What's it like to be in a Psych Ward?

Maybe I have had more luxury conditions, but I have stayed in regular psych wards in hospitals, too. The food was good (better than on the other hospital floors), and we had scheduled activities and group therapy. Of course, patients are kept a close eye on and have to obey very strict rules. I found my times to be comforting, knowing that I wouldn't be able to get out of control. There was a day room where people could watch TV, work puzzles, visit, etc. It didn't seem at all like a regular jail setting to me.

The descriptions are fairly close to my experience. The only things I have not seen mentioned are that unlike a "regular" hospital stay. once you are stable you are expected to be dressed and have meals served in a dining room. You do have choices for food. Typical select at breakfast for next day. Some have showers in your room and others have locker room type showers where you need permission to use or shower rooms where someone monitors while you shower.

All have had a ward phone area where you can make and receive calls during specific hours. Some give you options to what groups you attend others schedule your group time. They might allow your family to visit and bring treats. The treats are held at the desk though. They also do room searches.

Not everyone in the ward is there for the same reason or at the same place with their mental health. Some have hospital beds and some have regular beds. There are not TVs in the patient rooms. Some monitor the rooms with remote cameras.

They also have laundry areas and you are responsible for doing your laundry and keeping your room clean.

I've heard they've become much nicer since I have been. I was a state kid so I stayed in one after another for 7 years (about a year-two years each). I was officially committed when I was 10 years old to a max security and stayed there for a year, then the others followed. It was hell. In fact, I'll be 33 in a couple of weeks and am still receiving treatment for severe PTSD from being in them. I got beat up almost every day, bullied, treated terribly by the staff who used outlawed procedures to subdue me for reasons as trivial as silently crying to myself, I was often left in non-air conditioned quiet rooms for hours on end. They drugged me with medications that caused seizures. At one place, even made me sit in the hall, not allowed to sleep or lie down for two days because at 15, I refused to get a manditory pap smear (I had never had sex of any kind that young). The kids were the most mean. I was quiet, awkward, nerdy and tried like mad to stay in my room because of what they did to me. I was jumped, made fun of for my sexual orientation, even had another teen throw half of a cinder block and hit me in the head with it. The few friends I did manage to make, I got to see taken away, only to come back chemically lobotomized (well, might as well had been). This was the late 80's-mid 90's, though, so things may have changed since then. I voluntarily checked into a local general hospital's private psyche floor for a bad reaction to an SNRI back in 2007, but only stayed there for a week and everyone was surprisingly delightful.

Hello..I actually work at a pscyh unit which makes things difficult when dealing with my own depression. Anyway here is how it works on our unit. Once a person gets on our unit we first have them with a behavioral technician (BT) to fill out paperwork. They then change into hospital garb for just a few minutes while there is somebody in the room they don't stare at you or check your body. They just check your clothing for any sharp items, medications, drugs, cigarettes, etc. After that the RN comes in and does their assessment and somebody will show the patient around explain the policies, schedule, etc. Meanwhile somebody will also be checking your other belongings to make sure their aren't strings etc if you are on suicide precautions as we have behavioral checks for somebody not suicidal or homicidal. Within 24 hours a Dr. or Np will meet to do a history and physical. A dr as well as a clinician will be assigned that will be treating you during your stay. Unless are census is low you will likely have a roommate we really try to make sure that it is somebody that won't clash. We don't have phones or tvs in the room...We have hall phones and a large community room with a tv, food, etc. We have groups through out the day...morning group (where you set goes for the day for yourself), recreational therapy, social workers group, and nursing group. Also when the drs feel that the patient is stabilized to them off 15 minute checks they can be ordered walks. Three times a day we have staff take patients with walks outside for about 20 minutes or so for a walk. This is done at a 1:4 ratio. Our average length of stay is about 8 days..however, sometimes we have lengths of stay that last a day and others last a couple of months depending on how long it takes to stabilize the patient. The clinician will work with the patient to secure an after can plan and make appointments with a psychiatrist or pscyh np, a therapist, case manger etc...as long as the patient allows

I was in psch ward a few times. the ones that I went into when I tried to commit suicide were state run. they were dirty, scary. they were all different kind of patients all together. patients would threaten each other.. not all state hospitals are like this but the ones I went to after I made my attempts were. I was in for one month and two months.. they are not hotels.. so how there food is and the accomadations are.. are not questions that make sense.. they are places that are there to keep you save till your mind is more clearer. so you can go back into your life safe.

do they allow volunteers? im probsbly too young but id like to be anle to volunteer...

