A theoritical question inspired by the movie shutter island.
Your family has conspired to put you there . You know you are not mad . When you tell that to the staff ,they reply " everyone here tells us the same." If you remain there for long you will really go mad.
What best strategy to adopt to get out of there ,convincing people you are not mad and it was all a mistake? Jumping over the wall and holding a gun to the doctor’s head are not allowed.
I’d suggest that you push a broom around and pretend to not be able to hear or talk.
For others, I think just being normal is going to be enough to eventually convince them. Play their games, pretend to have an epiphany, and then hopefully they let you go.
From my days as a Psych Nurse in a mental facility I would say, walk out to the road and hitchhike. Doesn’t even matter if you are wearing hospital issue pyjamas, someone will pick you up. Goodbye.
Really? Patients can leave at will?
According to Robert Persig, the best way is to tell your doctors every day that you’re feeling a little better. If you say you feel horrible, that’s because you’re messed up. If you say you fell great, it’s because you’re messed up and delusional.
Follow their rules, and you’ll be considered sane enough to go.
You know those double “fire exit” style doors, with one of the pair often set up to NOT open by a metal tongue attachment that goes up into the ceiling and/or into the floor? The bin I escaped from had a set like that with a padlocked chain wrapped around the push bars. What I did was remove the metal tongue so both doors would release from the frame when their bars were pushed. With both of them open, the space between them (even with the chain) was wide enough to slip through.
Then exactly what don’t ask said: I hitched the bloody hell out of the state.
Convincing people I didn’t properly belong in the looney bin is a work still in progress. I don’t think anyone belongs in a place like that. I don’t think locking people up in a cage improves people’s mental or emotional state and if it’s for the protection of others, the normal (criminal justice) standard balancing individual freedom and the safety of others is that officers of the state can’t lock you up for what they think you might do, even if you have KKK and aryan nation hate posters all over your room, so having a “back door” method of incarcerating people indefinitely by saying they are sick in the head is a civil liberties concern.
Do I feel like I am going to go mad because I am in a psych hospital in general or is it just this hospital that bothers me? If it is the latter I would ask to be transferred to a different facility first. If that didn’t work I would make sure I was as docile as possible and request drug-free treatment options (talk therapy, CBT, etc) to keep from being drugged up and unable to function. The reason I would take these steps first is partly because I am much more likely to have people willing to work with me and let me go if I am calm and don’t appear to be a danger to anyone and partly because if my husband checked me into a facility it would be because he really does think I am a danger to myself or others and I trust him to do what is in my best interest, so I will acknowledge the fact that I might not be as sane as I feel.
If this doesn’t work and escape becomes my only option and I believe I am completely sane I will take my time cultivating the trust of the orderlies and others around me. I will make a point of being easy to get along with and not the least bit dangerous towards anyone or anything. While doing this I will watch their schedules, map out the exits, etc. and determine the best time and place to escape. Then I head towards the nearest large city and panhandle there under the radar until I have enough money to hire an attorney to help me get my life back.
When THEY visit you in the middle of the night, ask THEM to teach you the secret of teleportation. THEY will ask you in trade for 100 cotton balls, 3 potato bugs and a solemn oath to never watch ESPN 2 again for the rest of your life. Also, cloth won’t teleport, but metals does, so lay in a supply of aluminum foil to fashion some temporary clothes.
Note: This only works if you are completely sane to begin with.
At least it did for me.
So this thread has moved from the hypothetical to the actual. Gotta love the Dope. Fascinating - have there been repercussions, i.e., being “on the lam” like a fugitive or is that what you mean by the sentence about a work in progress?
First thing you’re going to need to do is hide a paperclip somewhere on you. I suggest between cheek and gums, like a pinch of tobacco though I suppose you could also try for the anal cavity. At no time should you attempt both of those in succession.
