Traumatic time at psych ward

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Psych wards are not fun especially for people who have sensory and social anxiety issues.

Since I couldn't wear any hoodies, I wore a hospital bed sheet on my head. The doctor thought that this was abnormal so I ended up in a straitjacket in a padded room.

Afterwards I was pumped full of drugs and was pretty much a zombie, and lost touch with reality. I don't remember anything after that other then the day my parents took me home.

Can they be anything but traumatic?

Not by the place itself, but what put you there.

That's how I took it, and I didn't have the best experience in regards to nurses and other patients.

Not judging, but lots of people tend to blame the hospital over the illness.

I was under the impression they were only allowed to do that to DTSOs; I wear a sheet around my head sometimes when I am goofing off, doesn't at all make me a threat to anyone's safety. Anyway I remember the patients' rights advocate came in and gave everyone booklets, and one of the things it said was the right to reasonably wear whatever you wanted and they couldn't just pump you full of meds without your consent. Of course jackasses have been known to permeate the medical field

I've been on a psych ward 14 times in the last seven years. I have been sectioned (UK term for compulsory commitment) for 7 of those admissions. I have schizophrenia. I found that the initial weeks, when I was most ill, helped me to stabilise (even though at the time I thought all the nurses were Spies trying to delete me off the Earth) as I probably would have ended up dead or in prison if I wasn't contained and medicated. But when I was getting better, but still under the section (I was put on section 2 of the Mental Health Act each of those admissions, which is 28 days' compulsory admission), I hated it. The nurses didn't understand autism at all. The patients were noisy and some of them did some rather disgusting things (I won't go into detail). I had daily shutdowns/meltdowns on the ward, not psychosis-related, as the noise etc was overwhelming. I would stay in my room for days on end. Also the cleanliness of the ward was rubbish (but I guess that's what you'd get with the NHS in the UK).

However if I hadn't been sectioned, I dread to think of what would have happened, so I think it was necessary. I've been brought to the secure unit by the police on five occasions as well, and it was extremely traumatic, being dragged in in handcuffs.

Sorry I ramble.

In my opinion, hospital admissions are good if you're in a crisis, if nothing else can help. I find it is better to catch the problem early and have a shorter, voluntary admission. Having a prolonged, traumatic, against-your-will admission is horrid.

I intend to try my hardest to never end up in hospital again. Because it made my autism-related anxiety/meltdowns/shutdowns worse and that's how my OCD started off.

And people wonder why I get anxious about being sent to one when I try and get psychological help? As much as anyone says its not so bad, there are still people who end up having terrible experiences, so I prefer to try and prepare myself for that possibility rather then just assuming it will all work out well.

I was put in one when I was nine years old. I don't know why but I'm told because my parents were at their wits end with my agression and meltdowns. I was being bullied to the point of tourture at school but no one wanted to hear me out or take my side of the story. Even the people at the psych ward would blame me for the bullying and sometimes would even bully me themselves. The psychatrist's solution for the bullying was to put me on Prozac so I could "slow down and think" before I acted out. The bullying still pursisted and the Prozac would just make me sick. I never helped me "slow down and think" like it was supposed to and instead it made it so I couldn't think. This was the first time I was ever away from home overnight without my parents. I was nine years old physicaly, but mentaly I was probably around six. My parents remark now and then that they STILL feel quilty for putting me there and say when I was finnaly allowed to come home, I was even worse than I was before I went in. This was the most tramatic expirience of my life. My memories of being there are very surreal and it's like trying to remember a dream. I've also aparently repressed many of them and wonder what actualy happened to me in there.

I have never been to a psych ward, but once I had chest pain and was admitted to "telemetry" to rule out MI and the part that bothered me so much were the alarms, the constant nurses talking and the radios and TV blaring everywhere. I would not think there would be alarms in a psych unit but is it the radios and noises the part that is so bad? I always wondered what happend to the poster with the nurse saying "QUIET". That doesn't seem to happen anymore as hospitals are noisy places. I was also bored too so maybe that has somethign to do with it.

