A group of us were all watching TV in the Common Room. It was the NFL Playoffs that night, so I asked out loud if anyone minded if I changed the channel.
This one big guy stood up and yelled, “AAAARRRGGHHH!!!” at me. Then he bulldozed a nurse’s tray on wheels into the wall, sending pitchers of water flying…then punched his fist through the wall knocking a picture frame down.
A security guy came running in. They all tackled him and gave him a quick injection which put him to sleep. As they were lugging him away in shackles I raised my finger and cheeped,
" Um. On second thought. You can watch whatever you want!"
Any strange or humorous psyche ward stories from any of you?
In the hospital I was in, when someone lost control like the guy in your story, the closest nurse would yell at the top of their lung, “STAFF” and every nurse in the vicinity would run over and dog pile on the guy or girl.
What was also funny was that sometimes the staff would throw a big net on someone to subdue them. It always struck me as funny but looking back, it is also a little tragic.
One time in group we were drawing pictures as representations of various things. For one of them we were to draw a picture that represented “satisfaction” to us. So I drew a picture of swimming sperm cells lol. Everyone got a good laugh out of it.
There was another time when, deep in psychosis, I went apeshit on a nurse, but that story is more tragic than funny.
A girl I befriended on the ward started taking her clothes off completely and walked around the compound naked.
They subdued her and injected her with Haldol.
This happened a couple of times while I was there.
Met lots of neat people and told lots of stories of what got them in trouble. Was HUGE help navigating everything…Learned the scam for a few spots so knew not to move to those areas as scam was hurting the women badly – some ladies move to RURAL area for job ads, got ruined, called crazy to get the disability check and these housed the drug dealers. Small town cops kept the ladies trapped there by putting them in mental hospital for complaining about the drugs…Eventually could get away when the druggy ended up in jail and you asked for social worker from out of town…
Mental care’s wife was in there after a fight where she called him a crook. She was locked up for MONTHS acting okay and probably not symptomatic in any way…He said her mouth threatened his job and he liked his lifestyle so she could be a mental case or a Mom. He threatened to take away her visitation rights…She even got arrested in front of house in view of neighbors in ritzy neighborhood. Moral of story: Watch your mouth and isn’t good idea to even associate with some people in certain professions. Attorneys and social workers are hard ones too…Really seen some tough situations comes out of getting in trouble due to these or people in these professions who are psychopaths or worse…
Also learned NEVER okay to get critical with mental care or even offer ‘feedback’, will get you in this kind of trouble. If using county mental clinic, ask to talk to the office manager and request to try out another DR or ARNP if it isn’t working…Otherwise, check out different psych care until something works for you and change doctors without comment. Met several who were having ‘attitude adjustment’ weekends in mental hospital for sassing the mental care. You owe the bill for this unless MEDICAID…medicare can lose check for 2-3 months when it is seized to pay the deductibles of $1300+. Usually do get fired if working and can go homeless, so REALLY close to end up committed to mental care nursing home…Oh yeah, if you keep up your mental care if picked up on psych hold, you just call your current psych DR and they will spring you in a day or two but if you let your care slip, you can be in mental hospital for MONTHS.
I’ve told this story several time over the years but it still cracks me up.
I was in a psyche ward when I was 21and a nurse there had the unfortunate habit of picking her nose and eating it even if it was in the middle of a support group in front of ten people.
One time she was doing this in an afternoon group and I thought I would try to help her so I blurted out in front of the whole group, “People would like you better if you didn’t pick your nose and eat it”. I meant it to be a helpful remark.
There was a stunned silence in the room for a few seconds and then everybody just went back to talking and pretended that nothing had happened, lol.
There’s another one I just thought of . It was during my last psychotic break. I went into the shower, took my clothes off and tried to start the water. It wouldn’t turn on, so I walked out into the hallway, butt naked with my hand over my junk, shouting down the hall to the nurses’ station, asking them to turn it on for me. Yeah, a nurse came down the hall quickly to get my naked arse back in the shower lol.
Most newly admitted were placed in quiet room upon admission to mental hospital. Floor got scrubbed a lot…Most of the males tried to urinate all over to deal with the anger…Funny when guy was forced to stand in the corner for an hour as room was little and whole floor wet.
Once I escaped from the Ward in a Taxi Cab on a smoke break…
I went all the way down to our Parliament Hill. I felt I needed to give our Prime Minister a bunch of stuff I had collected at the Hospital.
i was met by a wall of security guards who told me they were unable to accept my things and to go home. So I returned to the Psyche Ward but didn’t have any money to pay the Cabbie. Boy was he mad! But I found my brother upstairs. He was visiting me, and gave me enough money to pay the Cab Driver.
