The Pysch Ward can be FUN!! (Fun Reading, not formatted correctly)

During my formerly frequent stays to various psychiatric facilities in NJ, I've met quite a few characters. They've ranged from scary violent psychos, to hilariously deranged schizophrenics, to the just plain bizarre. That statement also includes some of the people who worked there. Sometimes, the staff is just on the wrong side of the desk.
Needless to say, each separate hospitalization was a truly unique experience. With all the E/N depression threads I've seen pop up, I think now is a good time to share some of the hilarity that an inpatient psych hospital can offer. That's right, the hospital can be fun.

My first hospitalization was at the age of 18, and it was voluntary, as I was suicidal and depressed over a failed relationship (yeah yeah e/n teenage angst). By voluntary, I mean I was presented the choice of A) Sign myself into Summit Hospital, a rather decent private psych facility. , or B) Be committed at Muhlenberg Regional, which is the catch man pysch hospital for my area and not exactly the nicest of wards.

My choice was obviously Summit. Summit really wasn't that bad, as far as hospitals go. The staff was mostly friendly unless you acted out, a few days into your stay you were allowed to go upstairs to the dining hall, provided you weren't completely ****ed, designated smoke breaks, things like that. But what really made Summit ok was the patients. It wasn't designed for the violent psycho outburst patients I would run into later at Muhlenberg.

My first few days at Summit were mainly uneventful. There was group therapy, I learned how to play spades, and things were cool. Then came Dianne. Dianne was as paranoid a schizophrenic as they come. She was convinced the US Govt had turned her into a lesbian nun, which was odd, considering her boyfriend would visit her throughout her stay in the hospital.

We all pretty much learned to ignore her ranting and kind of walk away from her once she got going. Apparently, Dianne did not deal well with lack of attention. One day after lunch, all the Status 2's (those allowed to leave the wing and go upstairs to eat) were returning back into the wing to get our allotted two cigs for our after lunch smoke break. As the door opens, we heard screaming, singing and laughter all at once.
It seems Dianne had decided a great way to get attention would be to run around the wing completely naked while singing opera. The wing was small, so it only took the staff about 2-3 minutes to cut her off and finally subdue her. Even after her subsequent capture and injection of Ativan (Summit’s number one choice to chill us out), Dianne could still be heard singing from the confines of the quiet room for a good amount of time.

About a year later, I was once again admitted into Summit. The following incident would lead to them asking that I never returned. It was early on a Tuesday morning. It was late November, and it was extremely cold. So cold, in fact, that the MHA responsible for watching us on our smoke break wouldn’t leave the wing lobby, which generally wouldn't be a problem, because the courtyard was fully encircled by the building.
I was in my usual spot, right near the employee entrance/maintenance door, which was set back a bit and offered some shelter from the wind. I leaned back against the door and felt it move. I couldn't believe it, the door wasn't locked. Apparently, the last person to use it hadn't slammed it, so the lock didn’t engage. So, in my infinite underly medicated and completely bored with being hospitalized wisdom, I decided to go for a walk. I pushed the door open and stood on the other side of it for a minute to see what would happen. Nothing. The MHA didn't see me. So, I casually strolled down to the end of the driveway and waited.

Still, no one came. At that point I figured "hey **** it, I'll walk to the train station and get the hell out of here. So, I'm now walking through downtown Summit looking for the train station, when I hear my name called. I turned around to see 4 MHA's rapidly approaching. At that point I realized the jig was up, and realized there was no way I could outrun all four of them, so I just kept walking until they finally caught up with me.
Of course, being that I was not happy at the prospect of being locked up for Thanksgiving, I resolved that I would not make it easy for them to bring me back. Once they caught up to me and grabbed hold of me, I just relaxed my legs, and basically made them carry/drag me all the way back to the hospital. Once they got me back to the rear entrance, something inside me kicked in and I decided that I would no longer make things easy for them. I put my feet against the door frame, determined not to go back in.
I fought them the best I could, but it was no use at all. I was rather quickly overpowered and dragged inside.

A smart person would have just given up at that point, but at the time I was by no means a smart person. I started pulling and struggling to get these guys off me. This only made the situation worse, as I was forced down onto the floor of the wing so the nurse could come and administer the ever popular needle of Ativan into my *** cheek. I continued to try and fight, until a rather large fellow named Abdullah decided the best way to keep me down would to be to use his knee to pin my head to the rug.
After the needle, I continued my struggling, cursing and screaming until the drug kicked in. Once it started to take effect, I began to calm down, and Abdullah took his knee off of my head and helped the others drag me into “the quiet room". The quiet room in Summit was a small room behind the nurse's station, with nothing but a mattress on the floor. I spent about 4 hours in there, sleeping off the Ativan. When I awoke, I was allowed out of the quiet room, but put on 1 on 1.

1 on 1 is the most annoying thing you could possibly be punished with, in my opinion. For the next 24 hours, wherever I went, I had someone with me. Going to the bathroom? Leave the door open. Time for dinner? You have an MHA sitting next to you at the table. Time for lights out? Guess who's in the doorway of your room watching you sleep. Once my 1 on 1 time was over, the rest of my stay was pretty much quiet, and I was discharged about a week or so later. Abdullah was henceforth known among the MHA's as "Abdullah the Butcher", after some professional wrestler or something
Another incident arose, where I needed to once again be hospitalized. This time I was taken by ambulance to Muhlenberg Regional and locked in a "crisis" room in the ER. Having heard very bad things about this place from patients who'd been there before while I was in Summit, I was determined to escape. Escaping from a crisis room and out of the ER is no small feat.

I watched and waited, until I saw an old man standing near the door. It was plain to see he was with someone else, and not actual hospital staff. I tapped at the window and pointed down to the locked knob. He was nice enough to open the door for me, not realizing I was locked in for a reason. I walked quickly over to the exit. ****! There was a security guard standing at a podium there. "Where do you think you're going", he asked. "I'm just going out for a smoke; I'll brb" I replied. "You can't leave, now let's go back to the crisis room and not cause a scene, ok?” was his response. I thought it over for a few seconds and tried to negotiate. "How about you take me out for a smoke, then I'll go back? I won't run off, I promise". He told me “I can't do that", so I tried to step around him and go out anyway. He blocked the way and said "Don't make things hard on yourself". At this point I knew I wouldn't be seeing a cig for a long time, so I decided I had to push my luck, and attempt to push by him. What a mistake that was. He grabbed me and slammed me to the wall. I tried to reverse out of his hold when all of a sudden 4 more security out of ****ing nowhere. I was, once again, quickly subdued and taken back to the crisis room.
All that I really accomplished with that brilliant maneuver was a bump on my forehead and a faster trip upstairs to the actual ward.

