I just spent a week in a mental hospital. The medical community is completely clueless when it comes to Agoraphobia.

So yeah, if you followed my "final post", you will see that I told my mother I would do something to myself if she didn't pay me the $64,000 that she owes me. A year ago she sold a house that I owned 10% of, and ghosted me and hasn't paid me. She is a gambling addict, and being that I am severely crippled by this stupid mental crap I have had for 30+ years (Agoraphobia), I can't take her to court, and she knows this...so I came up with a plan only a mentally ill person would come up with, and just before I was about to do the final stage of my plan...she called the cops, and I was arrested before I got to the part that I planned for months.

They showed up and basically arrested me. I say basically, because it was "voluntary" after they convinced me I would be taken to go talk to someone, and that I would be home within 4-5 hours. If I didn't agree to go, they would "302" me and take me away for weeks, so really, it was NOT voluntary, but whatever. I asked to shower and shave, but they wouldn't let me, so I got into the police car and I was taken to the Hospital where I sat in an ER room for 12 hours not knowing what the hell was going to happen. I thought I was suppose to talk to someone and go home, but I sat there from 4pm-4am. A girl around age 40 sat with me in the room to keep an eye on me, because of protocol. Finally after 12 hours of sitting in an uncomfortable chair, my ride showed up. I walked out of the ER room, and there was a big chair with tons of straps on it. I asked if I could just walk with them, but I was told no, and had to sit in this straight jacket looking chair and I was strapped in tight then I was wheeled out of the hospital, into an ambulance, and taken to a "clinic" for mental health and addiction.

When I arrived, they had me sign 100 papers, then I was taken to my room around 5am. To my horror, there was someone else sleeping in the room, but the lights were out so I couldn't see. As I used the bathroom (which only had a curtain that didn't fully cover the doorway), I hear "THIS MOTHERFUCKER BETTER NOT SNORE", as if my anxiety wasn't spiked enough already for the last 12 hours, now this dude has gone and put me into a full on panic attack. The nurse asked if I wanted to switch rooms, but I said "No point, I won't be sleeping"...I couldn't see myself sleeping in a room with someone else, let alone a meth using gangster with tear drop tattoos around his left eye...So as I paced the halls, I noticed a sign...

*If you are here voluntarily, you can sign a 72 hour release form and you will be allowed to leave*

This gave me a huge relief, and I was able to calm down a lot while pacing the halls. When the morning arrived, I immediately asked for the '72 hour release form' and signed it. During the day, I stayed in bed just laying there wide awake, and I paced the halls when the gangster murderer was in the room at night. After 48+ hours without sleep, I finally see the Psychiatrist on Monday, and he tells me they can't let me go tomorrow, even though I signed a guaranteed release, because my situation is too serious. Now they are threatening to "302" me if I don't agree to stay a few more days. The Psychiatrist tells me to think about it, and I go back to my room feeling like I am going to pass out...then a miracle happens. There is a normal dude in the room, and apparently he is my new roommate because the gangster was transferred out. We talked for 10 minutes about the Fermi Paradox and Dyson Spheres and suddenly, I was fine with the idea of sleeping in the room at night. A short time later, I was called into a meeting with all the doctors/group leaders, and since I felt relief about the roommate situation, I agreed to stay till Friday, instead of leaving Tuesday.

Once I got settled in, I figured I might as well join in on the groups. At the groups, everyone got to speak their stories, except me...there was no platform for me to talk about what I had been through. It was only alcoholics and drug users in there, and I was a lone sober person with actual mental health issues, and almost every group was "AA" (Alcoholics Anonymous) or "NA" (Narcotics Anonymous). When it was a mental health group, we didn't go around sharing mental health stories, we did activities of some type. It sucks because, I actually could have told a coherent story, considering I have typed it out on here, and I already had it in my head. Instead, I had to listen to alcoholics talk about the horrible things they did. One guys story involved him forcing a woman to get an abortion, him beating up his wife, and how he killed a dog and injured the owner in a drunk driving accident...like wtf, why do I have to sit an listen to this? This is supposed to help my mental health?? What a joke. I had to listen to drug users talk about how their family and/or kids hate them or how they are homeless because they can't stop using drugs. I couldn't relate to these people, and just felt completely out of place sitting at those group meetings, while also getting a good reminder why I stay locked in my room when I am not working. The world is disgusting.

Outside of groups, the food was great. 3 meals a day and always good stuff. I talked with a lot of the people there. Being that it was a controlled environment, I found it comfortable to socialize. I probably did more of that this past week, than I have in the last 10-15 years. In here, we were all damaged and telling our stories to each other. There were 6 people specifically who I ended up talking to a lot. Dev, Isaiah, Mark, Jeanette, Josh, and Joe. I got to know these 6 people as if we had been friends for years, but all condensed into 1 week of time. We even exchanged numbers, which I was not expecting to happen while being locked up. Sleeping was hard. The beds were ok, but they wouldn't allow us to have more than 1 small pillow. I sleep on my side and I need a pillow for my knees, but they refused to let me have another one. I tried towels and blankets, but it hurt to use those between my legs. Also, we were not allowed to have floss, so I had food bits stuck in my teeth for the whole week...I have no idea how bad my breath was, maybe it wasn't, but I was worried about it the whole time. I hated using the bathroom. Each room had its own bathroom, but they only had curtains that didn't fully cover the doorway.

Now, let me tell you about the medicine window...So here we are, at a place built to help with recovery and addiction and mental health. 18 out of the 20 people there, were there because of Alcohol or Drugs, and I watched as they all lined up 3 times a day at the medicine window, and were given 3-6 pills, every time...Am I crazy for thinking this world is absolutely insane? This place didn't give a shit about my mental health. They wanted to keep the rooms filled because it is a private institution and money money money...sigh. Most of the people I spent that week with, left the day before I did, on Thursday. I was expecting to find text messages on my phone when I got out the next day...but no messages were sent to me, so I texted everyone myself. So far it has been 7 days, and only 1 person has responded to say hi. I hope to hear from the others, because I hate to think I went through all that, made some new friends, only for them to become ghosts...so yeah, that is my story of being kidnapped by lying police, and locked into a for-profit mental health clinic and treated like an animal for a week. Fun times.