Silverware
I used to take actions such as buttering my bread or cutting my meat for granted. Not anymore. All we have in our "dining room" are plastic forks and spoons. We don't even have plastic knives to cut our meat at dinner. At breakfast, staff have to cut bagels in half because we cannot be trusted to do that ourselves, even while being observed. Try cutting chicken breast with a plastic spoon. It is near about impossible. And it gets degrading asking staff to cut everything up for you. Most of us eventually give up on the meat and pick it up and eat sandwhich-style or stab it with a fork and knaw at it in the air like you are at some mideival festival waving a big turkey breast around.
Cream cheese. An essenstial for me, but impossible to deal with here. Today Heather (name changed) spread the cheese on her bagel with her fingers because not even the spoon was working at that point.
Lunch time on week days are special. We get honest to goodness real metal forks and spoons. Still no knives, though. When you are finished eating, you put your tray in the kitchen--but the silverware goes on a tray in the dining room. The other day I mistakenly left my silverware on my tray when I put it in the kitchen. "Oh no, dear," the cook said, "you have to put it on the tray or else I might lose count." After each meal, she has to count the forks and the spoons to make sure that the same number that went out of the kitchen came back in. If the count doesn't match up, there is a room search done. We would have to all sit in the living room, observed by staff, while other staff members went through all of our rooms, one by one calling us out to observe them. In case we stole a metal piece of silverware.
The question remains: how can you feel like a responsible adult at this point?
I wrote this during my hospitalization in 1999. I came across it today while looking at old writing journals looking for something else. All of this is true and nothing was exaggerated for the sake of literary creativity. I wasn't trying to be all that creative at the time, I was just writing down my observations.
I was on a floor specifically for self-harm. So of course they had to watch the silverware and metal objects. I still think about it from time to time. I think it is something I will never forget--being locked up and watched like a hawk for such a long time with all "sharps" out of my reach. One of my entries in my diary at that time related the hospital to a preschool.
I am still fighting this battle. Some days I don't think about it, but on other days, I fight the urge to return to the old patterns. Then I remember things like the above journal entry.
I am not ready to return there.
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Front page on self-harm
Combatting Ignorance
Starting to dispell some common myths
What self-harm is NOT and what it is
Discussing the common misconeptions about self-harm
ARE YOU READY TO STOP?
this isn't always an easy question
Alternative Coping Skills
Here are some alternative coping skills to get you started
Poetry Index
Index of poems on this site, mainly about mental illness, but some random ones as well
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