Muhlenberg's ward was the total opposite of Summit. Loud, way too hot and all around rather grimy looking. I was taken and given a quick checkup and placed into a room.
My roommate was a black kid around my age named Kevin. Kevin was a pretty good guy, and we got along well. But Kevin was also a total ****ing psycho. One day I woke up to the loudest screaming and cursing I had ever heard, even to this day. It seems Kevin had tried to slip out behind the orderly who was pushing the breakfast cart. He was caught, and dragged back to our room by a huge gang of security guards and MHA's. He continued to fight them, and pissed at being woken up in such a manner, I of course encouraged him. "You aren't gonna take that ****, are you Kev"? I asked. "**** that ****", he replied. He took a swing at one of the guards and was dragged to one of the ward's quiet rooms. I didn't know what they looked like at the time, but I would soon find out.

About 2 weeks into my stay, I was just plain miserable. Denying people with emotional problems nicotine is about the worst thing you can do. I was cranky and angry, and my girlfriend at the time was not helping matters. She was constantly yelling at me over the phone to just do what I was told by the staff, which in retrospect was the right thing, but I was bitter at being locked up yet again.

During a particularly heated argument with her, one of the nurses started giving me **** about my yelling. She was right, but between her *****ing and my girlfriend still on the phone yelling "See? SEE?” I flipped. I hung up the phone and took the chair I was sitting on and fired it as hard and as far as I could down the hallway. This turned out to be a mistake, because Muhlenberg staff does NOT put up with any **** at all. She yelled down the hall for someone to call security, and yet another gang of rent-a-cops was once again dispatched to the ward. As per usual, I was grabbed and dragged down to the quiet room. This time, unlike Summit, I was stripped down to my boxers and placed in 4 point restraints and given an injection of Thorazine.

Muhlenberg is probably one of the few hospitals who still use that ****, and I can see why. Thorazine turns you into a drooling zombie. Once it kicked in, all I could do was stare at the ceiling and float in and out of reality. Needless to say, I did not **** with Muhlenberg staff again during my stay.
After about 3 weeks, if you really don't show much improvement, you get moved to Runnells.

Runnells was like taking the Muhlenberg patients and sticking them into Summit's ward.
Runnells was truly full of whacky people. There was Ernie, the rocker. Ernie used to sit and rock back and forth for hours while he talked to you. Watching Ernie was damn near the closest you could get to motion sickness without actually being the one doing the moving. Michael was a funny *** guy, simply due to his paranoia. He would come up to you, ask for a cigarette, then look at it and think you poisoned it. We generally ignored Michael. The funniest was easily Andy. Andy was completely bonkers and decided one day that he was the mayor of Runnells. He would sit and ramble for hours to anyone in earshot about how he was the mayor, and the richest man in the world. He'd also often tell us he had a diamond as big as the entire hospital buried beneath it. Needless to say, many hours of boredom were relieved by Andy's incessant ramblings.

The worst person on the ward though was a small little guy named Rafael. Rafael demanded to be called Obie, and would randomly scream out things like “I did not take her panties off!" Rafael also had the bad habit of hiding in the women's shower room, trying to catch a peek at various butter-troll patients.

One day, Rafael was caught hiding behind the door of a patient named Cebris. Cebris was a loud and angry woman from Guyana. She would constantly rave about Wayne Brady, of all people, about how he was anti black. Cebris was also widely ignored. Anyway, she found Rafael hiding behind her door watching her through the crack. She flipped the **** out. She ran over and grabbed the knob and began slamming the door open and shut, effectively ****ing Rafael up rather well. Cebris was thrown into the quiet room, and Rafael ended up being transferred to Trenton State, which is a horrible place and I'm glad I was never sent there.

Jeff was with me in Muhlenberg during the stay that landed me in Runnells. He was loud, obnoxious and generally annoying. He was 19, and a complete baby. Every time he had a visit he cried and threw a fit about he wanted to go home. While I understand wanting to leave, I tried on many occasions to explain to him that acting out was not going to get him out of the ward faster, and that it would only prolong his stay.
He, of course, refused to listen, stating that I "had no idea what the **** I was talking about". From that point on, I simply observed Jeff and laughed at his stupid antics. One day, as his parents were leaving after their visit, Jeff decided to try his first of many escape attempts. He bolted towards the door and refused to let his parents leave without him.

Escape attempts in Muhlenberg call down the thunder on the escapee. The door was locked, and visitors were not allowed off the ward. Jeff then decided to literally dive onto the floor and latch onto his father's leg as the security guards attempted to drag him off to the quiet room. Needless to say, it was a funny *** scene that had patients and visitors alike laughing hysterically.

After I was sent to Muhlenberg, who arrives 3 days later? Jeff. The first thing he did when they took him off the gurney was try to run out the door. The front doors to the wing automatically lock, so Jeff first attempted to push, then pull the doors open, screaming and cursing like a sailor about how he was leaving while the staff came tearing *** from around the desk to help the poor EMTs, who were standing there with a "what the ****" look on their faces.

Every visiting day, Jeff would throw the same fit as his parents attempted to leave. And every time, he would be sedated and put in the quiet room or his own room. It got to the point where the staff asked his parents to stop visiting.

The best Jeff story I have though, is the time he actually made it through the first set of doors during a new patient's arrival. The payphone was about 10 feet from the doors, so when the EMTs came through with the gurney, Jeff bolted. What Jeff didn't know was that the main front doors also locked automatically. So now, he was trapped in between two sets of doors. Seeing that he was trapped, he freaked. He started trying to kick through the Plexi-glass doors. When he realized that wasn't working, he started bashing his forehead against the doors, screaming and crying “Let me out! I'm going home!” It took about 5 staff to eventually capture this 5’6, 120 lb screaming lunatic.

Jeff continually got worse, and since I was getting better, I could see just how bad he was getting. He paced the wing, wouldn't speak to anyone, and barely slept. The only time I ever saw him in anyway responsive to anything was during his parent's visits, when he would throw his daily fit. I always wondered what happened to Jeff.
The story of Ricky and Lisa started well before I arrived in Summit. Lisa was a 22 year old married mother of two, in the ward for yet another suicide attempt. Ricky was your typical fat, greasy ****ed up looking mama's boy: 40, living at home, no job, no chance in life.
He was discharged 3 days before I was brought in. He apparently fell in love with Lisa. I’m guessing she was the first girl who ever was nice to him, because once he was discharged, he spent literally ALL DAY calling the payphones asking for her. From the time the phones were turned on after breakfast to the time they were turned off for lights out, like clockwork almost every call would be Ricky asking for Lisa.