I was hospitalized for being suicidal. After going through the ER from the ambulance, I was brought to the ward. Because I was suicidal there was always someone with me, even at night when I was sleeping. I wasn't allowed to go anywhere without someone. I was assigned a psychiatrist and a social worker; I saw both of them each day I was there.
One day I snuck a plastic knife from one of my meals into my room and used it to self harm. After that they checked everything in my room every day.
I was given medications, but I was on medications before going into the hospital.
After 2 weeks I was still pretty depressed so I was given 3 electro-shock therapy treatments a week for 4 weeks. HATED IT!!!
They had several several sessions each day, but they weren't required so I didn't go. I spent a lot of time in the dining room doing zigsaw puzzles or just sitting in my room. I did have some visitors which was nice. My sister came by several times, once bringing pictures and cards from my niece and nephews. There were 2 phones that we could use, but those times were limited.
We were required to get dressed, keep our rooms clean and make our beds every day and do our laundry on Saturdays.
We weren't allowed any personal items such as phones, computers or TVs.
Everyone who worked on the ward was very nice.
It was very structured without feeling like I was in a prison.
The one positive I did get out of it was a much better psychiatrist.

If you want to be treated somewhat like a human being, get yourself into an eating disorder hospital. For some reason eating disorder patients are considered "civilized" compared to other mentally ill people.

Most every hospital has a nurse's station and a quiet area/quiet room/seclusion.

Stay away from state hospitals. They call them hospitals, but they're really prisons for mentally ill people. Places for pedophiles, too.

Expect to see the doctors for about 5 minutes every day. They may know little about you, but that won't stop them from medicating you and diagnosing you.

There are usually different levels of "care", with some people being on one-to-one (they are a danger to themselves or others and must have a staff member with them at all times), some must be on eyesight or 5 minute checks, and at the very least a 15 minute or so check, including at night. Don't expect to sleep well because your door will constantly be opened.

You will be coerced into signing a sheet that says you are there voluntarily, even though no one really is. If you do this, you have the right to refuse meds and can sign an AMA (against medical advice) which means they have to let you go in 72 hours unless you are found to still be a danger.

If you don't sign the sheet, you are "committed", which will stay on your record for decades afterward. You won't be able to get many jobs, own a weapon, etc. If you are committed, they have a right to force medications on you, and you can never leave voluntarily.

Some hospitals allow outside time with supervision, especially residential ones (long term) but most don't. So prepare for a vitamin D deficiency and idiots wondering how you could possibly be made depressed in such a "safe" environment.

Oh, and if you act out, you get sent to the seclusion area. A bare room with nothing but a mattress; sometimes restraints. Some are even padded.

If you get restrained, they usually give you an injection to "calm down" (read: make you pass out and drool all over yourself like a wild animal). Oh, and they give you the injection in your butt muscle. No one told me this the first time I got injected, so I was very confused and violated because I couldn't understand why they were pulling my pants down. The nickname for this is "booty juice".

Your information going in and out WILL be controlled. You might not be allowed to watch the news or certain channels, or conversely you will be forced to watch the news or certain movies. You won't be allowed to watch R rated movies in many places even if everyone is over 18. Some places have a phone list, so you cannot make any calls by yourself; you have to ask a staff member to connect you to the person you want to call. Visitors can often only be family. You will have limited access to the internet, or no access at all.

Everyone is treated like they have the same problem, so even if you are psychotic or have an eating disorder, expect to attend groups on anger management and self esteem.

Some places let basically anyone be an MT (mental health technician, also called techs; these are different from the nurses and doctors) but since I moved, the local hospital only allows nursing students to be MTs. MTs get paid, though, so they're not volunteers.

