LISTENING TO A PSYCH PATIENT TALK TO THEIR FAMILY

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P.O. Box:
532308
Los Angeles CA 90053

[christineschafer]

When you realize you are admitting your patient for the same thing you did before coming to work

[misstekhead]

I remember it got to a point where hospital staff felt it was in my best interest to not have family visit me anymore because my mental health always worsened after a visit. 😞

[sharongammell]

When my daughter was admitted to psych, her father, my former husband, refused to believe she had anything wrong and just needed to "pull herself up by her bootstraps." It took a very long phone call to make him understand that mental illness was just as much a physical problem as any other illness. It is horribly exacerbated by emotional and psychological abuse. He came around. They now have a relationship which works for my daughter. My daughter is my hero. She fights every day to live her life on her terms and as healthily as possible. I'm proud of her.

[missymisdemeanor]

The first time i was in the mental hospital, there was a gentleman that would have full press conferences 'by himself'. He was very detached from reality but a really nice human.

[inflightb]

I refused to have any family visits while i was in a psych ward. Best decision I could make

[davidodonovan]

Not having a great family support structure is presumably a significant factor in requiring mental health treatments.

[shilohisha]

I remember being in full on psychosis and my mom getting angry at me for answering the doctors question. "Where are you right now?"
Me " inside of a red box". Getting home was fun, everyone was angry at me for hallucinating things that were out of my control. Just be scared, cause i was frightened losing my mind. My brother was the only one who treated me normal which helped me recover quicket and snap back.

[lumiq]

I remember being a psych patient and the satisfaction of being able to truly walk away from my family for the first time. My twin sister and I had shared a bedroom our whole lives, and she was visiting and told me I didn't need to be there. I walked back to my room and she couldn't follow! It was crazy

[devilsadvocate]

I got put in inpatient for a suicide attempt years ago during high school. When my parents came to visit there were tears but also a lot of "why would you try to do that to us? You would just leave us like that, what were we gonna do?" Ect ect and I got it. No one in my family is equipped to deal with mental health. My dad still thinks my antidepressants are sugar pills big pharma feeds you to get ya more sad so you keep going back for more. When I told him recently I struggle to wake up in the morning and feed myself some days and I don't know how to be a 'normal' person he said "so why don't you just repress it? That's what I do."
When I mentioned to my mum after I was thinking of going back to therapy she responded: "why? I thought everything was fine? Why would you need that?" As I'm sitting on the couch sobbing.
We grew up disconnected and unable to talk about our emotions w/o the response being blame, denial and/or anger.
It's been about 7 years since that attempt and I just don't talk about my mental health issues if I can help it anymore cause lmao what can you do 🤷

[elfinshell]

I wasn’t prepared to be called out like this today. *slowly sips coffee*

[amiekim]

Sounds like the patient is the Identified Patient... the person in the family who feels the family dysfunction the worst and therefore shows the worst symptoms. The family focuses on that individual's problems instead of trying to heal the whole family unit.

[rolo]

Parents dont seem to understand theyre the ones that are causing their children to suffer. Could be ignorance, could be a constant spew of insults, could be unjustifiable judgement, i can go on as someone whos been through this.

[SavvyStardust]

I remember there was a point I was down I wasn't eating. My dad used to make me a meal and just bring it to me without me asking. I'll always be thankful for that

[melixra]

As a former psych patient, this is so incredibly accurate. From my experience, family is generally very out-of-touch and not very empathetic during visits because nobody teaches you how to handle that kind of situation (and generally people who end up the the psych ward didn’t have the best family support systems anyways). I ended up refusing to participate in visits after a few weeks because they just got so toxic- it felt like my family was just judging and ridiculing me for all of my decisions. I ended up cutting most of my ties with my family after I was discharged, and I am SO much happier and healthier after that decision. In a few weeks I will reach 1 year without attempting to take my own life- I’m very proud of myself for making it this far.

Edit: Today, 1/13/22, is the day! Thank you all for your support, it means a lot.

[Elise.]

One time I was in psych ward for suicidal ideation and my dad came to visit. He went on and on about this new diet he was on where he only eats 600 calories a day. I tried to explain to him that this wasn't healthy, and that I didn't want to talk about diets, and he just got louder and angrier until he left. That was fun.

[augusthoglund]

In my outpatient experience, I had interesting role-reversal experience—my mom would talk to me after psychiatric appointments about how psychiatrists were "explaining the obvious", and telling me she was proud of how I coped with some things that she "wasn't as good at coping with".

Mom also frequently expressed surprise that I was getting treatment for something she thought everyone had a hard time with, put passed no judgement because she was glad I was getting to be happier than she was I my age.

Mom also discussed medications with my psychiatrist, and occasionally made remarks like "ooh, I would love to try that" and "There's a pill that can make me feel that way?".

I'm paraphrasing heavily here, but the long-and-short of it is that my Mom taking me to psychiatric appointments had the effect educating her about her own ailments way more she bargained for.

My Mom probably would have been diagnosed with the exact same neuroses as I am, had she been born to more supportive parents (like mine), and given modern psychiatric care in adolescence.

[mackkealmason]

*When Steveioe walks in and sees the patient in the room talking to themselves in the dark, but stays to follow the family drama

[sally]

“You realize that’s not a meal, right?”

Well, that’s just one opinion.

[kvh]

I remember when a family was in to visit a patient, and when she came out, she said her father chewed her out for the cuts on her arms that were so bad they needed stitches, and made her put the hand sanitizer that was lingering by the door over it because it looked "infected".

She didn't go home with them.

[Xavis_mind]

"i don't need your judgment 😖😡" thats so me 😭😭