My psychologist has asked me to type something, so here goes.
My PIP's up for renewal at the moment. I arranged, through my CPN*, for an appointment with the gentleman who fills in the forms for you. It was agreed that he'd pick the form up from me, take it off, and then we'd complete it over the telephone. All went through smoothly. I filled in the medication section and signed the hefty document and handed it over when he arrived. The phone call was stressful, but the process didn't take as long as I'd feared it would.
And that's about all my news. Most of my days are spent curled up on the couch listening to |Radio 4 or asleep. It's safe and warm on the couch. Typing's fallen away. I've got a relatively new laptop and the keyboard's taking some getting used to. I usually hammer the keys but these ones are so soft that that approach just yields typos. When I'm not curled up on the couch, I'm pacing - a probable side effect of the medication - and the day's just gone. Weeks bleed into each other and half-read Private Eyes build up in piles. I can't read for any real length of time; my concentration's blasted to bits.
This is the most I've typed in months, hope it's enough.**
*Stands for 'Something Psychiatric Nurse, but I'm not sure what the 'Something' is, 'Community' maybe?
**I've always found typing hard. And by 'typing' I mean 'writing'.
17 May 2022
A Commission
6 January 2022
Arrival (Conclusion)
Next to the nurses station is a door that leads to the Day Room. This room contains a couple of the wipe-down seats with no hard edges, a bookcase full of abandoned evidence left by previous inmates and a wall-mounted TV tuned to Chill FM.
Once an hour there's a tea trolley. Often this comes with cakes or doughnuts. The only downside is that both the coffee and the tea are decaffeinated. At least it's wet. You're allowed your own caffeinated coffee but it has to be kept in a cupboard in the kitchen area. Glass y'see. Don't want you getting ideas.
30 November 2021
Arrival
The hospital's a thirty minute walk from the Silverburn shopping centre. Most of the original buildings've been sold off as flats with the new wards being built in the bits left over.
Ward 4B's a mirror image of Ward 4A. Two corridors at right angles to each other joining in a communal sitting area headed up by a nurse's station. There are twenty four bedrooms in all, each one identical to the last, with the exception of a couple that're slightly larger.
Each bedroom contains a built-in desk and storage space for clothes, a bed and a chair. There's also an en-suite shower and toilet. The door locks from the inside, but it's easy enough to open if needs be. The window is in front of a metal grill.
The bed has a blanket rather than a duvet. It gives the room the feel of a gaol cell. The floor is the same buffer-friendly stock that you find in schools.
23 November 2021
The Usual Trigger Warnings
"English cunt."
Snigger.
And then he hit me.
I went down like a sack of shit, losing my glasses (and, as it later turned out, my housekeys).
My name's Al. I'm short and Welsh, with all that entails.
"English cunt." Big George repeats. Every ward's got a Big George. It's a tradition, or an old charter, or something. Oh great, now he's kicking me in the head.
Someone pulls Big George off me and someone else hands me my glasses. I'm transferered from Ward 4A to 4B. Ward 4B's a much nicer place to do my time. It's got fish for a start. And nobody's lost the remote control for the giant plasma screen TV that dominates the sitting area.
I've been sectioned four times now and none of them were fun.
17 November 2021
Floriana Requiem II: Crown Shyness
Of course I don't believe it - but I've sometimes noticed that it works even when you don't believe in it!
- Niels Bohr (attrib.), 1956
Trees come down.
- Fields Of The Nephilim