I agree, psych wards are horrendous for people with sensory and social anxiety issues. I intend to do everything I can to keep myself well, not only because wellness is good, but also to stay out of the psych wards. Every time the patient alarm went off, I had a meltdown. Quite exhausting.

*shudders at the memory of patient alarm*

That's the trouble: Mental wards can save your life, as SteelMaiden notes; but they aren't going to help you much past that. If you're actively suicidal, psychotic, or generally unable to care for yourself, you have to go to the hospital just for survival's sake. But more than that... well, even for non-autistic people it isn't particularly helpful to just be stuck in a ward, away from the sun and the fresh air, unable to get privacy or to be comforted by familiar surroundings, feeling very powerless.

When you're autistic it's worse. Your autistic traits are taken as symptoms of mental illness, when in reality they are quite normal and healthy for you. Your social withdrawal and overload is taken to mean that you're sicker than you actually are, and the environment can cause meltdowns.

It's ironic, but the very people who should know what to do for someone with autism and burnout, self-care breakdown, or mental illness, are actually the people who are most likely to have no clue, to misinterpret your actions. We need better training for psych personnel in mental wards, especially adult mental wards, to know what to expect for autistics, and even to learn to detect autism in the undiagnosed--because it's often the autistics who go without diagnosis who are severely stressed and go on to develop mental illnesses and land themselves in psych wards. If the doctors there knew how to look for undiagnosed autism (as well as other undiagnosed neurological, developmental, and physical illnesses which can cause symptoms that seem psychological) we might be a lot better off.

Actually, if I get the chance I'm going to see if any of my profs have experience working in mental wards, and talk to them about it--see whether there mightn't be a way to get the hospital staff in my area some decent training. Some of the autistic students at my school have been talking about doing something useful in our local area, but we're fresh out of ideas. Hmm. *ponders*

I agree. When I was put in for a 30 day evaluation it was because I had to go to family court for missing too much school. It was my first time in family court. I wasn't psychotic or suicidal and I did not belong there. In some ways it was traumatic for me since it was my first time away from home ever. I hadn't even slept overnight at a friend's house before. I also didn't like to eat around people I didn't know and that caused me a lot of problems there, plus I hated the food and wouldn't eat it for that reason too. I was never medicated or diagnosed with anything. I don't even know why I was there. I would never willingly allow them to lock me in a mental hospital now (it wasn't willing when I was 14 either). I've since read that it's not legal in my state to lock you up unless you are a danger to yourself or others and I'm too withdrawn and passive to be a threat but I guess when you are a minor they can get away with it.

They can really stretch the "danger to self or others" definition. A public meltdown, any form of self-injury, self-care lapses, minor suicidal ideation, and they have their "danger". I think they are really paranoid that they are going to let you go and you'll kill yourself and it'll be their fault. They are, despite all their failings, people who willingly got into a profession where they are trying to help other people, and they will tend to be overly protective even when it isn't good for the patient. And even the people who have stopped caring, or never did, are afraid of lawsuits.

I think they couldn't pin any of those on me except for self care lapses. I never want to be in one of those places again and if I were in one I think I would be suicidal than. To me a mental hospital is a jail that they put you in for the crime of thinking "wrong" and I would never know how long I would end up in there because I don't know if I can fake normal long enough or good enough to get out. It's like being jailed for an indeterminate length of time.

They never even really let me go when I was there as a teenager. I was in twice and going to their day treatment program for school after each time I was in but after the second time I skipped so much I had to go to family court again and they wouldn't take me back. That was a relief.

Besides not having insurance that is another reason I don't want to talk to a psychiatrist/psychologist. I don't want there to be any chance of them trying to lock me up or pump me full of drugs and I wouldn't know what I can tell them and what I have to hide.