I’m a nursing student and to pay my mortgage while in uni and to get experience I work at a drug rehabilitation centre at the short term ward. We specialize in treating and stabilising withdrawal. Among other things, we take emergency hospitalization if the drug use is endagering a child, is escalating or if the usage is putting the user in immediate danger, but these are very short and voluntary stays. We also take involuntary hospitalizations mandated by the local government which last a good deal longer, or if the patient is pregnant, will last untill the child is born.
A year ago we got a patient of the last category. A wonderfully kind, funny girl with a furious temper and a shattered soul. Not pregnant, but involuntarily hospitalized because it was seen necessary to preserve her life and health. She had been given her first joint by her father at 13 because his mates didn’t show up to party with him and he was lonely. Since then she had been given marijuana as well a whole catalog of different sleeping pills and analgetics by her father, which he had a prescription for, until she turned 15, got her first boyfriend and got pregnant. She aborted the child but since turned to alcohol mixed with her fathers pills which turned out not to cover her need anymore. She got some shady friends and things quickly turned ugly. Thoughout the next few years she tried everything from speed to heroin.
When she came to us last year she was a beaten, broken young thing who didn’t trust anyone. It turned out she had been raped a number of times while intoxicated and when we gained her trust after the first month or so, she started opening up about the abuse she faced as a child as well.
She tried committing suicide while in our ward, she smashed a window and got out so we had to get the police to track her down in another county. But most of all she was a fantastic young woman and we had high hopes for her. She said yes to continue treatment after her involuntary hold ended and completed said treatment. Things was looking up. Sadly, she was again given drugs by her father (who also brought her pills while she was with us btw).
Since she came in for emergenzy hospitalizations a few times after that, always intoxicated and in fairly bad shape. Once she was beaten pretty badly. She refused any more treatment because her father had told her she didn’t need it, and had convinced her she could stop any time she wanted to, and she didn’t want to. We knew deep down she wanted someone to see her, to care for her and take care of her the way her parents had never been able to, but when she refused treatment there was little we could do except lean on local authorities to put her on a new involuntary hold.
She died a few weeks ago from an overdose. Those of us that wasn’t at work went to the funeral. I had a hard time not giving her father a look of contempt.