I'm still in hospital involuntarily. The doctors have diagnosed me with bipolar and say that I had a manic episode. I initially wrote what follows just for myself. But by the end of it, I wanted to share it. I'm still in hospital and I don't feel completely safe here, so please don't contact the hospital and/or try to change my situation for me without at least first speaking to me about it.


This is Real

In this battle between us my belief in integration has yet to fail me. I'm still in hospital, and It might be safer to say I'm fighting a battle within myself between connection and disconnection.

I believe that this 'manic episode' is related to the rapes that I experienced in my past. It was in an attempt to connect with my rapist and show him that his actions have consequences that I became suicidal for just a moment (he said - I have no memory of this) and scared my friend ____ who cares a lot about me and called the police in his worry for me. At hospital, I was told indirectly to keep things to myself (but silence about rapes just helps perpetuate the problem) and that this is not about the rapes that happened 'a long time ago'. But I refuse to let this connection go because it is very real to me. Of course, a combination of drugs and stress might have led to this 'acute episode', but it DOES have to do with past traumas I've experienced.

I listen to my body. I shake when I get nervous or scared. I feel emotional things physically. This is real. I am not imagining it. I feel it, and I see it.

I read bodies. I hear and see things around me that people do and say. I see their body language. Sometimes they tremble and shake. Sometimes they breathe harder. Sometimes they relax and fall asleep. Sometimes they say things that have to do with me; sometimes it doesn't have to do with me. But if I want to, I can make connections between almost everything and everyone. And sometimes that fosters a healthy community. And sometimes people in the community want to cut those connections. Sometimes it's dangerous for patients to feel too connected with other patients. Sometimes it undermines the nurses' and/or doctors' authority.

It's so important not to fall into disconnection again because for so long before I did that. I disconnected from my body; it was a method of survival through rapes. And I don't want to disconnect from my body again. I will not. Because I have to right now, I will put pills down my throat so that you don't inject me with medication against my will. But I'm here against my will. I don't want to be here, and I don't want to put your medications into my body. But I also don't want security guards to tackle me and to be injected with medications. Because I refuse to disconnect from my body again. So I will put my body through this pain. So that I can survive yet another imprisonment , this time without disconnecting from my body, without disconnecting from myself. And I don't want to let go of other connections. But I will. If that's what it takes to get myself out, I will disconnect in whatever ways necessary from my doctors, my parents, patients, and friends. And because I believe we're all connected, I am also disconnecting from myself. Just one more week.

I don't enjoy living somebody else's reality.