I went inpatient in a psych hospital for 7 weeks last summer and while I can't say I loved it, I did receive excellent care and it was what I needed. If I ever got as depressed as I was then, I would definitely go back. But the particular hospital I was in is a WHO Centre of Excellence in Mental Health and I was in a specialized program for women with severe mood disorders and a trauma history.

All of the nurses were very caring and competent and I could talk to my assigned nurse at almost any time. I got to see my pdoc almost every day which was helpful as we were adjusting my meds. I was super lucky though in that my hospital pdoc was also my regular pdoc as she's clinical director of the unit I was in.

We had lots of group therapy, we got to go to a gym if you wanted 3 times a week, there was a therapy dog who came and visited once a week. Even rec therapy was pretty good. I learned to knit when I was in.

The only thing I didn't like was being checked on by the nurses every hour, or when the unit was locked down. Otherwise, since I was inpatient voluntarily I could pretty much sign myself out whenever I wanted to go for coffee or for walks, and they let me leave in the evenings so that I could go to my AA meetings.

Then after I was discharged they had a really good transition back to the community program, for 8 weeks, where I went back for some group therapy a few times a week, and met with a nurse and a pdoc to talk about how my goals of getting back to my life were going.

They also run all kinds of different short term intensive outpatient therapy programs - like they've just started a SAFE program for self harm, and they have a CBT group.

So I think it's a really good hospital with great staff and programs. Not all psych hospitals are horrible.

---splitimage