My first day into this stay I picked up the phone and Ricky (I had no idea who he was at this point) asked if Lisa was there. I put the phone down and went around the floor looking for someone named Lisa. Once I found her and told her she had a call, she went over and picked it up. I don't think I've ever seen someone turn ghostly pale so fast. After about 20 minutes, she hung up and came and found me. We talked for a few minutes, exchanged names and whatnot and I was soon told the story of Ricky.
"Please don't ever give me the phone for Ricky again" she said. "He's ****ing scary in love with me and I don't know how to handle it"." Just tell him to **** off and stop calling" I told her. "I can't, I'm too nice" was her rather feeble reply. "Ok, no problem" I replied. "Can I **** with him when he calls then?" I asked. "He's not very stable, just tell him I'm in group or sleeping or in the shower whenever he calls" was her answer. Now, I'm not the type of person who follows silly instructions like that. If someone is avoiding phone calls from someone, I feel it's my duty, no, my God given right to **** with them in anyway I see fit.

About 45 minutes or so later, one of the phones starts to ring. I had a feeling it was Ricky, and I was right. "Hi, is Lisa there?" "Is this Ricky?" I asked. He warily answered " Yeah, why?” "Well Rick" I began "The thing is this. You’re ****ing creepy and scary and she doesn't really want to talk to you ever again" "********" was his response. So I hung up on him. The phone rang again. I put on a Jamaican accent.”'Ello?" “Hi, is Lisa there?" he asked. "No mon, Lisa dun wanna speak to you ever again mon. Stop calling" and I once again hung up on him. I had a feeling he was on to my pathetic excuse for an accent, so I decided to enlist my new friend Sherry in my battle. Let me tell you a little bit about Sherry. Sherry was about a year younger than me, really cute, and really evil. She had about the worst temper I've ever seen on a girl, and an even worse mouth, much like my truck driver father, so it was almost guaranteed that we would get along.

"Sherry, you up for a little phone fun?" I asked her. " What do you have in mind?" she replied. "Do you know Ricky?" "Ricky the asshole who just got discharged and keeps calling for Lisa?" Apparently Sherry knew Ricky. "Yeah that's the one" I replied. "I ****ing hate that guy" was her response. "What’s the plan?" Right then and there I knew this was not going to be a boring stay. And I was sooo right. "Well, every time he calls, let's **** with him" I said. She agreed it was a good idea. The next time we heard a phone ring, we ran like hell to be the ones to pick it up. She beat me to it and picked it up. “Hello?" she answered. "Lisa? Let me check, is this Ben?" she asked. “Lisa’s husband? Oh Ricky, hi it's Sherry. Yeah I'm doing well. Listen, she hates you and wants you to die you stupid mother****ing asshole".

At this point I started cracking up laughing. "No, really, stop calling you ****ing retard. Why don't you go slit your wrists you cocksucker?" and she hung up. Sure it was mean, but it was also funny as hell. So, the rest of the evening goes by rather uneventfully. Me, Lisa, Sherry and some dude named Fred played spades until lights out. The next day after our first group, we hear a new patient is coming in.

New patients are always a big spectacle, just for the fact that we want to see if they're cool, hilariously ****ed up, or total dicks. In this case, it was worse than I could have ever imagined. "Oh my God" Lisa exclaimed as the wing doors opened. “What?" Sherry asked. Then she turned to look. “Holy ****, that's Ricky" she yelled. She started running around the room laughing her *** off until one of the MHA's yelled at her. Ricky saw Lisa sitting next to me on the couch with her head on my shoulder and freaked out. He was taken behind the nurse's station for his check in, when we heard a lot of commotion and yelling. Ricky, in his rather desperate grab for attention, had decided he was going to kill himself in front of the staff and Lisa. He proceeded to attempt to strangle himself, right there at the desk.

Now, just about everyone knows this is impossible, as even if you were able to make your self unconscious from this, as soon as your hand fell away from your throat, you would start breathing again. But not Ricky. Ricky tried to strangle himself about 5 times during the check in alone. He was put on 1 on 1, and prohibited from even sitting in the same area as Lisa once Sherry so helpfully informed them that he was a crazed stalker who came back just to see Lisa, and that Lisa was afraid to tell them. They had known something was up, between all the phone calls we hung up on, and the look on Lisa's face when she saw Ricky. Lisa was actually discharged a day early, just because Ricky was there. Now, Ricky was stuck there with just me and Sherry. Sherry mercilessly harassed Ricky until the day I left, pretending to choke herself every time she saw him. I almost felt bad for the poor bastard. Almost. It's hard to have much sympathy for someone who fake attempts a suicide just to get back into a hospital because he's in love with another patient after a week of meeting her.

The worst part of this story comes the day before I was discharged. Ricky, now off of 1 on 1, decided he would kill himself again. With a pillowcase. In the day room. Which is directly in front of the MHA station. Of course, he was seen immediately and tranq'd and put back on 1 on 1. About 20 minutes later, I see Sherry walking past the MHA desk and they're trying extremely hard not to laugh. I get up off the couch and walk towards her. She had also taken her pillow case and wore it around her neck, but she was singing “My name is Ricky; I have a pillow case gack gack gack" After a few minutes, they made her remove the pillowcase, but it was till god damn funny to me.
The rest of the night and morning I was there, nearly every sentence we said ended in "gack gack gack" " Well, I'm going home today gack gack gack" " You lucky bastard gack gack gack" And so ends the story of Ricky...gack gack gack.

Rosemary was the Christian fundie from hell. She was a butter-troll, and annoyingly loud and opinionated about everything. She never had a kind word about anyone or anything, so it was natural she was quickly given the nickname Roller Pig by Sherry and myself. Even the staff hated her, although they couldn't flat out say it, it was fairly obvious.
For some reason, she felt she needed to take control of the TV in the day room every morning to watch church. If she had simply watched it and kept her always open pie hole shut, perhaps it could have been a tad more tolerable. But oh no, not Roller Pig. She had to repeat every sentence word for word and sing every song...terribly off key. Still, if she wasn't such a vile ***** to everyone, this too could have been ignored.
Roller Pig had the horrible habit of sticking her snout into everything, from patient arguments to ratting patients out to their visiting family members. My parents, while less than thrilled with some of my antics in there, hated her. "Mike was acting out today and got in trouble" she said to my mother, as soon as she entered the wing for a visit. "Ok, who are you? A patient? Go away. I'll talk to the staff in regards to my son, not you" was her reply after about the 5th time of being told all about me.

