My mental hospital experience

I went there from July 1st to July 7th. 6 nights and 7 days, not a long time but I still wanted to share my first experience in a mental facility. 

How I got there: 

My mental health started to decline about 4 years ago now, I won't go into detail but I got sent there for homicidal and suicidal ideations as well as self-harm (cutting myself). In short, I had homicidal thoughts (not intrusive thoughts) and fantasies. And so, I thought I deserved to die and that's why I started to cut myself, as well as to just see blood which was another motivation. About 3 years ago I grew out of that thought pattern because I became so used to and desensitized from my thoughts and fantasies, I only continued to cut myself out of habit and the motivation to see blood, and I still had passing suicidal thoughts. 

On the day I got sent there I had an appointment with my psychiatrist, when my mom entered the house to pick me up after she got from work I did not hear her cause my speaker was on full blast. When she entered my room she found me cutting myself on my ankles, pocket knife in hand, listening to Nasty Dog by SirMixALot on blast. She then yelled at me "why" because a few days ago I promised not to cut again. I promised to do something I knew I wouldn't keep because I couldn't care for how she felt about this, for she tried to convince me to stop cutting for her sake. And so we started driving to the appointment and long story short, the psychiatrist recommended that I go to the mental institution. Yada yada yada, it takes me 3 hours for me to finish getting evaluated and I get into my room at around 9:45 PM. 

The First Day (July 2nd):

A staff member woke me up at 5 am to have my blood drawn and to have a few other tests done. There I met another new patient who we will be calling Destiny, she also had to get her blood drawn. After that we go back to our separate rooms and wait 2 hours until 7 am for shower time. That's when the staff started to pass out hygiene products and towels. I chose not to shower that day because I already felt very uncomfortable, let alone comfortable enough to take a shower in the new environment. I also showered the day before and since I shower every other day I wasn't gonna shower that day either way. I was then taken into the group therapy room (where my unit spent most of their time) and Destiny and someone else who we will call Lilly (cause her hair was dyed pink) invited me to sit with them. Day 1 wasn't that interesting and was basically just me learning about other people and learning the schedule, as well as the drama between people.

Day 2 (July 3rd):

This day had nothing really special about it that I can recall except for one thing, we got a new patient who I knew beforehand from elementary school. We will be calling her Erykah. When she sat down we made the type of eye contact you do when you see someone you haven’t seen in years, aggressive staring. She then recognized me after a few seconds. Did I mention she was now my roommate? TERRIBLE ROOMMATE I WANTED TO ACTUALLY STRANGLE HER. Ahem, further elaborating on that. That night she warned me that her medicine made her giggly and that she sleep talked, and boy did sleeptalk. She kept sleeptalking about her man and then she started sleeptalking about ME. She also confessed to me that she had a romantic interest in me. This is how it went:

“Ya’know I’ve been thinking about leaving my boyfriend for someone elseee”

“...”

“His name starts with A~”

*thumbs up* (I do this in awkward scenarios sometimes).

“And ends with N…”

*thumbs up* 

“It’s you silly!”

“I know.”

Reminder, I just met her after 3 years of not seeing each other and even in elementary school I never liked her in any way. Her character is also extremely weird and unique, in a bad way. The best way I can describe it is that she always acts like she’s high on weed, dumb as hell, and in another world. I genuinely cannot describe it accurately and I’ve never seen a demeanor like it before. Back to that night, she kept sleeptalking and snoring which were very irritating. Irritation combined with a homicidal person does not end well and I ended up genuinely considering strangling her. I told that to her as a half-joke and she said “do it” to which I denied. At that point I was truly about to call a nurse in and tell them to take me away cause I felt like a danger to others. The only thing that stopped me from actually doing it and strangling her was that I worried that if I did that I would be harshly punished and possibly have to stay in the mental facility for longer. Luckily she eventually slowed down on the sleep talking and so my urges to do something also got quieter and I eventually fell asleep. 

