Quiet Confessions, Episode 43: Psychiatric Hospitalization Part 6

*This episode discusses topics that may be triggering to some individuals. Please be mindful of your mental health.

In this episode of "Quiet Confessions," Chelsea deviates from the timeline to explore a side of psychiatric hospitalization rarely discussed: the profound, "out of place" relationships formed in the haze of crisis. 

From a fellow mother who "shook them awake" to a British man who shared his confusion over suicidal ideation, this episode highlights the beauty of organic connection in dismal settings.

Chelsea reflects on the healing power of shared music, the respect they found for a roommate’s unwavering faith, and the hauntingly beautiful conversations about hearing voices and longing for the normalcy of a grocery store run. It’s a testament to the fact that even in our darkest moments, we are never truly alone.

Key Takeaways

• Islands of Safety: Sometimes, the most impactful people in recovery aren't the professionals, but the fellow patients who accept you exactly where you are.
• The Universality of Music: Whether it’s rock, rap, or Brandi Carlile, shared musical experiences can provide a necessary tether to the "real world" when you feel you’re slipping away.
• Normalizing the "Abnormal": In a psychiatric setting, "scary thoughts" and symptoms like psychosis are discussed without judgment, creating a unique space for radical honesty.
• Holding Hope for Others: We can often believe in a future for someone else—like being the "mom in the grocery store"—even when we can't yet believe it for ourselves.
• Lasting Impacts: Connections don't have to be long-term to be life-changing; even a short conversation with a stranger can leave words that stick with you for years. 

This episode discusses topics that may be triggering for some individuals. Please check the show notes for more information and be mindful of your own mental health and comfort levels.

Visit our Patreon to help support our mission to normalize the conversation and end the stigma surrounding PMADs!

Transcript

Chelsea Myers (00:00)
Hey, welcome back to another quiet confession. A little mini episode every Thursday, most of the time, where you and I hang out, I catch you up, and we are still on a journey together right now. I'm doing a series about my postpartum psychiatric hospitalizations, three in total. when I left you last, we were in North Carolina.

at UNC Chapel Hills Perinatal Impatient Psychiatric Unit. I am being upfront with you straight out the gate. I am on day three of a migraine. I am not feeling my best. My fancy podcast mic has decided to stop working and I just am kind of a mess. So

straight out the gate. That's where I'm at. I've also decided I'm going to deviate from the timeline and focus instead today on the types of relationships that I developed while I was hospitalized and some of the conversations that are normal in that setting but would be super...

Maybe uncomfortable or out of place in any other setting So in terms of a content warning, I am gonna discuss some things that Wouldn't typically come up in an everyday conversation some things that Can be heavy and can feel heavy. So again, it'll be in the show notes, but be mindful of your mental health and Hang on tight because apparently I'm just a little bit unhinged today and rolling with the punches

But I'm here, I'm showing up, we're going to do this thing. So welcome. That was a very long welcome. So I'm going to kind of chat with you about some of the relationships that stuck with me from all three of my hospitalizations that took place in three different locations and very different settings.

why those relationships kind of stuck out to me ⁓ or stuck with me. And some of the things that were just talked about kind of without fear, without second thought and felt safe to talk about that I definitely wouldn't just bring up in the same way with the people in my life today.

So let's jump in, shall we? Let's dive in. During my first hospitalization, I mentioned this early on in the series. I connected with one woman in particular, and she was also a mother. She was not there for any sort of perinatal or postpartum mental health reasons. This was...

⁓ mixed milieu setting I was the only one there with any sort of postpartum mental health challenge but she sort of just like stepped into my life stepped into my haze and didn't necessarily pull me all the way out of it but

like shook me awake a little bit. She invited me into her space, her experience, and I clung to that. She also happened to be from a community that I was very familiar with. And so we had some things that we could talk about and relate with each other about. And she took...

my weird quirks and coping mechanisms and I don't know, the combination of her opening herself up to me and also just accepting me where I was at really was the only island of safety. I guess I could go so far as to say comfort, but.

