Why doe so many aspies wind up in mental wards?

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It was probably harassment. I would go on political protests, and had a tendency to ask the police why they were misinterpreting and breaking the law. If they told us to move and I could see no reason for it I'd just stay put... that kind of thing. I was arrested once for standing on the wrong bit of pavement, and another time for using the word "perverse."

I have been to a behavioral institution thrice. I think it's mostly because I was saying things people did not want to hear when, for most of my life up to that point, I really hadn't said much of anything to anyone. I finally found a girl I could talk to (or so I thought) and I got sort of obsessed with her. I put her on a pedestal. She didn't like that one bit. She said some things about not wanting to see me for two months after I sent her a picture of an Ithacan rainbow and how she wanted an invisibility cloak. That kind of freaked me out. Preceding all that someone drugged me I think because I thought I did something to her-- something pretty bad and it really freaked me out. So that time I checked myself in to the mental institution. The other two times have been recent. I had my appendix out a few months ago. And afterward my life started spiraling out of control. In addition to some major family issues, I thought I needed to remove a choice part of my anatomy and that landed me back the first time. The second time was more of a falling out with my parents. I REALLY don't want to go back. I'm positive of that. And I'll do whatever I have to not to go back. I am (or perhaps more accurately was) a Cornell biochemistry student, by the way. And if anyone ever wants to talk/write to me about anything, please feel free... It's good to get things out. I think one of my biggest problems was that I kept them bottled up for too long and then things just sort of exploded in unfortunate ways spawning even more unfortunate outcomes.

QFT.


Only luck has prevented me from getting locked up due to meltdowns.


When I was 11 1/2, I was forced to go to a psych. A year later, when I was 12, 5 they wanted me and my parents to be committed to what they called day-department for families at the youth psych clinic. We turned down their "gracious offer". Their next move was to insist on sending me to a boarding school for girls with behavioural issues, which we also turned down. The year that followed was hell but that's not directly related to this topic. This topic reopened a can of worms
That's the closest I came to getting committed.


As for why an Aspie would get committed, my guess would be:
meltdowns and/or sensory issues could be seen as psychosis
depression
PTSD
stress
anxiety
nervous breakdown
negative symptoms that makes a psych think of schizophrenia


Why anyone would committ themselves voluntarily is beyond me.
Who wants to go to the loony bin where the cracy people are? And the ones that are supposed to look out for you are often portrayed as sadistic at worst, uncomprehending at best. Where things no one would really think about IRL becomes big issues, like with that journalist who got himself committed to report from the inside and found it hard to get out again.

I've never been hospitalized, but I have been seeing a therapist at my school because I had a major depressive episode with suicide ideation. They usually admit people to psychiatric hospitals because they have a serious disorder, and treat the most serious one. If someone has schizophrenia and Asperger's, then they would treat the schizophrenia instead of working on stuff that aspies tend to have trouble with (e.g. social skills, emotional regulation). It also depends, of course, if you're going there at will or you're forced to by the courts. I don't know how many people that admit themselves compared to people that are committed by the courts. I would imagine that there are more people that were committed by the courts vs. noncommitted. It's only a guess. It probably also depends on the education level of the psychiatrist. I've read a few stories about psychiatrists diagnosing patients with schizophrenia when they really had Asperger's Syndrome. Sometimes it's just an accident. Most of the time they only admit serious cases, such as they are very likely going to attempt suicide or they go way out of control in public and need to be put on medication. They say that some people with Bipolar II, which (I think) are the cases with manic episodes (vs. hypomanic), tend to do very crazy things in public. They say it's they almost feel as if they're going to come out of their own skin (figuratively speaking), according to my therapist. I think it would be a horrible ailment to have a very serious illness such as that.

Nope, the vast majority of patients are voluntary. Or, rather, "voluntary"--they were admitted while they were deeply distressed, and simply didn't insist on leaving.

I see - I doubt there's such thing as a place where the police doesn't pull this kind of sh*t - having a social conscience can be quite costly!

Kudos to you for dealing with it - I suspect I would totally freak out in a similar situation.

