What People Think a Psych Ward Is Like

[kt]

There's always 2 kinds: the ones who are having a crisis, and the ones who are sitting around trying to play a nice quiet game of Uno.

[quentin]

Funny.
It's a mixture of the two. Some people see you and crazy and unpredictable, treating you as such. However, there's those few souls that don't just see you as patients, and will actually have a talk with you instead of huff and puff and talk behind our backs.
My favorite was a lady named miss Diamond. She would be straight up with us, sympathetic, and would sneak us things sometimes. I remember I built a card tower; I was so proud of it. She took a picture of it and printed it out. Something she could've been sued or fired for.
She also trusted me with pens, as I would look over her shoulder at the crossword puzzle. If I spotted some, she'd simply hand it over, I'd get em done, and hand it back.
The worst was this lady named Ms. Jeri. She would yell at us (PEOPLE WITH TRAUMA AND UNSTABLE MINDSETS), treat us like we were prisoners, and was just overall a real jerk. She once tried to take away OUR EATING UNTENSILS, SAYING "they don't need them, they don't deserve them". Someone shut that down real quick, because she came back with our forks. Didn't even apologize.
A lot of folks try to make it out like it's some sort of peaceful experience, when it's really not. It's more take drugs, talk to shrinks, move on. Sometimes the staff will be nice, but most will treat you like a criminal.

[CosplayHeroUnite]

This is false. There may be some psych wards that are more “caring”, but the one I went to didn’t care at all. There was a lot of staff members turning a blind eye when one of them would sexually abuse or harass a patient.

The only accuracy I would say is that it’s not barbaric. It’s mainly problems with staff.

I even got sedated for crying too much…

[secretminty]

When I was a boy I used to get put in the mental ward a lot. My dad was abusive, so I'd always end up in fights at school. His response was having me thrown in there and heavily medicated on meds I didnt need, so many meds that the majority of my childhood is hazy.

All those therapists that confirmed I was being abused at home would give me medication, then send me back to him. But the meds only worked for a couple weeks before I'd start having fits of anger to the point people thought I had psychosis or some sort of disorder.

Having always been told I needed meds, I believed it until one day I was being locked in pretty much the mental ward equivalent of solitary (cant remember what they called it). The doctor was trying to make ne take a certain pill and I recognized the name as one of the ones I had taken a few years prior and was taken off of because it didn't work. I told the doctor that.

One thing you learn in an abusive household is how to read people. It helps avoid a lot of beatings when you can read someone's face like an open book. Thus doctor grinned at me with the shittiest grin and told me to trust him because he was a doctor.

It was at that moment i knew he was full of shit, and i told him I wasnt going to take the pill. He kept saying he was a doctor, then had the nurses retrain me in painful positions until i took the pill.

A month or so later they sent me back to my father and lo and behold, yiu woukdnt believe it... The pill didnt work.

Ended up being thrown out after my father whooped my ass and chose his girlfriend over his own kid after she had joined the abuse, was homeless for a bit until my aunt found me.

She took me to her home, let me have the first shower I had in weeks (was bathing without soap in a polluted river before that), then called my dad to ask why she saw me sleeping in a park in the more dangerous part of the city.

He told her to throw me out of her house because I was dangerous and psychotic. My father always told me no one woukd take me in if he threw me out, so I was startled she was even trying to offer me a place to stay.

I ended up in the hospital waiting room while my aunt fought with my dad trying to get me to go home with her, he kept saying he was going to get my drug addicted abusive and absent mother to pick me up. Honestly thought it was going to come to blows.

My aunt didnt leave the hospital for two days straight. She didnt go home to her family, she called my uncle and told him what was going on and he supported it. Apparently my family suspected something had been happening at home for years and my uncle had talked on occasion about taking me in.

For two days my aunt fought until my dad finally gave up and told her it wasnt his fault if I attacked one of my cousins. I'll never forget the day when I felt like my life had finally ended - I knew with the way I was, addicted to meds, violent and angry, I'd either be homeless and addicted to drugs, in prison, or lying dead somewhere. When I thought it was over my aunt came into the room I was locked in and asked me how i was doing. She offered to take me home so she and my uncle could give me a better life.

Couldnt tell you the last time I cried like that. My dad gave my aunt all eleven of the pills I had to take daily, some of them multiple times a day, and told her to make sure i took them. Later that day she took me outside where my uncle had started a bonfire and she threw them into the flames, said she wanted to see who I really was.

