Avoiding inpatient due to prospect of feeling trapped/crzier

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This is not a cry for help or an attempt to elicit sympathy or support. Now that I think of it, I wouldn't mind resource recommendations, but that's all.

I am just curious - how many of you have felt suicidal yet frustrated due to being unable to kill yourself for some reason? I have become aware that survival instinct can be an obstruction when trying to kill oneself.

So, having felt this way, I considered inpatient, but ultimately avoided it due to fearing it would make me feel trapped, and therefore, crazier.
I was wondering if anyone knows what this is like.

I reiterate that no one should worry. I am in a supportive program.

As a minor I was asked by a counselor what I've come to understand is a loaded question; "Do you ever feel like just ending it all?" My affirmative answer led to me spending 108 days in a facility. When we interacted with the adult unit I was envious of their ability to come and go at will. Some of them even kept their cars parked in the spaces closest to their rooms!

As an adult I have had the frequent post-meltdown thought of checking myself in but from my experiences as a preteen I grew to hate,hate,hate sharing a room. Also I project that the staff would do things to extend my stay the way they did before. There's that and the fact that if I wanted to purchase a firearm I would be rejected for having a record of mental illness. To boot it would give my family all the more ammunition to use against me, they think I can barely look out for myself as it is

I wonder where you can get a firearm if you have a record of mental illness. Not in my state!

If you can go to a private hospital it would be beneficial. Ask a doctor for a referral to go voluntarily. If you are stressed by the environment, talk to the staff. Most of the other patients will offer support too. All voluntary records are secret unless you make a statement expressing an intent to hurt someone. As for firearms ownership, that is complicated and varies a little by state, I am not familiar with the conditions the precious poster was held under so I cannot speak on that. If you go voluntarily, your gun rights are not affected in most states, and even those states the ban is temporary. If you are held involuntarily for evaluation, it gets more complicated, in most states, getting ordered to undergo treatment after evaluation results in a lifetime ban, though many states now take advantage of a federal law that allows for federal mental health prohibitions to be lifted by a judge in the state you were committed in.

I know exactly how you feel. That is why i have never told anyone( that i know in person) that i am deeply depressed. I value my freedom too much to risk being hospitalized. I was in twice for a total of 17 days when i was 13. I will NEVER allow myself to be in again, those were hands down the worst days i have ever lived.

I am also afraid of how it would affect my job. I would certainly lose my job, and when asked for a reason on future applications, i would be immediately disqualified. So as far as i am concerned, if i were to "unsubscribe" to life, i had damn well get it right the first time.

The way i see it, people with physical illnesses (cold, flu, etc.) go to work when sick and simply "push through it" because they cant afford to take the time off. I dont see mental illness as being much different. I just grin and bear it and go to work, even though work is whats pushing me to the edge.

If you go in voluntarily, it stays totally confidential. Your psychiatrist orders you on medical leave/temporary disability (you keep your job position) and you go back to work when it is over.

Being in the hospital as a minor is substantially different since you don't have any say in what's going on, and that tends to affect the ward's behavior. Even adults who are brought in by the cops have some say in their treatment unless a court order is obtained, which is extremely rare and usually only ordered for some criminally insane cases or cases where the patient cannot understand their options or express their wishes. A teen ward can be useful but it would require a lot of communication before admission and during the stay. Adults, even when involuntarily committed, tend to have a plan to keep a low profile, and do whet they need to get better and get out ASAP.

I know exactly how this feels. Many times over the past 8 years I have been suicial but not enough to doing anything about it, just a longing for the pain to end and death seems the only way. However, I think about loved ones and how I dont want to hurt them, plus my severe autistic inertia prevents me from doing anything so drastic.

Here is some advice:

If you go to a doctor and tell them you want to be voluntarly hospitalized for suicidal thoughts, you will he held there for 3-5 days involuntarily, depending on state laws. When that time is up. the doctor will ask you if you still feel like you want to kill yourself, if you say no, then you will be there on a voluntary basis, if you say yes, then the involutary basis is extended.

It is best to go to a crisis center, if possible, they are more short term than hospitals and are better with dealing with these kind of things than hospitals are.
Never go to a state hospital
Never let them talk you into going to a long term facility...that is where the real crazies are and the average stay is 8 months to 2 years.
be careful what you say to inpatient psychiatrists, they take everything you say very seriously. When I was discussing some of my young juvinile deliquent behaviors, I ended it with "and other good stuff" He took the "good stuff" comment very seriously and thought I did not know the difference between right and wrong, I did, but "good stuff" is just a figure of speech that I hear alot in my house. As a result he told my parents that I was a very ill child and needed more help than he could give me and sent me to long term, which I have to say was the craziest place I ever been. Mostly overrun with mean-crazy thugs and uncontrolled schizophrenics all thrown together, no place for an aspie.