All the art therapists I've seen needed certification, but some of the pet therapists and music therapists were volunteers. You really need to check with your local hospital, because every hospital has different rules.

Every hospital is different.

I've been to two different hospitals and one residential treatment center so far.

The first one wasn't that nice. The patients and staff were kind of mean, and they put you on a diet. The residency was kind of rigid, the floors were hard and all you had were bare walls, a desk and chair that you couldn't pick up, and these cot like beds. Some patients bullied each other, and some staff didn't really seem to like their job.

The second one was a lot nicer. Nicer staff and patients. Plenty of activities to do throughout the day. Oh, and you could choose the food you wanted to eat if you had high privileges down in the cafeteria. I asked the doctor if they could put me on a diet because I was shocked to find out that I weighed 113 lbs (really underweight for my size). So I gained weight after eating mixed nuts, peanut butter, wheat cookies, yogurt, cheese sticks, ice cream and granola bars. The patients really supported each other and strived to get better. I personally enjoyed being around the staff.

What good does that do if you don't have an eating disorder? I've been in the psych ward for being suicidal...and well don't think going to a place to help people with eating disorders would have really helped. Also though I was treated very much like a human both times I was in the psych ward....so inhuman treatment is not garanteed, it is very unfortunate people still have negative experiences and some facilities really are crappy and might not even run things in a very legal manner(if i ended up in one of those places I'd keep my wits about me and make sure to pursue legal action...that is what the social worker is for after all.

Actually, the therapies for ED patients and general patients are not that different. The hospital I went to for my ED (WPIC) treats different disorders on different floors, so whenever they had overflow from the general adolescent floor (which happened A LOT; I was 17 at the time) they sent them to the eating disorder floor.

I've been to other psych hospitals, and the treatment is always the same. They talk about emotional regulation, self esteem, self harm (EDs are considered a form of self harm to some and self harm and ED are often comorbid). They talk about family issues and CBT and DBT and distorted thoughts. They treat everyone the same. The only difference is that the staff on the ED floors don't talk to you like you're crazy and you get to order your food.

In fact, all of THAT stuff was useless to me most of the time. Because I was dealing with psychosis, not emotional problems. But noooo, everyone in psych hospitals MUST have an underlying emotional issue, and it must be something that CBT and DBT can help, right? Wrong. CBT doesn't work for schizophrenia.

Yeah, some state hospitals can be effin' scary, especially in the deep south. I was in Milledgeville for months. It was just plain nasty. There was a lice/crab/some kind of bug breakout and everyone had to shampoo with some stuff to kill it. Luckily, since I never hung out with anyone, I didn't get it. The bathrooms were nasty and the other patients were terrifying. Being 13, at the time, and one of the more well-behaved patients, I was at least allowed privileges to work in the auditorium as the popcorn girl. Augusta is pretty nasty, too, but not as bad.

Private hospitals are like resorts lol. Nice, carpeted, everything new and the food is amazeballz. Clean swimming pools, sport courts, nature trails, baseball fields, gyms, music/art therapy, you name it. If you're considered non-threat and well-behaved, you could always go for a nice walk outside on a pretty day and sit down and attempt to play a guitar lol (I ain't so good at guitar). The good ones had their scary moments but only when my GOOD insurance was ceased and became govt insurance did things get really ugly.

Local regional medical hospitals generally have a floor for psyche treatment and they aren't generally too bad. Here in Athens we have a separate, low security, voluntary place. It's just a little building where they specialize in addiction treatment and eating disorders but they will take anyone in crisis as long as you aren't considered very dangerous.

*One thing I didn't take into consideration in regards to my last post here in this thread is that when I was institutionalized, I was a child. That's why it was such a nightmare. Children get very little freedom and privileges compared to adults, unless, of course, the adult shows that they are very unstable and potentially dangerous, because children have to be monitored. Sadly, at age 10, I was considered a threat and not allowed to have a room mate. I admit, at the time, I gave them good reason.