After a few arguments with Sherry and me, she dubbed us "the devil children" and told the staff that we were "performing satanic rituals in my room" She also told them that we were going into her room and putting voodoo curses on her. The staff has to check out every complaint, so we were separated and asked what was going on. A look of “what the ****" came across my face as they explained to me what was said. "You've gotta be ****ing kidding me" was all I could say. " I know, I know" Friday replied. I don't know his real name, because he's from West Africa and apparently it's hard to pronounce, so he took the nickname Friday. I didn't bother to get into why with him, because I'm sure it's a rather weird story, and I really didn't care much at the time. Though now I kinda wish I knew.

Anyway, after our little Q&A sessions, me and Sherry went into the dayroom and stood by the phone while we plotted. The first thing out of her mouth was " I'm going to **** this **** up" While I wanted to agree with her, I knew it would just get her in trouble, so I told her to let me come up with something else. Needless to say, she was less than thrilled with that idea, but promised she wouldn't hit her. If I had known what she was really up to, I probably would have agreed that just punching her and getting it over with was a better idea.

The next day in group, Sherry made sure to say something that would trip the angry fundie alarm in Rosemary's head. It was something like “So, I was talking to Satan last night, and he told me not to worry about Roller Pig, because he'd take care of her for me".
Rosemary flipped **** and started screaming at her. "You and the other one, you're devil children and you'll both burn in Hell!" I immediately started cracking up because she had to bring me into it right from the jump. Sherry followed, because she knew it was pissing Roller Pig off that I was laughing at her. "How DARE you laugh at me?" she screamed.” I’m a child of Jesus and I'm going to heaven while you two, the slut and the bastard child of Satan will burn for all eternity!"

This is where the story gets uglier than Roller Pig herself. "SLUT?" Sherry screamed, "Who the **** are you to call me a slut, you ****ing Roller ****" The MHA running the group tried to defuse the situation by kicking Sherry and myself out, but it was too late to stop what would happen next. Sherry walked past Roller Pig and tipped the ****ing wheelchair over. I was in a total state of shock. I didn't know whether to laugh or point and laugh. Laughing won.

Now, if Rosemary was truly handicapped, it would have been a ****ed up thing to do. But she wasn't. She was just a fatty who didn't like walking. The MHA in the room called for help and Sherry was taken down. Hard. I couldn't believe how rough they were with a 5'2 girl. They weren't even that rough on me when I escaped. Sherry spent most of the night tranq'd and in the quiet room, but she put up one hell of a fight before they got her in there.
The next day was a visiting day, and like clockwork, Rosemary rolled herself right over to my parents and told them “Mike made Sherry tip my wheelchair over!" My mother was beyond pissed and we spent most of the visit fighting about it, until Sherry walked over and said “No, he didn't. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I'd do it again if I get the chance"

My mother ended up yelling at Roller Pig for lying about something like that to her. After that, anytime she saw my parents, she rolled the **** away. Sherry was also pretty pissed about it, and she once again began to plot on Rosemary. "I'm going to get that fat **** for causing trouble with your parents" she said. After the wheelchair tipping, I didn't think she could do much worse, plus I was pretty pissed about it too, so I asked her what she had in mind. "I was thinking I'd take all her stuff out of her room when she isn't looking and dump it in a few different showers around the wing and turn them on" she replied. Now, once again, I know this wasn't exactly right, but at the time I really didn't give a ****. “Sounds like a plan to me" I answered.

The next morning, while Roller Pig was watching church, Sherry started her mission. She emptied all the drawers in RP's room and started dumping the contents in her shower. Unfortunately, she decided she would make sure Roller Pig knew who did it.
I heard her screaming and looked over to see her running down the hall with the biggest pair of underwear I've ever seen. “Look, I found a hot air balloon in Roller Pig's room" she yelled out.

Rosemary was horrified and started rolling towards her. Sherry ran behind her, and put those huge *** drawers over RP's head, just before the MHA's managed to grab a hold of her and yet again tranq her and toss her in the quiet room.
There are very few things in my life I've seen that were funnier than that morning.
Ross was easily the worst roommate I ever had. He was loud, hyper and just downright annoying as hell. He decided that I would be his new best friend, even though it was painfully clear I couldn't stand him. Everywhere I went on the wing, Ross would follow me. If I got up and moved, Ross would be about 3 steps behind me. He was like a bloodhound, no matter where I was, he'd find me. Soon my hatred for Ross knew no bounds.

Ross was also the biggest wigger I've ever seen in my life. Think of that piece of **** movie Malibu's Most Wanted. He was that guy. He also had the rather unfortunate habit of calling everyone "nigga". The staff, patients, even the servers upstairs in the dining hall. Since many of the staff was black, this was not taken kindly.
Ross's biggest **** up, however, came in the form of a new patient named Janet. Janet was a big, violent woman from Plainfield. Straight up ghetto *****, in every sense of the word. She really didn't give a **** about anything.

Her second day on the wing, Ross went up to her and said "What up my nigga". Janet went through the ****ing roof. "What the ****?" she screamed. "Who the **** are you calling a ******?” "Nah nah nah" Ross said. I said "what up my niggA" "I ain't no one's ******" Janet yelled. At this point, she'd apparently had enough of this kid, and hauled back and punched him right in the mouth. Ross hit the ground and started crying like a *****. 3 MHA's came running from around the desk and dragged Ross back through the magnetic double doors and into our room. Janet was basically trapped in the day rooms.
Being that I was sick of Ross and all his ****, from his stupid attitude to his crybaby tantrums to the fact that he kept me awake most of the night rambling, I decided this was a good time to get a little passive-aggressive revenge.

"Hey Janet" I said. "What the **** you want?" was her reply. "Listen, this wong is circular. If you go back through the other day room, you can get behind those magnetic doors and put some more work in on Ross. Hell, I'll even run interference so they don't see you going around the other way" I told her. "Just wait till they turn their attention to me, then run down the other hall and you'll be on other side of the doors" "Ok, go ahead" she told me.