Day 3 and 4 (July 3rd and 4th):

These days were pretty normal except for 2 things. The first thing is that I puked because I drank apple juice :( I love apple juice but it doesn’t love me back. I puked in the middle of the hallway while going to the gym. It was very awkward and uncomfortable and I had to re-shower, which I hated doing. The second thing that happened is that on July 3rd I wrote that I wanted to strangle Erykah on my nighttime radar sheet. A radar sheet is basically a slip of paper the staff gives out in the morning and before bedtime that has check box questions such as “have you had suicidal thoughts today?” “have you had homicidal thoughts today?” “If yes, do you have a plan?” To that question I wrote down yes and that I planned to strangle my roommate. To protect Erykah, they moved her to another room. Which was good for me cause I didn’t have to deal with her as much anymore, I slept so much better afterwards.

Day 5 (July 5th)

This was by far the worst and most chaotic day by far and I’ll get straight to the point. This girl who we will be calling Kat made a fake giant paper cigarette. It was a piece of paper coloured with crayola markers, about ¼ of the paper was coloured red and it was placed at the top and the rest was coloured brown. It was then rolled up and filled with shreds of plain white paper, which I am assuming acted as the ashes. The staff member in the group room saw this and took it away. Stupidly, the class began to argue that it was a roman candle… It looked nothing like a roman candle and I also saw her pretending to smoke it before it got taken away. I firmly believe that they were just mad because they broke a known rule and got caught for it. 

Kat then began to ramble how it was all bullshit and dumb, which it clearly wasn't. It was literally just a guy doing his job. She also rambled about how she “doesn’t give a fuck”, later on you will see how she actually does give a fuck. I’m tired of people who say that they don’t give a fuck but clearly do, cause in Kat’s she clearly gave a fuck about her paper cigarette being taken away even though she barely got punished for it. 

During her rambling she said the N-slur, which is when the previous staff who took the paper cigarette away drew the line. She knew that it was strictly against the rules to use racial slurs no matter your race, which I find to be an entirely fair rule to have, especially in a mental hospital. She was then taken out of the room (against her will) and talked to a nurse. 

Later my unit would arrive at the gym and during my time at the gym I learned that Kat and the rest of the group were plotting something. Kat, clearly giving a fuck, decided that it would be logical to plan to have everyone in the unit “crash out” against what happened to the “roman candle”. I was never given specific details about the plan and frankly I don’t think there were many specifics in the first place. In my understanding, around bedtime they were all planning to leave their rooms and “crash out” against the staff. They said I didn’t have to join and Destiny said that she would warn me before it happened cause she knew that I had noise sensitivity. Unfortunately I do not remember many of the events that led up to the “crash out”, but things kept happening that they didn’t like and the anger kept building for them even though the staff was simply doing their jobs. 

Later that night, they were gathered around another patient's table and talking. The other staff member in the room (the lady) told them to stop exchanging phone numbers. I am unsure if they were actually doing that for I wasn’t able to hear them the best, but nonetheless the now unplanned crash out began. Destiny got quite angry and yelled “This is bullshit!” and then threw a cup of water and a cup of crayola marker against the wall. It quickly descended into chaos. During the beginning of it (when Destiny threw the markers) I had the urge to throw my noise cancelling headphones the hospital provided me at her head, but I didn’t cause I knew that most likely my headphones would both be taken away and the group would turn on me since I was the only opposing one and the only one with common sense. And so instead, I ran out of the room because it immediately got too loud for my liking. I was then rushed into the sensory room which had two bean bags, lava tiles, and a section of textured wall. It desperately needed more stuff; it could only keep me entertained for so long. I then started to absolutely yap to the staff member sitting next to me about the situation and how stupid it was and how they got mad at people doing their job. 

Since I wasn’t in the same room as the crash out I only know so much, but I can tell you that I definitely didn’t appreciate it. The others eventually got out of the group room and escaped into the hallway. The doors were closed already of course to keep them contained, and so with their logic they thought banging on the heavy metal doors would work. It did not, it was just loud. I then asked the lady watching me if we could go outside, and so we did. While we were walking to the outside doors I passed by the doors they were banging on and saw them. I am still a bit childish so I flipped them off of course :3 We then got outside and I started yapping again but this time it had other topics and I asked her if she liked Garfield (she said yes). 

