I LOVED my stays in a psych ward - every one of them. I felt so, so safe and cared for; it was great to get away from life, bullies, stress and even worried family members. Of the four different psychiatric units I've been to, only one of them was difficult. For one of my admissions, I was supposed to be staying at a new (at the time) NHS unit but they didn't have any beds available and, because I was an emergency admission, they decided to put me in a private hospital about 80 miles away until a bed became available. That hospital was awful - there was very little control of patients and I found myself repeatedly bullied, staff were unprofessional and revealed their personal opinions of patients, sexuality, religion etc to patient which is completely inappropriate and some of what was said deeply offended me, I was left by myself when I said I needed some observing (this ended up in me badly self harming and having to go to the ED) and there was barely any facilities and the hospital was aesthetically rundown and in awful condition. I was so eager to leave that place and go to this different unit that I repeatedly asked about my transfer, and I cried myself to sleep most nights. Once I was transferred to the NHS unit (after two and a half weeks) I felt so much safer and it was 100x better than the "private hospital".

I still have distressing flashbacks from that one admission. The others were all great. Two of the other units were private and they were wondrfully beautiful places with wondrfully beautiful people. The NHS unit was surprisingly great - in the top two units I've stayed in.

TL;DR: It depends on the ward, the staff and the other patients. Luck of the draw, I suppose.