What happens?

First off, sorry for all the threads.

My question is what happens when you go in through the ER with hallucinations?
I know you go to a desk and say what's wrong and they enter personal information. Then you go to an ER room.

Do I stay there and get what I need and then go home? Or do they move me to another part of the hospital and I stay longer?

I can't say from personal experience, but I don't think they can admit you only for hallucinations. Unless you're also having ideations of hurting yourself/others.

It totally depends on the doctors. If you go in for a psychological problem, they usually have a psychiatrist come and do an assessment. They will decide whether to send you home, send you home with medications, or decide to keep you in a psych ward to monitor you and/or try medications and therapy.

It's also highly dependent on the facility you go to.

Good luck.

I once went to the ER for severe depression. I made it clear that I was not a threat to others and that I had not formulated a suicide plan. They admitted me to the ER the Doctor gave me a shot of Haldol and IV lorazepam after an hour they sent me home. They gave me no prescriptions just paperwork on finding mental health services.

I'm fortunate in that there is a nice behavioral health facility 2 miles from my house. When I've had trouble in the past, I've had somebody drive me there and talked to an intake coordinator.

I always put "psych unit admission" as my problem. My hospital is always very discrete about what my problem is. I'm usually sat in the hall until they do there assessment. Then I go in a room with a nurse she brings me into a room and I strip down to my underwear and she takes notes of any scares I have. I get dressed again and taken back to the room to sit with other psych patients until my admission paperwork is done and they have a bed.

When in the psych unit there's 5 groups, you pick your meals the day before and you see the pdoc every day. I've been there 3-10 days depending on my willingness to get better.

I'm only allowed to bring 3 sets of cloths, nothing else.

From my experience, if you're a danger to yourself or others, that's when they keep you. I've never seen a psychiatrist in the ER, but the attending physician or social worker will try and find a bed for you in that hospital's psych ward or a nearby hospital, depending on your doctor or insurance.

I went in once with just hallucinations. I guess in context of the time of my life I had severe depression but wasn't suicidal. The hallucinations were different and my pdoc wanted me to get checked out. (This is where it gets different: my pdoc is the doctor in charge of the residency program at my hospital so when she called a resident and said "this patient is coming in. Do this and this" what she said was done, which may not always be true). But I went in, told them I was hallucinating and was put in a psych ER room, which is just a room with nothing but a stretcher. The doctor checked me out and did a psych eval and said that if it was neurological as suspected I'd be medically admitted to that hospital and if it wasn't then they were going to send me to the hospital's psych facility for observation and treatment of the hallucinations. It turned out that my lithium level was sky high and the hallucinations were neurological so I went to the medical floor. So you can be admitted for hallucinations without ideation but I don't know how often.

Thanks everyone. I'm just nervous about the whole thing. Like what the experience is going to be like. I don't want my mom in the room but she has to pay. I don't want her to hear all the stuff I'm dealing with.

Your mom doesn't have to be there; you just have to say you want to talk to the doctors alone if they don't do that themselves. You're an adult so it is your situation. The only time I've been admitted to psych through the psych ER I don't think they would have let anyone in with me until they had asked questions, just because for a few minutes there were several people taking turns getting information from me and then I had to change into a gown and pj pants (just required in the ER; you wear regular clothes in the unit) and there just wasn't space for anyone else until I was settled.