Where you get the paperclip is entirely up to you. Maybe you were volunteering in the warden’s office to build a sense of trust and do some light bookkeeping. Maybe you were on a field trip with three other inmates to a baseball game and stopped off at an office supplies store. Maybe you’d always had it in your mouth and no one’s bothered to check all these years. The point is that all good escape plans start with a paperclip and so you’d be best to get it in any manner possible.
OK, so you have the paperclip. Now what?
Spit it out (or take it from your anus)! Careful now. That thing’s slippery and you’ve only got one chance at this before they night watch/maintenance guy comes by in a few minutes. I think you can hear him coming down the hallway now.
OK, now unbend the paperclip and stick one end into your handcuffs’ hole. Really just fiddle around in there. Work it back and forth real good. I’m not entirely sure what you’re doing, but, trust me, you’re going to eventually hear a click and that means you’ve unlocked it. Hurry now, the night watch/maintenance guy seems to be getting closer.
Fiddle around with the other side now. I guess this part isn’t technically necessary as you’re free of your handcuffs. But it just makes sense because if you plan to have any sort of life outside the mental institution you can’t have a pair of handcuffs just hanging off one of your wrists. That’s going to be a dead giveaway to even the most unobservant gumshoe.
If you happen to be in a level 2 security mental institution, understand that before the handcuffs come off you’re going to have to deal with the primary means of restraint: the straightjacket. This one is simple and requires no additional tools. Simply dislocate your shoulder on command (which you can do based upon a previous injury) and use the extra maneuverability to free yourself of these restraints. At this point you may ask (and believe me, as someone who has dislocated his shoulder several times I’m asking myself), “Ender. How in the world would dislocating my shoulder actually increase my range of motion?” to which I answer “Do you want to escape this mental institution or not? You do? Good, then stop asking stupid questions.”
OK. So you’re out of the straightjacket and you’re out of the handcuffs. Just in time. The night watch/maintenance guy is opening your door! Quick. Hide behind something! ARE YOU HIDING? Oh. Right. Sorry. [sub]Are you hiding?[/sub]. Well stop hiding! He’s turned around. Grab his flashlight/broom and hit him with it. Again! Don’t stop to wonder if he’s just an innocent minimum wage worker trying to get by and feed his family in an economy with 11% unemployment. You have no time for this philosophical shit. HIT HIM AGAIN! Good. He’s out.
Grab his keys. They’re going to be useful getting you into every room in this facility up to and including the director’s office where you can finally find that paperwork that will not only clear your name, but also prove that the entire reason you’re here is a conspiracy going far deeper than even you dared to imagine.
So you’re out in the hallway. Watch out for the nurse’s station at the end. Granted it’s 2 AM and there’s only two on duty and they’re both gossiping about a date from last night. But one push of the button and the entire place goes into lockdown with state of the art sliding bulletproof doors and klaxons and probably even knockout gas if the area is properly contained. Sure they spend $1.26 per patient per meal here. We’re in a recession. But advanced security comes from an entirely different budget.
OK so you’re on the ground crawling towards the exit. WAIT STOP! There’s that doctor who keeps prescribing you tranqs despite your protests. Damn you should pay him back. But not now. Not now…
Coast is clear. Keep going. OK, you’re clear and you’re running down the hallway. Watch out for the guard coming up on the left. Are you still carrying your flashlight/broom? You left it behind with the night watch/maintenance guy? What the hell man? Look, never mind. Just punch the guard.
DAMNIT! You punched him straight into the alarm system! Now you’ve done it. Klaxons everywhere. Run. Don’t think. Just run. Towards the elevator, genius. Hurry. One of those doors is closing in on one side and guards with guns are coming from the other. DIVE AND ROLL! You made it! No wait, your foot is stuck between the door and the wall. And the guard’s coming after you firing. Holy crap he’s a good shot. Look at those bullet holes. Pretty glad the door is bulletproof now, aren’t you?
So you pull your leg in and the door slides closed, which is a good thing because the warden has now appeared on the other side yelling at one of the nameless lackeys to get the door open and the lackey starts fumbling around explaining about the redundancies in the security measure and pressure locks and the warden screams “Goddamnit I don’t care about these details. JUST OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!”
