The Author's Corner: Soul Asylum

Picture if you are sitting in a white room with a bed and the chair that you are sitting on. There is nothing on the walls and behind you is a window with a steal grate on it. In front of you is a door with a window and a slot below it for your food tray. You are not in a prison; however, it feels like you are. Where you are is in a mental hospital. You hear the screams of other patients all the time and it is time when the door is to open, and you are able to leave the room for the day.

The story of how you arrived in this place does not matter anymore as you are past the point of being able to live and function in the outside world. This is what your life is going to be, whitewashed and written off by society. The nurse opens your door and hands you a cup of water and your morning pills, at least you are not getting a needle. As well you are handed clean hospital scrubs. The nurse leaves and you take your pills and change.

Stepping into the hallway, you make your way down to the activity room only to stop to put your dirty scrubs in the laundry room. The time is just after eight in the morning, and you sit down at one of the tables and wait for the breakfast cart to come.

This scene is all to real for those who suffer from mental health problems when they need full-time care if their family is unable to give them the support they need. A mental hospital is a very sad place because everyone is suffering from some type of mental health problem. Most of these patients are medicated to the point where they can hardly function. The reason for that is because it takes the situation they are in and leaves them in a half wake state where they do not realize where they are.

In every mental hospital there is always the risk of becoming a shell of the person that you once were. It is something that I saw back in 2010 when I was suicidal, however, it was a tour that my nurse took me on. I could have been one of the many who end up in the that hospital without the hope of being released.

It was a wake-up call that she was showing me, as she explained that I still had an option and the ability to stay out of hospital. It was up to me to make the choice of what path I was going to take. I still do not like how my medication makes me feel, however, I know it is them that makes it to be able to function outside of hospital and I have come a long way since 2010. Yet I was given a choice to either give up on life or continue to fight.

All of us who suffer from mental health problems face this reality from time to time. Sometimes it is a tour like I went on to show me where I could end up, others do not get that tour and it becomes their home. So be careful when you say someone should go to the mental hospital because God/the Creator could make you wake up in one.

Stay safe.