Quarantine and My 3 Year Psych Lockdown

As we enter this period of quarantine, I would like to share a little something with you. I have been through “quarantine” before. I was locked down on two different psych wards for 3 consecutive years. There was no Facetime or text messaging, only a few phone calls a day when the phone on the ward wasn’t being used. I only had the ability to see my loved ones every three months if they were able to make the flight to come visit. I’ve been through this before, and I’m slowly getting on board with facing all of these flashbacks head-on.

I am beginning to see all my freedom stripped away, yet again. This time, instead of the cause being my mental instability, I get to send a warm shout-out to COVID-19. Since I’m currently as stable as they get, I now sense there’s a different vibe as we all struggle with the same ordeal. With this initial post, I invite you to join me on this journey none of us chose to take, yet we know we are about to share many of the same dilemmas. I hope to share stories of when I was locked-up, and relate them to this lock-down we are facing in our ‘normal’, ‘everyday’ lives.

I, like you I would suspect, live alone. These first few days of quarantine feel much like being thrown into a jail cell or a psych ward. Complete shock. Not much choice over what to do with your day, especially now that your options are limited to only the things within the walls surrounding you. Do we eat to cure our boredom? Do we listen and dance to music as though we are at a Lizzo concert? Or maybe we can just lie in bed the next few weeks. The initial shock to my system of sitting on the psych ward was intense. I was dazed and confused, asking myself if I really needed to be here. The answer none of us want to hear is that, “It’s for our own good”. If you are emotionally wired, this can mean tears of grief for our past life lost, or even for the unknown future. Or you may need a few days of sleep to catch-up from the last week (or month or year) of work. Whatever the case, you’re doing it your way, and it’s the right way for you; don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

When the “shock” period has faded, it’s important that you put some sort of semblance of a routine together. Being locked up on the ward had the advantage of a built-in schedule. Meals, group activities, courtyard time, and music therapy (my…

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