15. The Hospital

I'm your host , nikki Kraminga-Hill . Here we talk about everything Grief , hope , illness , work , family tragedy , possibilities , fun stuff and not so fun stuff . It's all on the table . Let's take a look at our lives and work to heal and grow together . I'm so glad you're here , hey , everyone . I'm so happy to be talking with you right now .

I actually have been out of town for the past couple of weeks . If you are a personal friend of mine , then perhaps you already knew that because I told you or you saw my social media . But if you are a podcast listener only , you would have no idea that I've been out of town because I scheduled my podcasts the last time I recorded , a few weeks ago .

I recorded three episodes and then I scheduled them . So I actually haven't been in my closet recording in a few weeks and I missed it and I missed all of you , and I'm so happy to be back . Anyway , let's get going . This week . I'd like to talk to you about my hospitalization in 1992 . I was 16 .

It was February and I voluntarily admitted myself into the adolescent crisis unit at Fairview Riverside Hospital in Minneapolis . I think now it's called adolescent inpatient treatment or something like that , and of course , a long , long time ago it was called the psych ward .

So let me just back up a little bit and let you know what was going on in my life at that time . My parents' marriage was not great , which I think I've discussed several other times in this podcast . I had just too much going on in my life . I was a competition dancer , so I was always , always , always , at dance class .

I was very involved in my church youth program . My grades were very good because I studied all the time , but I had immense pressure from my family to be a straight , a very good student . I was taking some AP classes . I had a boyfriend at the time who was pretty awful to me , actually , but back then I didn't realize that I was in a bad relationship .

I just knew something was weird , and so I was trying to manage that I wasn't getting any breaks at all . There was no time for rest . Even on school breaks I was busy , busy , busy with dance stuff , so I just never I didn't have time off for a handful of years actually .

Now I know , but I didn't know at the time , that I had undiagnosed PMDD , which is premenstrual dysphoria disorder . Quickly , just if you don't know what that is , everyone who gets their period has PMS premenstrual syndrome . To a certain degree , pmdd is pretty serious . It's the regular symptoms which are horrible for everyone times 100 .

So I had PMDD but I didn't know it . I actually ended up getting my period two days after I was admitted to the hospital and I also had myalgic encephalomyelitis , which I only found out last November that I have . So it was a really challenging time in my life and also I just felt I felt really guilty for being depressed all the time .

I knew that I had everything I needed and then some , but I still was pretty miserable and I didn't understand that . I didn't have the vocabulary at the time to express how I was really feeling .

I had started therapy earlier on that school year and I was going maybe once a week , maybe once every other week , and one time I was in a session and I just kept talking about how I wanted to die and how I thought that everyone would be much better off without me .

And if you've never had those thoughts before , it can be very , very scary to not want to live and to .

I mean I remember going through my relationships at that time , just going through them in my head and everything that I was doing , and I truly thought not only would I be better off if I wasn't around , but that everyone around me would have a much better , much fuller life if I didn't exist anymore .

And yeah , that was hard , that was really hard to admit , although it was the truth at the time .

And my therapist suggested going to the adolescent crisis unit at Fairview Riverside and the way that she described it made it kind of seem like I was going on a little bit of a vacation or I was maybe gonna go to camp for a week , and I love vacation and camp , and so I was like , yeah , sign me up .

And I remember my mom and I quickly went back to my school and we told all of my teachers that I was going to be gone and we went home and we packed up my bags for a week and we called my dad at school , which we never did .

I mean , he got out of his classroom to talk to me on the phone and I just said I'm gonna go to the hospital and he's like , oh okay . So I show up and the first thing I notice is that it is a locked floor . No one can get in and no one can get out without having the key or without pressing the button to get admitted .

And that scared the hell out of me because I thought I was going to camp and they talked to my mom and I for a while and she finally leaves and I was completely separated from the rest of the group for about I think it was 24 hours . I was on suicide watch plus at that time .

I don't know if they still do it or not now , but at that time they just separated you for 24 hours anyway to just kind of get a feel for who you are , what you needed , what the hopeful outcome could be from your visit . And that was really scary actually , to just be completely isolated . They went through all of my stuff .

I couldn't have any shoelaces , I couldn't have my curling iron , because it had a long cord on it and you could hurt yourself with it and the curling iron . This is back when I used to do my hair . That was . The biggest bummer to me is that I wasn't going to be able to like do my hair while I was there . Once I was finally given a roommate .

My roommate was a couple years younger than me and she had cuts all up and down her arm , which was also very frightening to me . That was the first time that I had ever come across a person who had done cutting . I didn't even know what that word meant . One of the other girls on the floor was there because she had tried to murder her mom .

I was the only one there that was there voluntarily . Everyone else was there . I would say there was like 20 of us . Everyone else was there because it was court ordered or their parents threw them in . I was the only one that was there because I wanted to be there , and so that was very strange too , because I was actively looking for help .

I was actively looking to feel better , and I was the only one which was just really sort of fascinating to me . There were some sort of camp like activities . We had art every day , which I loved . We had naps every day . We had three meals a day , which I'm horrible at eating three meals a day . We had individual counseling , we had group counseling .

My parents came in and we had family counseling , which was the only time that that ever happened family counseling I was essentially locked in there for about a week and then , actually after about five days , some of us were allowed to go down to the cafeteria to eat our food and then we went on a walk together outside .

And that was a big deal when you got to go outside , because that was a privilege . Not everyone was allowed that privilege we had . Our showers were monitored . There was no one in the shower with me , but they would constantly check and make sure that you weren't sneaking anything into or out of the showers .

