Life is pretty quiet here. I mean, when we’re not talking about our feelings, or talking about other people’s feelings... there’s just a lot of reading, and TV, jigsaw puzzles, and scrabble. I am becoming the master jigsaw puzzler. I just can’t seem to concentrate on much else. I’ve been drawing too, maybe I’ll scan a couple some time.
I don’t know if I could cope if it did get more exciting. Because the feelings stuff can become so intense. Emotions, memories get stirred up all the time. And some people here have been through so much crap. Some people are hurting so much it’s unbearable, even to watch.
But then there are others who are healing, and growing, and full of hope.
And it’s nice to be around a lot of people who understand what it’s like, how hard it can be. It’s nice not to have to explain everything, or put on a brave face.
Hi honey, I read your blog often but not often enough!
Look, Ashburn - I was there for 9 months in 2003, so it may have (I sincerely hope) changed a lot in 3 years. However, just in case it hasn't...
Look hard around you. The AVERAGE stay is 18 months. Some people I met there are still there. A lot of the 'therapy' - particularly the endless, endless morning/unit meetings and group sessions - turns into an ugly mix of peer pressure and fear/abuse. I have seen the staff tag-team verbally attack a young woman so stricken with a panic disorder she was literally shaking all over - it was about her second week and all of a sudden, they turned on her in front of 20 other people and started yelling at her for 'disrespecting the group' with her silence.
I left after realising that they would not help me with my anorexia or drug problems because - it's not your primary diagnosis. Just sit there and tell us about being raped and sodomised as a kiddy. That's what your here for.
It's taken about 2.5 years to get on top of the anorexia (hah hah, well, I'm doing better than I could) - but it also took me a long, long time to get over the Ashburn Way.
I was having epileptic seizures ever night for a while. You know Ashburn's caring response? The staff would do a night check, find me lying on the floor or covered in my own filth and wake me up, force to me to take a shower and strip and remake the bed, and that was all. Why? Because "Everything Is Emotional" - my seizures weren't medical, according to them. My psychiatrist said that heart attacks as psychosomatic. I swear, he SAID that to me.
Ashburn runs (or did) like a cross between a cult of personality (all hail the infallible staff) and a communist indoctrination session in Maoist China. Just my opinion, but I HAVE actually experienced the place for a reasonable length of time and I would just say - Guard your heart. Remember that they are not always right or even anywhere near the target.
LOTS of hugs, I am thinking of you. Make it work for you but don't look on leaving as a failure.
You are a strong woman Fiona, and have already recognised that unfortunately psychotherapists are constantly looking for childhood trauma in particular rape, or sexual abuse to account for psychiatric illness. This is a problem when clients are vulnerable and it plays havoc with troubled minds as they discover so called recovered memories of things that never happened.
Keep your chin up and faith strong. Some of us are more susceptible to psychiatric illnesses, but healing will occur if we get the opportunity to confront the real problems.
well i haven't spent 9 months in ashburn, so i can't offer any sort of advice or perspective. ;-)
i can, however, offer cyber-hugs.
*hughughug*
By the way, I don't mean to be insulting your intelligence or anything. A), you are in a really hard place emotionally and you need to get support in a way that holds and heals you, and B) you sound like you're not naive in the ways of people in this world.
I guess the 3 things I wish someone had told me when I walked in the doors:
1) The fundamental thing to remember is:
Most of the patients at Ashburn are desperate for someone, anyone to love them, give them value. The prospect of a group of people that will love you, support you, work with you and live with you through your scars is a vision that certainly beguiled me for the first 2 months or so. And that is how Ashburn works - peer pressure and manipulation, from both the patients and the staff. It's subtle and insidious and frightening and it can make you have moments where you really do doubt your fitness as a human being. It takes a very strong and resilient personality to be robust enough to take an hour of 'helpful' personal criticism from the only people you have any real contact with for months on end.
2) Extend mind, not soul, until you *really* know someone - especially other patients. You wouldn't believe the lies I heard told, the psychological games I saw played, and the betrayal of close friends, over and over.
3)Some of the staff are lovely, well-trained professionals. Some of them are not. My psychotherapist was a *trainee* for goodness' sake. Not even registered. Cheaper for Ashburn to hire I suppose. When I raised that point with other staff, I was told it was 'my issues' and I should discuss it with him. Yah, right!
But - you are probably emotionally much tougher and more mature than me and perhaps not as 'needy' to be loved/respected in a group as I most certainly was. I guess I just don't want to ever see another neat person walk into that place without sounding a heavy note of caution. Things are not as they seem. People are not as they seem.
Beware, stay strong, and please - if you want to email me or call me or anything for some outside empathy from someone who's been there - I'd consider it a privilege. phreq@stonesoup.co.nz
GW or FH?
Hi Fi
Sorry that Tim & I missed you.
Let us know if you want emergency book rations sent to you.
Keep shining.
Love Kay Jones
Mt Victoria, Wellington
Kia ora Fi - been texting you but I'm not sure you've got your phone going. Just thought I'd log on in case you were still blogging, and pleased to see you are!!
Sounds like settling in's been difficult, and I guess understandably so.
I miss you when I'm swimming...wish you'd come back and keep swimming with me. From a purely selfish perspective.
Shall I send books to you? Give me your postal address.
Aroha tino nui
x
Hinemoana
x
You can get a letter from the office saying you are a temporary resident in Dunedin, and you can take that letter into the Dunedin public library and join there for free. Worth it!
Posted by: phreq at February 18, 2006 06:25 AM