Have you ever been committed to a mental ward?

Post Reply New Topic

twice, both against my will.

Well my first mental hospitization was when I was 9 and my friend talked me into chopping up a bunch of dolls and put red lipstick on them to keep my little sister away. Mom was convinced I was going to kill her and of course my friends lied about their part in it.
Well the first hospital was fun...lots of toys and movies. I was then transfered to a long term facility and my roomate liked to jump on me naked and hump me...good thing I had clothes on...still really creepy. I was realeased as soon as the staff found out...no mention was told to my parents.

Then when I was 14, I was in a crazy relationship with a potential abuser...everyone warned me about him...I just could not see it cause he seemed to love me. I was later date raped by him at school and he told everyone what a whore I was to protect himself.
Reputation ruined in one day...all my friends betrayed me but a few. I was crushed. When I got home, my parrents treated me much the same as my friends. So I decided to run away. Mom caught me as I was making it out the window. I am glad she did though...no telling where I would have ended up in that state of mind. So off to the looney bin I went again. The short term was ok...I made progress. The long term one I was transfered to was horrible. I snapped off about some girl's boyfriend...and she had a death wish on me ever since. I told the staff and they said, thats rough. Then my roomate was either demonicly possessed or seriuously crazy. One time I went to check on her while she was shaking in the corner, I said, Katie are you okay?? A male growling voice came out of her and said, "I am not Katie!!" I was scared sh##less for about a year after that.
Then people went into fits and had to be "taken down" and put in the time out room which was a brick room with a metal grate with blood caked on it from people raking the first on it. Absolutely gross. About 3 years after I left, I mentioned to a therapist that I went their...her eyes filled with shock and she said the hospital was shut down by the health dept a year ago.

my last hospital was really just a crisis center where they put folks on meds and keep us for 2 weeks and then let us go. Went there cuz I was suicidal after being in a cult and things went bad.

and that was almost 10 years ago.

Some are really good...but when they go bad....they really go bad. Becides you have a bunch of crazy people in one facility feeding off each other...how does one ever expect to get better.

Yes at both nine and sixteen for agression. I was so tramatised from being taken away from home and forced to stay there when I was nine that I STILL have nightmares and flashbacks. I had extreme trouble adjusting when I was nine and the orderly would call me a "baby". I think most of the agression was simply retaltion from being bullied all the time at school and having my grandparents, and my brother's deadbeat girl friend and her three kids living with us. The phycatrist said I would grow up to be in a group home and her solotion for my problems was to dope me up on Prozac. Not a good expirence, as I said I still get nightmares and flashbacks. When I was sixteen they were just insanley ignorant about AS becuase the teen unit was so used to dealing with street smart druggies. They thought my wanting to be alone all the time was a symptom of something more serious. I wanted to paint and draw when I was alone. They were just insanley ignorant about AS.

Twice.

This is my experience, as it happened, during my first hospitalization. I kept a journal while I was in the mental ward (using, of course, a spiral-free notebook and Crayola markers). I was considered a "suicide risk" and under observation the whole time across from the nurses' station. This was beneficial because I had a single room that might very well have saved my sanity.

Journal from a Mental Ward

Looking back on it, I think I was far too trusting, and very lucky not to have been restrained when I had that meltdown. Everyone was being treated very unfairly, and I still had the idea, back then, that being compliant would mean you got help. It doesn't. I thought that mental wards were places where you could recover; it was only later that I realized they were places where they kept you until they figured you weren't going to kill somebody, kill yourself, or get into serious trouble if they let you go.

The journal was also written before I knew I had autism, so it includes my own interpretation of my behavior as depressive rather than autistic. It's interesting now, looking back on it, that the autism still shows through despite my not having recognized it at that point. For example:

Reading is, of course, one of my special interests...

I was a voluntary patient at the Fairmile psychiatric hospital in Oxfordshire for about six weeks in November and December 1972.

I knew from the second i got there that the only way out was to do everything they told me to do no matter how stupid it was. If theyd give me something to sign my soul off i would have done it. I refused to sign 1 paper which would let my parents get info from the hospital and they pretty much forced me to sign it, they would call me up for a stupid small talk on lunch break so i couldnt go to the lunch room and kept asking me every 5 minutes to sign it and gave me a guilt trip until i was about to have a meltdown i havent had in years and i signed the damn thing.

Second time around I also lied my ass off. i signed everything including that paper. my parents didnt want me home so i had to stay longer because they wouldnt release me with the fear id kill myself. Which i would have done if they released me.

