Quote:
Originally Posted by BirdDancer
Daonnachd, I'm sure with some time your memories will be clearer. It took some time for me, but it happened. You have so much experience with ECT, in particular. That would be valuable for others. If nothing else, a blog post would be great. I wrote a blog post about my ECT experience, which was far shorter than yours.
bpcyclist, I would be curious about the maximum security unit, but don't think I would want to stay there too long. I have not been on one, but one of the psych hospitals I was in had at least two levels of psych, though maybe not considered maximum security. I was on the one that was considered "for sicker psych patients". My memory of that experience is quite foggy. All units were always locked units with strict activity schedules. The other psych hospital I was in had a regular psych, a dual-diagnosis psych, and a psych unit for those involuntarily admitted. Despite being considered "regular psych" there was a murder there some years back. I won't go into the details. It was bad! I believe I was sometimes regarded as one of the sickest bipolar patients in that hospital's regular psych, at the times I was in. I never recall that many others being dragged into isolation rooms and sedated and locked in. I only recall two other patients having a guard sit in front of their rooms and follow them. I imagine that's pretty common in the maximum security ward. No? Sometimes they keep you pretty well sedated, don't they?
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I am sorry for those very difficult hospitalizations you had to endure, BirdDancer, I truly am. But so happy that you are doing so well now!!!
Yes on Harbors, which is the max side of the hospital, there are a lot of people on what are termed one-to-one or two-to-one, which just means either one or two staff people with a single patient at all times, 24/7. This is usually for people who are very unstable, with a propensity for violent outbursts, or those who are suicidal. Sadly, one patient I personally knew and adored successfully committed suicide while I was there while in her room alone. Awful.
There are certainly some people on huge doses of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers, as you would imagine. These are the sickest of the sick in my state, without question. And some of those folks are unfortunately quite sedated during the day. That said, the hospital got in huge trouble with the Civil Rights Division of the USDOJ in 2008 for a vast number of things and one of these was over-sedation of patients. So, sedation is not permitted as a tool to "control" patient behavior. It is totally forbidden. This is why there are so many one-to-ones, largely. It is very labor intensive to manage disruptive patients in that kind of setting.