Mental hospitals

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Share your experince. What is it like?

They take you to a room without really explaining anything... then just forget about you there.
And that is that. You're locked in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable room and left there until it is someone's job to do something about you... which they really don't want to do.

They're probably called mental hospitals because they're meant to drive you mental.

I had to rip down my entire personality, cover and hide everything that makes me who I am... and cloak myself densely in a fabric of lies in order to .... effectively trick the staff there into believing it was okay to release me.
I've never really been the same since. The shame of having to go against almost all my values and standards is one I'm going to be stuck with as long as I live.
Most traumatic experience of my life.

Maybe some day I'll go back... and kill all those f*****s who put me through hell... and release all their other victims. Maybe.

Maybe you belong there, it is not healthy to become so embittered that you are actually thinking of mass murder (I say that with tongue firmly in cheek). Your description how ever fits in with my first experience at my local police station, "You're locked in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable room and left there until it is someone's job to do something about you... which they really don't want to do." Next time why don;'t you try and be honest with people, maybe you will actually get the help you need that way. I am slightly jealous you got the chance of help, I have been left to rot. But boo bleeding hoo, I'm not bitter.

Let's just say I no longer fear hell, because mental hospitals are worse.

My opinion of those places is that they are lower than a snakes belly in a wagon rut! If you weren't crazy when you went in, you sure will be when you get out - that is if you ever do get out. I still cringe when I remember some of what I saw and heard there and what others have told me. Oh, do I feel sorry for the poor souls that end up there. They generally resemble medieval torture chambers with psycho-active drugs thrown in as an added bonus. Just watch that old movie One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. It's a good realistic depiction of how it really is. Too, just remember that electro-shock is still considered a valid treatment, as are ice cold baths and being locked into small dark pits. Talk about the Dark Ages! To call these places mental hospitals is an absurdity in the extreme. Check out the comments on the JRC while you are at it.

The hospital I go to is a private hospital. Very expensive but it's like staying in a lavish hotel except, depending what you're in for and/or your condition, you can't leave!

Anti ligature EVERYTHING! No open windows to jump from. They've even blocked up the middle of the stairwells so you can't jump down there.

They used to have a pool but someone drowned themselves in it so they got rid of it.

There also used to be a little balcony on the second floor many years ago, but someone jumped off it and died so they got rid of that as well.

The public hospital I went to in Ontario was better. The staff weren't abusive and they respected my identity.

It was obvious based on my male health card and my female appearance that I was trans but I was gendered correctly and referred to in the way I requested. One nurse thought she was in the wrong room when she came to take my blood pressure and pulse during my inpatient stay. When I explained to her that she was in the right room everything was fine. She used my preferred name instead of my legal name.

They had dietary accommodations for vegetarians, vegans, and people with specific food intolerances. They were even willing to replace my 2% milk with skim milk just because that's what I preferred even if I could've coped with the 2%.

I met other patients that I actually got along with.

Overall it wasn't like the horror stories I've heard. My stay in the hospital (especially my inpatient stay) was positive.

I personally had an extremely positive experience in a public mental hospital (in the US). I had a bad psychiatrist at the time who had me sign myself in even though I wasn't suicidal or anything, but that's the only bad part of the whole thing. The rest is good.

The staff and other patients were all very nice and accepting of me. I even felt like I was starting to make a few friends, which was nice. The other patients were just people who were having a hard time, no one was scary or seemed mean. We each had a roommate. We had a daily schedule of activities, like meals, free time, and different kinds of therapy (art, group, individual, outdoors/active), which l liked because I always knew what was going to happen and when. The activities were fun, even the group therapy. The staff members were all really nice and often talked to us about their jobs and lives. Yes, the windows had bars, they took our shoelaces, and some doors were locked. However, there was a common room we could go to freely to watch TV or talk or have a snack, or we could hang out in the hallway, and we were never locked in our rooms even at night.

I was actually taken off my medication there. I think the staff knew my diagnoses at the time didn't really fit my issues, but I didn't stay long enough to find out what they thought. I was released after 24 hours because I wasn't suicidal. It sounds weird, but I'm actually glad I had that experience because now I know that if I ever really need to, I could go there and get help and that it would be okay. From what some people are saying, it sounds like I got lucky, but I'm not so sure because I also know two other people personally who have been in mental hospitals (not all the same one), and they also had good experiences.

Never been but been very very close. I was one answer away from going in, answer it wrong and I was doomed.

But, psychiatrist has told me he wants to avoid putting me in. He said it's not the place for me. And this was in one of the newest and best mental hospitals in the UK ... he still said it's awful.

If you really are mentally ill though, you'll likely appreciate the break and the help. I'm just glad I didn't go in when I look back.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mjlM_RnsVE&list=RD02OYjZK_6i37M[/youtube]

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My trips were ok.

Just like any other hospital. Nurses, doctors, patients, and too much noise.

What put me there was the problem, not the place itself. That's something I think people get confused over -- they tend to equate the illness that put them there with the hospital stay itself, so of course the hospital stay will suck.

But then, I was supposedly in a decent one for my trips (go-go health insurance), and some say the public ones aren't all that good.

One has to keep in mind that these are not the kinds of places that high quality, highly trained and experienced staff want to work at as a rule so as they say you get what you get.