I narrowly avoided an attempt during a breakdown recently, but I finally got to see my new therapist. I told them about how I'd been feeling lately and that I really wanted to go to an inpatient facility. I haven't been able to trust myself for weeks now and it's getting really bad. They recommended one and I'm supposed to go at the end of next week, as I have spring break then and won't miss any college classes. Despite probably needing to, I've never been before, and I'm honestly really nervous. I've been psyching myself out all afternoon since the plans became pretty much set in stone. I know I do need this. I can't even count how many nights I've looked at my pill bottles and wished they were more dangerous chemicals. Almost took a handful anyways two days ago when I tried telling my mom about how I felt and she made it all about herself. Still, I can't help but feel I'm being overdramatic., and the extreme anxiety of change makes me feel sick to my stomach. I don't even know what I can bring, or if I'll have my phone, or even if I'll like the people there. Realistically, I'm 19, so I could check myself out at any point if I needed to. I tried looking up the policies of the place but the website had no information :(
I think I'll try emailing my therapist tomorrow about it and see what they say.
that's not necessarily how voluntary inpatient care works. you can't always check yourself out. i'm not saying don't do it, but just be aware.
inpatient care is also extraordinarily expensive depending on where you live. Please, please, please be aware of costs. At 19, mental health professionals absolutely do not care if they financially destroy you or decimate you financially for your 20s and 30s. You could be in a depressive episode that would go away slightly in a month, you could take up jogging, and eventually by 21 you could be feeling good. I am not saying depression is always that easy, but sometimes it does go away on it's own.
In the US, a short stay in an inpatient facility can run $30,000, and worse than that, they can force you to have a longer stay, even if you want out, with costs continuing to run up. From a financial health perspective, such a stay can be disastrous, and the mental health industry often takes vulnerable people and exploits them. If you are in the US, you could wind up leaving with a bill for $110,000 and then have to either declare bankruptcy at 19, making it incredibly hard to move or rent or buy property and which can impact job prospects occasionally, or pay back $110,000 when you likely don't have any savings. It's is a financially destroying move to get involved with psychiatric anything unless you're in a country with free health insurance or have extraordinary coverage and know in advance it will be approved and have talked with your insurance company and have it in writing that they'll pay.
As someone who has tried psychiatry over and over, they have never done anything to reduce any suicidal feelings or depression for me personally. Many of their treatments work only slightly better than time and a placebo.
Lastly, during in-patient care, many places have ECT setups where they electrocute people's brains. They tend to only reserve it for the most vulnerable people who don't respond to other medications and are too vulnerable to put up a fight against the idea, but to be clear, ECT causes massive memory loss and brain damage, but psychiatrists, in an extraordinary act of corruption, always frame it as "helping to break down ego," as in, you're just depressed because you can't see outside yourself. Psychiatrist also lie about the memory loss; it ALWAYS causes permanent memory loss, but psychiatrists say in "some" cases it "may" cause memory loss, but it "usually" improves after and isn't permanent. They are liars. And if you do get ECT and it helps you not be so egocentric (because part of your brain is destroyed), you won't know what problems you have if you have brain damage, please don't allow them to do ECT. Also, once you do in-patient, they can do fucked up things like say "We're not going to let you out anytime this month unless you do ECT." They get all eager and excited to inflict brain damage on people, they get off on the power.
If it's entirely paid for and if ECT is outlawed, and in your area you are genuinely free to leave and can't be involuntarily held longer, then it may be a good idea.
Please be aware of the risks of psychiatry. Although it's a "discipline" (on a shoddy scientific foundation) and society considers it benevolent, it has a long track record of being incredibly expensive, perpetrating horrible unethical abuse through practices that it always apologizes for doing 1-2 decades later (see lobotomies, female hysteria, clitoral stimulation for female hysteria, weaponizing psychiatry against difficult people, weaponizing psychiatry against wives when a husband wants to be adulterous, etc), and even though it's the standard societal solution, it's very questionable, in my view, as to whether the risk/reward cost/benefit ratio of psychiatry is worth it ever, even if someone if desperately suicidal. Society keeps this quasi-psuedoscience in place as the accepted solution because many don't want people to complain about depression and often depression either gets better over time or it doesn't; and people demand some sort of solution or way to control a problem, even if it barely works. In many ways, psychiatry is just a way for society to manage problematic weird but not criminal people.
Psychiatry tends to be much more benevolent when they don't have legal power. When you are just seeing a psychiatrist voluntarily, it's completley different than in-patient care. They treat you nice when they know you can leave as a customer at any time. When you can't always leave, the masks come off.
I should also add that I have had very bad experiences with psychiatry, have my perspective that has been impacted by that, and you're experience could be different, possibly. I am not encouraging suicide and if you feel this is the only thing that will stop you, then it may make sense to do it if you've researched the local rules and are comfortable with the risks.
In my experience it's not actually the case that you can check yourself out before a doctor discharges you, if you are having suicidal ideation with a plan.
i feel like this person is being naive and walking into a trap, being gullible and thinking psychiatrists aren't monsters in involuntary situations. well, sometimes people have to learn things for themselves rather than learn from others. Survival instinct is real, so unless OP is actually ready to get over that hurdle and has a clear method and is ready to go, this idea for involuntary treatment seems highly risky to me. Psychiatrists use the vulnerability of others as an opportunity to exploit.
