Follow up and Day Hospital

I’m upset so might I well blog about it, right?

Besides, I suppose I owe you all an update on my mental health.

I am home now. This is how it happened:

First, I got off ward privileges. It meant I could go for walks up to an hour a day, as long as I remained on the hospital grounds. That meant I could get a reasonably good coffee from Second Cup and enjoy the lovely Fall weather.

Then I got a day pass, which I spent with my daughter. I came home, play with the kitties, shaved my legs and my armpits, fell human again, and went for a lovely walk along the canal.

Last, I got a weekend pass. That meant going home on Friday at 2 pm and coming back to the hospital on Sunday at 9 pm. Then I’d be evaluated on Monday morning and it everything went well, go home.

Well, everything did go well, and I came home on October the 7th – now and outpatient, with a bunch of medication and an appointment for the Day Hospital program at the Civic Campus for October 16. Yes, that’s today. I’ll get to it in a bit.

Incidentally, during that weekend, my daughter and I finally went to see Star Wars Identities, the Star War exhibit at the Aviation & Space Museum. It was out of this world (pun intended). I highly recommend it if it ever goes to your town and if you are a Star Wars fans and a geek like me.

Back to today and the fact that before October the 16th, comes October the 15th. Which is always a hard day for me.

If you read my [NOT FROM] The Other Side post, you may remember this part:

I cannot say – However, I’m completely out of the pit thus far. September 10 was my mother’s birthday (probably when it all started). She died on October 15. I am not quite safe yet.

As I expected, I had a very hard time, which started from the 14th in the evening.  That day -which just so happened to be the Canadian Thanksgiving, I wasn’t particularly thankful for anything.

However, I am now. Thanks to everything that is good for dearest Sid. Don’t think I could have made it in one piece without him.

But I did and off I went to the Civic Hospital this morning, somewhat hopeful and determined to make the program work. I did a little bit of research, talked a few friends that have done the program and got a bit of a sense for what I should expect.

What I had failed to understand, was that today was merely an interview to see if I fit into the program. Done but a non-doctor, non-psychologist person.

She may have been doing this sort of interviews for a long time but definitely need a lot more training when it comes to triggers and how to handle them.

She had a summary of my medical record and started to shoot questions left and right, most of them already answered when I filled out a form as soon as I got to the Outpatient  Mental Health Unit.

Then all of a sudden, out of the blue (for me) she looks at me and says, is it true that your father murdered your mother?

I looked at her and gasped.

Didn’t know what to say.

Didn’t say anything for a while.

So she repeated the question.

A dagger going into my heart.

Blanking out.

I guess I managed to said yes after a while.

I don’t remember much of the rest of the interview.

I have no idea what she said.

I have no idea what I said.

I have a piece of paper that says I am to start the program on October 22nd.

I found myself on the first floor of the hospital (the unit is on the 6th), wandering around. I was shaking. Tears were forming in my eyes. I almost fell on my knees a couple of times.

Again, Sid saved the day.

He managed to calm me down. I got a coffee, sat at a table for I don’t know how long.

I got home after a while, my daughter asked me how it went. I mumbled something, don’t remember what. Had some cheerios with milk, tried to sleep.

I am still shifting from ok, to upset, from upset to ok. Like a pendulum.

I am mostly ok, now, though. I’ll be ok for sure. I have to be. I have to get over this. 30 years of suffering are enough, wouldn’t you say?

But in the end, I am still alive and my mother is not. In the end, I still failed to save her. How does one get over that?