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[Memeki]

Onto lighter things, I want to share what has helped me to heal over the years. Some friends helped a little, some helped a lot. Seeing therapists hasn't helped much. Religion made it worse. Medication is on the fence- it doesn't help me to its fullest extent, but without it, I couldn't function. Now, the number one thing that has helped me... again, my hands. I love woodwork and gardening and crafts of sorts but beading and jewelry are my forte. I cannot tell you in words how fufilling it is to me. I have made some remarkable pieces, and to call soemthing that I made with my own hands remarkable, is amazing for me. Here is something that I'm good at. Here is something I can accomplish with pleasure and ease. Again, that's why I'm so supportive of occupational therapy. Of course beading isn't for everyone, but so many things can be done... knitting, painting, drawing, gardening, weaving, woodwork, patchwork... countless things. Everybody's got some talent somewhere. Everyone has some kind of manual stuff like that which satisfies them. Best form of therapy I ever found for myself. Lowers stress and tension and makes me feel fufilled and as a bonus I get to wear the stuff I make. Makes me so happy.

[Memeki]

I randomly remembered a situation which I did not mention here. One night in one of those worthless group therapy sessions, a young boy tried to stab a girl, who knew and mocked his sister, with a pencil. What a long pain in the ass night that was for security reasons or whatever. If someone did something bad, we all got screwed. We all lost priveleges, it sucked. That hole in the bathroom wall I mentioned in an earlier story, it's thanks to that hole (which somebody punched) that they wouldn't even let us go to the bathroom unsupervised.

The only time group therapy was good was one night when the older girls made us all laugh so hard that one kid fell off his chair. Even the group therapist was laughing. We all had this habit of leaning way back in the chairs until we hit the wall, then fell foward, and kept rocking like that. Sometimes I noticed, we'd all do that in rythmn, without really meaning to. They were real scrawny chairs, small and very thin and padded, I guess so in case somebody wanted to turn them into projectile missles.

Everything was like baby-proof in there. No tables with sharp corners, all the doors and cabinets locked up, no decorations or anything that didn't need to be there. It genuinely reminded me of being in elementary school- needing the teachers to get the boxes of supplies out of the cabinets for you, needing to be walked to the bathroom for designated potty time. Safety first and whatever, but as a high school student, it was pretty demeaning.

[evilavatar]

When I was 14 I did a stint in a juvenile mental health facility.  Can't say I have fond memories of the place, nor that I really had any strong attachments to anyone there.  The only really funny memory I have from the time was the night the facility got put on lock down.  We were in the inner city at this facility and it was very near a police station and large lock up.  The facility sported locked wards and at least 2 people on guard on both the mens and womens sides at all times.  During the day there was extra support staff who were designated to do different types of therapy, etc.  Shortly after 9 o'clock the people on guard for the night came around, gathered us all up and went and searched every room.  They than told us the whole facility was on lock down due to an escape at the holding facility for the jail that was a couple blocks away.  There was concern the person might think the facility we were at was a rehab and the person might have snuck in.  We all had to laugh at being on lock down as we couldn't leave the locked ward anyway.  It was one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard, though it was standard procedure for any lock down, there was no policy change if the lock down was due to internal or external causes.  We got extra pudding, ice cream, and a movie for our troubles.   

[evilavatar]

dang, reading some of your back posts I had forgotten the part that pissed me off most.  They took my damned shoe laces. They were considered a danger and something you had to earn the privilege of having so I think I got them back about 4 days before they released me.  They had this crappy burbor carpet with not padding that just tear up socks.  They'd try and get us to run on it and you might as well have just started a game of rubbing your socks and shocking people because that carpet was only good for the one thing.  I don't know what made me happier getting off the psych meds or getting out of that damned locked ward and getting my shoe laces back.