What do you think of the use of restraints in behavioral and psychiatric facilities/wards?
I’ve been in restraints over a dozen times. Dehumanizing but necessary.
Sometimes appropriate, sometimes excessive, potentially traumatic.
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Were you a danger to yourself or others? No need to answer if you don’t feel comfortable
Danger to others. I went around punching the other patients. Also tried to escape. Got 200 yards before getting chased down by staff in a pickup truck.
I personally (thankfully) have no real experience, unnecessary threatening with them happened a couple of times though… I wasn’t violent or suicidal
I have had to manually restrain students a whole bunch. I have also been in restraints. We only ever used manual restraints at my facility because they had a lower risk of abuse. Manual means you hold the patient with your hands, rather than using straps or handcuffs. We only did it when the kids were actively trying to hurt themselves or others, and only for up to 30 minutes at a time. Usually, it was only for like 30 seconds. After the kid calmed down,they would usually say thank you. They didn’t want to live with the guilt of hurting someone else.
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Yeah I feel like I’m a bad person because I’ve hurt people during my meltdowns etc
Never got strapped down though, just held down
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I’ve been in what they called PIT holds (preventive intervention technique). Preferable to being tied down.
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You aren’t a bad person. You just haven’t learned how to stay in control of your actions when you are in crisis. It is very difficult to do. You are only 15. You have plenty of time to learn.
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Sadly appropriate in all the instances they were used on me. Didn’t appreciate it at the time, but now I do when viewing in hindsight.
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Last time I was in the psych emergency section of the hospital they placed me in restraints because I was punching the glass divider surrounding the nurses station.
They used it on me because they wanted to force me to sleep (there wasn’t any big danger)…
Force you to sleep? How? With medication?
Tied me up to bed.
Every time I got put in restraints I got three shots: Haldol, Ativan and Cogentin.
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I got two shots.
One in each arm.
Probably Haldol and Ativan.
They carried me like Superman and I got the shots in the posterior. Then they’d flip me over and employ the restraints.
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Flying Haldol tackle for the win!
Does anyone know why they chose to inject Haldol and Ativan? Do those work the best?