She was kind of like my island in that setting. There were two other people that I sort of connected with, but not in the same way. ⁓ And they discharged very soon after I got there. So I didn't really get to form much of a relationship with them. But they were both also

⁓ One of them was quite young, so I kind of looked at her as like a little sister type thing. felt slightly protective of her, but I also didn't really have the capacity to offer that. having her around and being there to experience her excitement about being discharged because she'd been there for quite a while and hearing about her

plans for after discharge and just it kind of it gave me something to sort of cling to and hold on to and sort of share in her glimmers even though I didn't really realize I was doing it at the time and she was so so sweet she left crafts from various art therapies that she'd done over the months that she'd been there ⁓ for those of us that she had formed

any kind of a relationship with. And it was just so sweet. Again, like a little sense of joy and hope in a very dismal setting. And the other young was, I don't know why I gravitated towards her. For all intents and purposes, don't know that I typically would have only because

of how unstable and, and just messy I was in general. ⁓ she had also been there for quite a while and she was going through some stuff and she wasn't, she wasn't like super like positive and peppy. I mean, you wouldn't expect people to be in this situation, but, she definitely held

some anger and she held some, I don't know, negativity about her situation and end and just everything and she had every right to, it was valid. But something just, I was like, okay, I'll sit, like, I want to sit with you at lunch or I want to, I'll walk with you when we get to go to the courtyard. It was more after. ⁓

this, woman that I really bonded with was discharged that I gravitated more towards this other person. But I did while, while we were all there at the same time too. ⁓ But I can't really explain that one as much. I guess she just made an impact on me. I will be completely honest, the second two people that I referred to, I don't remember their names.

And I don't remember their faces. The first person that I referred to, the first woman who I really bonded with, I do remember her name. I do remember her face. And we are still connected through social media and we kind of like quietly root for each other every now and then. But she definitely was my go-to person.

During that stay there were other people there who I remember certain experiences with ⁓ There was a male there who? Was going through a lot ⁓ I feel like I keep saying that but it's not my place to kind of share their stories and to be Completely honest with you. I I don't remember them specifically. I was going through my own thing But I don't remember a lot

of experiences with him other than one day. He had the laptop that the whole floor shared and he was playing music and he asked me if I wanted him to play anything that I liked. And I don't remember what I told him to play. He was listening to a lot of like rock and rap and angry music and

I, if you don't know this about me, I have a very eclectic love of music in general. The only type of music that I just really cannot, can't, I just can't do it is opera. ⁓ But literally almost anything other than that. I love Americana. I love, I love rock. I was a wicked rock.

emo millennial back in my middle school and high school days. I love folk. really liked rap in high school. I listen to like sea shanties. I listen to, I mean, you name it, I listen to it. It doesn't mean I love everything. ⁓ Just not opera. I'm not gonna do opera. So.

I don't remember what I asked him to play, but he was really vibing with it. And then we all just started vibing and taking turns requesting songs and music has always been incredibly healing to me. So that experience.

stuck with me. The kindness, like he didn't owe me anything. We didn't have any sort of a relationship. He just kind of looked over and said, hey, what do you want to listen to? And that was a gateway to all of us sharing just this musical experience together, which was really cool.

in terms of that stay.

I if I dissect it, I'm sure I could pick something from a few more people, but like I said, I don't remember their names. I don't remember their faces. I just remember really small moments of connection.