I have been to three different hospitals. I actually consider
myself pretty lucky, bc it really wasn't that bad, the first visit
was an adolecent ward.. then the others, where I wuz finally
diagnosed. they tended to everybody as best they can, made
sure everybody got their meds, took the safety rules verrry
seriouslty to their ability, made sure no one hurt others,as well as themselves
well.. not as bad. I have been in /out of psych wards since I wuz 15. I
considered myself lucky to have been there, or else ;i would not be
writing this post.

***TRIGGER WARNING***

I once went to a really sh*tty hospital because all the good ones were full. It was an adolescent hospital.

At "school", one of the guys would finger one of the girls under the table.

The rooms were locked most of the day, so we could only go to the day room, which was tiny, and the classroom for meals.

They didn't have a proper seclusion room, so if someone acted out, they took them down right there in front of everyone. One guy had gotten the booty juice so many times that he required two injections to knock him out.

There was no glass around the nurses' station, so the little kids climbed over the counter all the time.

Oh, and they didn't separate the little kids from the teenagers.

One of the little girls there didn't speak any English except swear words and would run around hitting people, pulling down girls' shirts, and shoving two fingers up girls' crotches.

At another hospital, I met a girl who had been to the sh*tty one. She walked in on a girl giving a guy a BJ. In a place that had like no privacy. She was 13 at the time.

The group therapy was so pathetic that they required everyone to talk at least once and say a chant at the end. It went something like "At the end of group we say 'unity'. This is because we are a community. On the count of three, everyone say 'unity'. 1, 2, 3 'UNITY'."

Very trippy. Very depressing. Thankfully my dad AMA'd me before the end of the week.

I actually had to be admitted to a Psych ward once. It was only because I couldn't get more than 2-3 hours of sleep per night for over a month, so naturally it was driving me to insanity. Literally. I would drop to the floor screaming, pounding, throwing things all over the place. This was because I needed to be on a mood stabilizer at the time. When I seriously started talking about suicide, my parents just brought me to an ER because they didn't know what else to do since I had been to nearly every doctor around and they weren't helping. But they didn't have any idea they would put me in the Psych Ward. xD It was only for a day, though. I realized that I did not need to be there. My problem was relatively easy to solve compared to some others. It was just as it is always depicted in the media; a white room with a bed in the middle. The people there of course had much more serious mental illness(es) than I did.

I was looking through the patient manual from this hospital and came accross the "privileges" section, which includes the following:
Nice... So these things aren't even "rights", they're "privileges".
EDIT: And you can't place any phone calls to non-legal personel. You also can't have any visitors besides your parents... You get one phone call a day.

OMG!! horrible. I am so sorry what u experienced.

Generally speaking it is better to arrange hospital stays though your pdoc. Psych hospitals tend to have few beds so the preferred ones full up fast. This also makes the paperwork go smoother. There may be more freedom depending on the place.

Hospitals vary widely by location, state to state, city, country and also by what type of insurance you have.

Someplace shave very short stays with few if any groups and emphasis on meds. Others have more structured groups all day.

Nearly all will ask that you disrobe to check for scars, and self harm. Most will not allow any type of belt, shoestrings and will take any strings out of things like sweatshirts. Many now lock up all make up, some will take bras if you are on precautions. Some put people on 1:1 which means there will be a staff of same sex within one arms length of you at all time, yes even into the bathroom. This is for your safety. Some lock rooms and bathrooms some do not. Knowing the staff ratio will help you know if it will be a calm place or hectic and wether or not staff has time to talk. Beds are generally plastic covered as are pillows, and are not usually hospital beds but simple twin beds. Most have two beds to a room chances are that you will have a roommate. Sometimes you can switch rooms if you find someone else that you feel more comfortable but it is up to the staff. Staff do bed checks all night long so be prepared.
Regardless of where you go in the USA you can not be forced to take medications unless it is ordered by a judge. There are special circumstances in which they can be forced but for the most part no. They must give you the information about any drug if you request it. They must tell you what they are giving you and why. There should always be a prominent place that post your rights and phone numbers that you can call to complain about treatment, state or private. If you wish to call that number they must allow that and allow you privacy to do so.