I stayed in one for 7 days. It was about 15 days after discovering AS. I only slept about two hours a night during those 15 days, was freaking out, and my parents called the police after I emailed the White House.

This made me think of the bit in Her Majesty's Wizard where Matt first conjures up Maxwell's Demon and the demon gets all annoyed at the people who don't know that "perverse" doesn't mean "perverted." (uhh, yea.. slightly off-topic, I guess.. Max woulda done a number in that situation, though! )

That's actually exactly what happened. The police had given everybody a list of words that they weren't allowed to use, and other people at the demo decided to ask the walking dictionary. (That's me.) So I was writing out alternatives to the banned words for them. The police didn't like that. So I started telling the sergeant who was telling me to desist why I objected to language being censored. I told him it seemed perverse in a free country that we didn't have freedom of speech.

Unfortunately, the word pervert was one of the words that was banned, and me saying "perverse" was seen as breaking the injunction, so I got carted off.

On another occasion I was arrested for speaking French... the police thought I might be using French translations of banned words.

Wow, that's an amazing story I might sound terribly naive, but I've never heard of anything like this! A list of forbidden words during a demonstration?! Is this regulated by law or how exactly does it work? We have laws against hate speech in Europe, but this sounds different - sorry if I sound like an imbecile, I'm just surprised.

That makes sense. I've been wondering whether someone could call it a "volunteer" admission if they were trying to commit suicide. I've heard that because suicide is the "homocide" of yourself that you could be charged for it, and then you could get hospitalized for a time. It's still a bit of a blurry concept. I think I should take another look at my abnormal psych. book lol.

You don't sound naive. Most people don't know that this is happening. The businesses that we were protesting against would claim that the use of certain words or phrases caused fear and intimidation, or could cause fear and intimidation, and the police would then use laws originally designed to stop stalking and neighborhood harassment to prevent us from using such language.

I'm living in England, by the way. I've also been arrested in Holland and Germany, so the laws are being similarly abused there.

That this kind of thing no longer astounds me is a sorry state of affairs.

The last time I got commited a patient there asked me if I had AS. She said she did. There was another guy there who seemed like he did as well. I over heard the nurses talking about him. They said he kept talking about computers and he said he could diagnose everyone in the room. He was obviously interested in psychology which I could relate to. He must have been 14 or 15 which prooves my point further. Most teenagers don't have extensive knowledge about psychological conditions. I thought it was strange that 2 other people possibly had AS. And it's weird that we can spot them out...like a 6th sense or something.

I don't think being hospitalized helps AS, though I was there for depression and attempting suicide. It didn't help me at all. I stayed in my room the whole time until I was forced to sleep in the hallway.

amen to that. I never was threatened with committment (mostly because no one around me cared about my obvious problems) but when I got sober they were trying to get me to do treatment/halfway house because supposedly that is a 'good' environment to be in. By that time I was through withdrawal and I finally acquiesced to go see a halfway house because I was getting kicked out of where I was living. It was a nightmare and I was thinking if they lock me up in here with these crazy chicks I will effing kill myself or go back to drinking...this is not going to be therapeutic for me. That I guess is my main fear about committment, being forced to be around other people and not be able to get away from them. The quiet types that just shuffle around wouldn't bother me, it's the loud, personality disordered/borderline/high drama females and anti-social males that would push me over the edge.

I've been hospitalized 5 times the past 7 years. One was following a suicide attempt. The next was a breakdown. I was also unmedicated at the time. The next was just a couple weeks later after being bullied and harassed by patients in the after-care program for the way I look. Two months later, a suicide attempt over many issues and this hospitalization lasted 2 weeks and led to the Asperger diagnosis. The next one, 9 months later (this being 2007) was a breakdown. Wasn't a threat to myself but didn't feel good at all.

Was nearly hospitalized last June after coming "this close" to ODing on meds after the girl I was dating ended things with me. Have been on more meds since and haven't felt that bad.

I will say, while some of the patients in there are just as bad as any bully in the real world, some patients I formed genuine connections with, and the doctors for the most part showed great individual care...something that I'd never experienced before. They went out of their way to make sure you were feeling better.