How to survive a psychiatric ward

WikidPissah- lol, okay I guess I can forgive them. When I have sinus infections I snore too...

Pachyderm- somehow it wouldn't surprise me if she was staff...

Donttouchme- It's really just all in humor, so it's okay you find them funny. I was reading this book and it had a list "how to survive prison" and wasn't humorous. But I figured psych wards were like the easy jail. So don't worry, you'll do fine. I was in many of them, like more then a dozen and I really only absolutely hated to the point of wanting to run away, 1 or 2 or them. They were tolerable and necessary, because I was sick and needed it.

dragonfly- Now these are necessary tips! The quiet room helped me A LOT in my stays. I would just go in there whenever I absolutely couldn't handle another second of socialization.

Micah- I never got hurt in a psych ward... what an experience... =/

Loving the tips!

I've never been admitted to a psych ward. Have come close but to actually stay out is pretty awesome for a paranoid borderline!

Thanx for your concern LydiaB but there wasn't much force behind it. It just happened to hit me on the shoulder and the chair I threw back missed him completely. We were both too sedated to make much out of it and the nurses broke it up pretty quickly (nurses in secure units are NASTY but good if you get what I mean). Because of my state of mind, I did ask if he was okay the next day and told him his lipstick was perfect, and it was. He had taken my advice We were pretty chatty after that and swapped stories. The ward nurses were worried at first but then we would laugh with them.....

The fluidity and changing temperature of the sec unit is an organism in itself. I learnt a lot being there, about life, about hardship and about violence and strangely about love and all its varieties. Despite some of their violent unpredictabilities, I loved them the same.

Michah

tbh i haven't found psych hospitals to be anything like what has been described here, and i've been admitted at least 7 times... but i guess it just depends on where you are (i'm in australia) and what ones you are admitted into.

Most of this thread is tongue-in-cheek, let's not forget that!!!

This made me smile. It is so totally realistic.

yeah i guess your right wingin'it

.........

Thank you for a good laugh! I could relate to ALL of these.

I would add,

Don't get into a pissing contest with nurse Ratchet (there's always a nurse Ratchet). Smile and nod and let it go, then ask an orderly when she's off shift.

and sometimes you just have to laugh.....

Ah, it's been at least 10 years since I have been in the psych hospital.....but remembering back a few years.....I still have the migraines that I had then & am still on pain medication because nothing else touched them. In those years.....my neurologist had me on stadol (an interesting drug that was sprayed into the nose).....& would end up with demoral shots when the migraine got too horrible that would knock me out for at least 12 hours. Horrible to need that treatment while in the psych hospital because narcotics of any kind are not looked kindly at & they aren't into providing those kinds of meds to patients in the psych ward.

I made arrangements with my pdoc before going into the hospital....I made sure he wrote up the orders or had those orders written up by the med Dr....& always took in my prescription so that they had the med already there for me to take & usually took it right before going into the hospital....which at the end was a private psych hospital. When part of a medical hospital, it was easier to get the med from the pharmacy, but a bit harder to get it ordered.

I had the migraine problem even when I was involuntary & then it was even harder to get the meds that I needed for the migraine....& the worse problem was that the migraines really NEVER go away. The misery of not having the meds when I needed them as I had normally at home was really a problem. Going to the nurses station to get the meds I needed at the time I needed them was always a hassle but it was the only way I could function without a horrible headache......& many times I remember just laying in my bed because I was too sick from the migraine pain to even function in any sort of therapy.

It's important to have all the meds you need along with the prescription for them so that they can't deny that you are taking the med...it also gets the order through more quickly.

