[tsrc78]

Has anyone ever been in a long term psychiatric facility? If so, how did you end up there? Did you need a referral from a psychiatric provider? How long did you stay?

[Unhinged88]

I have only been admitted for about 7-10 days. Basically how long my insurance would cover. I did meet people in there who were going on 3 months. In a state run facility, a girl was there for almost a year. These would be good questions to ask your doctor if you think you need longer term help. Or you could research specific hospitals online.

Sorry I am not much help!

[wildflowerchild25]

Only when I was a teenager. There aren’t any in my state so it was the state hospital. Total hell. Laughable “treatment”. No groups, no therapy, just medication up to the eyeballs (several of the girls in my unit were on Thorazine four times a day, including an eleven year old). Lots of time to sit around. Staff was horrible. After I left they managed to kill a girl by restraining her improperly and get the place shut down. Thank god for that.

Anyway I imagine private facilities are much nicer. I wanted to go to one when I was 19 and going through absolute hell but I couldn’t afford it. I only had state insurance and like I said I would have had to travel out of state somewhere.

I have never been to a long term facility specifically, but my longest psych hospital admission was over 3 months. I would honestly not recommend it unless absolutely necessary. Looking back, the doctor kept me far longer than I should have been. And the longer one stays in an institutional setting, the more one becomes used to it and less used to the "outside world". If you need long-term treatment then absolutely consider it, but be careful.

[raspberrytorte]

I've been in one. I was there for three weeks. I didn't like it.

[Nammu]

I was in a state hospital they took me to court and the idiot dr testified that I was a danger to myself and the judge committed me to 6 months then they tried to get another judge to extend the stay despite the facts there was no treatment beyond meds and I spent most of my days outside the unit. A few years later the took out a full page ad apologizing for their poor care, way to late and way too little.

[SorryShaped]

I don't think it would be all that bad to be in hospital a few months. I'd get my meds better worked out and more intense therapy. I wouldn't have an outside life but, do I really need one?

[amicus_curiae]

Originally Posted by tsrc78

Has anyone ever been in a long term psychiatric facility? If so, how did you end up there? Did you need a referral from a psychiatric provider? How long did you stay?

Uh, yeah, I had a referral... from the doc at the county crisis center (after repeated ‘visits’) straight to the main campus of the state-run towering mental hospital. Three+ years, if that’s long-term enough for ya. (Eight years in a psych wing of a nursing home, but who’s counting?)

These places are so much more horrific than can be imagined. They screen staff to weed out the non-malevolent and the uncruel. Extra points awarded for demeaning and/or belittling patients; steak dinners for staff who can bring about physical harm with the best ‘patient was presenting physical harm to self or others’ write-up.

There is no order. People go without showering until forcibly bathed. They crap their pants and go for days without notice. It’s okay if you wanna sleep away that daily dose of 2000mg of Thorazine. Nobody cares. Miss your daily 15-minute visit with your shrink? Nobody cares. Game boxes, puzzles and card decks are all missing pieces. Do you really believe that holidays will be any different than any other day? No and hell, no. The best spiritual exercises take place in filthy shower stalls with wooden-slat flooring. Laundry is sporadic and you will forever be wearing someone else’s clothes. No books, just gardening, decorating and yacht magazines.

You would think that going outside for a smoke would be blissful. But the rules change from week-to-week and you have a single staff member handing out cigarettes to one-hundred patients and if you miss that 15-minute gap you must wait another four-hours to catch a puff.

I’m not sure how I survived, really. I was in a deep, deep BP MDD state with occasional hypomania. And psychotic. And mute until some genius doc put me into the ECT rotation.

I remember two things. I remember the random-pattern of brownish specks of paint on the tan cinderblock walls. And the smells.

Life in a state-run long-term mental hospital sucks. You go to sleep feeling hopeless and you awake with morbid hopelessness.

Now my first stints in a short-term private clinic? Sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll! But the insurance ran out.

I guess that there may be private long-term mental facilities? Mmm... I don’t know; that sounds like a private room in a corporate nursing home psych wing.

