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Originally Posted by Lauliza
This is very sad. But for perspective, this was written about a Massachusetts hospital for mentally ill criminals, so it is state run and part of the criminal justice system (and many of the patients/inmates here are violent criminals). A friend of mine and a professor both have worked here and both described it as, from their end as young female clinicians, pretty scary.
As a kid I was a patient in locked ward, and while it was traumatic, it wasn't as awful or degrading as this article describes -and I did NOT want to be there. But the staff was very kind and for the most part as helpful as they could be. It was not a fancy hospital at all (like McLean's hospital, which is beautiful and for the rich) though it was private. They are not pleasant places to be by any means, but this is an example of the worst that most of us would not be in. At least not where this one is located, in Massachusetts.
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I was in a locked ward in Boston last year that wasn't a private hospital. It was basically exactly how this was described. I was in there for three weeks. The only exception is that after I pestered for about two weeks, my psychiatrist decided that completely not allowing me to practice was greatly worsening my anxiety and they worked it out that my friends could bring my instruments, they locked them up and with special permission, I could play a little bit with a mute in. That was great. I calmed down so much when I didn't have to worry about the negative progress I was making.
My roommate was forced to take her meds against her will. They held her down and gave her a shot in her butt. I think she set it up that way or something legal happened where she gave some sort of consent in some capacity while in there. But still, if she wouldn't take it orally, they would physically restrain her and give her a shot. And she wasn't the only one they did that to. She was in there for bipolar disorder. She had been there for almost 2 months when I left and she still didn't know when she was going to leave the morning I left. She was talking about the day after. I don't know what happened with that.
Even still, I still remember how bright the sun was when I got out and how weird the world looked. The leaves had changed colors and there were so many things to look at. I couldn't even have crayons except from 12-1 on art days. I couldn't even listen to music at all until my roommate eventually stole the radio from art class. We somehow got away with playing it even with the checks every 15 mins. But all we had was an awful hospital bed, a composition notebook, and a pen. You could read, but there was only one group a day and it was always bad so that leaves the rest of the day empty. People would finish their books in a few hours and then be screwed. You couldn't sleep all day because then the doctors would think you are even more depressed and need to stay longer. Everyone just counted the hours until we could take a PRN and forget how bored we were. The boredom was so mind numbing. It was actual torture. It was the longest three weeks of my life and I never knew if I was leaving for sure or not until the last day. But to be honest, I did somehow make some improvement and they did discharge me to the right place.