I can't remember actually how many times I was in the psych hospital.....think I lost count around 25+ in almost every psych hospital in Los Angeles California. One of the first was at UCLA before it was rebuilt after the 1994 earthquake.....I was in there just after 1994....& it was just like the pictures of the old time psych wards. My depression started just after that earthquake when I lost my career & my pdoc was at a loss to determine a DX....my insurance was demanding a DX, so they required me to go into the UCLA psych hospital for evaluation. It was the first time in any psych hospital & really freaked me out. I ended up sleeping in the social room which they locked up at night....I was too afraid to sleep in my room & they were nice enough to lock me up alone to sleep on the sofa in the social gathering area. The "know it all" idiot pdoc/resident there decided to try a med that made me pass out because it lowered my blood pressure so much. I don't remember actually how many days I was there....but it seemed like at least a week or more. I finally got to the point where they ended up taking a group of us out into Westwood to walk around the town.....I knew it well because my first job out of college was in Westwood....so that brought back some good memories.....they made us hide our wrist bands up our sleeves so that the people in the town wouldn't know we were from the psych ward...lol......that was the only good part of the experience I can remember....the rest felt like a nightmare.

After my first OD, I ended up at the local private psych hospital. Spent a month there several times....& a lot of out patient time there also. They had the ropes course there that was an interesting experience. After living with the others there at the hospital for so long, it almost felt like a family of sorts....lots of caring people & my pdoc was on staff there.....but I wasn't at a point where anything helped me.....think that sometimes help only happens when we are really ready & nothing can really be forced to happen before that no matter how much good therapy practices they throw at us.

I remember one hospital they kept taking me to because of my insurance.....required a long ambulance ride to get there....but they had a pet therapy & brought in dogs.....that was the only thing that touched me there.....Think so much of me was fighting the whole system, the insurance & everything that it just added to the anger that I was experiencing & made the depression worse....but that's looking back at it with 20/20 hind sight.

Enjoy the critters & the fun things you can find to do while in the hospital to pass the time while they try to find a med that helps get you in a better place or just pass the time & let the horrible feeling pass by changing the environment you are in....sometimes it will break a bad feeling that we can't seem to shake otherwise.

I think most of my experiences I have blocked out of my mind as I can't really think back to many specific things & have virtually no memory of much of the times I was in the hospital.

Don't try to call 911 from the hospital:
One thing I do remember was when I was in the medical part of the hospital after an OD, a friend called me at the hospital telling me that she had just OD'ed.....like I could do anything about it???? I tried calling 911.....but the hospital switchboard wouldn't allow me to call 911 because I was in the hospital & shouldn't NEED TO CALL 911. I had to explain what was happening & where they needed to send the ambulance. Definitely a good reason not to become friendly with anyone from in the psych hospital....she had the same pdoc as I did & think expected me to look after her or maybe didn't like thinking that I was in the hospital getting the attention she wanted...nothing like competition OD's........who knows....but they got to her in time & she ended up in the same local hospital as I was in.

i agree about getting the ativan doubled, lost an entire morning, including group and almost didn't even make it to dinner. that stuff knocks me on my *****. ask my pdoc when he visisted, "you gotta get me off that stuff"

***the best advice i received was to on a serious note, "don't take on anyone else's disease"

and always grab extra snacks for later, midnight munchies....

and always be polite and nice to the nurses. they are the ones that run the place

i just left one of those luckily im only 15 so i really was only there for 4 days and i only had a roomate for the first night so i didnt have to worry about her killing me. the worst part for me was 10 diferent people coming in each day saying "why do you want to kil yourself" and the best part "no more 'self mutilation'" ugh self mutilation just makes me feel dirty and "insane"

eskielover - I get migraines too and had them so bad at my first trip to the hospital - out in the sun with no sunglasses and they were giving me Tylenol - That was when i first realized I had migraines and they sent me for MRIs because i was talking about the pain all the time. awful awful awful!!

I would add, having had only one nervous breakdown in another country when I was 29 and my boyfriend was my only support, don't let anyone inject you with anything unless you sign an informed consent (other than usuall meds). I was ripped into a room and injected twice with depo provera, which was done definitely against my will. Also, to add to the list, even if patients don't seem to have any sharp objects they could injure someone with, I saw a very passive patient pick up a heavy, sand-filled cigarette floor ashtray and hurl it around the room. And do write a journal, you could make a book out of your stay. Reading this post, I remembered it was the most frightening experience of my life, although I did art and became a hairdresser after returning to the US. Having regular visits from a trusted friend is a must, and time out on the weekends, if it is a longer stay.