I went up to the main wing doors and started kicking them as hard as I could. This immediately brought a flurry of MHA's and nurses down towards me.” What the hell are you doing?" one of the MHA's demanded. "Oh nothing" I replied. Janet took this opportunity to run down the hall and around to the other side of the wing and start beating the **** out of Ross. I never knew girls could hit like that. She grabbed him and threw him down and got on top of him and started punching the ever-loving **** out of Ross.
"AAAAAH! Help! Get her off me" he screamed out. 2 MHA's ran around the other side of the wing while 2 others fumbled with the key to get the door open. By the time they got Janet off of Ross, he was a mess. His nose was gushing blood like a fountain, and the bruises were already starting to form. Janet was tranq'd and tossed in the quiet room, which is pretty much standard hospital fight protocol.

As for me, it was pretty much obvious to the staff what I had done, and I was dropped back down to Status 1, which meant no leaving the wing for meals, which sucked because food in a styro box is never good. Also, it meant I would once again have to eat in the same area as my buddy Ross. My whole time in Summit, Ross never figured out why I chose that moment to start kicking the doors. Ross wasn't too bright.
The day I was discharged, Ross decided to be funny and slug me in the back as I was leaving. It wasn't an incredibly impressive or painful punch, but it really pissed me off. Since I was already on my way out the door, and pretty much no longer Summit property, I turned around and punched him in the chest as hard as I could. Right before I left the wing, I turned to see Ross on the couch with tears in his eyes and a confused look on his face.

If you happen to be reading this...**** you Ross.

Karen was a 32 year old architect who I got along rather well with. She was as whacked out as I was at the time, as well as an alcoholic. Her boyfriend had actually come to visit her once, where he proceeded to dump her rather publicly. He told her he "couldn't take this **** with her anymore" and it was "best if she didn't attempt to call him ever again". It was a ****ed up thing to do, breaking up with her while she was in the hospital trying to get better, and it quickly earned the wrath of Sherry as well as myself.
As he was attempting to leave, I went and stood by the main doors, knowing the MHA's wouldn’t buzz him out if I was standing there. I was repeatedly told to move out of the way by the staff, but I had to stay there so Sherry could do whatever she was planning (I run great interference).

When the staff started coming to move me away from the doors, Sherry struck. She ran right up to George and hit him as hard as she could in the side of the head. "You ****in’' lowlife cocksucker" she shrieked. "How the **** are you gonna dump her NOW?" At this point I realized I should probably go help Sherry, since she looked like she was about to get her *** kicked by a rather angry George.
George started raising his hand up to hit her, when I grabbed him from behind and spun him into a wall. "Surely you weren't going to hit a girl, now were you?" I asked him. "She hit me first dude" he replied. "Yeah, and?" I answered. "So if she steps up like a guy she can get dropped like a guy" was his argument. "Well, you can try and drop me first if you like” I told him. (He probably would have been able to do it too, I’m not gonna lie) At this point, the MHA's were all over us.
Sherry was, as usual, tranq'd and put in the quiet room. I was dragged into the other day room and George was allowed to leave.

Later that night at dinner, Karen came up to Sherry and me and said “I really appreciate what you guys did for me, but it wasn't necessary". I started to answer "Well, he's ****ed up and deserved it" but Sherry cut me off. "Oh **** him" she said. “He deserved it, and if he ever comes back, I'll hit him the second I see him". Sherry had a real penchant for violence. God I miss her.

Karen joined our little crew and soon after we were always together. When me and Sherry weren't causing trouble, Karen would sit and talk with us (me) for hours on end. She was designated Wife #2 (hey the hospital is boring and we needed a way to entertain ourselves, so we had a 3 way "marriage").
She and I eventually decided we would start hanging out when we were both discharged. We exchanged email addys and phone numbers. Sherry thought it was a good idea, but she took Karen aside one day (I found this out later on) and told her “If you **** him over and I find out about it, I'll slit your ****ing throat".

Even though she was 10 years older than me, we still got along great. We spent a lot of time together whenever we could. Eventually I realized we didn't have much to talk about other than being in the hospital. She couldn't drink, so we couldn’t hang out in bars. She couldn't really even be near alcohol without slipping up and starting to drink.
Things deteriorated after that, and I eventually decided to break things off. At first she seemed ok with it, but after about a week, I started getting drunken voicemails and illegible emails. Constantly. It was starting to get creepy after awhile. She started coming by my house at weird hours of the night, knocking on my window (stalker + +) all drunk and whatever.

I wasn't sure how to handle it, so I called Summit and talked to Sherry about it. "Give me the *****'s number" she said. "I'll take care of her". Now, as much as I thought it was a good idea, I knew it was a bad idea. Sending Sherry after someone was akin to giving a junkyard dog a newborn infant to play with. "I think that's a bad idea Sher, I gotta be honest" I told her. She eventually gave in and swore to be nice about the whole thing. I was pretty high at the time, so I ended up giving her the number. What a ****ing mistake that was.

The next day I got one last voicemail from Karen. "Jesus Christ, Mike, ****ing Sherry called me and told me she was going to stick a hot fireplace poker up my twat if I ever called you again" I had to laugh; it was just such a Sherry thing to say. Karen never did call me again after that.

And now we know why it's a bad idea to date chicks you meet in mental hospitals.
Jamie was my roommate in Runnells. Jamie wasn't quite as bad as Ross from Summit, but he still ****ing sucked. He'd sleep all day, which meant he'd be awake all night. If he wasn't a schizophrenic, it wouldn't have been that bad. But, he would spend the entire night awake talking to his closet. He would have serious conversations with it, to the point I started to wonder if I was as crazy as he was for listening to it and trying to figure out what the closet was "saying" to him. Jamie also didn't believe in showering. In Runnells, they actually have a shower checklist to make sure people are bathing. Apparently the truly whacked aren't big on showers, and he was definitely no exception.

The room was starting to smell, partly from Jamie himself, as well as his funky *** clothes he never bothered to put in the laundry. He was also a ****ing bed wetter, so you can imagine what the room smelled like.
One day, I'd had enough and started yelling at him to take a shower and do his laundry, especially his bed linens. He just looked at me with an odd expression on his face, and rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. I ended up having to talk to the MHA's about his funk. "We've been trying to get him to shower for about 2 weeks now" Ken said. Ken was by far the coolest MHA on the ward. He'd let us take extra cigs out for break (the limit was 2), when he was on night shift he wasn't a **** about lights out as long as we were quiet, and he gave awesome haircuts.

