They want me to go inpatient

Because you will be voluntary you can leave if you decide it is too much. With agoraphobia you need to push though the fears and panic or you will become 100% it's prisoner. Even if you only make it though the check in process before leaving that is progress. You will have expanded your horizons that much more.

However some insurances will not pay your hospital bill if you sign out AMA. This applies to all hospitalizations not just psych.

Thank you for sharing that! That was going to be my out plus my disability co may label me non-compliant and I don't want to have my benefits cut off.

Back to serious considerations - maybe a pro/con list?

I already work on my agoraphobia - baby steps - going into a store instead of waiting in the car, things like that. This would be monumentous for me.

The first 24-48 hours are most difficult while you adapt to your new environment. I think a psych hospital is a cross between a jail and a zoo. They usually keep your fairly busy on weekday days but evenings and weekends can be really boring.

They have washers and dryers for clients to do their own laundry. Most places will not allow you to bring your own food; one place I was at had really delicious food though. They may have payphones/vending machines for you to use so bring lots of quarters. Some will allow you to smoke and others won't. You might want to call and ask if you can bring your own pillow because hospital pillows are just limp.

I've been in 3 different hospitals and their policies can vary. One required us to wear scrubs for the first day and no shoes which was annoying. One allowed us to go outside to smoke accompanied by staff, another would not allow us off the unit at all and they had a room for smokers to smoke in several times/day, and yet another allowed the clients to go outside without staff to smoke. One of the clients who was smoking without staff allegedly raped a nurse on night shift and we saw cops come into the unit and handcuff him and take him away. I've been inpatient about a dozen times and only a couple of times did I see psychotic patients that were a handful for the staff and they always got transferred to a unit with better nurse/patient ratios.

It is normal to have anxiety before going in.