I"ve had different experiences in different psych hospitals. My first 2 stays were at a private psych hospital that my insurance didn't cover. I was there for 1 month each time.....both times were basically after OD's also & my own pdoc was one of the pdoc's that had priviledges at the hospital which was why he sent me there in the first place rather than the local psych ward at the local medical hospital. I wasn't at a good place at the time (didn't really understand why like I do 20 years later) so it didn't do the good that it really should have done. They had a ropes course & all kinds of outside activities after one got well enough after the OD to participate in those kinds of activities. Group therapy all day & psychologist & pdoc meetings every day of the week.

Sadly, this hospital closed after going bankrupt & the only psych hospital available was the one at the local hospital which again, my insurance didn't cover (until I finally got on disability & on medicare) so they would ship me by ambulance to a hospital almost 100 miles away that the insurance would cover. That situation only made me angry which didn't help my situation as most of the time I was in the psych wards after having OD'ed & finally been released from the medical floor. I was messed up & so was the system. Most of the time those hospital stays were short term, & there to deal with crisis mode or later on, when after finally getting onto medicare, my pdoc would put me into the local hospital's psych ward for any med change because of my horrible side effect reactions I had to almost everything he tried......which made me feel like even more of a guinea pig & irritated me even more.

Years passed & I ended up with a different pdoc after finding another private psych hospital again that was much better & had better care & groups but still I didn't understand what was really causing my problems at the time so I really never got the help I needed because no one really knew what the underlying issues were that I was dealing with, not even myself. The thing was that many times just getting me out of where I was at home would break the cycle of the emotions I didn't realize at the time were causing the problems & I would be fine for a while.

I honestly have no idea how many times I was hospitalized between 1994 & 2004. I'm sure it was at least 20 but could have been way more than that as it seemed like I was in the hospital more than I was out during those years but it was a black hole period of my life that I don't remember many of the details of.

For me though it felt like it got to the point where it would get me medically through an OD & then break the cycle for a little while until it built back up again.

Looking back, I understand now that it was from feeling totally trapped financially in a bad marriage (long story) where they was no emotional connection which was nothing more than a follow on from my growing up years with parents that had no ability for having emotional connection with anyone.....but until I was finally able to get totally away from all that dysfunction, I thought it was normal so I guess that's why no one really understood what was REALLY happening because I was incapable of expressing what was really happening & we all blamed it on my overreacting to the loss of my computer engineering career.

Hospital stays weren't for finding the problem or a solution, they were there to basically stabilize a crisis.....even the long term hospital stays seemed to be focused on that though I'm sure if I had been at a different place, it would have been more valuable outcome for me.