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People who have been to psych wards, what was your experience like?

Psychlone Jack said:
Utter Hell, and made so much moreso by the fact that I was not the insane one.
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I don't know your case, but I can speak for myself.

I have already talked elsewhere on this forum about my then (first) psychosis possibly being indicated by smoking weed. But that doesn't even change the fact that I was in psychiatry. My psychiatrist knew about my drug episode because I told her. It did not change the course or the way I was treated. The hospital I was in was a mixed hospital, with alcohol addicts, murderers, juvenile offenders, drug addicts and all sorts of people like that. Alcohol addicts had their own ward, and we met in the corridors and there was a common dining room. Because of the proximity to the alcoholics, I noticed how they were treated. They had to learn (life) from scripts and templates that they had to memorize. And at the end they had exams. If you passed certain exams, you could go home to 'exit'.

We 'psychotics', unlike the 'alcoholics', didn't have exams. Every day we had a 'group' where we talked about all sorts of (life) things. There was a psychiatrist, a psychologist, some of the staff and of course all the patients. Sometimes in these groups we didn't hear a word in two hours. This fact, of course, was also a clear sign to the staff about the condition of the patients. For myself, I have to say that I did not take these 'silences' very well. I therefore liked to take the floor and stir up controversy. This, of course, did not escape the staff.

Alcoholics always looked down on us psychotics. If there are a lot of alcoholics, that's not unusual (in society). Being 'crazy' is something to be rejected.

In a way, of course, alcoholics had it easier. If you were driven, you learned the stuff and succeeded. You succeeded in hospital, but of course there was the introduction to 'friends' and of course family and work (if you had one). We psychotics, however, had no 'pattern' to follow. It was also much more subjective when the staff, especially the psychiatrist, decided that you were 'well' and could go home. There were a lot of us who had been in hospital for years. Someone, as far as I know, had been there for ten years or something like that. Everyone was left to their own devices, so to speak, to do as they knew how, there was no guidance on how to live 'properly' and of course there never will be. So everyone was looking for a 'needle in a haystack'.

But some succeeded relatively quickly, as I said, I was there for the first time for four months.

So the sooner you accept that with your thinking and lifestyle (especially in relation to your surroundings), the sooner you are forgiven and can put your 'findings' into practice. Analogous to this, alcoholics are taught that they have to accept that they have a problem with alcohol, that is, that they are alcoholics, and that this is not the right way to go. Because the environment (family) suffers because of it.
 
ions said:
Doctors should also try not to resort to medicine just because youre in there. It's how they get money. and healthcare need not be a money game. Meds as a last resort.
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I would also like to write about my views on taking psychiatric drugs - in general and in psychiatric institutions.

As far as I can remember, there was a lot going on in my head during my psychosis. In a sense, I could say that I was like being drugged. But without taking drugs. It feels like you are on one very negative trip. And you want to find a way out of it, but you can't. It's like psychosis is some inverse picture of everyday life. And whereas in real life we often help ourselves with alcohol or drugs to help us get through everyday problems, psychiatry helps itself with other (inverse) chemical compounds in psychosis. In addition to conventional psychotherapy. The effects of these drugs are often diametrically opposed to those of alcohol or drugs. If the latter have a 'beneficial' effect on the human psyche, the effect of psychiatric drugs is inverse, 'negative'. It inhibits the person in his thoughts and actions, all in the sense of 'curing' or stabilising him.

In my medication history I have taken all sorts of things: Levomepromazine, Thioridazine hydrochloride, Promazine hydrochloride, Fluphenazine, Zyprexa, Seroquel and Risperidone. I am still taking the last two. As far as I can remember, I was very psychotic at the beginning of my treatment in hospital. I thought the whole world was crazy, only I was sane and that I was going to help save the world. A kind of God syndrome. I was brought to the hospital in this state and at first I couldn't accept that they were trying to 'change' me or hinder me in my 'mission' by certain devices. Of course, for a while (about a week) I was in a closed ward. There I was forcibly given medication by injection, which I, of course, refused - with all the consequences that this entailed. Well, after a few days I calmed down. Now I believe and know that it was also because of the medication I received.