[tecomsin]

I was hospitalized 5 times involuntarily for periods ranging from 3 weeks to 1 month over the last 10 years. The last time I was almost declared incompetent to make medical decisions and would have been forcibly medicated on a community treatment order but the doctor at the end decided not to go through with it and I had my own lawyer too at that point. I would call the treatment I received on the whole barbaric and cruel. If it had been longer I would start also to wonder about becoming 'institutionalized', which scaredandconfused brought up. I did not at any point get the feeling that anyone cared about my well being, rather they were simply trying to control me and get me to obey their instructions at all times no matter what the instructions were. I was still psychotic each time I was discharged from hospital because I never talked about my delusional beiefs because I was afraid I would be incarcerated longer. I think it is true that if I had talked about my delusions they would have kept me longer. The fact that I was being kept against my will fed into my paranoia too, so I didnt trust any of the doctors and I don't think of psychiatrists as doctors of any kind of scientific medicine.

[SorryShaped]

At 17 I was in a facility for a month. I left undiagnosed, untreated and was told "whatever happened here, you did it on your own." My life could have been so different if only they'd recognized bipolar symptoms. A-hats

[tsrc78]

Thanks for the input everyone. It sounds like some facilities really aren’t much better than the short term inpatient facility i’ve gone to, three times in the past two years.

It’s just that i’m getting a little afraid of myself. Last night was the second time this month I left my house without telling my family, turned off my phone, and just drove around for a few hours. The first time, I felt the need to escape. But I really was in a break from reality, I don’t remember much other than driving around dark roads out in the county, ending up at a grocery store but feeling unable to get out of the car. Last night I needed to escape again, this time just driving around the city to find a place to be alone, but after 9:30 p.m. all parks and such were closed. I ended up in a parking lot near my daughter’s gym, cried for a while, then fell asleep in the car. I got home around 1:30, everyone was still asleep, no one even knew I was gone, which was so much better than my husband calling me every 5 minutes worried about where I was.

I don’t know, I’m worried I’m going to leave and keep going. My illness just seems to be getting worse, I can’t handle simple activities, my moods are all over the place. I get overwhelmed easily, in addition to crying, i’m starting to have panic attacks when I feel overwhelmed. I’m taking my meds, but not on a good schedule. I don’t want to be here, but I can’t harm myself because our only family income is my disability, and I can’t leave my family homeless. All I care about are the needs of my kids, my husband, they consume me. I have thought about running away many times, but this month has been the first time i’ve really been at that edge by leaving the house and not knowing if I have the courage to come back. But then I can’t leave because we only have one car. Sigh. I’m sick of it all, it makes me hate my existence even more.

I just want to go to a safe place for a while, because short term inpatient does nothing for me. I need time to force myself to get my medications under control, but I also need a lot of therapy to learn how to cope with life, and it sounds like a lot of you never got that. Because I’m not coping with life at all.

Another thing that keeps me here is because I don’t have the money to leave - again, I have to think about everyone else, I can’t take all our money with me. But when we get our tax refund back likely sometime next month...I don’t trust myself that I won’t just leave. I think I just want a safe place to be right now. Now I wish I had never deleted the phone numbers of one of the men I met during my horrible manic episode a year and a half ago. I can’t believe I’ve gotten that desperate.

I see a completely new psychiatrist in 2 weeks, I don’t know how she will process all this info. I shouldn’t have the money to leave by then, so hopefully I won’t make any impulsive decisions before the appointment. If long term inpatient is so horrible, I don’t know what to do.

Thanks for listening. Keep telling me about your experiences.

[Victoria'smom]

What about intensive outpatient program? They do med management and therapy but you go home at night or a partial hospitalization program. You'll usually last 6+ weeks.

[SorryShaped]

Few questions:
Your daughter's gym... Why do you think you wound up there? Missing something with your daughter?
Your needs are important, just as important as everyone else's. You seem to think others are more important. No. We're all equally important. How can you care for them if your needs aren't met? Cars need gas or they won't go. Fill yourself up first

[tsrc78]

Originally Posted by Miguel'smom

What about intensive outpatient program? They do med management and therapy but you go home at night or a partial hospitalization program. You'll usually last 6+ weeks.

