Longest stay in a psychiatric hospital, mental institution, asylum, or ward?

What was your longest stay at one time and what was it like - scheduled activities or just room, board, therapy?

Only one, 15 days, bored af! One or two therapy sessions, arts and crafts every afternoon, tv and football table (I don’t remember the name in english, but I think you get it)

The highlight of the day was coffee time.

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Mine was 2yrs from 13-15 in a psychiatric hospital. It was very structured with full activities different for each day and therapy sessions.

I don’t know if it was because of length of time I was there or age or both, but I felt better there. Maybe because of everything being structured as well. You don’t get that on the outside. If I had no family, I would like to be committed again, but in private not public because public they do ect and I don’t want that.

Three weeks or 22 â– â– â– â– â– â– â–  days. It think I cried and smoked about half of time.

My only stay in hospital lasted 4 months.

My longest stay was the very first time in an under 18’s ward for 6 months. Every other stay I’ve had has been 6 to 8 weeks.

8 months In the sober house

Miserable the whole time

All I could think about was how I was gonna relapse when I got out

I could never stay sober with a chemical imbalance in my brain…but since increasing klonopin and abilify and adding naltrexone I can get 43 days sober on my own

2 months in a state hospital…I probably would have had to stay longer but I lied on the exams so I could get released earlier.

May 1981-March 1983(22 months). It was my last hospitalisation. It would have been longer but I plucked up the nerve to leave hospital with my then future wife.
The staff were all certain I’d be back in within 6 weeks.
This was at a time when care in the community was being talked about but hadn’t been put fully(if at all)into practice. You could get admitted if you were having a bad spell symptoms wise irrespective of whether you were a danger to yourself or others.
I think having a supportive partner helped with staying out . I know I leaned on her quite heavily the first few years. Of course most of the reasons I was admitted 33-41 years ago are nowadays supposed to be dealt with by the community care teams.

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6 months. Locked ward. I made puzzles. Every day. And listened to music. Nothing to do. After 4 months I was allowed to bring my laptop there.

My longest stay was one year - in a private psychiatric facility. There were guys who’d been there four years. The food at that hospital was good. Sometimes they served lobster. They were always serving food. Every time you turned around there was a box of donuts. Some people gained weight there. Back in the late eighties and early nineties they used to keep me in the hospital three or four months when I got hospitalized. They cut the time of the average stay in state hospitals in Oklahoma a lot shortly after that. A thirty day stay was the longest time they kept you after that, and thirty day stays were rare. In the late nineties I was kept in a state hospital in Tennessee four months. One guy had been in that hospital eleven years. Another one had been in five. In Muskogee, Oklahoma they have a facility that has an interesting approach to a mental health commitment. You only stay there a few days, and for the most part you’re left alone. It’s kind of just a three or four day rest. It worked well for me, because it took away the need for a longer commitment. They might have closed it down, though, because stays in psychiatric hospitals have been shortened so much.

6 weeks…about 5 times in 10 years…

1 month. been hospitalized many other times though for shorter periods…

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