Being bipolar I've had manic episodes and hipomanic episodes, manic episodes where I would imagine things that are not real to be true, for example that I had superpowers, or hipomanic episodes where in general I had more energy, talked a lot more, was like 'the man' that could accommplish anything, talk to any woman and so on.
So I was in the psychiatric because I was hypomanic and they wanted me to be there to make sure I'd not go into full on mania, because that is what tends to happen when you leave hipomania untreated.
It was not a jail but it looked a bit like this:
I had this theme/desire during that hipomania that I wanted to do stand up comedy, so I would try and for example, the walls inside the psychiatric, in a little yard and in a balcony we had, was full of of writings from interns, so I would write that stuff down to use as possible stand up comedy material, things like that.
One day that I had permission, I was able to go for a walk outside the psychiatric, I returned too late as I was talking to a cool woman about wanting to do stand up comedy and in general not giving much a fuck of returning in time as I was close to being discharged, in fact the next day was scheduled for my 'liberation' - although I was pretty much still hypomanic, but back then I had not yet learned much about dealing with my hipomania effectively with meds.
That day that I was late, when I arrived, they had already served dinner and because they have a catering service that comes with the food and take what is left, they did not count on me and I was not given dinner.
Now, one hour after I was hungry, three hours after or so I tried to go to sleep, I asked for sleeping pills, took one, waited , took another one. I was hungry and nothing seemed to work.
So then I thought, well, I can escape. It will make for a cool story. But how the fuck am I going to do it? Then I remembered the balcony where we were allowed to smoke, we were on a first floor so it wasn't very high. Now, I was alone in a two-bed room, so I took the sheets out of the empty bed and wondered how to tie them together to make a rope. Well, I thought, I guess the simplest knot will work as I don't think escapees everywhere are very sophisticated. So I tied three sheets together with the simplest knot and made a long sheet rope.
Now it was time to move the rope from my room to the communal balcony. First I moved the rope into the hall, no one was there, and I put it in a bin for the dirty clothes so it looked like regular dirty sheets. When I made sure no one nurse of was around I went to the balcony.
There was a big woman there sitting at the balcony, another intern, but I didn't flinch, there was a gate that prevented to go to the outer part of the balcony, so no one could jump. First I threw the rope to that other side of the balcony, then I jumped the gate towards the outside part of the balcony. Now I was closer to escape! The woman wasn't moving, I was doing it so fast and so determined that she didn't have much time to react. The balcony had this metal bars, so I did a very big knot at one end of the sheet rope and made it so this knot was stuck between the bar and the wall, while the other part of the sheet rope hanged until almost touching the floor.
It was time to slide down. I put one leg over the balcony, then the other. I had tested the knots before climbing down but with my whole weight, would they hold up? They did. I slided down like a champion and I was in the garden. I only had to jump low fences until the street. Freedom awaited.
Once on the street, remember on the psychiatric we are not allowed to wear our clothes in general, so I was on the street with the official psychatric pijamas, walking on my way home to eat dinner. Back then I shared a flat close by the psychiatric so it was like a 10 minute walk. It wold be easy peasy. Or so I thought.
I was walking on the sidewalk with my pijamas when suddenly I see a police car by the sidewalk, and the police is coming out the police car. So I decide to try the 'all is good' approach. It went a little bit like this.
(Me) - Good night
(Police) + Good night
- It is a nice night tonight isn't it?
- Oh yes
+What are you doing?
- Oh, I am in these clothes because I just did a stand up comedy show about being locked up in a Psychiatric, you know back in the Celtic (local comedy bar)
- Oh I see, what's your name?
- Where are you going?
- Home, close by
- Alright have a good night.
And they saw me leaving and turning right to where home was. Had I failed I would have been so bummed up as I was so close to home.
After eating dinner at home I went back. I checked the rope was still there, I tried climbing it back but it was very difficult, then, a man appeared from the shadows and basically identified me as the escapee and I followed him and we entered through the main door.
Once in the psychiatric they explained to me that police had called asking if a @rubenmoutinho was missing, they had checked my room and thought I was sleeping but when they touched 'me' they discovered my 'buddy' - lol - I had prepared my bed with clothes and a pillow to resemble that I was sleeping. Because nurses would check in regularly to make sure all is well.
Because of escaping, that night I had to sleep in a locked up room. I didn't try to get out and simply slept. The next day my doctor waked me up very angry, told me to not do it ever again - and he let me leave.
Since then I've seen they have put a heavy glass covering the metal bars of the balcony so no one can repeat the feat I accomplished.
Foreword: I didn't end up doing a stand up comedy show but the story at least made for a Steemit publication. lol
Thanks for reading. Until next time!
STEEM ON!
That's hilarious! I've always wanted to do the whole tying the bedsheets together to escape to somewhere kinda thing. I've never been in a psychiatric hospital before, but I've read about them, and read the letter Marilyn Monroe wrote about her time in one. They seem scary! Glad you survived! Loved reading your story. Is it weird that i can't stop wondering what you ate for dinner that night? lol
I think I had some burgers for dinner that night, something yummy that I had bought previously that afternoon and shared with my flat mates as well, thus why I was so eager to escape the psychiatric having nice food at home!
About the phsychiatric being scary, it was really a hospital but the difference is you 'couldn't leave' lol.
Thanks for the comment!
Cheers
First thing I said after reading...."But what did you have for dinner?!!"
Great story that gave me a chuckle. Been in one myself and it's amazing what you can accomplish when in the throws of a breakdown that you wouldn't normally try otherwise. Glad your escape didn't have more serious consequences.
Hey, thank you! Certainly it was cool it didn't have consequence, and I had fun!
"it's amazing what you can accomplish when in the throws of a breakdown that you wouldn't normally try otherwise."
Yes we should try to live like that every day, every day trying to overcome obstacles with awesomeness lol.
Cheers