The Stuff of Nightmares...

Have you ever had a dream so bad that you were grateful to wake up? Last night I had a terrible nightmare. It was so disturbing because it was so close to what has actually happened to me in the last 3 years. The nightmare didn't cease when I woke up. It continued throughout the day as memories of my experiences in the four housing arrangements I have had in the past surfaced. My mind couldn't shake them. I had to deal with the recollection of a  reality which was a nightmare indeed.

I was released from a mental hospital after nine months of treatment for a bipolar episode in 2011. The first housing situation I was placed in was a board and care in Long Beach. It was horrible. Filthy and disheveled the residents walked around like zombies. It seemed that their only activity was seeking and smoking cigarettes. The building that I was assigned to resembled a seedy motel. My roommate was a schizophrenic woman who hoarded garbage. She was symptomatic in the extreme. She rarely bathed, never changed her clothes and slept fitfully. I never got a full night sleep because of either her snoring or her screams. She muttered to herself constantly and smoked incessantly. Looking back the time with her and the place, was the stuff of a stereotypical  nightmare experience in the world of mental illness.

I wish I could go on to tell you that my experience changed with the next placement, but it was only horrifying in  it's own right. I lived with 5 other mentally ill individuals in a small home in Corona. I shared one bathroom with 4 men and my roommate. They were severely affected by their illness. The schizophrenia they suffered from had debilitated them to barely functioning. Their day consisted of sleeping ,eating and smoking. One of the men was like a walking statue. His movement was slow, his affect flat. At night, when I would go to the kitchen for water, he would he would be standing there in the dark speaking to his voices. It was a calm night when he just stared at late night television.

I know I am painting a terrible picture of my circumstances and the mentally ill people I shared them with. There is no way around it though. There is a segment of the mentally ill community that are severely  affected by their illness, and I lived with some of them. They acted out way beyond the stereotypical behaviors  you hear of. I am not making a judgment on them , I am not making it up, I am just relaying my experience in all it's unsettling  reality.


My roommate couldn't help but being apart of that reality. She was ill beyond medication. She slept most of her day, watched game shows and smoked the rest. For six months we never had a conversation beyond her asking for cash for her smokes and snacks. At night she thrashed around and talked in her sleep. I wore earplugs throughout my stay there, trying to get some rest. She was my second roommate who suffered from schizophrenia, and to be honest it made my bipolar disorder look minor. I know its not PC to say so, but that's the way it was. She and my 5 male housemates were scary sick and lived out their days in a similar state that I had experienced when psychotic. It was beyond upsetting to live with them. It was terrifying to find yourself in the same place and same category they were in. I wish I could say that I felt any hope for them. Now it occurs to me that they were beyond, medication. Mental illness in all it's ugliness had made it's mark on them. They were as sick as it gets and I was trying to recover from my own mental illness while living with them.

You can't imagine how grateful I am to have my own apartment. I got it 6 months ago and my recovery has gone forward in a way that I had only hoped for. I don't think I had a chance to fully recover in the surroundings I experienced. It was disturbing at best to live with the severely mentally ill and even more disturbing to realize that I one of them. I was living in those places because I was considered "gravely disabled". I too was sick beyond functioning. It occurred to me over and over again that my bipolar disorder was so bad that it had landed in these places. At the time I couldn't see getting better,
let alone being well and living independently. I have come a long way and it is nothing short of a miracle. I have come so far because of a positive response to medication and the love and support of professionals and family and friends. I am one of the lucky ones. I am waking up from the nightmare and starting to live again. For that I am grateful beyond words.