Hospitals are not resorts unless you have the money to go to private specialized hospitals and are designed for safety first and they are not long term unless you are committed. The emphasis is on crisis care, keeping people safe, and evaluations that require observation now because of the HMOs. Most places now have outpatient, partial, and intensive hospital programs with more therapy orientation that used to take place within the hospitals. These are often a better choice if intensive therapy is what you are looking for. If what you need is safety then do go.

I had a force stay in a mental hospital not for suicide but for getting angry at my father. I was driven to the airport (with police escort) and flown to a city airport, and driven in the back of a police car to the hospital. Opon arrival I was told sternly to strip and change into a hospital gown and man handled into a padded sell where I was instructed if I didn't take the medication offered I would stay in the cell until I took it.
Once everything blew over and they saw I wasn't a dander I was slowly given privileges until I was allowed into general population and shared a room with a couple of other guys.
Once things totally relaxed we were allowed to walk the grounds and in my case I was allowed to leave the grounds under a strict curfew.
We had television, visitor rights and phone calls, a pool table and a common kitchen and toilets for each sex.
So yeh it depended on the severity of your case as to how you got treated (that was in Australia)

There's also a big difference between residential hospitals (average stay: 3-8 months) and short-term hospitals.

There was one near me that was like a ****ing resort. It wasn't a hospital building, it was a series of houses. Each house treated a different kind of behavior (e.g. substance abuse/dual diagnosis, emotional problems, acute psychiatric disorders, etc.) You get more privacy, you get an actual, nicer, cleaner bedroom with furniture and a real bed. Of course, everything is suicide- and self-harm-proofed, but still. It's not on full lockdown like short term hospitals.

It was an adolescent hospital, so they gave each patient a weekly allowance. It wasn't much, but it adds up. Then you would go on outings, like to the mall, Six Flags, etc.

If you had a pass, you could go home for the weekend. This was actually considered an important part of therapy, so they encouraged it.

They use what they call "adventure-based counseling".
They also bought everyone their own MP3 players.

They had animal therapy, which included puppies and horses. "Residents have the use of a full indoor gym, an outdoor in-ground pool, a softball field, tennis, basketball and volley ball courts, a game room, chapel, art room, hiking trails and a low ropes adventure treatment site."

Sadly, I never got to go. I've only heard about it from people who were there in the past.

Some of them steal your stuff, too. Happened to myself and my sis on separate occasions. If you can, leave anything of value or importance at home; jewelry, electronics, etc.

^^^THIS^^^

I had stuff stolen by other patients even when they were in lockers.

But the worst part was when the staff stole or misplaced stuff.

I "lost" literally ALL of my makeup just by switching floors. That's >$100 worth of makeup (I have no idea how much it actually cost... I accumulated a lot of stuff lol). I also lost a SINGLE BOOT. We have the other boot. I'm just missing the one. And they lost my henna (which was given to me by another patient and is actually difficult to get). And they lost a shirt.

(This story is long, but it's worth hearing imo.)
The other thing is that because I was being treated for an eating disorder but was on the mood disorders floor (basically on the wrong floor, but that's another story), the dietician had to provide me with snacks so that I could get the right nutritional intake (because basically they assumed everyone was obese and needed to cut down, so the meals were small).
They made me leave the snacks in the nurse's station, which was weird, because we had a kitchen with a pantry...

You guessed it. The @$$hole staff STOLE FOOD FROM AN EATING DISORDER PATIENT.

If I were in a normal hospital for leukemia, and the nurses were stealing my painkillers, they would be fired. They would go to jail. But stealing food from an anorexic girl? Perfectly fine apparently.

The last time I was in the psych ward I weighed like 82 pounds(vs my usual 95-100lbs) because I was having a hard time eating or sleeping due to being depressed and anxious...which made me too stressed to eat much.

They actually where very conscious of peoples different dietary needs which was good...and the food was good, so I was able to eat it without my body trying to reject it...like at the first psych ward where part of the reason I pushed for discharge after 5 days was because I didn't think I could sustain myself on what little food there I could tolerate and I couldn't take being indoors 24/7 anymore.

I am in a rehab facility which i feel counts, even though the operator of this facility says that it is way better than being in a psych ward. I suppose this means that my rehab-mates are psych ward material.