Hello I’ve never been in a psych ward or hospital longer than 2 weeks. Has anyone ever decided at will to go to a psych ward? I’m asking because I don’t feel well even though I’m 4 days in taking meds again. The nurse practitioner wouldn’t allow me to try a new AP because I’m pregnant which I don’t agree with. I’m going to try and see someone else.
If anyone has been in a psych ward, how long? Do you feel you were healed and better upon release? Would you suggest it as an option for treatment? Were you counting the days to leave?
I was in for 9 months as part of a really bad period
It’s for acutely unwell people and would not be a treatment unless you need to be supervised 24/7 by an entire team of people
I understand wanting the med change supervised
Try to find out if you can have a nurse or social worker in the community if you haven’t done this already maybe you need a few weeks on both old and new meds
Thad is what I’m doing at the moment- titrating from an old medication which really no one wants to be on to abilify
I’ve been in 5 different psyche wards, 9 different times but the longest was only for a week and a half. I was in a hospital for 8 months. I actually don’t think they helped but that was the treatment out there in the eighties so that’s why I was in. I had a few 2 -4 days stays. Just a couple were when I checked myself in, “at will”. The rest including the hospital were when I was in my twenties (I’m 57 now) and my parents put me in. I guess you would call it forced, I didn’t volunteer, the doctors and my parents just thought that was best for me and no one knew what else to do with me at the time so I just went along with the program. When my parents put me in, I didn’t want to go in but I didn’t fight it, I was still depending on them in my twenties so I co-operated (but it was me in there alone).
I think I’m getting too specific here and it is not really be what you are asking but I want to qualify my hospitalizations and say the first 5 were when I was ages 19-22 (including the 8 months), the last 4 were during a relapse from about ages 28-29.
My coping method for hospitals is eat, sleep and pace.
I think while I was in, I behaved and co-operated and I made slight improvements so that was enough for them to release me. At least I didn’t get any worse so they probably took that as a good sign and called me “stable” and let me out. I kept losing at ping-pong anyways so I’m glad I got out.
I’ve been in a lot of psych wards. My hospitalization was supposedly voluntary, but mainly I got caught up in the process, and I didn’t know I had alternatives. I fought a few hospitalizations in court to no avail. I don’t know if I was better when I got out. I was calmer.
I’ve had schizophrenia since I was a teenager. My first hospital admission was at age 17 in a teen psychiatric ward. Then, I was hospitalized in 2014, 2015, and 2016. For me, I needed to be in psychiatric ward because I was very unstable, with reoccuring suicide attempts.
Sometimes, I counted the days until I was out of the ward, because it felt really suffocating to me. However, once I got to know everyone in there, it was better than before. I didn’t want to go into the hospital, but after I was admitted, I realized it was probably the best choice. It helped my episodes in control, when I was really, really disoriented and confused because the voices would say so many things to me.
I hope you are okay. Please keep us updated. You are loved and appreciated by all of us.
The first time, I don’t remember. I just know the place. The second time, four days because I signed myself out after the first day, but they require a three day hold for you to release yourself. I checked myself in the second time.
I can only go to one clinic because I have to have regular blood tests, and they are the only one in my area equipped to handle the testing and all of my medication. And they are lousy. No counseling or sessions of any sort on the weekends. What a waste of time.
All my hospitalizations have been voluntary .
The people I met in the hospitals who were there because they wanted to, seemed to recover better than the ones who kept trying to fight the system.
If you feel unwell and/or unsafe, there’s no shame in seeking help.
The longest psych ward stay I ever had was for a whole month and that was just one time. I have had so many inpatient psych ward stays that I literally can’t count them. I usually only stay from one to two weeks with a two week average. I’m usually still depressed when I leave the hospital and I’m back within two weeks. That was long ago, and today, I haven’t been hospitalized for the last three years.
i was in the local hospitals psych unit twice. once when was 11 i believe? i was suicidal because i was in an abusive home environment, and my mental illness was undiagnosed and untreated and only worsened it. i was also bullied at school. i was in again earlier this year right before i turned 19, in the adult side, for overdosing. i dont know why i did it. cry for attention i guess, i had no intentions of dying or anything. just wanted people to pay attention…thats an awful thing to do but it happened. my first two or so days in the child unit i was so anxious i was crying constantly and vomiting up every meal and staying in my room, but the workers were nice and one even brought in his guitar and played it for us. i was in for 5 days. as an adult i was in for 4 days i think? 3 or 4. the staff was fairly nice, the other people in there were nice other than this really weird chick who kept offering me her shoes and saying i turned her on. i slept most of that time other than meals, i think i was so sleepy from residual effects from overdosing.
I never felt healed, I wasn’t ready to leave. The first time, insurance kicked me out. The second time, it was only a two week program and I maxed out my days.
I definitely recommend it as an option for treatment. Both my stays saw me accomplish a lot of hard work that was ultimately helpful. I wasn’t counting the days, I was wishing I had more of them because I wanted to do even better.
I’m not in the US so I don’t know how it is for you guys… I’ll write what goes on in my country maybe that means something…
I was in one time for about a month… to answer your questions:
Do you feel your were healed and better upon release?
No… I didn’t feel any different after I got out… but the trauma of it and the meds taking effect did make me have some insight and question where my life has been leading up to that point.
Would you suggest it as an option for treatment?
Yes. I think if you are acutely ill, and you have lost control of your life, then there are two options: 1. keep losing control and destroying your life and hope that at some point it turns around and starts getting better (not likely to happen soon if you are psychotic) or 2. Put a huge brake in your life, get slapped with meds you didn’t want to take, and have someone else take control of your life in order to help you get better, or at least not get any worse. I feel like the meds and the hospital didn’t really change the direction I was going with my life, but it did slow it down and make it bareable for the people around me… and maybe for me too.
Were you counting the days to leave?
YES.
Though that might not have been the smartest thing. I didn’t have such a bad time at the hospital but I was determined to leave to prove to everyone I wasn’t ill at all.