We had a strict schedule where we were awake by seven and lights were out by 10 . And it wasn't really the camp experience that I thought it was going to be . But I learned a lot during that time and there have actually been moments since where I wish that I could go back , just so that I had time .

That was just for me and just for my healing and just for my wellbeing . I certainly don't wanna be locked up for another week , but to be like I'm here to do work on myself and no one needs anything else from me .

I don't have to go to school , I don't have to go to my job , I don't have to deal with anything other than myself and getting better , and I wish that there were places like that that also didn't cost all of your monies . So some of the things that I learned when I was gone is that or when I was there , is that I have to take breaks .

I have to take a lot of breaks because if I don't , I will crack and I will want to die and I don't say that lightly , like I will want to actually die .

And we live in this hustle culture where whoever's doing the most and whoever's making the most money and whoever's dedicating themselves to their job the most or committing to their relationship the most , that seems to be the thing that wins the proverbial prize . And I've tried so hard to do that .

I've tried to keep up with my friends who don't take breaks but have a lot of money . I just I can't do that because I will start to die , and I also learned that . Well , I don't know that I learned it at the time , I'm still learning it , but that when I power through instead of taking care of myself .

That doesn't work well for me either , you know , because what ends up happening is I'm powering through every single day like , oh , just get all this stuff done and then you're good to go until the next day , until the next week , until the next month . So powering through is not a thing that works for me at all .

I learned that I have to speak up , I have to self-advocate , because no one knows how I'm feeling except for me . So I have to speak up when I'm struggling . I have to speak up when I need help . I have to ask questions . I have to say you know , can you help me ? Or I have to do that .

And that's really , really difficult for me because I'm a people-pleaser and I want everyone to like me and I don't want to cause any problems , and so I tend to keep my mouth shut .

But lately you know this is 22 years later now , but lately I've started to do that and it's making a huge difference in my life to just speak up and ask questions and say this doesn't feel right to me , or you know what ? I can't handle this . Today I've got to go back to bed , but I can get to it tomorrow .

And you know , if my therapist hadn't asked the right questions that afternoon and honestly I don't even remember what questions she asked of me , but if she hadn't asked me the right questions , I don't know that I would be here right now . And I'm a huge advocate for therapy . I honestly believe that everyone can benefit from going to therapy .

I know a lot of people disagree with that . I actually know a lot of people who agree with it but still don't go . But that's something that I need in my life . I absolutely need to have therapy in my life and I'm really grateful that when I was 16 and I wasn't doing well , my mom said let's go get you some help .

And I'm really grateful that I'm sitting in this closet talking to you right now , because I had decided that I wanted to leave the world and I'm glad that I didn't end my life , even though it's really stinking hard sometimes . Right , friends ? I've actually called the suicide hotline before , not 988 . That 988 is pretty recent .

This is back in college that I called and I talked to someone , and I'm so glad that those resources are available to all of us that when we're struggling , we can get help immediately . We just have to recognize in ourselves oh crap , I need help immediately . I think about the hospital a lot .

It was one week out of my life , but it had a profound impact on me and I just again I know I keep saying I'm grateful , but I am , I'm really grateful that that was something that I could do , that we had health insurance and or my parents paid for it . You know what ? I honestly don't know if it was covered by insurance or not .

I should ask my dad , you know , but that my mom pushed for me to go do this Once I said , yes , I'll do it . She pushed and said , okay , let's get it , let's get Nikki in there , and I just think having that kind of perspective when you're 16 is just beneficial . Obviously , I wish that I hadn't been suicidal .

I wish that I hadn't have scared my friends and family . But I learned pretty quickly , when I was locked down that week on the psych ward , that I am worthy of goodness and happiness . I'm not made . I wasn't created to be a sad , depressed person even though that's something that happens in all of our lives that I was created for more than that .

And you know , I wish I could tell you that was the only time I wasn't suicidal , but it's happened twice since , but I know that I can ask for the help . I mean , obviously I don't really want to die , but I also don't wanna live .

Those two things can coexist I don't wanna die , but I also don't wanna live , and I've never had an attempt , and I just feel really really happy to be here and to be talking to you and living this really wonderful full life , even when it gets really really crappy which it does and it will .

It will get crappy again , because that's just what happens , right , but it's also going to get better again . Life is cyclical and it's gonna get better again . Anyway , because I've been gone for a few weeks , I haven't been able to give a shout out to the people that bought me coffee .

Thank you so much to Tim , also known as Tom , thank you so much to Sarah and Julia and to my cousin Bash and to my dear friend Siri . Thank you so much for buying me a coffee . It's delicious . Free coffee is delicious . Thank you so much . I really appreciate you all supporting me .

If you'd like to buy me a coffee , I will leave the link in these show notes . Hey , do you need a book to read . Why don't you read my book ? It's pretty good . It's the best book I've ever written , because it's the only book I've written so far . You can also check that out in the show notes as well .

I'll put a link down there to my book so you can buy that If you need a speaker , if you wanna do a book reading at your indie bookstore , I'm your gal .

I'm your gal . I love doing stuff like that , so please reach out if that is something that you are interested in . You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram . And , yeah , I hope that you're doing well , it's gonna be August . Well , it will be August by the time you listen to this .

Right now , it's July 31st , but tomorrow , when you're listening to this , it's August . I hope you have some incredible end of summer plans Just ready to go . Okay , big time love to you all . Thank you so much for healing and growing with me today . This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal , health or professional advice .

I am not responsible for any losses , damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast . This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice .