There are several villains we have encountered in hospitals – some real creeps out there; but I’m just going to talk about the one who attacked me. Don’t get me wrong- there are some really super people who work at mental hospitals; but there are not enough evil words to describe the creep who went after me.

I’m Jennifer, and I’m 17 years old. I used to do a lot of cutting, usually with blades from a carving kit we own, or used to own. Well, I was working with this counselor when the cutting got so bad that I got scared and told the counselor all about it. She sent me to the hospital. The idea was for me to get help in getting the cutting back under control; but the trouble started during the intake when the admitting nurse asked me my name and age. I told her my name and age just as I wrote it here in this post, but the nurse objected. We had been hospitalized in this hospital before, so we knew all about their rule that there can be no switching during the hospital stay. That’s why I used my personality name and age, not the birth name and age. I tried to explain to the intake nurse that I was the only personality who would be out during this hospital stay because it was me who was having the issues that needed to be addressed. I guess she must have written down the birth name and age anyway, cause she dropped the issue and moved on with the intake process.

Well then we go to the first group, and I guess there were several new people so the leader of group asked everyone to introduce themselves to the rest of the group. What do you know, the person sitting beside was named Jennifer, too. The leader was real sweet to her, asked if she liked to go by her full name or Jenny, or some other nickname. He said in group we just want people to feel comfortable so we would use whatever name she preferred. Then it is my turn and I say my name is Jennifer. The leader got real indignant and said it was not and we were not going to discuss it further. We would use only the birth name. Well, everyone in the whole group was all mouths dropped open and questioning, cause his attitude towards me was so different from the girl beside me. After group the other patients all gathered around me and asked what that was all about and told me they would call me anything I liked no matter what staff said. I tried to explain that I was DID and they just wanted me to use the birth name. It wasn’t like it had to be a big deal to me. I could use the birth name if everyone was going to get all bent out of shape about it. That’s what I told everyone after group. Later the group leader said he was sorry and he didn’t handle it well, so I said it was ok, and I told everyone to call me by the birth name so there wouldn’t be a big issue. I really wanted to get over it and get to focusing on the issue of cutting, but the doctor in charge of the psych unit wouldn’t let it drop. He told all the group leaders to ask me before group started which personality was out, and if I said it was Jennifer they were not supposed to allow me to attend group. Well, that was a stupid predicament. If they just asked me for my name I could say the birth name and we could just move on; but no, he insisted that they ask specifically which personality was out. And according to the rules they set up there was not allowed to be switching so of course I had to stay Jennifer due to their own rules.  So I kept getting kicked out of group. Then the doctor says I’m being uncooperative. Say what?!? I’m not the one making an issue out of who’s out. This creep even got his staff all confused and wondering what was going on with him – even they could see I was trying to move on and deal with the issues but he wasn’t letting that happen. One time I got so mad I walked out – as in, out of the unit and away from the hospital. I just needed to walk off my anger a bit, and then I came back; but then he had to make a huge issue of that. One of the staff got so frustrated with him and she said she used to work on the adolescent unit and I was behaving just like the teenagers there and if he would just treat me like anyone my age should be treated he wouldn’t be having these issues. Well, that was affirming, but it didn’t make any difference. The guy was driving me crazy and I was doing a lot of cutting while in the hospital (I sneaked in a blade just in case I needed it and it was a good thing I did because I don’t know how I could have coped with the craziness that guy was putting us through without it). But then I felt guilty about using the blade and scared, too, because of how bad I was cutting. By weekend the creep doctor said he was going to have me transferred to the state hospital and I would never get out of there and he was going to make sure of that. He even said it to my Beloved. Then my Beloved asked what about all the rights I have according to state law, and the creep doctor said he had the power to override them. That really made us mad. There was one thing that creep doctor hadn’t counted on. The state law says a psych doctor not associated with the hospital do an independent evaluation  and both doctors had to agree in order for the transfer to the state hospital to happen. The other doctor said the state hospital would be the worst place for me and asked my Beloved if he could come up with some alternative that the consulting doctor could agree to. Well, we arranged for me to go to Florida and stay with Beloved’s parents and work on stuff with them because his mom was a medical doctor who did her internship in the state psychiatric hospital and his dad was chaplain there. So that’s the way we got away from creep doctor; but now we know that we cannot ever go to a hospital no matter what for psychiatric treatment because they are so prejudice against DID patients and they have the power to evoke all our rights.