Were you scared in the hospital? There were so many things that were frightening for me. Scared of going or being crazy. Other patients. The whole idea was that they were supposed to be safe places . I guess when I was locked up for 8 months I only felt in REAL physical danger a dozen times. Where I thought I would get beat up. But I only had someone lay their hands on me once. The symptoms were the scariest. Despite what they say in AA, I think God gave me more than I could handle.
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Snap Your Finga … ,
Here and There You Are … ,
How Do You Feel Now (???)
SAme nike
I’m glad you posted this. I’ve felt the same way in hospitals… They’re a bad place man- stay out of them.
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I was afraid of what happened in my psychotic brain. Not afraid of other patients, I was angry instead. One girl tried to kick me. I grabbed her foot, twisted it 180 to the left and threw her into the dining table. I was left alone after that. She got the blame too, all I did was self defence.
I remember a lot of fear… at first… there was also a lot of sadness.
I was afraid they were going to slap me in restraints for their amusement. I was afraid of a few of the other people in there with me.
I was afraid of never seeing my family again.
I was afraid of a lot of things.
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I got into a psych ward at 11pm which was a really ugly problem for me. I couldn’t sleep with my anti anxiety pills which I left at home and being too late, I couldn’t get any pills till the next day…so I just laid there, staring at the ceiling all psychotic, hearing voices and seeing colors. I did manage to fall asleep after an hour or two and then I woke up like at 4 or 5am with a heart attack. I thought the voices were trying to kill me at that point…
Pretty scary…
I thought my fellow patients were demons in disguise of human bodies. Others were angels. Not just me thinking it actually. there was one patient who i used to hang out with who told me that “you should see the huge teeth and wild eyes of this guy…”. as i believed he, as an angel, had the ability to see their true form. the demon patient used to constantly talk about grilling meat and ovens and whatnot which i thought refered to hellfire.
It wasn’t until I came out of my psychosis that I actually felt the hospital environment wasn’t safe.
I had fun but I was so psychotic I didn’t know what was what, I was mostly affraid of staying there forever. Paranoid about other patients a bit also.
I felt a bit couped up and a bit paranoid towards the end of my stay there, as I was getting better.
This is why I want to work in one. You mostly had horrible experiences and one of you said that you went into benzo withdrawals and had a heart attack!
I actually give a â– â– â– â– about mentally ill people because I am one.
Also, the psychiatrists and clinical shrinks mostly have no insight into what psychotic patients experience. In fact, they don’t want to think about it. Further, also in fact, many mental health professionals hold stigma to their patients, and just get them out the door as soon as possible. Also, the little they do think they know about our experiences comes from asking us what we experience. At best, they scan our brains and make sure we are psychotic. Great, secondary sources. No true insight. They don’t get it and they don’t want to get it because it’s disturbing to them.
Not all pdocs and shrinks are like that, but studies have shown that way too many are.
I like Fred Frese, he teaches psychiatry and calls his students out on not having a clue as to what they are supposed to treat after they get licensed. He’s schizophrenic, he has been through the system and is on haldol.
My docs seem to be better- they’re older (I mean grandpa age) and they work from experience more than what they were taught. My pdoc friggin told me that he works primarily from experience when it comes to psychotic disorders. He said it’s more of an art than a science in getting a very sick patient on the right meds.
What I have learned is that (mostly) they treat chronically ill patients like “problem patients” who are always having the same damn problems and to take them with a grain of salt. Don’t make me upload a passage from a textbook about how they view us.
They essential stigmatize us the way Goffman stated a long time ago. We are tainted and discredited. Lesser beings. Not quite human. Just problematic cases. Needy. Helpless. â– â– â– â– â– â– up beyond all repair and recognition. Take out back, shoot in head.
This is a problem. Yeah, what I just said is vicious. Too bad it’s true. Someone has to fix this problem. No one wants to. I want to. But then again, I am no one.
Peer review that.
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Great post, mouse
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I’d be very interested in that passage. Anyway in my opinion, the less help you need, the more you get. But what you’ve said kind of validates that theory for me.
Okay here it is
Straight from a Ph.Ds textbook (the guy who wrote this has a doctorate in counseling)
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wasnt he refering to the “troublemaker” criminals there?
The less help you need, the more you get. In black and white.
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No, that is not correct.
Chronically ill patients are by far more often victims than perpetrators.
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That may be the case. The text you marked which reads: “…these clients are extremely frustrating to mental health providers…” i believe referes to “… In addition, increased drug abuse, a rise in crime, fragmentation of families…” these patients, who exhibit such characteristics. His claim may be false but then basically the entire page would be incorrect.
Mouse, that definitely confirms a lot of my suspicions about the hospital. I swear, being in there only made me crazier. The only good thing to come out of the hospital was that it got me in to see a doctor who was actually good at helping me.
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I was not scared. I was quite comfortable, just depressed. There was no way to experience the outdoors and the layout felt “dead”. It is just not a place I want to be - like I said, causes exteme depression & feelings of loneliness.