Recently I was arrested for a misdemeanor. After much kicking screaming crying and head-thumping in the police cruiser (and not enough sleep) I was turfed to an ER and examined. Five hours in a bed with handcuffs on.
I spent the next five days in a psych ward. I had negative associations with such facilities, my only other such hospitalization having been at age 16, and the doctors then were head-fucking Nazis.
This was different, and after a day and a half, most of my panic subsided, though I missed my girlfriend painfully, and I couldn't smoke cigarettes, or get anything but decaf after ten in the morn.
The only decent book I found (a great one) was THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, so I read that while I was in, didn't socialize much, though I attended most of the group sessions.
All in all I handled the situation much better than I'd anticipated, which is probably why I have such all-around confidence now.
Now, what to do with it...
I spent the next five days in a psych ward. I had negative associations with such facilities, my only other such hospitalization having been at age 16, and the doctors then were head-fucking Nazis.
This was different, and after a day and a half, most of my panic subsided, though I missed my girlfriend painfully, and I couldn't smoke cigarettes, or get anything but decaf after ten in the morn.
The only decent book I found (a great one) was THE GOLDEN NOTEBOOK, so I read that while I was in, didn't socialize much, though I attended most of the group sessions.
All in all I handled the situation much better than I'd anticipated, which is probably why I have such all-around confidence now.
Now, what to do with it...