Walking with mental illness 4

After several counseling sessions and a couple suicide attempts. It was decided that I go to in patient treatment on December 23rd,1987. The first place I went to wasn't so bad. At first. But I still was telling no one about my voices. Until one night I was sleeping. When I woke there was something floating over me that was pure evil. I could not scream nor move. When it finally let me go there was blood everywhere. I was in a panic because I thought this thing just sliced my throat. Well it ended up being my tongue and my nose. So then in a panic I let it slip "STOP SCREAMING AT ME" is what I was yelling. Bouncing my head off the walls. Of course the staff member freaked and I was introduced to my first shot of Thorazine.  To give me this shot they had to call a "code green". Which meant "all big men available get to B1". That was the name of the wing I was on at the hospital.  What was supposed to be a 6 week stay ended up being 8 months. I think for a long time  I held certain people responsible for what happened to me and the long stay. But this is only the beginning. The beginning of my walk with mental illness. I think looking back now there just was not a lot of information about mental illness. What people don't understand they fear. Thank goodness we live in a day and time where at least people try to help and try to understand. Do not misunderstand me. The stigma attached to mental illness is still there. Wearing that label to describe myself is deterring. People would rather shove it in a closet then try to understand. Mental illness is not like other things that can be thrown in one box. I think that is probably what scares people the most. Mental illness is not discriminatory. So it ended up being a long eight months full of medicine and counseling, family therapy,individual therapy, group therapy.  Sitting in my room most the time looking up at the sky. Wondering what in the hell just happened to me. It was here I was diagnosed with many things. So going home wasn't an option. I tried that at one time. But people in my school made fun of me for being in the hospital. So it was very hard to try to be normal when I was being called a lot of names "Crazy" was the least. If they only knew how they made me feel. No one would talk to me that claimed to be my friends. Mom and dad were fighting. My whole world crumbled and it was all my fault. Or so I thought.