I have been thinking about court a lot obviously, and finally decided that I would rescind my 72 hour letter so instead of fighting things out in court this Thursday, I will take my chances that I will be getting out of here on friendly terms in a reasonable length of time, as in 10-14 days.
Since discharge will happen sooner or later anyway, at this point, I have mixed feelings about leaving this place because I like having someone here to talk to when I awaken from a nightmare (often), and someone who checks on me to make sure I am alright, and the food is much better than what I eat on the outside, but I am deeply upset about my loss of one of my birds and of my autonomy that comes along with this incarceration.
I really want to shave with a real razor -- or any razor -- before I braid corn-rows with my arm pit hairs.
I also made some friends while I was here, friends among my fellow inmates and also among the staff, friends whom I want very much to keep in my life and I worry that won't happen after my discharge.
Besides all those issues, my life was not exactly a bowl of cherries when I ended up in here, so in addition to the myriad problems I was trying to deal with when I was first hospitalized, I have all of those issues as well as a bunch more problems now to deal with, which makes discharge very daunting and scarey. It's so easy to fail, even if I do everything right.
And, as strange as it sounds, I am desperately wishing to get another parrot. Considering all of my money problems, this is the last thing I need to do: purchase a parrot, even if I do put it on my credit card. But the sadness that I feel from the loss of one of my birds while I was hospitalized is so great, sometimes overwhelming, such that I want to get another bird. Right now, I am thinking of getting a hawk-headed parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus, blue-headed Pionus, Pionus menstruus, another Eclectus parrot, Eclectus species, or a Congo African grey parrot, Psittacus erithacus erithacus -- all species that I have kept and some of which I have bred before. I am so intensely sad about the loss of my bird, my failure to be there for my bird when I was in the hospital, that I just want to somehow fill that space created by my loss. I know this impulse to get another bird is illogical, but I think Freud did say that love is irrational or something like that.
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How the heck did this nuthouse story get started in the first place?
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Great to hear you should be getting out soon! All of us here will be pulling for you while you try to get back on your feet. As for the bird, my vote is for the Eclectus, but as an owner of a Solomon Islands male, I might be biased.
Hope this all works out as soon as possible and you can get back to the birds!
I'm not a bird person myself, but I can completely understand how anyone could fall in love with an Eclectus parrot. A beautiful male Eclectus spontaneously befriended my husband and me at an aviary in Kuranda, Queensland, in 2004. We wish we could go visit him again.
What species are your other parrots?
Good luck with discharge, I will definitely be pulling for you, along with so many other people.
Well, I don't even know you but I actually did think about you over the weekend, since I don't check my RSS often, and made sure to check today to see how you were doing. So my thoughts are with you. Remember that your reader community, I'm sure, can put you in touch with almost any resource you may need - and would be happy to do so.
Good luck, grrlscientist.
Best of luck! From your comments, I gather you've sorted out the trust issues, and I note that you can certainly visit your friends back in the "house".
I appreciate the urge to get a new bird, but you might want to hold off on actually buying one. If you keep your antennae out, you may well hear of an adoption opportunity, somebody who can't keep their bird for some reason or other, and they might give you a price break (or better) for being an impoverished expert.
So it's a foregone conclusion they're not going to lock you in for the rest of your life?
I think it's totally understandable that you want to get another parrot--I have been struggling with some issues myself for the past year (although nowhere near as bad as yours), and while affording my cats is tough and makes finding places to live harder, having them makes life a bit easier. I am so sorry about your parrot--that's a heartbreaking thing to deal with on top of everything else right now. I really do hope you can hang in there and get your life bearable (or better), and I wish I could do something to help.