Or rather, mental hospital time. You don't get to hang around most modern hospitals like you did in the past - no weeks flat on your back being waited on by nurses. These days you're lucky to get an overnight stay after your heart transplant operation.
Except in mental hospitals. The land that time forgot.
Julie's currently on the 3-day assessment ward. The local mental hospital operates a 3-3-3 system: one ward for 3-day assessments for easy and urgent cases, one for 3-week stays if treatment is needed, the last ward for 3-month stays for longer interventions. It looks good on paper. The staff always solemnly tell you that you'll be on their ward for 3 days, weeks or months when you roll through the doors. At first you believe them, comforted by the order and regularity of such a system after the chaos of mental illness.
Well Julie's been on the 3-day ward for 2 weeks so far. She never stays less than a month. When she was 14, we took her into the adolescent ward for a 3-week assessment, and she came out 1 year later.
Outside, life goes on. Julie's employer has to hire temporary cover. Bills land on her doormat. Her electricity meter keeps on ticking. Her plants keep on growing and demanding water. Things grow on the washing up that was left in her sink. The government keeps a clock: after a certain period of time in hospital they stop paying certain benefits.
Inside, time drifts by. Julie sleeps and eats and reads books. These things take time.
THose outside pressure are evil at a time when things are so difficult. OK, I can understand the usual bills, etc, but not that ticking clock. It feels like a mine waiting to explode.
ReplyDeleteSending love . . . xxx
It is difficult. You can understand why they need to limit payments - they're paying for you to stay in hospital after all - but it comes just when it's hardest to deal with, when money is tightest and when everyone is anxious.
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