For the first year and a half, I was a piece of shit. I was still violent because it was all I knew. I'd destroy property, seek revenge, beat up other kids at school if I didnt like the way they looked at me. Stealing was as batural as breathing, and I had even learned how to pick pockets.

She never sent me to the mental ward. She never called the police. She never hit me, my uncle never punched me. They'd try to talk to me instead, and I remember being so angry at them for it. I didnt understand why they wanted to know what I was thinking, and I was jealous they never hit my cousins and how my cousins had friends.

I just didnt understand what kindness was, having never gotten it from my father. To me, kindness was not being floored as hard, or getting away with not being fed a meal or two and grounded for months. I was used to being blamed for things I didnt do, i was used to an alcoholic screaming at me in the middle if the night before usually beating me senseless.

Eventually I started to reflect on it, and I started ti realize the problem wasnt them. It was me. I was letting the past control me. So I asked my aunt if she could take me to a therapist that wasnt in the hospital that I had grown to hate. Therapy was hard. I wasnt used to talking, and I had to have my aunt there to actually make any progress the first few sessions.

When I finally talked to my therapist about everything, she asked if she could tell my aunt, which I agreed because... Well, i felt like shit reliving all of that. Later that night my aunt was crying and said she wished she and my uncle had taken me in sooner.

Seeing how much they cared about me, even after I saw myself as a lost cause, changed something in me. I started trying to be friendlier. Lots of kids at school still stayed away, and I dont blame them. I bullied a lot of them, even ended up hospitalizing one of them after I pushed him to a su*cide attempt. That kid is still alive and has a family now, and we ended on good terms, but decided it was best ti go our separate ways after all of that.

In a year and a half i was almost unrecognizable from how I had spent the first 15 years of my life. I was friendlier, I stopped seeking revenge for things. I even helped my uncle with his farm. I made good friends for my last year and a half of high school, and even they said I was a bit of an oddball, but someone they liked having around because of how cheerful I generally was. I stopped assaukting ither kids and even started preferring to talk things through assertively. I was able to discuss what I wanted without resorting to throwing punches. I learned how to leave things in the past and give second chances.

I owe all of that to my aunt and uncle. Even though I really put them through the wringer, they never gave up on me like so many others did. They changed my life for the better.

I stopped talking to my dad for a long while too, until I found out he had another kid. So I started watching, intent on taking him to court if he started pulling the same stunts on my baby brother.

But I saw something different. He was strict, but he wasnt abusive. Apparently seeing how I changed sparked something in him too, and he was trying to change. He mever asked for second chances or anything like that, and I only found out later that throughout my whoke childhood he was suffering intense PTSD from his tike in combat when he was in the military. He had only recently started working to recover from it.

It took a while, but one year after I moved out of my aunt's place, I cane home for christmas and decided to test the waters a bit and asked if i could crash at his place for the week i was there.

Living that week under his roof again, I saw a huge difference. He still yelled and he still gave spankings, but he wouldnt full on punch my stepsister or my brother, who was three at the time. As i said, strict, but not abusive.

So I did some reflecting again. And by that i mean I gathered some food and disappeared into the woods for a couple days to be alone with my thoughts. What my aunt and uncle taught me about second chances, i wondered if I could give my dad. I only get one dad after all, and if he was really changing for the better, then why hold a grudge? Yeah, i still sometimes stay awake at night because of it. But in the end, if hes changed then why did I want to treat him like he was still abusive?

So I gave him a second chance. I talk to him pretty regularly even though i live overseas now. I spend the holidays at his place too. He's like a father. So now I can say for real: i love my dad. And for my aunt and uncle, I owe them everything. They taught me so much.

Sorry for the rambling. This started off as my distrust for meds and doctors, and I ended up off track. Guess I just needed to get it off my chest.

Keep getting back up, bros. Dont let life keep you down.

[Josh-mjon]

Each place is different. I have seen riots, suicides, staff on drugs, staff having sexual relations with patients, midnight fight clubs, kids given the wrong meds intentionally, kids chewing their arms to the bone as staff just watches.
Been in a few that were like a hotel too. But for the most part it sucks.

[LegDrop]

The thing is, this not how a psych ward is like at all. It’s obvious you’ve definitely never been to one.

