Suicide, rape, drug use, and sexually transmitted diseases are all things one can experience in a mental hospital; I know. In my first hospitalization, I was a teenager who not only got to talk to prostitutes and heroin addicts up close but also have sex with them, as well. (I considered that my good fortune!) Incidentally, sometimes a staff member goes home and puts a bullet through his head.
Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of the famous playwright, is one schizophrenic who died when the locked floor on which she was placed caught fire.
The reason they let me out once after nine months was that they feared I would become institutionalized. No worry, I did not become institutionalized.
After I had been to the State Hospital and the nice Private Hospital, one could always motivate me by promising me if I cooperated this trip was to the nice Private Hospital as opposed to the State Hospital.
Eventually, I believed that the terrible distress that I experienced as part of the disease would be ameliorated if I took the medicine. I still believe that! My life is relatively sweet now.
I’ve was only in ONE psyche ward where everybody was dangerous and hardcore but me. They were all heavily medicated but it was still a scary place. They put me in a small room at night. The guy laying on the other cot looked like he was straight out of prison or straight off the street. I was afraid to go to sleep because I feared he would wake up and kill me in my sleep. I had checked myself in.When my parents came to visit me they were horrified by the ward and the patients. They pulled strings and got me out immediately. When I was in the locked hospital it wasn’t so bad. The were plenty of tough characters but I actually never got in a fight. Some Vietnam veteran threatened me, I had to avoid him for a few weeks. He didn’t talk to people. He growled at people. And muttered. I realized at the time that the guy was on the level of a wild animal and not to be messed with. You got it made with opposite sex Jayster. I had many opportunities that were “sure things” that I still managed to screw up. I had the prettiest girl in the hospital sitting on my lap with no one around to bug us. I messed up, I don’t know how. It’s the story of my life. I’ve never been in a state hospital, I’ve heard they’re terrible places.The state hospitals were the places the staff threatened to put me if I didn’t behave. In our state hospital there have been at least three murders. One nurse and two patients got killed I read in the paper.
I’ve also been lucky with the places I’ve ended up in. There were some times that were scary, and some other residents that were scary, but as a whole, nothing that made me fear for my safety.
I did end up in a group home for a few months that was pretty rough, but it was more of a half way house for people going through addiction. Not a lot of emphasis on mental illness. I was so happy to get out of that one.