I’ve never heard of that, but i’ll look into it when I see the new psychiatrist. If anyone knows about something like that it would be at Duke. Problem is I live 1 1/2 hours away, so going home everyday would be a bit exhausting. But it is something to ask about. Thanks.

[SorryShaped]

Originally Posted by tsrc78

I’ve never heard of that, but i’ll look into it when I see the new psychiatrist. If anyone knows about something like that it would be at Duke. Problem is I live 1 1/2 hours away, so going home everyday would be a bit exhausting. But it is something to ask about. Thanks.

I did IOP that was 25 miles each way. Really sucked on a motorcycle in the rain, going from there to work. I wasn't DX bipolar then either. Why can't they catch this? Anyway, I stopped going when they yelled, and I do mean yelled, at me for being 25 minutes late, while riding in the rain.

[tsrc78]

Originally Posted by SorryShaped

Few questions:
Your daughter's gym... Why do you think you wound up there? Missing something with your daughter?
Your needs are important, just as important as everyone else's. You seem to think others are more important. No. We're all equally important. How can you care for them if your needs aren't met? Cars need gas or they won't go. Fill yourself up first

Oh my daughter’s gym wasn’t really significant. It is just near a couple of parks that were closed and the last road I could turn into before hitting construction. It’s at the end of a complex with a building where people go in and out throughout the night. So close enough to other building to feel safe, but far enough from the building I could sit alone in a large part of the parking lot. I knew no one would be out doing gymnastics at 11 p.m. . We all live together, so I am constantly around my daughters and husband.

It’s hard to put my needs as important, because if that were the case I think I would have abandoned my life awhile ago. But I know that is selfish, so it keeps me here. It’s not that I don’t love my girls, I love them more than anything in this world. But they were both adopted as infants and have somewhat of understanding their birth moms just weren’t able to take care of them, so that’s why they are a part of our family. No matter how much I want to leave, I can’t bear the thought of them thinking another mom abandoned them, couldn’t take care of them. And my husband has been the biggest emotional support I could have, but he’s never financially contributed to our family consistently in our 16 years of marriage, except part time for about 2 years. I know being the only financial support, often working a full and part time job, while having bipolar, wore me out over time and I know made my illness worse which is part of why I am not stable enough to work now. But I have to be supportive of him constantly trying to figure out ways to make money, which has been home-based business work. Which means he is always at home, I’m always at home. And I’m involved with business stuff too, because I’m normally very good with planning, but I am so scattered, can’t concentrate, and honestly have no motivation to do much.

I’m tired. I don’t even know how to take care of myself without sacrificing others’ needs. Almost everything I do is wrapped in with my husband and my kids, because I am never away from them. I just wish my husband would leave during the day, give me time to myself that isn’t after 9:30 p.m. when everyone is in bed. I guess that’s why I have this strong desire to escape.

[Pookyl]

Yes for 5-6 weeks.
I have been admitted in only once for mania. Was put on Lithium and Seroquel then.
Once for catatonic depression.
Every other time was for a mixed episode with me being actively suicidal.
With admissions my pdoc has suggested it or I have requested it (usually because I no longer know how to keep myself safe). My pdoc phones the hospital and organises an admission time.

iop is not an option here. I also think for someone like me I would be compliant during the program and be unsafe and get up to mischief outside the program. I’m better off in 24/7 inpatient care.

[bizi]

I her your cry for privacy!!!!
Time for yourself.
I use the bathroom if I want privacy, or go into the office and shut the door, hubby knocks to come in.
We don't have kids but I sympathize with you.
(((((HUGS)))))
IOP intensive out patient therapy, google it for your area.
bizi

[SorryShaped]

You need to care for you! Nobody is doing it and it shows. You are important and your needs are not being met and it's hurting those you're putting before you! Can't they tell you're in pain? My heart hurts for you. You aren't helping you but you're doing everything for them. That's nothing but bad for everyone. Please help yourself. Please believe that you matter. Please believe your needs must be met. Please believe you're worthy of it and more.

