Alpine,
Have you considered ECT (electro convulsive therapy)? I just did this and while I can’t say that it was a huge success I feel it has helped. For info google ECT and click on the Mayo Clinic’s web site. ECT has helped a lot of people.
Alpine,
I just reread your question. Basically I think that the staff did the best they could do under the circumstances. The most notable problem was the lack of any opportunity to exercise and to go outside/get fresh air. While there was no opportunity to exercise a few days while I was there, the attendant would let us out onto this screened porch for a while = it seemed to depend on the staffing level because they have to have a staff member in EVERY space.
What kind of utensils were you allowed to use? Just plastic spoons, or anything made of metal? I’m assuming no knives of any kind, but I can’t be sure.
Were you allowed to wear your own clothes, or did they issue you an outfit?
Monsrto,
I had an incredible show of support during my ordeal. Within hours of my arrival at the emergency room two of my best friends were at my bedside and I was getting phone calls from the West coast (my family). I can say that I have people who love me and I can call them if I need to.
Me too. I was in for a week with PPD 5 years ago. Funtimes 
who was the weirdest patient you encountered while there
Funny. I can’t remember whether I was allowed to use plastic knives or not - that’s the ECT/memory loss problem. I seem to remember cutttng things with my spoon but I could be wrong. I had ECT so I have some memory problems.
April R
The weirdest? That’s hard…there was the guy who barricaded himself in his room which caused us to be in lock down for 3 hours. Then there was the guy who was screaming about how he was being abused, security had to be called, and then just a really sad old woman who had just been admitted when I was being released - she was crying nonstop.
I found most (but not all) of the patients really weird which is why I found the whole experience so unsettling. My problem is depression but most of these people were additcts. Not all, I was in with a Harvard Professor and a woman who was totally normal, just had screwed up with her prescription meds.
Rachellelgram
Yes, I was allowed to wear my own clothes. I had vjsitors daily (lucky me) so they brought me clothes from my house. They also cleaned my house, did a repair job on the dry wall and fed the cat. I have amazing friends.
If you could tell all doctors working in mental health to do one thing differently when talking to patients in situations like yours, what would it be?
Speaker for the Dead
That’s a great question and if I could answer it I might be able to save a lot of people from a lot of grief. I don’t have advise for mental health doctors but I would say to all patients: don’t isolate yourself!
Zago: You started by comparing your experience to “Cuckoo’s Nest”, which has become an entrenched meme for awfulness in pysch wards. There’s another meme I’ll ask about:
Do you know of the Rosenhan “Pseudo-Patient” Experiment? (published 1973)?
Summary: He sent decoy “patients” into several psych hospitals to investigate the question: Once a patient is “in”, is every such patient just thereafter assumed to be “insane” indefinitely? Do the staff make any attempt to distinguish “sane” from “insane” patients? Can a mentally ill patient ever be deemed to be recovered enough to be discharged?
His results were discouraging: The decoy patients had these instructions: Complain of “hearing voices” to get in. Once admitted, discontinue the complaint and act perfectly “normal”. He found that, for the most part, staff never recognized the absence of any problematic complaints. Perfectly “normal” behavior was viewed as abnormal. Example: Bored patients tended to gather around the cafeteria around lunch-time. This was deemed to be a show of “oral-aquisitive behavior”, which was somehow problematic. Other examples were given.
Rosenhan states that he had to intervene in several cases to get his “patients” out.
The study has been immensely controversial.
QUESTION: Did you see anything like this?
ETA: Google David Rosenhan to find lots more information about this.
More ETA: Here’s the text of his report: On Being Sane in Insane Places
IIRC this experiment was redone relatively recently with more promising results. Most or all of the “patients” were given recommendations for outpatient treatment instead of hospitalization, and some were prescribed a medication to try. Someone with better google fu than I could probably find a link.
Zago’s question sorta makes the preface to mine: How did you get out? I’ve heard of that study, as well as other anecdotes, suggesting that it can be very, very difficult to get out once you’re in.
Senegoid,
Here’s the dope. I probably DID deserve to be there because I’d just tried to kill myself. I hated being there and pled with my doctor to release me but he refused initially. I figured out that the way to be released was to adopt their model behavior, so I went to group therapy sessions, hung out in the common room, took my meds, showered and ate 3 meals, basically everything you could ask. I was deemed ‘well’ and released although I was still depressed. I knew how to behave to facilitate my release. I think the hospital stay did me good because I didn’t feel suicidal when I left but maybe I didn’t need to be there for so long (8 days!).
The two strangest I encountered during my stay we’re one lady who had night terrors about 3 or 4 times a night and would wake up screaming and wake the entire ward up at the same time. She claims to have been kidnapped two or three times sexually assaulted and shot in the head resulting in brain damage. The other one was my roommate who made me read scriptures to her every night but fell asleep in the middle of reading them to her, and if I stopped while I thought she was asleep she would wake up and tell me to keep going. I hated being there. But my experience was pretty similar to yours with most of the patients in the unit I was in were there for drug addiction and substance abuse. There were 3 other ladies in there for postpartum depression and we kind of bonded together as a defense mechanism
Very interesting reading all this. I assume you’re in the US?
I work in Public Health (in a non clinical role) in Aus and have had a number of discussions with mental health clinicians about how the model of care works.
Here, commitment to an inpatient unit (psych ward) is usually voluntary and covered by public health. The model is similar to the acute public hospital syste, get em in, stabilise them, discharge them to community treatment. People aren’t kept in against their will unless a psychiatrist certifies they are a danger to themself or others.
Having attempted suicide would mean they wouldn’t let you out until they were pretty sure you were stable or at least able to be managed in the community.
I’m curious about the nature of the facility.
Was it locked down during the day?
If you wanted to go outside for a walk or to get sun could you?
What sort of facilities did they have in the common areas? TV? Videos? Books? etc
Did they do coordinated activities with groups of people or were you all just pretty much left to your own devices?
We were locked down all day and night.
We didn’t have access to the outdoors unless it was arranged by the staff. Basically there was an issue with having coverage - they have to have staff in all spaces so if we went outside (a fenced, dismal patio, but at least you could get fresh air) there had to be staff to watch both the indoor and outdoor groups.
We had a ‘Common Area’ where we ate our meals and were encouraged to hang out. There was a TV but it was turned off during the time any group therapy sessions were in progress as a way to encourage people to attend. I attended a lot of group therapy sessions out of boredom and also I realized that doing that would hasten my release.
What does this mean? What can you accomplish while locked up in a psych ward?
It’s fiction, but I read a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “I Only Came to Use the Phone” (Solo Vine a Hablar por Teléfono) which is on this exact subject. I found it amusing, sad, and worryingly plausible. It’s published in his collection called “Strange Pilgrims” (Doce cuentos peregrinos).
Thanks for starting this thread and being so open to answering our questions.
What benefits do you think you gained from your stay?