But I am against institutionalization for many reasons, but the main one is how do you expect to get better in a place where there are alot of crazy people running around.
Crisis centers, however, are more often filled with just totally stressed out people trying to get a break,, bipolar folks that the doctor was monkeying with meds and messed them up, depressed and slightly suicidal folks like you.

However, your best option from my experience is to forgo hospitization all together and go to a mindfulness meditation retreat. Mindfulness has helped me more than any hospital has...the skills I learned though mindfulness have helped me deal with the impossible longer than I thought was possible.

http://www.tnhtour.org/

The blue cliff monastery in NY, the 5 day retreat is the best one in the US.

you really cant get mentally better in an enviroment that focuses so much on mental illness.

Jojo

True, though in some states and some hospitals may let you stay voluntarily after the 72 hour hold even if you are still in a state of crisis. Some hospitals like that since they can avoid a hearing. If you fill out the form to leave against medical advice, they do have the option to commit you.


Good point I forgot. You can also request to go straight to outpatient. They may want you to go inpatient for a few days, but will likely shorten it if you already have a plan set up for outpatient treatment. It's not uncommon for hospitals to make that an agreement to send people to outpatient instead of extending their commitment. I'm not sure if it's legally binding in most cases or not.

Well, just March of this year I was like that. I mean, I have seasonal depression and school got so overwhelming to me that I was going to hang myself, but my boyfriend just happened to call me in just the right time for some unrelated reason and he talked me out of it. I told my psychiatrist next meeting and he recommended I go to the hospital, but I told him that I felt that it might be counter-productive once I get out of the hospital because then I will have all of this work to make up depending on how long I stay, which, even a week would put me way behind so yeah... he didn't admit me as I never explicitly said that I would harm myself even though, deep down, it was possible.

Plus, if word gets out, my college will not allow me back on campus if even if I get out of the hospital and feel much better without approval probably due to me being too much of a liability or something. I just read it somewhere in the handbook.

I ended up not going to the hospital. He put me on lithium and put my back on risperdol like he usually does when I'm depressed and I felt a bit better, though I really hated having to go see him more often just because I told him my situation. It makes me want to fake it just so that he leaves me alone.

I have been actively suicidal for some time now, and although I have been in A&E twice in the last two weeks due to taking overdoses I have not been admitted as an inpatient to a psychiatric facility. My psychiatrist firmly believes that given my specific difficulties, the inpatient environment would make me worse not better and so she is doing everything she can to keep me out. I am exhausted by fighting these thoughts and just want a place where I can rest safely for a few a days to regain son strength to fight the thoughts more effectively (as I'm currently not winning that battle) ... hospital seems like a reasonable option at the moment. I am in the UK though so showing up and asking to be admitted isn't an option except at a private facility I cannot afford.

And to the OP, I completely understand the frustration which goes with not being able to kill yourself due to that stupid survival instinct.

I'd go do that just to make them pay for all my tuition! If you were not involuntarily committed as a danger to others, that's total ADA discrimination!

Yeah... I don't know... I guess the idea is that they want you to focus on getting better, after all, I was pulled out of school the last month of my senior year and worked at home just due to the fact that some of my teachers were very, very prejudice against Catholics which I happen to be one and they would just say stuff that made me upset. Seriously, it felt like I was in some sort of cult. Infact, it didn't do anything to strengthen my Christian faith, rather, it almost made me feel worse because it just left me jaded and with no idea what to believe anymore.

So in that case, being pulled out of school was necessary because the envioronment itself was hostile. No really, they hardly did anything except say I should be pulled out of school and that I shouldn't go on my senior trip. They didn't even bother to talk to me about it or reach out to me or help me or anything even if everything was extremely obvious, as in, I explicitly told them. Sometimes I really wonder about them...

Of course, they are in a huge amount of debt and are desperately trying not to get the school closed. Well, I say good riddance because I will never, ever, ever send my children there, ever. They do not deserve to suffer this brainwashing that I went through. I was one of the lucky ones who escaped, they may say I was one of those deviants, but no... I woke up and realized everything that was wrong. They haven't totally destroyed my faith in God though and I think their hearts were in the right place, but well... now I know better.

I feel so much better going to a public college. I feel like I can speak more freely and question more freely as well.

Yes I have felt that way more than once....though lately I am more worried about freaking out and injuring myself, others and damaging property when certain PTSD symptoms get set off. I hate it, my head still hurts from the last time I freaked out and my right shoulder and arm from bashing a door with my elbow the time before.

But then of course what if that just makes me feel trapped and just makes it worse? But yeah I am kinda running out of ideas...I mean if I don't find some way of dealing with this I am likely to either end up involuntarily committed to a psych ward or put in jail if I freak out in public and damage anything or anyone.

Me

Sweet Pea hugs