So that was at my first inpatient experience in southern Vermont. At UNC, I've mentioned this, I connected with one other mom instantly, like the day of intake I connected with her. And again,

I don't know why. I don't know why I gravitated toward her specifically because in life, in day to day, very different lives. And that has never stopped me before. That's not something that has ever stopped me I don't know, forming a connection or having a conversation. It's not that. I'm the type of person that

I mean, my whole thing is quiet connection. I love to connect. I'm also an insane introvert, so it's an oxymoron. It just surprised me that she was the first person that I gravitated towards. I would have, I would have gravitated toward her anyway, because I did everyone in our little perinatal.

unit I ended up forming a connection with person she I don't know I have no contact with her now I have no way of finding out how she is or anything and I and I truly truly hope that she's doing so at the time that I met her she was very very religious like

always walking around with a Bible or some sort of religious book that she was studying. She leaned very heavily into her faith. And I am not that way. I was raised very devoutly Catholic. And as I got older, I sort of formed my own thoughts and opinions and

respectfully stepped away from that and I am a spiritual person, but I'm not a religious person. So when I went to her that first day and she literally like she was reading her Bible and she asked me if I wanted to pray with her. I don't, I think I said no, but I said I'd sit with her. But I was asking her questions like, why would God do this to us?

Like, what's helping you? did I, did I, am I being punished by God? Like, I started leaning into, in my case, magical thinking, but I was also comforted by her presence. And I was comforted in the fact that she was so steady in her faith, despite struggling immensely with postpartum depression.

⁓ and she was very open about it. She was open about the things that she was confused about. didn't understand why she was feeling this way. She didn't understand why she was having the thoughts that she was having, like this pregnancy was so wanted and this baby was so wanted. And now she was so confused because she just had no joy and no hope and no connection. And, and like her husband would come in and her baby would come in and

She just would tell me afterwards, she's like, yeah, I don't, I don't know why. And I really hope that this medication is going to help. But she was so strong in her faith and that didn't put me off in any way. It also didn't like convert me. I wasn't like, okay, let's, let's kneel and pray together every day. But I don't know.

I think because I had so little hope in anything and faith in anything that seeing her struggle as hard as she struggled, but still be so strong in her faith. ⁓ I had a lot of respect for that and I took comfort in that. And we did, we just talked to, we would walk the halls and we would talk about our scary thoughts. We would talk about wanting to die or we would, for her,

she kept saying that she had, she, she wanted to give her son up for adoption, but she didn't understand why, because why would she want to give her baby away? She wanted this baby and She would talk to me about how she longed to just be in the grocery store with her baby.

in the cart, getting groceries, not thinking about things and just like existing. And I do remember I said, someday we are gonna be that mom. We're gonna be that mom in the grocery store with our babies in the grocery cart, wondering about what we're gonna make for dinner. We're gonna be. And I did not believe it when I said it, but I wanted to believe it for her.

I wouldn't call her my island in this setting because there were other people in the perinatal unit that I did connect with. ⁓ There was another woman there who was there. She was pregnant at the time, but she also had a young child as well. And this was her second time there.

she struggled with what I believe was schizophrenia. ⁓ she heard voices and, at times would see people who weren't there, but mostly it was voices. and she could get manic and she could go without sleep and she would have panic attacks and she was, this happened in her first pregnancy and it was happening again in her second pregnancy. ⁓

And I connected with her. And many of the days she was very, very down and she had to have someone with her for 24-7 monitoring some of the days. But that didn't mean she didn't come be with us. sat with us. She still had meals with us when I could eat and I could join them for that.

We still did our game show in the evening routine. ⁓ But I remember the conversations we would have, and she was so open and honest about what she was experiencing. And it wasn't weird, it wasn't awkward. I, of course, asked first, like, it OK if I ask you some questions? And she was like, yeah. And my first question to everyone was, how long have you been here?

Those two moms that I just referred to, this was both of their second time being at UNC. The first mom who was super religious, it was a very quick, like she had been there, she had went home for a little bit and then she'd come back. This other mom had been there previously for a couple of months and then was stable, but now that she was pregnant again, she was experiencing symptoms again and so she was back again.

but we literally just sat in the little day room and I asked her. was like, do you hear voices right now? And she said, yeah. And I said, well, how can you tell the difference between the real voices like us and the ones that aren't really there? And I remember her trying to explain it to me.