I’m kinda lucky in hindsight. If one of those Hill guards was trigger-happy, I could’ve been shot. I approached them rather quickly, while whipping different objects out of my pocket.
Another incident…
I was in a Psych Unit at the Emergency Room.
I was Psychotic and very paranoid.
I didnt want them to send me to the psych Hospital, so I began to punch the thick bullet proof glass divider and bloodied up my hand.
A couple of guards and orderlies subdued me and placed me on a bed with restraints.
The Nurse injected me with Haldol and Ativan and that was the end of that.
I once walked off the grounds during a smoke break. I had quit smoking at that time, but I went outside with the smokers just for the sake of getting outside for ten minutes. The psych hospital was directly across the street from my apartment when I was living in Philly. I had (stupidly) left the apt door unlocked and I wanted clothes, so I walked across the street, grabbed some clothes, put them in a grocery bag and walked back over to the hospital. The nurses didn’t even notice me walking back in with a grocery bag full of clothes, didn’t check them or anything. Hell, I could’ve grabbed a knife from my kitchen and brought it in with me … not exactly secure.
One of the therapists leading our group was awful…there was a black guy in the group, she noticed he wasn’t participating and she said “Hey you, what’s your name again?? Shaniqua?? Why don’t you participate.” (Wasn’t even close to his name, he was incredibly upset afterwards and ranted to us about it)
Then another time this same therapist, when our group was talking about things we’d learned in CBT and helpful coping mechanisms we had learned from the program she said “None of that crap works…” Sometimes-most of the time-she wouldn’t even do a discussion or anything, she would just be like “you guys do whatever you want” and she’d mess around on her phone. (Once she had us play charades…I didn’t want to play because it was a stupid waste of time and money, and she made me…unbelievable) People put in complaints. They wanted to put me in IOP eventually and I said no because I found out she was in charge of it. I hope she got a lot of complaints and got fired. People like that have no business being in mental healthcare.
During my last visit, our food always seemed to be coldish on arrival. Everyone else agreed. I penned a petition for hot meals. Everyone signed. It worked, hot meals for all.
my room mate came in cussing and shouting and I asked what was wrong…he said, “they’ve been poking and prodding me all day and now guess that want me to do??” I said maybe blood work…he said, “they want me to ■■■■ in this box !!” I started laughing and then he started laughing and it was a brighter moment in my stay at the ward.
Last time I was in the psych ward I was having massive mood swings as well as psychosis. I got yelled at by a nurse for standing on a sideboard drawing on the walls with crayons, and I serenaded the entire ward with a very loud rendition of a Johnny Cash song even though I’m a terrible singer. I was also standing on top of furniture spouting poetry and waving my arms thinking I was some sort of creative genius or famous poet… typical mental ward behaviour I suppose but I’m quite embarrassed looking back!
I did a runner from that ward too, I was allowed a 5 min cigarette break, and legged it. Unfortunately I got completely lost because I didn’t know the area at all, and ended up walking for 4 hours through some woods until I eventually ended up at the end of the road leading to the hospital, took a massive pointless detour in my confused state. However I managed to find my way to the bus station and get on a bus, then phoned my boyfriend to tell him I had escaped and was on my way home. I must have said it quite loudly because the guy sitting in front of me on the bus suddenly got up and took a seat much further away from me, and I got some strange looks from other people around me who must have realised I was an escaped mental patient. It probably didn’t help that I then responded to this by announcing to the whole top floor of the bus that the local hospital was a sh**hole and don’t worry, I’m not a serial killer…
There was this one rambunctious dude in there that kept trying to start fist fights with all the other men in the ward…when he came up to me I must have given the impression that I wouldn’t fight or something because he left me alone. anyways, this one cowboy fella he picked a fight gave him one…broke his nose by kicking him in the head after he knocked him down…ouch.
Here in my city, we have the county hospital and that’s where the psyche ward is. They had an evaluating room they put you in to observe you and talk to you before they decide if they want to admit you to the hospital.
One time I was in there with about 7or 8 other patients. I was about 26 years old. There was this Latina woman about my age in there. She was wearing tight blue jean and she was built; she had a tough mean face but she was pretty. So I kept sneaking glances at her, just checking her out and I thought she didn’t notice But then all of a sudden she turned to be and said, “If you don’t stop looking at me I’m going to punch you in your fat nose.” I was embarrassed and felt foolish and I stopped looking.