Any exhortations or well-meaning advice would have been out of place or would have been unsuccessful at the time, I am sure of that - given the state I was in.

Of course, the treatment continued with the help of medication. I am convinced that it was much faster with their help than it would have been without them.

Medicines have a huge number of side effects. And especially very negative ones. They 'tie you up', they sedate you, they interfere with your thoughts, they make you drowsy and moodless. In hospital, I have witnessed some people lying down and sleeping for days on end, despite the pleas of the staff. I was lucky not to give in to the medication. I got up early every morning and went to the gym and attended group therapy sessions and talked to my 'fellow patients'. All this took a lot of effort.

I still believe that medication is absolutely necessary for successful treatment. Although many people do not see it that way.
 
SoCalShordie said:
I was put in a psychiatric hospital twice during my adolescent years. It was pretty chill lol.
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My friend too, after his psychosis, but mainly for getting of Cannabis. So he was on the Detox part.

Wonder If this psychchiatric hospital is still in use? It was an beatiful old school one, like the old sanatoria and health resorts in the mountains of Austria/ France during TBC, at least I imagine. It was an beatifull castle like mansion, the main building. Laid in a park with trees older then the people, like monestrarys/ churches have or are in the soil round a monumental building. Which save them from being killed at 80 years, like usually here is done, don't ask me why.

With the green, the serene quiteness next to a passing river behind the dike. Real peacefull vibe.

Al kinda different section's (modern) were later build around, it for all diff diagnosis, but most interesting was where the perminent residents live. Where the mumblers, the Einsteins, the chess players re-rolling old leftover tabacco buts from ashtrays, that were everywere. One big smoking cloud.

But the atmosphere was ambient. Which in my one experience in detox 19 days, was like black and white/ the other way around. Could be things changed in 30 years, but I blame it on organisation. As institutions vs academic hospitals, was like comparing apples and oranges.

But how knows it might hold true for the whole medical care system. Listening to so many medical faillure's and so little good things from others, I am skeptical. I def prejudiced atm and will not ever go to such a place again (excluding MDMA assitsted therapy, which only takes a few days, and has an 66% (correct me if I am wrong but it was high like psychedelic assited thereapy).
 
Been to 4-5 different wards 8 times since 2017-2024 + 1 rehab visit immediately after a stay to a ward in nov 2020.

Longest stay was 10 days 1st visit, 5 days 8th and recentest.

reasons i was there: half there for suicidal ideation/intents to kill myself, half there for """dxm overdoses""" or blacking out on so many benzos i didnt come to for 24+ hours.

rehab is another story.

nicest one i stayed at was the 8th visit, a ward in Manchester, New Hampshire. They had killer food also holy shit Best ward food ever actually LOL. we could watch movies whenever we wanted during free time also.

Worst stay? no clue. memory fuzzes. probably that time when i was 17 about to turn 18 and they wouldn't let me call my boyfriend so i screamed and banged my head on the wall so bad i got a slight bulge and they were AWFUL about it instead of treating me with dignity. i don't fucking know bro.

i have had a dude in a psych ward as my roommate who got insanely attached to me extremely fast and ended up admitting he almost tried to kill his neighbor's cat once so i cut him off. this was 2 weeks into knowing me, post-visit.

if anyone has any questions do Ask. i am an openbook and like to talk about my experiences to destigmatize them.
 
aokorn said:
Was your psychiatric stay also indicated by drugs, and if so, which ones?
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I have stayed in psych wards twice for "DXM overdoses" (aka my parents finding me on dxm and thinking the best course of action is to take me to the hospital and they'll always admit the weird junkies to the wards) and twice for Benzo "Overdose" but in the sense of i took too much of a RC benzo and blacked out for 24-76 hours and got horrible. recent visit , the 8th, was because i took around 50mg bromazolam on "accident" not even suicidal, blacked out for 3 days and was horrific. i wasn't suicidal before, during, or after evrerything also, and had to do an online outpatient thing for addicts 3 hours a day 4 days a week for 5 weeks also. it was ok.

as for getting scripted, i've only been prescribed and stayed on Trileptal thanks to the hospitals. Every other med they've tried on me, i eventually discontinued also.
 