Yes, sadly. during my first year of university I was commited to one, and not released until 4 weeks had passed (my parents were not ready to have me home, so I had to spend three extra weeks there. Basicly I was sent there because I refused to speak to anyone for a few weeks /ignored the world and absorbed myself in my interests. As lack of social interest could be a sign of hallusinations or schizophrenia, I was through a short evaluation. I was calm and rational during the evaluation, but my lack of eye contact/the circumstances/facial expressions most have made him think I was some kind of lunatic. It's important to add that I did have recurring suicidal thoughts - but did not intend to act on them, and depression/melancholy. Seeing how they treated me, I did not want them to know about these thoughts - as I felt I would be better suited to do something about them, and because I was used to having them (and had deduced long time ago, that I would never be able to kill myself). So here I was - a fairly rational being amongst a bunch of schizophrenics who were about to snap at any point - if not for the massive amount of drugs they had to take. Of course I refused to take any meds, because if I did - how was I to prove that I did not suffer from schizophrenia?At some point I felt like McMurphy from 'one flew over a cuckoos nest' being the only 'sane' person in a mental ward, it was probably one of the worst months of my life - and believe me my life has not been a dance on roses. At the ward, I spent most of my time reading books - much to the doctors concern, as they wanted me to 'socialize'. I think they realized rather quickly that I was not insane - being very calm and logical, but they still put me through a bunch of tests - which came out 'clean' except from traits of social anxiety. I still suffer from the trauma that these weeks caused me, I think it was handled in a unprofessional, demeaning way that could have manifested itself as post traumatic stress. Eventually after convincing my parents to let me move home, I was released. I showed up for evaluations and was later diagnosed with AS and depression.

Once, for a single day when I was terribly depressed. I got an incredibly bad vibe off the people in there, mostly because of my negative mental state, but also because there were some messed up characters there. After one day I realized I was not as bad as them and was released.

That sounds very like my experience, except I was in and out five times over a few years - I did suffer depression, suicidal thoughts and PTSD after workplace bullying, but I failed to respond to treatment, I failed to interact with my peers and I failed all kinds of other expectations that the psychiatrists had of "normal" recovery. Questioning my treatment when it seemed misguided, ineffective and sometimes brutal was regarded as another sign of psychosis ("agitation"), so I got extra antipsychotics with an antihistamine cocktail (to enhance drowsiness and docility) and more antidepressants.

Eventually someone twigged and assessed me for Asperger's syndrome, at which point everyone agreed that my previously abnormal behaviour was my natural state. I have been much better since having all the antidepressants and antipsychotics withdrawn, but I do take antianxiety medication.

This is one of the strongest reasons I can think of for getting a formal diagnosis of an ASD, because being over-treated for depression / psychosis / anxiety by people expecting "normal" affect and interaction is a horrible experience. People with ASD are just as liable as anyone to psychiatric illness, so hospitalization is not impossible at some point in life.

I was committed at the UCLA NPI in 1977 (age10). They couldn't figure out why I was "afraid of" other kids. They wrote that I may have been a dangerous sociopath, paranoid schizophrenic, or other. I was locked up for 7 months, and give all kinds of drugs including Navane, thorazine, elevil,and cocktails thereof. What a horrible thing, as I was not any of those suggested diagnoses.

Charles

After I attempted suicide, I was eventually acquainted with a therapist, who didn't appear to know anything about Depression, ADHD, or Asperger's; so frankly, most of the time spent there was a waste. Eventually when I was feeling guilty that my parents had to spend another $200 to see a psychiatrist, I told him I felt like a burden. Despite an ever present desire to kill myself, I had no plans. He disagreed, and suggested I go to the emergency room.

And from there I was redirected to a psych ward for 10 days. The average stay was 6 days, but because I was a mess (putting it mildly) it took longer. Keep in mind, this was a few months ago.

Interestingly, the hospital I went to is in the same college campus I'm attending for the next four years.

On the 10th day, honestly I didn't feel ready to go back, but had a nagging voice in my head (more like a feeling, rather than a voice. No schizophrenia.) that it was time to go back. The medication mix worked, but I felt really drowsy; still, I gave all the right answers to convince them I was ready to leave.

Since I'm 18, yet was still in school, I really could've gone to either the adult or adolescent floor. Unfortunately, I went to the adult floor for the first few days, and it sucked. It was more morose than I was, and I wouldn't have made much progress there. Everyone else was 15+ years older than me. I moved up to the adolescent unit and there, it wasn't so bad anymore. Heck, I even made a few friends. We still keep in touch on facebook, and keep pseudo-planning the day we'll all have a reunion. (unfortunately I couldn't find a few of them, which made me sad) There were still some issues going on since my parents' relationship with me at the time was rocky at best. But overall, it was a much less morose environment, and definitely helped. One of the nurses was really supportive of me and my Asperger's + Depression mess.

And well... yeah. Definitely one of the more interesting things I'll have to look back in life. That's hoping I don't have another depression episode, which unfortunately, I'm at a heightened risk for. And I won't have the adolescent floor anymore. Especially since my dream of being a touring musician usually comes with a lot of problems (Look at what happened to Kurt Cobain, prime example. Among many, others, though not that extreme).

Amazingly not. My mum was once committed, and when I visited her there, I guess that was enough of a taste to keep me out.

Yes, for a week. They didn't drug,beat or electroshock me but they did sit on me for long periods of time.

Hospitalization is not recommended (even contraindicated) in cases of AS as apparently it can worsen some of the symptoms, such as the anxiety. It has to do with the fact that people who suffer of AS dislike sudden changes. Such changes could include having to sleep on a different bed, using different facilities, even eating different food than that offered at home. I guess this contraindication can be lifted if a patient is a serious threat to himself though.

You need to remember that people are hospitalized for their own good, even though it sometimes seems otherwise.. Hospitalization has definitely prevented some suicides from taking place, which could save a family from suffering extra greif.

f**k this thread is depressing, and worrisome.

Yea some stories can be kind of sad, but if the end result is positive, than it can also be uplifting!