I really like the staff at this one hospital. And a few of them refer to me as “their favorite”, which may be hot air for all i know but it certainly was a kind thing to say either way.
When im there those nurses tell me stuff like “one day youll come back here and be a scientist” or w/e. I dont get that support anywhere but there. If i had it my way id pay rent just for a room in that place (kidding but not really).
I like being locked in, and away from outside threats. I also like the quiet room, I use it a lot when I’m in. Sometimes I need a safe place to just go and fall apart.
The food was really good and also getting out of it.
Getting out and staying out.
I had a good time visiting with the other patients, while there I met a gal we would go for walks and one day we went to a bookstore together, sadly she lived in another town and was not really interested in any sort of log term friendship, was good while it lasted though
Some of the people that I met there. I often think of them and wonder how they’re doing now.
What was your favourite thing about the mental hospital?
Leaving it for home. Least fave thing there – the fact that the single television in the ward is always commandeered by neurotic, soap opera watching females. I just can’t abide people who don’t watch proper television (think Dr. Who or Star Trek).
In the 90’s and the millennium, I always felt safer while in the hospital. Probably because I was so darn paranoid. One of my inpatient pdoc’s asked me what was the matter? He asked me if I felt safe? I just looked out the window and shook my head no. That’s when he ordered me Risperdal pills. And that’s when I started on the road to getting better.
If we’re talking least favorite - arts and crafts! How is that supposed to help me when I’m hearing voices and paranoid? The last time I was inpatient, we went outside and blew bubbles. I was still working at the time, on a three week short term disability to accommodate my inpatient stay. All I could think was, holy crap, if my boss could see me now…smh.
Oh, I hear ya. Those disappeared from the Canadian mental health scene in my part of the country about 20 years ago. When I was initially being admitted they had us doing that stuff to assess our level of function. Then there were cuts and they just started overmedicating everyone – knowing your level of function no longer mattered. Pills are cheap, but actually having people work with the mentally ill? Fuhgeddaboutit!
So does that mean there are no group therapy opportunities in the Canadian mental hospital system? I lived in Alberta for nine years but wasn’t inpatient there. My experience here in the U.S. was that group was vital to an inpatient stay as far as the nurses were concerned. They didn’t care how tired you were from your meds, they made you go to group!
I’ve been in Alberta all my life. There used to be group therapy, and possibly still is, but it would be uncommon outside of places like Ponoka Hospital now. There is an extreme shortage of mental health hospital beds with a fair number being used by seniors with dementia who should be in senior care centres, but there’s also a lack of beds there. They bump younger mentally ill so that there is not enough space to handle all of those who are acutely ill now. You get hospitalized just long enough to medicate you into a daze and then expelled to make room for the next piping hot mess.
Wow. That’s really depressing. I would love to move back (I’m a dual Canadian/U.S. citizen) but that’s a big factor to consider. I worry that I will be put on a such a long waiting list for a pdoc and not get one that’s good like my one I have now. My husband would love to change cities here in Virginia, but I’m not willing to lose my pdoc. I’ve had too many bad ones in my life that I know when I have a keeper!
I hated it there, but I liked one single thing: besting a guy who tried to confuse the guy who asked us how we were doing each day. His goal was to use words the asker wouldn’t understand. I tried to use words that he wouldn’t understand. I reveled in it when he pulled me aside and asked what my words meant. I’m a total word snob when I want to be. lol
The food.
I51515151515
It would have been peaceful if the sheer boredom and the denial of the one relief from my hallucinations I had at the time (my mp3 player some times, my phone one other) didn’t make me crazier than I started.
the high calorie food
High calorie food? I was gypped!
The food!! We just circled on a large menu what we wanted and we got it. You can circle as many things as they could fit on the tray! Oh and X2 certain things too! The people were all nice and pretty cool (military psych ward) wed share stories of our time in the military. But I wouldn’t want to go back ever again to any ward lol
I have seen bad things
Rarely I think there 'll be good things
I been left there with no one asking about me
Good thing …um
I think the only things May be I been recalmed from state of unstability