CentipedeKarma said:
as for getting scripted, i've only been prescribed and stayed on Trileptal thanks to the hospitals. Every other med they've tried on me, i eventually discontinued also.
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How are you doing now? Given that you are apparently 'self-medicating'?
 
aokorn said:
How are you doing now? Given that you are apparently 'self-medicating'?
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I got off of prozac and SSRIs/SNRIs in general totally in january 2023 and ever since then i've been heaps better. antidepressants made me awful for 10 years , constantly suicidal and miserable because i am probably bipolar and you cannot take those when you have bipolar, which could also explain every time they even slightly upped my prozac dose i would throw chairs and become enraged.

i still get suicidal and miserable, but it's quite rare, and i mainly stopped cutting, with some relapsing once in a while.

i am on 3 psych meds: abilify 20mg nightly , adderall 30mg xr as needed, and trileptal 300mg in the morn (upping to 600soon) and they help me infinitely better.
 
been there only for detoxes.....ain't got severe mental problems-there's a lot of interesting people in there...a lot of fully normal in my view people,that i just don'tr understand what they doin' there...psych.drugs that they gave are all shit(except a diazepam ampules-as much as u want),but i through them in toilet....toke only diazepam,goin' through withdrawls and goin'home after two weeks...all patients there are heavy chainsmokers.food is awfull,contitions are awfull...been there a couple of times in the past....now last detoxes was always in home...much better in any ways
 
CentipedeKarma said:
nicest one i stayed at was the 8th visit, a ward in Manchester, New Hampshire. They had killer food also holy shit Best ward food ever actually LOL. we could watch movies whenever we wanted during free time also.
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I'm not sure if it's allowed but could you tell me the name of the place? I'm just curious. I live about half hour away from Manchester, NH. There are a lot of treatment facilities around but you never know which ones are actually good.
 
sheer hell.
went in for suicidal ideation, and if anything the experience only made it worse. here's some bullet points:
  • when i was committed, they made me strip while a nurse watched. i also had to do that when they let me out. not sure if it's normal, felt super violating.
  • nurses hated the patients, would frequently berate us, laugh at us, etc. you could tell they were barely getting paid, and got a power trip out of putting us down.
  • psychiatrist had no fucking idea what she was talking about. when she saw my scars, she made fun of me for cutting and asked "how i could do something like that" (was it her first day on the job?? was she somehow unfamiliar with the concept of self harm?? or was she just trying to bully me into recovery???)
  • i go by they/them pronouns, and have for 6 years now, but that was completely ignored ("we're all girls here", explained my psychiatrist, "and besides, aren't you a little young to make a decision like that?")
  • people there were constantly fighting, my only friend on the ward got jumped several times in front of me.
  • cold ass showers, always with someone standing at the door.
  • one girl stayed locked in her room 24/7, and you could hear her through the door, just banging her head on the wall all day, all night.
  • food was ass. i'm a vegetarian. first few days, they didn't care that i was vegetarian, but since i went on hunger strike (i've been vegetarian for nearly seven years, the texture of meat makes me feel physically sick) they started just giving me a big pile of iceberg lettuce for every meal. i lost 12 pounds in two weeks in there.
  • first thing i heard easter morning in the ward was "GET UP, IT'S THE LORD'S DAY!".... we had to do jesus-themed coloring sheets.
+ so much more i'm sure i'm forgetting to mention, but that's the general idea. one of the worst experiences of my life, came out of it with even worse mental health than when i went in lol
 
