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Altered Mind

Un-Battered Woman in a Shelter

By Aiyan TurleyPublished 5 years ago 7 min read
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The un-battered woman within me was indented onto me when every shreds of my dignity collapsed. Solace of my soul reflected the fractures of my molecular shameful truth of what betrayal truly was. Many times we may have failed and fallen to the concrete ground of cold and hardened truth to the reality of how an altered state of mind signifies. For many years of unshedding and untwining myself, it finally took an earnest turn of no edge when I felt that prickling fear of losing my daughter, Emerson.

The whole bewildered and confusions began shyly on November 27, and that night was something my mind cannot face nor could I bare, to sum up, the conclusions of what really happened inside and on the exterior layer of me. At the beginning of my earliest memory of my father was never of warmth or welcoming; this shall be laced with the strange fact that his "new wife" was not fond of me from the first meeting of last year. Never had the consumption of true fear ever treads me over until the moment my consciousness came alive and the realization of my daughter was not by my side.

Awakening to the two strange faces in blue scrubs and my eyesight was nothing short of the most blurred visions of a foggy window with immense condensation alongside, I was nearly blind since my glasses were nowhere to be found and floods of questions came bursting into my already flushed and frowned face. There are the sliced trembling effects of a moment when your mind is rising back to awareness and I was being told that "You had a seizure and was convulsing." Anything with medical or non-medical can already detriment anyone with the slightest hints of heart or soul.

To the world, or at least to the personnel around me, I looked as if the insane asylum was about to be my next destination—or something alongside that line in the story. My forehead was slightly damp from what they informed me that I was being held down to be revived and given an anti-convulsion injection into me. If you were being stripped away of your most basic comfort such as clothing, shoes, and undergarment; then, perhaps my mind at the time was almost the bottom of what most would feel, or felt like vulnerable with mountains of dreadful uncertainties.

It also did not help since each time I raised my voice to ask for something remotely minimal or just asks for the fact "how" and "why" am I here and how has time evaded me for about six to seven hours? So many unanswered questions filled with under empathetic faces all shunned and slew me for simply asking this since I honestly did not know a thing that would be reasonable for me to be here at this time.

As the flurry images of the clock's ticking and tocking, tests would come and I could hear almost everything and soon enough. The nurse who took care of me laughed about my current matter as if my mind was most definitely fried to the hottest temperature and any words that would pour out of me were nothing but utterings of nonsense and jibberish to her. In essence, I was treated possibly like a "soon-to-be" psychotic patient and maybe even being transferred to a psych ward.

The time was approximately seven or eight in the morning and it felt like an eternity has escaped me without my consent or concern. My inner-world and morals became non existence since everyone on the floor seemed to either shush me or tells me that "they will be back" and half an hour later each time my shaky finger pressed the red nurse button. Every sense of me was being taken away since my eyesight was blurry and my naked body has barely any coverage in the exceptions of that hideous night gown with the stench of yesterday's deathbed or sweat from me in that yellow EMT bag they accordingly transferred me into.

There was almost nothing for me to do or undo since my fragility was at the edges of insanity and I was dreadfully worried about Emerson due to her care under my dad and his new wife's house. Some have said that madness of the mind means that you are onto something raw and unfiltered, but is it truly what it means when you are being treated less than with respect and maybe, just for once I was able to feel a dripping amount of what a mental patient may have felt during their stays at the finest times of their lives.

As the outer layers of my shield comes off tumbling down with no consumptions of food and the utter fact that my appetite has completely diminished with all of this atrocity and absence of any sense in my reality. My body cradled me as my mind tries to calm as any person in this peculiar situation should feel and my tearful prayers for Emerson to be at least safe at home and not outside or to the airport since his wife did mention of her impending departure to another state.

In any of these types of cases and scenarios, case workers, mental health evaluations, and police will be called to ensure that I was not some "nutcase" and can care of my daughter after being discharged. As usual, the nurse that I was under did not show nor display any empathy and remained cold and callous as I cried for her to dispatch the CPS or child protective services to check up on her once again! The batterings of my mind was not enough to make me doze off or feel at ease but only induces me to sit up and cry silently since on the outside, I already looked as if I should be in a straight jacket and being held down and detained.

Minutes drips by and hour passes and a tall man that what I can presume was the mental case worker whom introduced to me that he too was a veteran and has served in the US Army. My head spins as the chambers within my heart beats with anticipation of what this shall be now and how much worse can this get? The per routine questions soon has begun and like the others, he earnestly asked why the fact that I'd assume my own dad and his wife would want to poison or cause harm to me? The air seemed to thin out and even though it was cold, I was becoming warmer with the agonizing factor of explaining and quietly sitting there swallowing the fact that my story sounds incredibly made up and in absolute distortion of my decayed mentality or so they will soon proposed me with.

Each breath my lungs inhaled and exhaled couldn't been more precious as my heart pounds in thoughts of Emerson and how much she needs me to reunite with her douses with the urgent facto that this was a life line awakening call to how desperately I desire to live as my utmost and unadulterated freedom were being strapped away from me and my shadows of this bewilderment and condemnations of my fractured dignity.

As the unsettling churning of stomach acid dances with my shaky thoughts of the emptiness without Emerson; my core of being an ounce of depressed subsided like the hermit that recluses back to existence. Counting and dismantling the walls from my blurred and less of glasses view came the final entrance of the announcement of my pending discharge.

Finally, as the curtains draws back and two shadows stepped in and one was the gentleman that was the only person whom presumably to believe my concerns and announced that he has no actual evidence to detain me against my will to stay at the hospital as my daughter is with my dad and unanswered calls. My heart sighs with pennies of relief that at the very least, as psychotic as my mind seemed; it was still mine to un-break stigma.

At last and the final act of all of this atrocity and bewildered fringe; my temporary detachment from the bed and hospital and the infamous discharge white sheets of distress reads "psychosis" altered state of mind.

Everything else came last since I could only imagine seeing and uniting with my baby girl and not an ounce of what "labels" and misdiagnosed matters they branded me with since all of my medical results came cleared and I guess the medical field has no pity nor patience for people when it comes to the fragility of the mind.

Thus the journey of my un-battered side of me checking into a "battered women's shelter" begins.

To be continued...

recovery
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About the Creator

Aiyan Turley

Returning to Innocence to my Soul for I have lost it through trauma

Remembering the golden timeline of any moments of my life

Renewing myself every day since each day is a Blessing

Rewinding the Ambrosia of my Love

Run, but do not fear

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