I've never been hospitalised for my disorder, but I was once hospitalised with complete panic and pain in my heart and back... as though I'd been kicked in the ribs repeatedly by a rabid donkey. They never figured out what was wrong with me, and I managed to escape before they realised I was bonkers. I know what triggered it, and I do think it was an emotional breakdown, not just a sore everything. The doctor said something about "broken heart syndrome"... my husband had just died. If it hadn't been for him I'd have been hospitalised several years earlier than I did. The man did look after me. After his death I couldn't last a week without him.

EEEK I was being serious with my suggestions.

I've been in 4 different psych wards, but never really encountered any problems. I felt pretty safe there - aside from my own suicide obsessions, and much safer in there with them than out. Most other patients seemed to complain a lot, but I found little to complain about. Sometimes the food was crappy... though sometimes it was really good! Sometimes the pdocs discounted what I had to say - as seems to be a problem with lots of doctors. The only really bad experience was when I went to one farther away and was really unhappy about it, and started out with a bad attitude - any negatives are really magnified and positives wiped out when you have a bad attitude. I ended up going there once again, and that time it was a good stay, even though I was dreading it as soon as I overheard the ER nurses say that's where I was going.

Don't try to up your Ativan scripts - they'll be checked, and you might get labeled "med-seeking" for it. And careful of complaining about pain and asking for stronger pain relievers - you may get dubbed "med-seeking" for that too, especially if you have/had a substance abuse problem and/or BPD. If you need it, try to be as calm and patient as possible when asking for it.

first time in i was taken aback but then once you realize you are there to get help then you can find the humor in it..or else how do you really get through it....

Group therapy? I thought that was a myth for brochures. I've been in three times for a minimum of a week a piece, left in WORSE state than I came in, and never once got to talk to the staff for more than five minutes a day if I was lucky. No group anything.

something I'd like to add is if you are there and the alarms go off and you go into lockdown or are evacuated try to stay calm. They do it to make sure you are safe from the patient who is getting violent. Although the nurses will support you if you get upset/scared/anxious/etc they will need to focus most of their attention on keeping you physically safe and organizing the security guards and/or police.

From experience this has happened to me numerous times and the first few times I had panic attacks and really freaked out, had to be sedated and put on constant supervision. But after I realized that as soon as the security guards were there or the police that it was safe and they weren't going to let that patient hurt us I was okay. They only times I get that bad now is when I am in seclusion with the person who is loosing it and there's no where to hide or when the person is right in my face throwing things like chair near me.

Man the QuietOne, you must have been in some serious psych wards. I've been in four times and even a maximum security one and never had the police called! Even though in the max security one another patient did attack my husband. The funny thing about it was my husband was screaming, "Let's take it outside" I thought he can't! In all seriousness though it was pretty horrifying. I think that experience is what helped my husband get fed up with my mental illness and decide to leave me.

Love and hugs,
Tara

That was my experience, too, in 2 hospitalizations! It left me so bitter, and so averse to seeking inpatient help again.

We did have "groups," but they were so pathetic as to be laughable. In one, we watched a video about Rikers Island. WTF? It was interesting, (and sad), but I have no idea what the point was, and it certainly didn't provide any sort of help.

I wanted to add something sort of funny. The first time I was hospitalized, I had no idea what to expect, and I packed all kinds of things that of course were taken away! I guess I just wasn't thinking. I brought a hair dryer and curling iron -- both immediately confiscated -- as well as a Walkman, makeup, etc. etc. etc. The nurses must have been laughing their butts off. I probably looked like I was packing for ClubMed or something!

ClubMad, not ClubMed.