And she sort of said that like the voices that aren't real are usually a lot more mean and it's more like they're clear voices, but it's more like they're coming from somewhere else. so like maybe from the next room or something, I guess, if you needed like an analogy. But we just had a whole conversation about what it was like to experience that in her.

day to day life and what it was like to work with that type of mental health disorder and the treatment that she was going through.

So she was getting ECT treatments done and I cannot remember for the life of me what it stands for but essentially it's electric shock. It's nothing like you see in movies and on TV. It's not like that at all. It's actually something that I even asked about because I was desperate for anything to make me feel better but it really is just tiny little electric shocks, not crazy like shaking on the table.

But she was experiencing that treatment and we would talk about that. Like she would go for her treatment and then she'd come back and she'd rest for a while. And then I remember one afternoon she was smiling and laughing. And that was the first time in the entire time that I'd been there that I'd seen her smiling and laughing. And she's like, I'm feeling really hopeful. I'm hopeful that this is helping me. But these were, like I said, normal conversations. ⁓ Nothing felt awkward.

nothing felt like it was off the table or too personal. And then the patients that were in the gentle crisis unit that we were sharing with, there was a night that we just all had a game night and we played apples to apples, a huge group of us. This sounds like fun party time. I mean, just imagine women in a perinatal psychiatric unit.

who are depressed and anxious and aren't sleeping and then people in a gentle crisis unit who could be going through anything from depression to suicidal ideation or like drug withdrawal or anything like that. ⁓ So I mean we there was laughing and it was fun and I remember one of the patients in particular who loved to sort of cause

A ruckus. He just liked to stir things up. ⁓ not in a, not in a dangerous way or in a, ⁓ I don't know. He just kind of liked to be a little bit of a troublemaker. And I remember telling him, like, well, if you like this game, you'll love cards against humanity. And nobody there had heard of cards against humanity. Again, is this a regional thing? Like Yahtzee? Cause they didn't know Yahtzee either. So.

I told him about Cards Against Humanity and I made him promise that when he discharged that he would get Cards Against Humanity and that he'd play it. was also a British man that I connected with from the Gentle Crisis unit. This was after...

the first mom that I really connected with after she discharged. And I was still sticking with my, with the perinatal group a lot, but I was branching out a little bit more because I was trying really, really hard to do everything that I could to find some normalcy. But I connected with this man ⁓ who was from the UK, but was living in North Carolina. And we just chatted about, I don't know, life, chatted about depression.

He talked to me about why he was there and how he didn't, again, he didn't understand his suicidal ideation or his depression. And for all intents and purposes, he had a good life. And so he was confused as to why this was happening to him. But we joked that because I was from, or I'm from New England and he's from England, that that's why we were buddies. But yeah, we just, we did, should, and he was,

much older than me, older than my parents even at the time. But we just talked about what we were going through, what we were feeling, talked about my kids. There was one woman there who was struggling immensely with her mental health after a motorcycle accident. And she went through so much. And my husband had just been through his motorcycle accident not long.

before. Hers was more recent, she believed, again, religion was very heavy in this area, but she believed that I was sent there from Vermont for a reason to connect with her because I understood what it was like to be a caregiver for someone who had gone through a catastrophic motorcycle accident and she was struggling being a victim of a catastrophic motorcycle accident. even though I couldn't offer a lot,

because I, again, was dealing with my own She felt strongly that we were meant to connect. And don't know that I necessarily believed her at the time, but again, it was just another connection that formed organically and felt

There were so many others. when I was back in Vermont, my third and final hospitalization, which was the worst experience, the worst inpatient hospital experience, psychiatric, whatever.

it was horrid, but there were still people that I met and connections that I made that left a lasting impact. Some negative, some more positive. My very first roommate I struggled with because she was going through things in a very loud and

chaotic way and I just really really desperately needed peace and quiet and that was not gonna happen but she connected with me over music and I still that's not true I do know how this happened we'll get into this more when when I get to this point in the timeline but there was a nurse who worked many of the

days that I was there and I just I was losing it I I was the most suicidal I had ever been up to this point I was becoming harder and harder to reach and she asked what helps me in the real world what helps me feel tethered what helps me feel grounded and I said singing and music she asked me

who my favorite artist was and I said Brandi Carlile and she said sing. This was the nurse. And so I did, I started singing and I sang The Mother by Brandi Carlile. And my roommate at the time was like, I'm a musician, I'm a singer. I do like, I used to do sets with bands in New York and I love Brandi Carlile and so.

