My Baby Learnt To Crawl Inside An Insane Asylum

SENSATIONAL! WHAT A TITLE! I really should think about writing for a tabloid with skills like that. But hey, this is more fun, although the pay is far worse.

I'm fairly sure my (once) lovely nurse is now seriously regretting she ever opted to become my primary carer in here. I mean, things were going great until I swore at her for offering me Lorazepam after taking away my hot water bottle. Then came the day I packed up my entire room and asked repeatedly to be discharged. Or when she told me I couldn't feed Bean with an unsterilised bottle because it was against hospital policy, after which I didn't speak to her for an entire evening. Yesterday, I accidentally vanished without telling anyone and discovered that they had called my husband in a state of mild panic over my whereabouts. And now of course, I am now the patient who 'refused' to take her meds. (Am still rather proud about that one. And I feel vindicated, I fell asleep before midnight finally, I woke up feeling very clear in the head this morning, and haven't felt dizzy even once so far today.)

Also, I seemed to have pissed off the kitchen staff. This is a vegetable sandwich on someone else's tray.

This is a vegetable sandwich on my lunch tray.

Probably shouldn't have dissed their menu. I'm going to the cafe.

But, something far more serious has happened...

Today when I went to collect my morning tea from the nurses station, I spotted an address label with the words "Anxiety Girl Gets Pregnant" written on it, stuck under a computer.

I AM FREAKING OUT!

I have been trying to get a photo as proof all morning, but the damn nurses appear out of nowhere whenever I get close, and there is only so many times I can go back to check if I got the right morning tea.

I don't know how to find out if they've been reading this. 

If they know it's me. 

If they have clicked onto the fact that they hold a major

look into my psyche at their fingertips. 

If they know about all the illegal food and 

hot water bottles I'm hiding in my room. 

So, staff at Mothers And Babies Unit CHCH, come and see me and let me know if you are reading this. Or, just utter a safety word in passing if you are too scared to let me know. It's "peanuts", by the way.

And all the while, Bean gets closer and closer to crawling. When she got her she was just rolling around like Leo in his cerebral high on Wall St. But now she is pulling herself along the floor, in a way reminiscent of Leo under fire in an action film. It's really amazing how far she has come in just seven months. 

But I can't help being angry at myself for being so unwell that I feel like (once again) I'm being denied those awesome feelings of joy that everyone talks about in relation to having kids. I cried when she first sat up, because I wanted to feel excited for her. I felt intellectually proud of her, but emotionally I felt nothing. 

I am growing increasingly concerned that the longer I am in here, the less I'll be able to cope on the outside. This place isn't that far removed from a prison. My walks have been extended to up to two hours, which is kind of like having your parole extended. I worry that one wrong move and I'll be back to half an hour only. I think I am allowed home on leave for a day and perhaps a night even this weekend, but the truth is, I'm scared that perhaps I won't come back willingly. I have horrible visions of me being given intravenous doses of one of the 'pams'* and dragged back here in a comatose state. Sentence extended indefinitely.

My moods are so unstable, and so unpredictable, that even though I woke up feeling really clear and well this morning (and proud for not taking the respiridone), I have been on the verge of tears for most of the day. I don't want to interact with any of the other inmates here, and so I've locked myself in my room. Even worse, one of the youngsters on the ward has her entire family visiting, and they are everywhere and I can't stand it. I have had to change the route I walk around the ward, the places I eat, the places I sit and (once more) shut myself in my room. I am also pretty sure that one of the other patients across the other side of my ward was a student at my school, but I don't want to say anything, because if she isn't, that would be weird, but if she is, that would be weirder.

I don't know if I am becoming truly paranoid or if all this is true. I know that with each emotional fall I have, they are less and less likely to discharge me. 

Bean and I went to the chapel this morning. We sang old wartimey songs with the elderly folks from other wards in this non emergency hospital. Bean seemed to love it, and the old timers were pretty stoked. Someone even brought their dog. That was pretty sweet. While I was there, I wrote a prayer and tried very hard not to cry.

We went there yesterday actually, accidentally discovered where it was. It was so calm and peaceful, that once I was there, I didn't want to leave. I think we will make it a daily visit. I also think I might be about to find God. 

But more about that later, I have to think of a sensational title first.

*lorazepam, diazepam, clonazepam - you get the picture. They're all sedatives (for those not in the know).