Horrible. Many years ago before harm reduction programs existed, or were widely known and avaliable, they treated us as animals. Today they may see you as a criminal, but we were just seen as animals.
During a cold turkey, I had a very heavy panic attack, but only a panic attact, no psychotic stuff at all. No question were asked and no test was done, they just sent me right to the psych ward (not a psych ward as in an hospital but an actual mental institution, miles away from everywhere else)
Nowadays those places aren't nice and they never will be, but back then they provided you the full blown "someone flew over the coockoo's nest" experience.
I remember them showing us in a row: that water was either cold or terribly hot, next to skin burning, I screamed, but all the other patients (poor souls, minds gone long ago) were so full of old school neuroleptics that they didn't care anymore. I was the only one screaming, so they came and jabbed me with Lagarctil or Sinogan or wathever superstrong shit.
I learned and did not scream the next days despite the pain, but there was another thing that I could not control: I was very young and was in wd, so I couldn't stop getting a morning erection. Everytime that I showed up at the showers with a hard on, those bastards came back again with their fucking syringues fullfilled with all those antipsichotics and knocked me out. You could think that being put to sleep during wd is a great thing, but only cause you weren't hit with massive doses of that prehistoric shit w/o needing it. Weird movements, uncontrolable shakes and, overall, the absolute imposiblilty to think... the worst secondary effects you dare to imagine...
God, I only was there for less than two weeks and many years have passed, but it was brutal. The terror of it all haunted me for years til it finally subsided. Bad times for sure.
 
Honestly my time in a psych ward was great. I’d been awake for several weeks on MDPV and was sent to the psych ward after running naked up the High Street.

Frankly I needed the rest, I needed the care and I needed the antipsychotic drugs. Aside from having no tobacco (due to being, well, nekkid :o) it was genuinely very helpful.

Had my own room and en suite bathroom. Got fed. Got books to read. Got to speak with a psychiatrist. Got to rest.

Psych wards are great, when truly necessary, ime.
 
First time after binging on MDA I couldn’t make simple decisions such as choosing where to sit, or when to do anything. I was angry at my parents, mostly my dad. I was given large doses of Thorazine to calm me down. Thorazine slowed down my thoughts so I could function, but not really. My feet shuffled when I walked and my mouth drooled uncontrollably.
I had to role play my relationship with my father with a counselor. The hospital was very progressive compared to state institutions and I lost my virginity to a married woman. I was completely out of it, a large German woman had me lay on her in a dark room while her lesbian friend watched.

I had my brother bring in some hashish for a fellow patient but the staff found it in the bathroom. I don’t remember everything I was fresh out of high school, I graduated 1973.

I used to check myself in the psych ward to escape from the real world, however, I have had 3 psychotic breaks that put me the hospital purely not for relaxation. Each time psychosis wiped away my mind and memory. It was like starting over again. Having no recollection of my past or how to care for myself. I learned by modeling friends and family members to carry out the simplest of tasks.
 
I was a teen,cried wolf on suicide, got a hold put on me (was out in over a day) but I will never forget the people,staff was cool,but this girl was out to get me,bullied me hard.I promptly got to her tooth brush and cleaned a toilet with it.A woman was in my room that put on my clothes that a loved one sent a care package from ,I didn't really care.I remember a cigarette lighter built in the wall.All in all was a valuable experience, made me appreciate life and made me feel that I really wasn't that mentally troubled.
 
I was admited for 6months drug induced pschosis kept escaping and spiitting out medication so ended up doing an extra year 18 months in total and i dont remember alot as when medication was forced upon me i was in a sedative zombie trance for 18 months eventually i was discharged then put incommunity care and workshops for 5 yerars until i was ok to work. Still doing the medication nowadays but the nuthouse was back in middle to late 1990's
 
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