Blood Pressure 92/68

She takes my blood pressure four times. I don’t want to tell my nurse not to be to worried, that my blood pressure is always low, but I don’t want to give her a hard time. She knows what she’s doing and I don’t want to make her feel like I know better.

But I am the person who brought her own Nespresso machine to a psychiatric hospital.

I did.

Ha.

I get to use it in the common room area right now because of the long cord and the potential for self harm but let me tell you that if I am going to off myself, wrapping a Nespresso cord around my neck won’t be my go to. Imagine the epitaph: “She was alright. Died by coffee machine cord.” That reminds me, I must look up how many people died by phone charger or coffee machine cord.

We don’t look at each other walking down the corridors. It’s my first day. I don’t want to stand out. I don’t want anyone to see me. I don’t want to upset anyone. I apologise for asking anything like “could I grab some moisturiser” (it’s in a glass container so I can’t have it in my room. Not ever. I think death by glass is more common than death by Nespresso cord. I don’t need Google to tell me that.

I’ve missed breakfast because who has breakfast? How hungry can you be after sleeping, after doing nothing.

I don’t want to look crazy so I got some nice “leisure wear” from Cotton On Body and shoes from Target – they look like vans but without laces. I mean, if they won’t let me have a phone charger, what are the chance of laces? I got some nice rose gold Fakenstocks from Big W. They are very uncrazy looking.

I’m having my second coffee sooner than I would normally because I fear they’ll take the machine away and I don’t want to bother them to have it back later.

I’ve signed up for group at 10.30 “Coping with uncertainty”. But first I’m reading about “Little known punctuation marks you should be using”, and trying to work out how to add the interrobang into my keyboard. Jeff tells me he’s worked it out and will show me. Huzzuh!

It’s nearly 11am and I’ve had to miss group because I had to see my new shrink. I honestly don’t think psychiatrists know anything about psychiatric patients. She talks the same shit they all do – download this app, think of all the good things in your life, learn mindfulness. Honestly, if anything is going to make me want to coffee machine cord myself, it’s that shit.

ALL I WANT TO KNOW IS HOW MANY VALIUM WILL YOU GIVE ME AT ONCE.’

It’s seems 1, or 2 if I beg. I’m a begger.

I’m typing down in the meal room. What do I eat? Do I eat? Do I have the fries? Do I think about keto in here? Who do I sit with? Do I sit alone or with others? The younger people, the older ones? Do I wait for people to come to me?

It’s okay, I’ve waited long enough that the room’s clearing out anyway.

A young pregnant woman goes outside to smoke in the courtyard. Does it matter? I mean she’s in a psych hospital on a mound of meds. She’s some sort of crazy. Could smoking be worse?

I forgot how just 2 valium can actually affect you when you’ve been weaned off 6.

So here goes. Lunch.

I sit on my own and a young guy sits near me. I pull out my phone, my kindle app, and read instead. It looks like if you smoke outside you get to make friends. So I think I’ll be alone a lot.

There’s a blonde woman on a couch opposite me who’s crying and I don’t know what to do. I mean, do we do something. The others aren’t doing anything but 2 nurses run towards her and give her a tablet out of one of those tiny meds cups. She’s being looked after but I feel I should have asked her if she needed anything. Is this what I am now? Have I become the person who stops asking?

There’s a lot of crying tonight, and people dressed in their jammies, which is forboten, I thought.

So because my blood pressure is so low, i get it measured twice a day.

PM BP 90/60 – shit.

I’ve come to my room to possibly do some crying. Alone. Not like those others.

10mg of Diazepam is not enough to stop me from crying.

Patti Smith wrote Horses when she was 29.