[sirderp]

This sounds like something the psych ward WOULD say

[MeandMyself-ri]

It’s like this in France, it’s horrible, they have no tolerance for ADHD nor Autism. Not any form of mental disorder, they have a disgust instead, it’s a long history that the medical field is trying to break out of ( slowly but surely)

[BrianSellasBiggestFan]

What it’s actually like:

“Okay get naked so we can see everything you did to yourself and shame you for it while we touch you inappropriately and mark everything down so we can laugh about it later. Next we throw you in a room with a mat on the floor and a complex lock so you’re stuck with your thoughts. After 72 long hours of isolation we take your blood and inject you without even telling you what’s in it. And then we toss you out to get bullied by other patients while we sit around and do jackshit to help you get better. Enjoy your stay :)”

[Guardianofdreamcastle-neuv]

The first one is completely accurate description of mental hospitals..

[toast_]

For me, they asked some questions daily, did standard medical checks, and assigned me a therapist. For the majority of my stay, I just watched The Owl House on cable TV and played blackjack with a couple others. I probably would've gotten along better with some of the girls, because some of the guys there were a bit too high energy for me and I felt drained by the end of it, but it wasn't totally bad. Even made some friends!

[bride-of-Lucifer-_-to_be]

the fact that the first one is (way) more accurate😂😏🤣

[Hazeldays]

My stay was more like the prior. We were basically inmates but not given a release date. There was no one on one therapy. You had to take the prescribed meds or they would throw you to the ground and inject you with haldol. My stuff and many peoples stuff was stolen. Staff mocked me for starting my period and didnt let me have anything for it. They said the strings on the tampons were "a danger". The whole thing was an insurance payout for the hospital.

[evitanigamimaerd]

Psych ward experiences I had:
• Having to pee in a cup (3 times)
• Working on puzzles, having pieces gone missing / stolen by other patients
• Grits or scrambled eggs with cheese every morning for breakfast
• Rushing back to my room for 10 minute binder breaks between group therapies (being trans in a psych ward is fun lol)
• Listening to that one patient overshare a violent story in group therapy
• Laughing about suicide jokes in the cafeteria
• Sleeping with a thin napkin-blanket and having a light shone in your face every 15 minutes
• Roommate snores loud, but is nice
• Everyone gets really mad when the smoke breaks are 5 minutes late — Karen tried to call the psych ward manager (patient advocate)
• Comparing grippy socks
• Borrowing the deodorant another patient there smuggled in her coat
• Asking to speak with a therapist one-on-one and never getting to because they’re understaffed
• misgendered by everyone except a few friends, despite giving pronouns and gender on a form when I arrived
• not learning my patient care plan/goals until the day I was discharged because no one ever met with me
• volley ball with a beach ball for activity therapy, except everyone’s in chairs and not allowed to get up
• they tell you at least 4 times a day not to have sex with the other patients
• hoarding pencils whenever you find one that’s actually sharpened
• no bathroom privacy if you’re a man or AMAB (a friend had a nurse peak in while they were peeing)
• med adjustment failure means you’re dead tired the whole next day
• get lectured by that one nurse who wants you to know that she keeps things in order and actually follows the rules
• butterscotch candies
• a banana with every meal
• learning sign language to communicate with that one friend who was put on solitary
• nurses and nurse techs, not therapists, run most of the group therapies, which means they have no clue what’s going on either
• lots of handouts
• crosswords and word searches
• weird comments from a creepy older patient
• 1/3 chance of getting a new nickname while there
• if you come voluntary and try to leave early, getting switched to involuntary
• arguments over phone time and missed calls

[Queen_EIizabeth]

Nah. I arrived and they had to search me with a metal detector. They gave me a hospital gown and didn't give me clothes for 2 days. I almost got SA'd in there, and received multiple threats of bodily harm. They didn't really do anything at all. Had a mental breakdown in there and a lady said she'd get me something to calm me down and never came back.

[Twinkie]

Inexperienced the first 48 times for a misdiagnosis. I'm glad your experience was better.

[MariscaTheRandomTherianArtist]

when i went most of the nurses treated us like a "cool teacher" would if that makes sense. but some of them will act like youre a wild animal and i literally got talked to like a dog by one nurse

[kingofichigo]

For many people the first is actually accurate. Especially for people who aren't white

[snetriq]

Nah, that’s what it’s like to be in a HOSPITAL psych ward, the ACTUAL psych ward is more likely the first one lmao

[GBTHNB]

My brother got admitted to one of these when he was 13, he came back more traumatised then before. He said that it was basically a jail, nonstop interogation for every little thing he did, being treated like a wild animal and rooming with a crazy person.