Following these pages in the notepad was a lengthy discharge plan that the hospital requires you to make before you’re released. Reading this discharge plan years later is interesting, and I transcribe it below. I talk about getting back to my apartment and getting ready to go back to work. The plan then diverges into a statement about how much the nurse the night before irritated me because she saw the “PFA Payback” title and started telling me how I needed to take responsibility for what I did and not be thinking about revenge. I told her I didn’t want to talk to her about it as she had no idea what was going on. Realizing that being in the hospital was at that point worse than being out, and since I was feeling terrific, I forced them to release me after 72 hours. It’s pretty clear reading this that the Effexor was already making me manic.
My apartment is in College Heights so I can easily walk to it form the hospital. It’s only about four miles at most and I walk that far almost every day. I have shoes and a coat here to stay warm. I also have clothes here and at my apartment. I could also take the bus that stops at the hospital before continuing on to the Penn Stater and looping back around to campus. This is a free bus so not having any cash will not be a problem using it. Once at my apartment I have plenty of things to do that have build (sic) up while I have been here. I need to prepare for the PFA hearing with my lawyer and find out what I’m being accused of. I also need to get my name off a lot of accounts that I can no longer guarantee are paid one (sic) time because I have no access to my mail. I also need to talk to my lawyer about my PFAPB strategy to determine what parts of it are appropriate to implement and what parts are probably not a good idea. I also need to prepare for class so I can get back to work. I think I can probably try to get back to work when the PFA hearing is over on the 14th, which I believe is a Monday. Maybe I should shoot for being back at work on the 16th for Wednesday’s class.
At this point being in here is more aggravating and stressful to me than being out. I wanted to sit quietly and just jot down some thoughts in the common area when a nurse started asking me what I was writing about. When I told her what I was writing she decided to lecture me on what I should and should not be thinking. Being really irridated (sic) by her telling me what I should be thinking concerning something she hand (sic) really not (sic) detailed knowledge about got me really upset. I need legal advise from a lawyer, not a nurse. I do realize some of the ramblings I was jotting down really make not (sic) rational sense. That’s why they are called ramblings. They are ideas. A few may the (sic) good, must are likely completely ridiculous. But they are what was going through my head at the time. It does not mean that I’ll act on them or that I should even have written them down. But they were writings that were not to be read or discussed by anyone else. Hearing that because I’m here I should be talking about everything going thru my head made me realize that I do not want to be here at this stage of my divorce.
I need to sort out how I want this divorce to proceed with my lawyer (since my wife is unwilling to talk to me about how she would like it to proceed). I do not want nurses giving me legal advice about what is (sic) rationale and irrational thoughts. When you are writing stream-of-thought prose a great deal of what you write and in fact much of what you think is in fact irrational. I know that, everyone should know that. Unfortunately it seems like some of the staff here think that any irrational thought is reason for you to stay. It is certainly not! We all have irrational thoughts every minute of every day.
When I (sic) start to write down everything you’re thinking you write down a lot of irrational stuff. But in my mind that’s the entire point of writing down /everything/ you thing (sic) when your mind is overly active. From a great many irrational thought (sic) come some truly great ideas. Some just need filtered and refined. Many just need tossed in the garbage never to be mentioned again. That is why I don’t like writing stream-of-thought prose on paper like this. People read it as a plan of action of (sic) something. It is not. It is just a list of ramblings, often incoherent and often unintelligible. Nothing more should be read into it. Why the night nurse had to get into it with me I cannot figure out. It was pretty obvious I didn’t want to talk and I’m pretty sure I told her that. I did not want her advice about the PFA, I did not want her telling me I was having irrational thoughts. I knew all that. I just wanted to write because a day of sleeping for most of the day I could not get my brain turn (sic) off and go to sleep. I didn’t need to hear that smacking my wife on the thigh was grounds for a PFA when doing so to wake someone up is commonplace. My wife has smacked my (sic) hard (sic) than that to wake me up and she’s smacked my kids harder than that to punish them. I truly love the vast majority of the staff here and they have helped me through some very difficult times of (sic) a few different occasions. However tonight’s episode has made me realize that being in here is causing me a great more frustration and anxiety than being in society where I can actually get things done. Being isolated here with emails needing read growing into the multiple hundreds, not being able to communicate with online friends, and not being able to take care of the things my wife would normally take care of (or at least not knowing that she is) is far more stressful than anything else at this stage.
By the way, I really am sorry for blotting out my wristband. In my anger at being questioned by the nurse I decided it was the symbol of my institutionalization and needed to be removed. I’m sure another one can be printed quite readily. I don’t want to be viewed as a disruptive patient and I think I have participated in a lot of activities and help (sic) lead many discussions. However, my interactions with the night nurse really irridated (sic) me and I did and said some things I regret. I’m sure I’ll feel terrible in the morning. However her attitude and the way she presented herself just really irritated me. Maybe its (sic) just a personality conflict (like the case) but my discussion with her was much different than I have had with any of the other nurses, doctors or counselors. But it really has cemented my need to get out of here so I can take care of all the stressors that keep piling up because I have not access to a computer or the internet.I then talked about how when you’re simply writing stream-of-consciousness thoughts you are not necessarily going to act on them, and that I like to write what I’m thinking when I’m angry because it clears my mind. I think this is because it forces my brain to slow down to the pace at which I can write. I certainly needed my brain to slow down because it turned out that the Effexor was making me manic. I even mention that I hate writing on paper because you can’t go back to edit things. I should have simply destroyed the “PFA Payback” document while I was in the hospital. By the time the police found it I had completely forgotten about it.
Regardless of my mental health, I will never voluntarily go to a mental health unit again. The ramifications of this were ridiculous. Rita’s attorney argued for years that I was dangerous and unstable because of my mental health. However, Rita knows that when I am having depression and anxiety issues, all I want to do is sleep, hide, or cry, as I discussed previously. I am about the most passive, timid person in this state and about the farthest from aggressive and dangerous as anyone could be. Rita told me on multiple occasions that I was the nicest to her when I was depressed. I think this was because I constantly apologized to her for being depressed and thanked her for supporting me.
At this point, it’s tough to remember what I was aware of regarding restrictions of the PFA at the time, but manic on Effexor, on January 10, 2013, I sent Amanda’s iPod a message saying, “I love you.” I’m pretty sure I understood that I might get in trouble for this, or I would have sent the message sooner, but I thought if it weren’t abusive, then it wouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, I was incredibly naive. A Ferguson Township police officer, Shaun Morrison, arrived that evening with the arrest warrant shown in the image gallery, and he asked to see my phone and if I had sent a message to Amanda, and I told him I had. He then arrested me, put me handcuffed in the back of his car, and took me to the county jail.