I've been wanting to write a blog for several days but I've had full body pain and insomnia making it difficult. It's very hard for me to organize thoughts after not sleeping well. I don't know why I have such pain. My psy thinks it might be depression related. Can your body really hurt this much just b/c your depressed tho?
I've been wanting to write about group homes. I've already taken my sleep meds but couldn't sleep so I hope this all makes sense.
When I got out of the hospital for the first and only time, I was sent to a group home. It was 24 hr 'care.' Previous to this I had been living on my own independently for 12 years. Some times with roommates, most of the time alone. It is a massive shock to the system to go from being a independent 32 yr old, to being hospitalized, to living in a group home where basically you have zero freedom. My disability pension was taken away to cover the cost of the housing, I then received a 90$ 'care package' installment each month. How is anyone supposed to live off 90$ a month? This is justified by saying meals are provided. However the meals were not exactly filling or balanced. I would use my 90$ to buy food-which was then promptly stolen every time by other residents no matter how hard I tried to hide it in the fridge. They were spending all their money on cigs. You can't often go out to eat on a 90$ budget per month either. I also needed to buy toiletries and clothes.
This home was all girls who were quite...I don't know how to put it. I think a lot of them on top of having mental illness had mental retardation. They were extremely difficult to talk to. Some as if they had never talked to anyone before. Others just can't carry a thought. Some just snobby as well I suppose. Even tho I still had psychosis I was much better off then these girls. They were all obsessed with pop music like gaga and blasted it all day and night. This is not my style at all. I was desperate to get out. It was making my mental state worse to be with these girls in such small quarters. There was more to it of course. They would watch murder shows all the time. In my psychosis I thought any violence I saw would happen to me as well. I was stuck on the main floor with these people. Even if I wasn't in the tv room there was no where to go to get away from it. Not even outside b/c it was winter and freeeeeeeezing. A lot of the time they would have the tv blasting and the cd blasting at the same time and didn't bother them a bit. I was going through a time where I really needed quiet. there were also set meal times and bedtimes. I felt like I was being treated like a 4 year old. Breakfast and lunch weren't even made for us-so why a set meal time? We were not allowed out of our bedrooms (which were shared) for any reason at night.Someone would come in our room and shine a flashlight in our eyes waking us up every single night.
I was scared of my roommate. I'm unclear of what she did but she was sent to the big institution for a crime against someone else. I'm assuming physical violence b/c of a phone conversation I over heard. I was having psychosis about being murdered before I even moved in and they paired me with her. She defiantly was having psychosis of some kind and had possibly tried to or did kill someone. She was not fully discharged from the hospital. She lived part time there still. As much as I get mad at people who assume schizophrenics are violent I have to admit I've been scared of some.
The biggest problem I had was that no one acknowledged my lack of freedom and what a big change it was. They thought I should be grateful to be there. I find that people who work in group homes don't expect you to have the same kinds of dreams that they have for yourself. I had the feeling that when I talked to them about what was normal for a 30-something to be doing with their life it was always 'but not for your kind' No one talked to me about the trauma of finding out you have schizophrenia or losing your freedom and home. They just expect you to adjust in 5 mins b/c how dare you have dreams for yourself anyway?
The most disturbing thing I saw was a girl who was moving from another group home into ours had changed her mind on move in day. She showed up with her stuff (which would not fit in our tiny shared rooms) and decided she wanted to move on her own-which she had been told would happen after living two years at this other group home. The staff then changed their minds and said they would not help her get housing except for another group home. While she was waiting for her parents to pick her up the staff and support staff gave her a lecture that she needed to stay. They said if people didn't want to move into these homes they would lose their jobs. They pounded this into her trying to guilt her into moving in. No compassion for this girls feelings or what she had been promised or what was best for her-just the staffs concerns for themselves. The girls left with her stuff making sure they knew she was not moving in. Well the group home told welfare she was moving in and when she tried to rent some where else she was denied her disability money b.c it had gone to pay rent at the group home when she was not living there.
I will write about the 2nd group home another time.
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