I took Ken into my room and told him to get a good whiff. He did, and immediately got on Jamie's *** about it. “Jamie, get up man. You need to get your *** in the shower right now, and do some laundry, you're stinking the joint up" Jamie responded with a simple "No".
Ken left the room and came back with two other MHA's, Abe and Desmond. "Jamie, if you don't get up and hit the shower right now, we'll drag you into the shower room, strip you down and dump you in a stall, man" Ken told him. "Be smart about this" Jamie once again responded with "No".
Well, that pretty much did it. Desmond and Abe picked Jamie up, one holding each arm, and dragged him into the shower room. I could hear Jamie yelling and fighting while they were trying to strip him down, but 3 on 1 little guy is definitely not fair odds.
Out of nowhere I heard a different kind of yelling, and it sure as hell wasn't Jamie. "Sonofa*****! The little ****er just pissed on me!" Desmond yelled. At this point the whole wing was listening outside the door, and we all just erupted in laughter.
Desmond came flying out of the shower room, cursing like a sailor. “I don't get paid enough for this ****ing ********. Mother****ers pissing on me, and biting, all sorts of ****" he said. "**** this place".

While Abe and Ken were still trying to maneuver Jamie into the shower and get him scrubbed down, another MHA named Ginny went and collected all his laundry and threw it in the washing machine. She came over to me and asked “Can he wear something of yours while his clothes are in the wash?".
"No chance in hell" I replied. "Do you think I want a serial pisser in anything I own?” They ended up giving him a pair of scrubs to wear. I really felt sorry for the MHA's who had to handle that stinky little bastard.

The rest of the time I was there, anytime Desmond was on the floor, the running joke was "Anyone piss on you today Desmond"? Desmond ended up hating all of us.
My third or fourth day in Runnells I met a woman named Gloria. Gloria was pretty ****ing whacked, and it was easy to tell right from the jump.
She spent a lot of time sitting off by herself and watching people. For some reason, I found this rather interesting and started watching her. She would also slink around the floor following people around.
Once she started following me, I figured I should probably say something to her. "Hey lady, why are you following me around?" I asked her. "Aye Dios Mio" She replied. "You can see me?" "Um, yeah" I replied, while thinking "What the ****?" "You're the only one who can see me. I'm invisible" she replied. "Are you God?"
Now, I know when something is going to turn out funny, so I immediately replied with " Why yes, yes I am" She dropped to her knees and started praying in Spanish. Unfortunately, from the MHA desk all they could see was her kneeling in front of me.
This did not go over well at all. "Mike, Gloria, what the hell are you doing?!" was yelled out as an MHA who's name escapes me at the moment came rushing over to us. "It's not what it looked like man" I said to him. "She was just praying because she thinks I'm God". The MHA rolled his eyes at me and sent me off to my room.

Over the next few days, I watched Gloria stalk her way around the wing, going in and out of people's rooms collecting various items, from clothing to pillows and deposit them in her room. She never ****ed with any of my stuff; because I was "God", so I didn’t see any reason to tell the MHA's what was going on. In fact, I used Gloria's "invisibility" to my advantage.

For every night stinky Jamie would keep me awake with his babbling, I would tell Gloria there was stuff in the room of Jamie's that she needed to collect. The weird part is no one seemed to notice that their stuff was missing for about 2 weeks. Once people started complaining about missing stuff, the MHA's called everyone into the day room and asked if anyone knew anything about it.

Neither Gloria nor I said anything, and no one else knew what was going on, so they started room searches.
When they got to her room and opened the little closet, a giant pile of stolen crap came tumbling out.
"Gloria" Desmond said. "What the hell is this"? Gloria looked him straight in the eyes and said “You can't even see me, so how do you know it's me?" Desmond was taken back for a few seconds before he asked "I...can't see you?" "No, of course you can’t. I’m invisible" she replied. She turned and pointed at me and said "Only God can see me"
At this point I was like "oh ****, she's gonna tell him I told her to snag Jamie's crap". But she didn't. She was put on 1 on 1 for a few days while they upped her meds, and I noticed that I was being watched a little more closely from that point on.

Even though I was basically guilty of what they had in their minds, I certainly couldn't make things easy on my watchers.
At this point I still wasn't what you would call "better", so it made sense in my mind to **** with them. I would hide out in the shower room when I knew they were doing a headcount, walk around the wing after lights out, all kinds of stupid ****. Once my new meds started to kick in and I started feeling better, I realized I was basically making their jobs hard for no reason. I did, after all, do what they had suspected. It turns out that they were waiting for me to come around and admit it once I was feeling better, as my case manager told me.
"It'll probably get you out of here a lot faster if you just cop to it" Ray told me. Ray was super social worker extraordinaire, I loved that guy. So I did. I walked right up to Desmond and told him " Hey man, I was kind of directing invisible Gloria to steal my smelly *** roommate's **** out of our room" I said. "We knew that already, but the fact you admitted it shows us you're getting better" he replied. About 3 weeks later I was discharged, with Ray's help.

I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing for about the millionth time that day I could step outside and smoke a blunt. Of course, I was also wishing I had the means to do that.

Ross came in and asked me what I was doing. Now, I hated Ross, but I was struck with this sudden urge to talk, so I told him “Wishing I was high". He had a funny look on his face, turned around and left. "What the **** was that about?" I wondered to myself.
A little time passed, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, when Ross came back and said " I got you covered nigga". Normally I would have told him he sounded like a ****ing idiot for saying that, but he had piqued my curiosity. "What do you mean?" I asked. He looked over his shoulder and closed the door. "Check it out” he said." I got some Klonopins off the med cart when no one was looking"

I knew right then and there that this would end badly.
"Um Ross, they're going to know that the k-pins are missing" I said. "Nah, they won’t" he said.

Now, it's not like he took a few. He took an entire med box full of them. There were about 30 pills there.

I got up off my bed and told him to wait right where he was; I was going to check out the situation on the floor.

As soon as I walked out of my room and looked towards the nurse's station, I could see the panic in one of the MHA's eyes. I think his name was Jason. I stood back a little and listened. "They were right there" he said to the head nurse. "Are you absolutely sure?" she asked him. He looked at her and nodded. "Ok, she said. "We'll start a room to room"

At that point, I knew we would be ****ed if we got caught, or should I say if Ross got caught, just for the fact he was my roommate. I slipped back into our room and closed the door. "Ross, we got a problem" I told him. "They know and they're starting a room to room, and I know this is the first stop".
We looked around the room for a hiding spot, and nothing looked good. I walked over to the mirror and pried it up a little. "Think you can fit them under there?" I asked him. "I dunno, let's find out” he responded.
Luckily, they fit. And not a moment too soon, because the door was opened and there was Jason with 2 other MHA's. "Where's the pills?' he demanded." I have no idea what the **** you're talking about" I replied. I figured I should take control of the situation, before Ross ****ed up and spilled his guts or something.