[Moreta]

Originally Posted by tsrc78

I’ve never heard of that, but i’ll look into it when I see the new psychiatrist. If anyone knows about something like that it would be at Duke. Problem is I live 1 1/2 hours away, so going home everyday would be a bit exhausting. But it is something to ask about. Thanks.

Duke is a good hospital. I was at their psych ward in 2010 for 9 days. I'm about 2 hrs west of it. In most of the major cities in NC they have PHP and IOP programs. There's 2 places in Winston and a couple in Greensboro. Not sure where you're at in NC though. East of Raleigh things get sparse. There might be something in Greenville. IDK much about eastern NC though. I just know my mother in law lives in bellhaven by the coast. I've only lived in Winston, Greensboro, Kernersville, and in Stokesdale out in the sticks. lol.

Definitely ask your pdoc about it though, he would know more about services offered in your area. I think you need a referral anyways for insurance purposes.

[tsrc78]

Originally Posted by Moreta

Duke is a good hospital. I was at their psych ward in 2010 for 9 days. I'm about 2 hrs west of it. In most of the major cities in NC they have PHP and IOP programs. There's 2 places in Winston and a couple in Greensboro. Not sure where you're at in NC though. East of Raleigh things get sparse. There might be something in Greenville. IDK much about eastern NC though. I just know my mother in law lives in bellhaven by the coast. I've only lived in Winston, Greensboro, Kernersville, and in Stokesdale out in the sticks. lol.

Definitely ask your pdoc about it though, he would know more about services offered in your area. I think you need a referral anyways for insurance purposes.

Oh that is good to know! I was trying to find IOP but wasn’t having luck Googling info. I find info about substance abuse IOPs, but I don’t have a substance abuse problem. Right now we do live in eastern NC (which I hate) but we are planning to move back to Greensboro this year! Hopefully over the summer.

We moved to Greensboro in 2003 when I got a job right after I left grad school, and stayed until the summer of 2015, when I moved to work at a different state agency here in my hometown. Different state agency, but essentially the same job, because my job in Greensboro was getting reclassified into a totally new position. Absolutely loved the heart of my job (conducting developmental assessments on young children), but could not take being so understaffed, stressed, with no flexibility. My bipolar disorder was getting worse, so I got the courage to call in sick once when I needed a “mental health day”, and the entire assessment team literally fell apart. We were all doing assessments, nearly everyday, in multiple counties, and so short-staffed, it ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe when I couldn’t show up one day. That was unbelievably stressful. My illness kept getting worse, and two hospitalizations later I was unable to go back to work. I just cannot take being in a city I hate, with poor psychiatric care, and family that provides no emotional support. I’m not working my job, any work my husband can find will be home-based, so I have no reason to be here. I can’t wait to hopefully move back to the city I call my real home, with access to better care, either there or at Wake Forest if needed.

At any rate, thanks for that info, I will look into any options I can find when we move back to Greensboro. I know the environment I’m in now is detrimental to my well-being, and I love Greensboro. But I also know moving is not going to cure my illness. I was in Greensboro when I was diagnosed and spent many years there afterwards. So I’m glad there are supports like that there.

[sonjaward809]

I've only been in one twice but there's been plenty of times I should've went. Just didn't tell the doctors what was going on because I knew where I would go. The longest I've been in a IP facility was 2 weeks, really I should of been there longer but I lied my way out since I hated being there. I felt caged in and on edge all the time. The shortest stay was 5 days, and I also did the same thing there where I lied my way out but should've been in there longer. The places weren't horrible but there's this thought that "what if they never let me out". So I find my way out myself. There was group every day and a structured setting for us. Food wasn't terrible the second time around .. but I lost a lot of weight the first time cause I wouldn't eat. I didn't trust the food and it tasted horrible. I'm just afraid I'll never get out and be stuck in there forever so I start to panic a bit. I probably should be in an IOP program but my car crapped out on me.