After they calmed down I was allowed to go back inside into the group room. Once I entered I did not get a single apology for what happened, even though they knew beforehand that I am sensitive to things like that. No one even acknowledged my presence. After a bit, I chose to make a phone call with my dad. I will admit, during the phone call I entirely forgot that some things are not socially acceptable to say in public, especially in a room full of fellow ill adolescents. Why do I say this? Well it’s because I said I wanted to strangle all of them for their dumb actions. I know this is awful to say but they need to bring back corporal punishment for things like this. These kids need to learn and they’re getting off too easy nowadays. Could make their mental health worse though I will admit, but hey it builds character. But I digress. I then got taken out of the room to go to another room so I can have a more private call. On the way a different staff member told me I couldn’t just stay stuff like that but also that he appreciated my blunt honesty. And I will say that I am an extremely honest person and blunt person and it can put me in tough situations sometimes. The only time I may be dishonest is when I know that I will certainly be cancelled for it, and I only do that sometimes and it's a miracle I haven’t been canceled for what I say in discord servers yet. Back to what I was saying, I then proceeded to make my 10 minute phone call to my father. Not much happened after that other than a few side eyes towards me which I didn’t care about. When I said I wanted to strangle Erykah they were okay with it but when I said I wanted to strangle them suddenly I was too honest.

Day 6 (July 6th)

I practically can’t remember anything unexpected about this day, just the results of the crash out and what I said. People avoided me and people had to sit separately as a part of their punishment. I sat alone at breakfast and maybe lunch, I can’t remember if I still sat alone or if I sat with Destiny that lunch. But I asked her if she still really thought I was actually gonna strangle them and she said yes and I tried to tell her I wouldn’t actually do it but since I was smiling she thought I was at least partially lying. But I can assure you I wasn't actually lying, I’m just a smiler and I appear as a very jolly person all of the time. 

Besides that, not many people were directly rude to me and frankly I didn’t care about what they thought about me. If they can still stand with their decision to crash out then I can still have my frustrations with them. 

The Final Day (July 7th)

Nothing happened. I just got checked out with my clothes and stuff at 11 am. I was finally FREE!!! It sucked so much in there and I felt like a little kid with a primary coloured propeller hat and a rainbow lollipop once I got out.

My Overall Experience and Conclusion:

Not good, especially for me who has audhd and needs a lot of stimulation and things to do in order to stay happy. We had little things to do such as colouring sheets, word searches, and blank paper. Other than that we had talking and our own imagination, not including the limited music choices and national geographic documentaries. It was difficult for me to be there because I was in a new environment and it had a lack of stimulation in said environment. I am not sure what that mental hospital could’ve done to better fit my needs though. The people there were mostly at high risk, and so there were many limitations and rules on what items are allowed in order to prevent people from hurting themselves. In conclusion, I just don’t think mental hospitals in general are a good fit for me. The mental facility also proved to just be useless to me, all we were taught in that unit were coping skills but I had no need for coping skills. This is because I already had coping skills and the ones they taught me I already knew about. I didn’t need coping skills, what I want is to know why I am the way I am so I can improve off that information. 

Not to mention that we didn’t even get that much time with our therapists and when we did it was severely lacking. I had 10 minutes max with my therapist on most days except for my one family therapy session which maybe lasted for 40 minutes. And the questions asked were also just surface level. “Have you been wanting to self-harm?” “Are you still having homicidal thoughts?” and things like that. It practically wasn’t even therapy, with an exception to the family therapy session. They just asked the same questions as our doctors and just went a tad deeper into them, that was practically all it was. 

My last complaint is that the facility I went to did not do what they also promised to do. They said they would call and keep my parents up with my progress daily, but they didn’t. The only time they called was to schedule the family therapy session and to schedule when they would pick me up from the psychiatric hospital after I was discharged that Monday. My father called them back after I was discharged to file a complaint, they used it being the 4th of July weekend as an excuse for what happened. My father is a retired firefighter and I can assure you that it being a holiday weekend is no excuse to why that happened. My dad has worked countless Christmases and Easters, and to have a mental institution use that as an excuse is unfair to the people they’re serving. No matter the holiday their top priority should be giving help to the people in their care who obviously need it. Because of all of this, my parents had said that if I were to have to go to a mental hospital again then they would go to the one in Nashville which has a 2 week treatment plan. I desperately hope that I won’t have to go to a metal facility again, my first experience wasn’t the greatest and it only made me want to hurt myself more. The only thing that going to the mental hospital did for me was remind me that I could not withstand prison, which gives me motivation to not hurt others.