The MHA's started looking around, through our beds, under them. They looked into my duffel bag and Ross’s suitcase. They found nothing. After the whole wing was searched they told us "No one is leaving this wing under any circumstances until we recover those pills"

Pretty much the entire wing suspected Ross or myself, so I knew we had to take drastic action.

I went back into our room, took the pill box from behind the mirror, and when I was pretty sure no one was looking, I fired them down the hallway. None of the MHA's or nurses saw me, but Sherry did. She went walking over to pick them up, and I had to physically stop her from taking them and most likely swallowing them all.
I pushed her into her room and followed, because I heard the creak of the nurse station's little door being opened.

Now, I was stuck in Sherry's room while 2 MHA's came walking down the hall to see what the commotion was about. They saw the pillbox, and went running over to get it. There was no really good explanation for me being in there. I knew they would come waltzing in at any second, so I did the only thing I could think of. I grabbed her and kissed her. Better to get yelled at for that than God knows what for stealing pills.
So, we were caught and made to stay in the day rooms under MHA supervision for the rest of the day. Once they had the pills back, they pretty much let it go, but I have a feeling they blamed Sherry and me as opposed to Ross and myself.
That was about the only decent thing I ever saw Ross do. And by decent I mean something for someone other than himself.

Fred came into the ward around the same time as me. He wasn't all that big, but you could tell he had some muscle to him. He was also totally off his ****ing rocker. It didn't take much to piss Fred off, and he actually seemed to enjoy his violent outbursts as much as we enjoyed watching them. Needless to say, Fred spent a lot of time in the quiet room, second only to Sherry.

One day a guy named Tom, who couldn't have been much over 18, decided he would start some **** with Fred. In Tom's defense, I'll explain Tom a bit. Tom was a schizophrenic, and he had major troubles with voices tell him to do things he really shouldn't do. Like ****ing with Fred, for example.
So, anyway. Tom walks up to Fred one day and asks him "Wanna fight *****?" Sherry looked at me, I looked at Fred, and Fred got up and looked at Tom. "What the **** did you just say?” he asked. "Did you just call me a ****ing ***** dude?" "Yeah" Tom replied. "God told me to fight you" It was easy to see that Tom was about to get obliterated, so I tried to step in and end it. I pulled Fred aside and told him "Look man, he's out of his ****ing head. He hears voices and ****. He doesn’t realize what he's doing"
Fred, in a moment of being reasonable, agreed with me and walked away. Sad to say, well, no not really or this story would suck, it wasn't the end. Tom ran up and snuck Fred in the back of the head. Fred turned around and just let loose all over Tom's face and head.

The fight was over in a matter of seconds, after which we told the MHA's Fred was merely acting in self defense. Tom was taken into his room by an MHA who sat with him for awhile.
Fred wasn't the type to let something like that go, and started flipping the **** out. "I can't believe that ****er TOUCHED me" he screamed.
He began pacing the wing for awhile, when all of a sudden, he flipped. He started kicking walls; he threw the garbage can in the general direction of Tom's door. He even ripped one of the payphones off the cord.

Everyone was sent to their rooms while they tried to get the situation under control. Sherry got snagged trying to slip into my room (****in’ Terry, I hate you).
It took a good 10 or 15 minutes for them to even be able to get close enough for Fred to try and grab him and stick him with the needle. Eventually they were able to, but the Ativan didn't do a god damn thing. He just kept running around and ****ing up the ward. The MHA's ended up having to call for backup, including my "dear friend" Abdullah the Butcher.
Once Fred was recaptured and drugged with Haldol, he started to calm down a lot. They were able to get him into the quiet room, where he kicked the door for about a half hour before he fell asleep.

After we were allowed out of our rooms, I felt it was my duty to give Abdullah as much **** as possible. He had, after all, used his knee to pin my head to the floor. "Hey Abdullah, did you kneel on his head too, you ****ing *****", which was kind of funny, since I was on the ground and his knee was on my head, not the other way around. That's basically what he told me, too.

Yeah, I felt stupid.
Here’s the story of Michael, PFC First Class
I briefly described Michael earlier in the first post. He was your text book paranoid schizophrenic, with a twist.
He did some of the funniest things I've ever seen.
In the middle of groups, he would drop to the floor and start doing pushups while yelling " 1,2,3,4, I love the Marine Corp!”
To the best of my knowledge, he was never a Marine, just for the simple fact of I can't picture anyone putting a gun in this whacky bastard's hands.

Once he got going, it was hard to get him to stop until one day Desmond got fed up and said "On your feet, Marine" It worked like a charm. Michael immediately shot to his feet and said "Sir Yes sir!"

After that, anytime Michael went into Marine calisthenics mode, he was promptly given an order to get on his feet.

Often times at smoke break, Michael would sit in one of the chairs, fling his arms out to the sides, and bring them back in and cover his eyes with them, while chanting "Hoo Hah Hoo Hah" It reminded me of a Wu Tang song on crack.
Meal times with Michael were equally funny. He would tear his food to pieces looking for foreign objects. He always "found" something in them and freaked.
One day I decided to have a little fun with Michael. After he had torn his breakfast to shred and "found" something in it, I walked over to him right before he went nuts. "Michael" I said. "Here, take mine, it should be safe". Let the record show it was some form of powdered egg **** that I wouldn't even dream of touching, so I really didn't care what happened to it.

He was, of course, elated by this. He took it back to his table and started to tear it up. He got a funny look on his face and came running over to me. "There's something in yours too" he whispered. "They're trying to kill everyone named Michael on the wing"
At this point, I probably should have told him that he was wrong, and he was just seeing things that weren't there. But, I didn't. I asked him "What do we do about it"?
He smiled and said "Let us handle it" As soon as he said "us", I knew the **** was about to hit the fan.

He took both trays and ran up to the MHA desk and screamed "Incoming!" and fired both trays over the counter onto an MHA named Sandra. He then dove to the floor and screamed "Semper Fi! Do or die!"

The whole wing started cracking up, even the MHA's who weren't behind the desk. Well, everyone but Sandra and Ken. Ken was really pissed off for some reason. He ran over to Michael and picked him up and dragged him over to the nurse's station and had him sedated before he was tossed into his room.