It’s at this point I should warn you about something. You’re not just being chased at this point by the screaming warden, the bumbling guards, the gossiping nurses and the unconscious night watch/maintenance guy. You’re being hunted by a machine. A mimetic poly-alloy, liquid metal, that can imitate any living thing it touches (but not advanced machinery because that would be too difficult). But coming up the elevator at this very moment is a T-800. DON’T PANIC! I know you’ve had your differences in the past but he’s here to help.
At this point I believe my guide should end. Not because you’re out of danger. Far from it. In fact it would be safe to say that things have never been more perilous for you than at this very moment. Indeed, the fate of the world hangs in the balance of the decisions you will make over the next few minutes. But I feel that the T-800 will serve as a much better guide to your situation than I will ever be.
Go with him if you want to live.
This will make a great movie plot .
Just hang in there until your insurance benefits run out. At that point they’ll be happy to watch you walk out the front door.
There is not currently any provision in the mental hygiene statutes for dashing around the countryside trying to reapprehend patients and drag them back in, unless they were forensic psych committals which is a very different story.
Even in the same state with an officially (not just de facto) involuntary status, if you can stay out of their hands and off their radar they aren’t going to do a manhunt for you or anything. On the other hand, if you do stay local to your place of incarcaration and EVER do anything that causes some cop to bring you in for a psych eval, and your prior history comes to light, it could go badly.
In my case, as I said, I hitched to a different state. They don’t extradite.
I bring the repercussions on myself to an extent by being open and political about my psych history instead of keeping it hidden. That’s the work in progress part: there’s always at least one person in any venue whose attitude is “if the shrinks say you were looney tunes and wanted to keep you locked up, you belong on the locked ward, or at a minimum drugged to the gills for your own good”.
I was really disappointed that the thread title doesn’t include “(Need answer fast).”
In two facilities I was in, you could indeed open a door and walk out. But they were rather in the boonies. The staff counted on you not being able to get a ride or have somewhere to go. If you actually arranged for friends to pick you up somewhere and had somebody to stay with, you were free.
I’ve always been told they could only hold me for 3 days or so, after that, it’s merely voluntary–I could flat out check out and leave.
I’m also surprised they can have a chain–wouldn’t that be a horrible fire code violation?
Walk out backwards and act like you’re coming in.
But that’s how I got there in the first place!
That’s what they told me, too. Then when I decided I’d had enough bullshit and decided to avail myself of it —telling them politely that I would like to leave as early as the applicable laws and regulations allowed me to leave, right now if permissible —they said “wait here a moment, there’s some paperwork”.
Four minutes later, + or -, six guys came in with a stretcher outfitted with six point restraints, accompanied by an orderly armed with a loaded hypodermic needle. I did not physically resist but did not assist them in getting me onto the stretcher. They, for their part, did not inject me but did tie me down and hauled me face down to seclusion room.
THEN they brought me a 72 hour letter to sign, which gives the facility 72 hours to contest your release. (So NO, it’s not that they can only hold you 3 days, it is that you have to give them 3 days’ notice before they have to let you go; the 3 day clock only starts ticking when you say, and put in writing, that you wish to leave).
The psychiatrist in charge of the facility came by and said he advised me to withdraw my 72 hour letter because otherwise he would indeed contest my release. My case would go before a mental hygiene court judge who either would or would not convert me officially to involuntary status and if it went against me I was definitely going nowhere any time soon. “And I never lose those. I play golf with the judge, for pete’s sake.” At the time I thought it was probably hyperbole. Now I’m pretty sure he wasn’t exaggerating in the slightest, having been a court observer at such hearings here in New York. The judges really do mostly rule to favor the doctor if the doctor says you aren’t all there.
Anyway, I rescinded my letter and 12 hours later took the door off the hinges and got the fuck out of there.
