06/13/2026
I’ve spent a total of 216 hours in a psych ward.
It’s not a lot. But I felt them all.
Nothing moves slow like being locked up in a space like that.
Meds they try on you like shoes make you feel like you’re dead.
These socks. These epic, infamous and kinda cozy socks.
The coloring. The “group therapy.”
Uno. F**k uno.
The medical smells. The dehumanization.
People around you, sick and dying or close to dying and ready but the world won’t accept that.
More often than not it’s the quite suicidal people, the elderly, that people just don’t talk about.
Half my hall buddies were over 60.
Then 1/4 within my age and rest in the years between these spaces.
Majority elderly though.
I struggle every damn say. Every day.
I take medication every day.
I can’t imagine continuing to do that another 30+ years. With this function?? I’m not delusional. That’s just not going to happen.
I’m going to deteriorate. That’s life. That’s the other half. You grow and you wither.
I would color with those people. Some, probably not here anymore just for their mere health reasons but mostly because they were ready to be gone.
Depression is a hard damn road.
I remember working in a home at 19 and having just had my first child.
I experienced PPD, some 60% of autism parents experience it.
I worked with three schizophrenics and a major depressive.
The three schizophrenics were not always happy. But they still had what I like to consider a “will to live”.
This resonated with my eager young heart, I grew fond of them.
The major depressive I always held at arms length. I think I was a bit too scared to see myself, in someone at that age, with what I would likely suffer with as well.
I grew to love him as well. It took a longer time. It took a common ground.
These people are all so often ignored, over looked, abused by the system itself.
I recognized it then. But had no words to even fathom what I was seeing. How they pushed people through like animals, like a paycheck.
I’ve never lived a “comfortable” life. I am no different than the people I’ve served.
I’ll end up the same animal. It’s the system of broken promises.
Capitalism, a vector of innovation for the future. More or less, the destructive force of nature.
Have you ever touched grass and felt the sun and suddenly you could breathe a little better?
That’s the natural beauty of being. It costs nothing. It feels like everything.
You can’t touch grass while locked away in a hospital.
I think we can do better. For everyone.
I really truly think that there is so much room for innovation in brain health and it’s 10000% wasted on “money” “time” “agenda” and short term thinking.
Bandages over hemorrhaging.
If you cannot see the failures, you’re not looking. You’re not connecting the dots.
There’s little fires everywhere.