After he finished doing that, he came right for me. I had a feeling I was pretty much ****ed when I saw him heading to my table, and I was right. "What the **** did you say to him?" he asked. "I just offered him my breakfast man" I told him. "You know I don't eat this fake eggs ****"
I almost got that lie off. Almost. "Michael told Mike that both their breakfasts had stuff in them, and Mike asked him to handle it" said Maritza.
Maritza was an 18 year old psycho in every sense of the word. She believed that she was Mary, the mother of God.

If you were stupid enough to speak to her, she would talk for a few minutes, then scream out things like “Get away from me" and "He's (or she) is trying to rape me" Needless to say, most people avoided her and her mustache like the plague.
Ken just glared at me for a second, and then said "You know you're in trouble, right?" "Ken", I replied. "Are you really going to take her word over mine? She thinks she's the ****ing mother of God, for ****'s sake" "I may have asked him what we should do about the alleged foreign objects, but I certainly didn't tell him to go bombard Sandra with that gross *** **** you people call breakfast" I said. "Ok, I'm going to believe you for now, until Michael comes off the Haldol and I talk to him. If I find out you're ********ting me, you're in deep ****" he replied. "Hey, no problem" I responded.

Now I was stuck at the mercy of an insane wannabe Marine. I lounged around for a few hours, until I saw Michael come out of his room. I had every intention of coaching him on what to say to Ken, but Ken beat me over there.
All I could do now was listen and hope for the best. "Michael" Ken said. "I need to talk to you about this morning" "Ok" Michael replied. Ken then asked him “Did Mike tell you to throw those trays at Sandra?" Now was the moment of truth, and I had no idea what he was going to say. "Trays? I didn't throw any trays" he responded. "My C.O. called in an artillery strike on an enemy position"

At this point I could see Ken was getting annoyed, so he asked "Well, who is your C.O.?"
Michael stood up straight, looked him straight in the eyes and said "Michael, pfc first class, 123456789" "Under the Geneva Convention, all I'll give you is my name, rank and serial number".
Ken just gave up at this point, and walked over to me and said "You're lucky he's out of his mind, but I'll keep an eye on the both of you"
And that's how the war movie ban at Runnells came about.

Wow, I had no idea people with mental imbalances had so much fun. Next time I swing by one of those places, I'm going to grab a Thorazine Big Gulp. That should pass the week real damn fast.*

It has alot of cursing, and it is not formatted correctly, but outlines my somewhat positive look on the wards while growing up.

How do you tell the staff from the patients? They have the keys.

During a group therapy session in a hospital, an abused woman started talking about killing her husband. We all joined in with plans. The nurses in charge of the group sent us all to our rooms. To rebel we went to the TV room and watched all the videos that were labeled "Only to be viewed with psychiatrist's consent".

The first time I was hospitalized I had agreed to spend the weekend. I was agitated and walked the halls. I saw a large whiteboard with "discharge meeting" listed every other Wednesday and the first meeting was two weeks away. I immediately call my mom to take me out of the hospital. After she arrived the pdoc and nurse came in and explained that at the meetings they reviewed the charts of people who had already left... however, they never used it again until the last day I was there.

^^^^^^brilliant!

This was pretty interesting. Kind of sad and funny at the same time. I've been in the hospital and was the one who sang the same 3 songs off and on and tore the pages I liked out of the magazines no one read. Plus other stuff.
By the way, the name Friday is from the novel Robinson Crusoe. The main character rescues a tribal guy from being eaten by his cannibal friends, and names him Friday after that day. So that's probably where that staff member's nickname came from.
Very interesting read!

One last memory... A woman on the ward was a good piano player so every morning 3 or 4 of us would loudly sing the theme song to MASH while she played... It is actually called "Suicide is Painless". One day we went to the piano and the sheet music was gone. There went one pleasure.

Wow.

This is exactly why I lied about suicide attempts to stay out of the hospital!

Seems like I'm not the only one that's witnessed bullying in a psychiatric unit. It annoys me slightly that anyone would find humour in bullying; humiliating and/or intimidating patients in a hospital. People go to those places when they're having a really, REALLY tough time. The last thing they need is to have their place of safety turned into a school playground.

However, I do agree that inpatient CAN be fun. I remember flirting quite a lot with one of my fellow patients...and we got a bit of a buzz from breaking hospital rules on a daily basis. During one admission, I actually formed a strong friendship with a staff member, and I'd steal his keys off of him and his ID card and threaten to escape and I'd wave them in front of him...and he actually laughed with me.

RB ♥

My pdoc said although I've gone to the PER for thinking of swallowing a bottle of pills, my thoughts are more stress than actual attempts to kill myself. She still said I did what I was supposed to.

Yeah, I don't think I ever truly wanted to die - I just wanted the misery to stop and it was so bad I couldn't think of anything else to do about it.

My 3 admissions ( voluntary) in 2011 were very interesting and often scarey depending on the type of other patients I had to share the wing with.
As far as staff goes All but one nurse was fabulous and helped me . the mental health techs all but 1 were also fabulous and one in Particular "john" helped me a great deal with trying to control my Fibromyalgia pain... He was very much into " natural healing and healthy food All my doctors just want to toss pills at me for fibro pain not figure out other ways to treat it... so John took most of his lunch and breaks talking to me and helping me figure out how I can make a differance . If I could afford to eat the right food im certain my pain would decrease.

I read your post and found alot of it amusing but I also feel bad for people that are so messed up they dont really understand where they are or whats happening to them .. I guess I would just hate to be that bad off ...I have worked in healthcare all my life and maybe its that moral code drilled into my head I couldnt pick on anyone or cause anyone additional stress.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Chandler's story. Many of my hospitalizations were so like his. So many of the people brought back memories of those I spent time with and the types of people I chose to hang with.

There was the Schizophrenic witch. Who cursed us all. Very effectively too. I'll never forget her. The DID person who kept making a break for it from the locked ward. All the times we stole meds off the carts. The many times we staged revolts in the "cafeteria".

all the times we'd end up in the "quiet room", "Padded Cell", Locked room depending on the facility.

Playing tricks on each other. Hurting so bad that hurting each other made perfect sense at the time.

It brought back the fun times in the hospital. I don't have the clarity of memories to be as specific, but I felt like I was reading my history.

Today I would hope I would not want to hurt others. Back then I was a different person.

Being in the hospital can be fun in a very sick demented sort of way.

Geez it really pisses me off that the general response to any kind of acting out seems to be doping up the patients and tossing them in solitary. Unless someone is physically attacking someone or trying to kill themselves why do they need to be medicated into a stupor? Not cool.