How is your experience in a Psych Ward

[WinterIsComing]

I met once a Girl in pajamas going to group therapy saying that it was like her 3 months vacation, but thats her experience.

How it was for you?

 

[Mstrflshr]

My experience was terrible. The employees didn't make a difference between someone who is 'stable'. And someone who isn't 'stable'. They are used to pushing around everyone, so they did it to me to. And i am talking employees just fresh out of high school.

 

[deathxoxo]

Eh not so great, i've been hospitalized 4-5 times I think my last stay was the most pleasant out of all of them. I was really young when I first got hospitalized. The first 2 times I got hospitalized were really traumatic. The kids there had gone through a lot of shit that never ever came to my mind. For her privacy I won't share her name but I stayed in a room with a girl who cried in her sleep, genuinely was crying in her sleep. One night we stayed up to talk, I was wondering why she was there (I forgot why now) but she talked about she hears voices which scared me because I hadn't experienced that yknow. At some point she said that the voices were telling her to rape me. Didn't go to the hospital again for a good 4 years I believe. I don't blame her something wasn't right in her head but i'm not saying she's wrong. My child brain didn't know what to do about that and didn't say anything for years.

 

[Conflicted Cat]

I already commented about it on another thread, so I'll just copy and paste it here.

Just boredem. Days and days of bordem. It felt like prison. Everyone around me, other patients, were not like me at all... Which made me feel even more alone and isolated. Tried starving myself, that quickly backfired. I remember I even snuck in a razor blade in on my second time I went there. Slipped it through the string hole of my pants. No one ever found out. I remember I spent an good while, trying to smash through the big indestructible window that was in my room. Or the time where I got all edgy and forced my cast off, only to then self harm and write "PAIN" with the blood that came of it on the wall... (I went through a whole masochist phase.) Then getting told to clean it up. I have trouble believing that was a thing that I did. Family coming in, and all I could say to them was, "get me out of here".

Yeah, not good. Seems that some people have the best experience ever, and some just have the complete opposite.

 

[SHThrowAway213]

It was OK for me.
It helped at the time, I was 16 after a suicide attempt.
But very boring but you had to do so much therapy which I hated

 

[Chalken]

I was in a teenagers' psych ward due to uncontrollable self-harm. I spent most of my free time reading fantasy books there. Beside that, the rest of the time was spent on group therapy sessions, which felt pretty pointless and were hard for me due to social anxiety. I lied about getting better to get out asap, yet I still had to spend a month there.

 

[ExitTheDay]

Both times I was admitted I've only spent a week in them, it was a very shifty experience so of course I lied my way out of them, the 2nd hospital I stayed in the doctor literally laughed in other patients faces about their problems, he tried to shove unnecessary medication that didn't work for me in the past down my throat but I refused, and I could see that was really pissing him off so he made me stay there for a week, which was pointless

 

[Walilamdzi]

Well staff allowed another patient to almost rape me, when I was in a barely lucid state, so that was great. Also allowed me near other patients who were physically intimate with me, for example kissed me when I was near them on sofas or whatever. I didn't know where I was and I was really unwell, so I find it quite abhorrent that they didn't safeguard me at all. I'm sure that they would deny all of that and my account of things counts for nothing, since I was mentally ill so they can disregard it.

 

[Roger]

There is a long running BBC TV programme called Panorama which covers a broad swathe of current affairs.
Last night I watched a hidden camera expose of an establishment called Whorlton Hall which is meant to be a care home for people with special psychological and educational needs.

I was utterly horrified by the bullying, mocking, taunting and physical violence amounting to torture (and there is no hyperbole in that description) carried out by the bunch of low life psychopaths employed as carers.

I won't recommend anybody to watch it, because it is so upsetting, but anybody with personal experiences may find it instructive or confirmative to watch. No doubt most of you clever people know how to access it.

Fortunately, several people have been arrested.

 

[Walilamdzi]

@Roger I read about that, it sounds terrible. I'm glad they've been arrested, but these problems are so widespread and I don't think any real change will come unless people are paid better wages, given specialist training, more staff hired and more done to screen the kinds of people put in caring roles in these kinds of places. I also think secure CCTV should be in place in care homes and psych wards, to hold staff accountable.

 

[Roger]

CCTV was planned before the hidden camera exercise, and the prog showed the torturers moaning that "things wouldn't be the same." They also discussed methods of physically hurting patients without it being picked up by the cameras.

It really was a sickening programme.

 

[Letmego. Please]

Thats sadly the second place after Winterbourn (name may be slightly wrong) torture a few yrs ago, i recall quite a few convictions came out of that one so i only hope the same happens, too many people get into 'caring' jobs just for the power it gives over vulnerable people be that in a care home for old folks, a psych ward or learning disabilities . There really are some sick people working in these jobs.

I think the above Winterbourn one was also a Panorama undercover op. At least the BBC do something useful.

 

[devin44]

I wasn't in a psych ward but a crisis bed on two occasions for a week. Actually a really lovely environment, just sad people in dressing gowns watching TV, playing guitar, cooking etc. I'm in the UK and wish there were more places like it, it really helped me out.

