, the psychiatrist pulls me in to have our daily conversation. I felt it to be productive and possibly steps in the right direction. He also brings up the DVO and gives me the same warning.

Before I have a chance to setup any sort of barrier between REDACTED and myself, I get a phone call. I pick up the phone.

%#$+&!

I very nervously try to explain what was told to me and that it would be best to break contact.

She goes into full blown hysterics. She sobs explaining how everything is so hard and I have a car that she could be using. I have no doubts that things are difficult for her, but once again she made the decision to have a no-contact DVO placed on me. Either way, I conceded, nearly in tears myself and I tell her she can pick up my keys at the hospital and take my car.

She ends up picking up my car a few hours later. I have a nurse hanging onto my keys to give to REDACTED when she arrives.

I’m in a group session and a nurse comes in asking me where I’m parked. I let her know and go back to group. I didn’t see them.

Later I ask the nurse how many kids she had with her.

The pattern of her calling me frequently continued. I didn’t feel like I had much choice in the matter.

That night, I’m laying in bed to try and get to sleep and a nurse knocks and comes in to tell me I had a phone call. I told her I was trying to sleep and declined. Later, I woke up in the middle of the night. I got out of bed and walked down the hallway to the nursing station where there is an analog clock. I see it’s 2:30 and I try to go back to bed. I go back to bed and pray I’m able to go back to sleep.

At home, I’d normally take more seroquel to go back to sleep. I have 2 seroquel doses prescribed, one that I take at night to sleep and one as needed for anxiety during the day. I wasn’t sure if they’d give me that as needed dose so I didn’t even bother asking. The longer I was up, the less likely I’d be able to get back to sleep. So I went back to my bed.

I tossed and turned the rest of the night. Completely miserable.

The next day went about the same. More unnecessary phone calls from REDACTED. She seemed completely apathetic to the struggles I was having in there. The entire staff seemed very uncomfortable with the fact that I was continuing to talk with REDACTED, but went along with the understanding that I was taking the risk to attempt to help her and my son.

I got started on a new medication that was supposed to help curb the appetite for alcohol. It was an opioid blocker. I had to have a long conversation with a pharmacist before going on it.

Later that evening, I was feeling very strange. The only way I can explain it is it felt like my Ritalin hit me 3x as hard. I was very awake, alert, and borderline paranoid.

Right at 7pm, I see the entirety of the nursing staff walking out and they are replaced by 3 men in black scrubs that I have never seen before. For the life of me, I can’t figure out why them wearing solid black scrubs made me paranoid and uncomfortable but it did. It wasn’t the royal blue scrubs accompanied by warm smiling faces I was used to. They seemed standoffish and why in the world why did they all have black scrubs. Would they take care of me and my medical needs. Like I said, I wasn’t feeling myself. I was paranoid that the opioid blocker was having an adverse effect.

I wanted to go to sleep early, but they wouldn’t give me my seroquel until 9. When I do finally get it, I tell them to please not wake me up for any phone calls. I was scared I might not fall asleep all night.

Luckily I was able to sleep that night. I woke up right at 2:30 again. This time I asked for that as needed seroquel. There was a bit of debate amongst them if they were able to do that, but they did. I was able to get some light sleep afterwards.

The next morning I was getting discharged. They asked me how I would be getting home. I told them REDACTED would be picking me up. Once again, this made them uncomfortable. They ended up ordering me an uber. When I got my phone, I saw that I had been berated by REDACTED for denying her late phone call the night prior.

The Uber gets me home. It wasn’t but a few hours later that REDACTED scoops me up and the lunacy continues.