[Moreta]

Originally Posted by tsrc78

Oh that is good to know! I was trying to find IOP but wasn’t having luck Googling info. I find info about substance abuse IOPs, but I don’t have a substance abuse problem. Right now we do live in eastern NC (which I hate) but we are planning to move back to Greensboro this year! Hopefully over the summer.

We moved to Greensboro in 2003 when I got a job right after I left grad school, and stayed until the summer of 2015, when I moved to work at a different state agency here in my hometown. Different state agency, but essentially the same job, because my job in Greensboro was getting reclassified into a totally new position. Absolutely loved the heart of my job (conducting developmental assessments on young children), but could not take being so understaffed, stressed, with no flexibility. My bipolar disorder was getting worse, so I got the courage to call in sick once when I needed a “mental health day”, and the entire assessment team literally fell apart. We were all doing assessments, nearly everyday, in multiple counties, and so short-staffed, it ripped a hole in the fabric of the universe when I couldn’t show up one day. That was unbelievably stressful. My illness kept getting worse, and two hospitalizations later I was unable to go back to work. I just cannot take being in a city I hate, with poor psychiatric care, and family that provides no emotional support. I’m not working my job, any work my husband can find will be home-based, so I have no reason to be here. I can’t wait to hopefully move back to the city I call my real home, with access to better care, either there or at Wake Forest if needed.

At any rate, thanks for that info, I will look into any options I can find when we move back to Greensboro. I know the environment I’m in now is detrimental to my well-being, and I love Greensboro. But I also know moving is not going to cure my illness. I was in Greensboro when I was diagnosed and spent many years there afterwards. So I’m glad there are supports like that there.

Have fun with wendover. :P It's gotten worse since 2015. I was seeing a dr off cone and had to take wendover to get there and it made me so anxious driving on that road I just stopped going to see him. haha. Winston is much more chill. I know Greennsboro has a NAMI meeting too. Not sure about DBSA or MHA. We have those in Winston.

[tsrc78]

Originally Posted by Moreta

Have fun with wendover. :P It's gotten worse since 2015. I was seeing a dr off cone and had to take wendover to get there and it made me so anxious driving on that road I just stopped going to see him. haha. Winston is much more chill. I know Greennsboro has a NAMI meeting too. Not sure about DBSA or MHA. We have those in Winston.

OMG, you mean Wendover is WORSE? It was really bad the last time we were there! When we lived there and our girls were younger, we used to buy a lot of supplies in bulk. Everyone always talked about how wonderful Costco was compared to Sam’s Club. But from where we lived, way down off west Friendly, we could get to Walmart and Sam’s club from the back way, not from Wendover. We lived in that area for 7 years and it wasn’t until our last year we tried out Costco - all because we didn’t want to go that small distance down Wendover! Lol. I already know I’ve got to avoid going east and west on Wendover, or it will induce panic attacks.

We lived in Winston too, I did my undergrad at Wake Forest University, and I used to go to Winston a lot for work. But we loved Greensboro so much more. I think we did like that bigger city feel of Greensboro, it always seemed active and interesting. Honestly, I don’t feel the need so much for it now, I think because my illness has kicked the crap out of me for the past few years, I just want calm. Just can’t afford to move to the Caribbean yet. . My husband really misses all the things to do in Greensboro, it’s where our girls were born, there is a great gymnastics program there for my oldest, it feels like the best thing to do. I’m not craving the big city though, not like I used to, I just don’t see myself going out much. But it will be great to get to a place with much better medical care nearby. I have no problem going to Winston for anything, it’s good to have a medical school in the area, that would be much closer than I am to Duke.

In my state the only really long-term psych hospital is the state hospital, which I've heard isn't that pleasant. I think, however, they are offering fewer and fewer beds. I guess there might be some rehabilitation center for richer people that seem like resorts that could be longer term, but I've obviously never been there.

I think most people in my state go to one of the private psych hospitals or in the psych ward of a general hospital. They tend to be shorter stays for most patients, then they refer patients to Partial Hospitalization (8 hour per day programs) or Intensive Outpatient Programs (4 hours per day).

The longest I spent inpatient in a private hospital was 32 days, which was really two back to back stays. I then went to IOP.