 

[Fadingfast]

I've always been really manic when I went, but this time I'm going for suicidal depression and schizophrenia. I usually tend to make friends rather quickly in institutions, but I can't on the outside. I'm not looking forward to the stay at all... This is the 1st time going when I've felt no hope. I feel like the only reason I'm going is to prove to my Mom I put up a fight.

 

[LivingLies]

I've been in for a week and a day. I don't feel like anything is happening fast and I really want to just CTB

It would seem if you kick up a stink and are a an absolute arsehole you seem to get more help. As I'm an anxious mess at the moment I don't feel strong enough and just spend my time locked in my room. Staff/nurses are ok ish

 

[DownInaHole]

My mother had me committed several times. I've been treated well at the psych wards. Mostly suffered from boredom.

 

[Grumble]

The boredom was brutal. So were a few of the staff.

Food was great, and some of the staff were as well. They set me on a good path coming out. (Well, a good path that lasted a limited amount of time as here I am posting on a suicide site, but yeah.)

I have read some horror stories of hospitals though, so I guess it depends on the quality or status of mental health treatment in your area.

 

[Rocksandsand]

I've been on both sides of the desk, so to speak. As a nurse and carer, and as a patient and client.

The staff at these places are just like any other profession... some are there because they actually care about the work and others are there because it pays the bills. Seek the former, avoid the latter.

I personally don't think psych wards are a good place to be for the majority of patients. Being admitted with suicidality without an active psychosis is containment, and the logic really seems to be to bore someone out of suicidality. Unfortunately that is the exact opposite of how suicidality works, so it seems like the majority of patients lie until the treating clinician is sure they have enough paper work to cover their arse in case the patient decides to CTB in the immediate time after discharge...

I found my admission to be damaging, even on a pro-life scale. I'm no less suicidal, but I am significantly more committed to getting it right because I know now that there is no 'treatment' for people like me/us

 

[Ruffian]

I've been on both sides of the desk, so to speak. As a nurse and carer, and as a patient and client.

The staff at these places are just like any other profession... some are there because they actually care about the work and others are there because it pays the bills. Seek the former, avoid the latter.

I personally don't think psych wards are a good place to be for the majority of patients. Being admitted with suicidality without an active psychosis is containment, and the logic really seems to be to bore someone out of suicidality. Unfortunately that is the exact opposite of how suicidality works, so it seems like the majority of patients lie until the treating clinician is sure they have enough paper work to cover their arse in case the patient decides to CTB in the immediate time after discharge...

I found my admission to be damaging, even on a pro-life scale. I'm no less suicidal, but I am significantly more committed to getting it right because I know now that there is no 'treatment' for people like me/us

This is why I get so pissed about that net they're building under the Golden Gate Bridge to catch people? I didn't remember about it until I had been here awhile, but it's like building an actual physical monument to stupidity. The amount of money it will cost could actually have been used to help people before they get to that point.

 

[bitterness]

i was molested my first time in a psych ward and verbally abused by staff in the second time. i was 13/14 during both of these visits. did "wonders" for my mental health sarcasm

honestly i wouldnt mind going to a place wherre i could just lay down and paint all day. but unfortunately thats not the case haha

 

[Bulletwbttrflywings]

Psych wards are shit... didnt help me much except for how to mask my idealizations and make all things seem "fine." As much as asking for help is promoted, I wonder how many people who run these facilities actually have struggled like we have.

I'm glad I'm not alone in how I feel...

 

[OpheliasFlowers]

My hospitalizations (for extreme anxiety and depression) did nothing. Nothing happened to me as awful as some others here experienced, but nothing helpful happened either. For the most part the staff was alright, except the night staff was ALWAYS assholes -- cold, indifferent, would literally ignore patients standing at the desk waiting to request something or ask a question while they chatted and laughed only a few feet away from the waiting patient. When I was in I never even saw an actual psychiatric doctor, only med students who would ask a bunch of questions and then leave. What's the point of that? Then there are the horrible medications they push on you. I refused them all except for Ativan, since I was already taking that and had to continue with it to avoid withdrawals. Otherwise, just nurses bossing me around all day to attend this art class or that group therapy. Pointless. Food was good even though I was so unwell and nauseated I could barely eat and so then the nurses would make snarky comments about how I needed to eat. I basically lied my way out of there to go home but nobody seemed that concerned about keeping me anyway, so it wasn't hard. I found the worst part of being admitted to be the holding cell area - and they were LITERALLY CELLS: just little bare rooms with a bed and a nightstand and a chair. No tv, had to ask to use a restroom because the cells had no bathroom, and there was even a CCTV camera in each cell so the nurses could watch you in there, and the entire holding area was behind two sets of locked doors. That's also where they take away your clothes and give you scrubs to wear and a security/cop person checks you over with a metal detector. oh, there was a television in the common room area for patients to watch, but good luck trying to even get a seat to sit in and no chance to get the tv control because someone else was always already hogging it. I mostly just paced around while in there and I was in that holding area an average of 24-48 hours before a bed would open on the psych floor.

I will never, ever voluntarily go into the psych ward again not because I feel I was abused (although those uncaring nurses while blatantly rude and cold weren't conducive to my mental state. they made me feel more anxious and alone) or anything, but because the entire ordeal has never been worth the trouble. I certainly didn't leave there feeling I'd made progress or formed a plan to move me towards better mental health. It was just a waste of time and unpleasant in how many things are taken away from you while there.