She would ask me over and over again if we could sing together. And so we did that. And then one night we kind of, after group therapy, just a bunch of us sang. We sang Joni Mitchell, we sang Brandi Carlile we sang Indigo Girls, we sang whatever we wanted to. And the nurses just...

of like watched some of them cried which was awkward but yeah that that was the only thing that i did that made me feel like i was still on earth that i was still alive ⁓ i ended up getting another roommate after that woman discharged and she and i

connected and we even continued and did outpatient therapy in the same cohort and it was really fun to see us both come alive again and to be on that journey together at the same time. And again, still connected on social media but just kind of quietly observing each other.

But, there was one woman there who, ugh, I absolutely adored her. She was a grandmother and she was going through severe, severe depression. And she was also receiving ECT, but she always made time to come to groups. And she would tell me, she's like, I want to come to group cause I want to see you girls.

I do identify as non-binary, but I wasn't really shouting that from the rooftops while I was in the psych ward. But she's like, I want to see you girls. You girls help me get up in the morning and you girls make sure that I take my shower and get dressed because I want to see you and I want to make sure that we're all in this together. And she was so sweet.

But we talked all of, when I say we, like any one of us, there were so many people there that came and went while I was at this last hospitalization. But we would talk about.

the thoughts we were having, ⁓ why we didn't want to exist anymore. Some people would talk about how they wanted to go about it. ⁓ Some people would talk about...

just how much they did want to live, but everything in them was telling them that they didn't deserve to. And my biggest thing was just talking about couldn't be a mom. I wasn't worthy of being a member of my family because I couldn't take care of myself. And so there was no point in me existing. And that was my biggest thing is I just want to be a mom. I just want to be my kid's mom.

And there was one person there who was also LGBT. and again, didn't really connect with a lot of people, but every once in a while we would walk the halls together and they talked to me about how their mother struggled immensely with mental health throughout their childhood and was in psych units, ⁓ in and out of psych units,

and they said that they had a really hard time connecting with their mother because of that, because their mother never really actively sought or was able to access treatment. And they told me one day, they said, that's not you. You are a mom. You love your daughters and you're going to get better and you're going to be their mom again. You are their mom. That...

has stuck with me for years. ⁓ I didn't believe them at the time. And I even had a therapist say something similar and I'll get into it when we get there. But I did not believe them at the time. But as I was able to hold on to hope and get stronger, those words came back to me and meant more to me than anything. So that was a lot. And

There's so much more, but I'm supposed to keep these episodes short and in all honesty, I really am not feeling well. So I do need to go rest. I have my incredible support system helping me so that I make sure that I can rest. But I wanted to take this time and get this off my chest and get it out while...

I was thinking of these people because every single one of these people meant something to me and left an impact on my heart, in my life, and the connections are ones that will stay with me forever for various reasons. So, as always, I have no idea where we will end up next week. I don't know if you'll hear from me or if you'll hear from Ben or if I'll go back to the timeline or what it'll be, but...

I'm gonna stick to this theme. We're gonna stick with the psych hospitalizations and the experiences. And I just thank you guys for coming along for the ride with me. And I hope, I really hope that it makes an impact in one way or another, in a positive way.

Go do something kind for yourself. Go get yourself a little treat, whether it be a special coffee order or, I don't know, a little mystery unboxing toy. Whatever your little glimmery thing is that you love, please, please do that for you. And I'm going to, I'm gonna rest. I'll see you next week.