Have you ever been committed to a mental ward?

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No. I've never needed to be.

The problem with mental wards is that I've been to them while not insane. I can honestly say when I went into them as a teen, the staff is usually supportive and caring, and overall it's a place where you can get stable again.

When I was admitted to a mental ward not that long ago when I was maybe 21 I was extremely shocked. The staff mostly consisted of people who didn't want to be there and treated patients as nuisances... aside from that I noticed something fairly alarming. Every patient there, even having totally different problems and symptoms, were being treated with the same two medications. In other words... everyone there was just a test subject. I left as quickly as I could, but within the time I was there They had me on such a high dose of Risperidone and Depicote that I was having extreme tremors and eventually broke out in rash from a nervous reaction... Yes and they gave me those meds for ehem... Depression? I'm not sure every hospital is like that for adults... but it had been such a disturbing experience that I'd much rather die alone crumpled on my bathroom floor with a bullet in my head than ever give another mental ward a chance.

Edit: A way to get help without being forced though a disgusting experience is to voluntarily sign up for being an out patient. It's a program that requires that you go to the hospital during the day and you leave in the later afternoon. I also had my own psychiatrist so I didn't have to eat their meds... and instead had a reliable doctor prescribing me medication that actually helped me... and not harmed me to see how I would react to them. Also out patient is less scary. The patients are less disturbed and the staff is generally more supportive... or at least they were in my experience. The thing is that you have to qualify to be an out patient as in... you can't appear that you're going to be a threat to yourself after hours or you'll just be admitted into in patient which is the bad experience... unless you truly need to be there for your own safety. After I left in patient the terms were I could leave if I went to their outpatient program is the only reason I had an experience with it. Yeah a problem even with voluntarily admitting yourself to in patient is they can keep you however long they want even if you aren't a threat to yourself... so from now on if I truly need help I'm more likely to sign up for out patient like programs. Also in patient is a nightmare for someone with AS. In in patient I've never been to one where you didn't have a roommate or didn't have to interact with excessive amounts of quality time with scary people The down side with Out patient is it is very expensive... expensive to the point that my insurance almost wouldn't pay for it

One argument that helped me not to be admitted at one point was as follows: "I'm not suicidal and I don't plan to be. I still think it's possible for me to solve my problems and I'm seeing my counselor; we're making headway, even though it's slow. I don't want to be admitted right now because it would really cause a break in routine. I wouldn't be able to work on dealing with all the stuff in the real world that I've been working on. And I don't need to be taking up space that might be needed for people who are really in danger."

Unfortunately, the second time I was admitted, I wasn't articulate enough to use this, and they assumed I was very depressed because I wasn't talking very much. They promptly discharged me two days afterward because I "played their game". My actual condition had not improved at all; I had simply gotten a night's sleep and gotten full access to speech back.

I was there once for like a week. People told me that when I got there, I looked like the most "out of it person" they had ever seen. I didn't even know the real reason why I was there until like a week in. I thought I was there voluntarily so they could look and me and run tests but apparently I was there involuntarily for suicidal ideation. Anyway, it didn't feel like that big a change from my usual routine, just the other patients really got to me. My roommate would snore all night long and I would lie there in bed and just go crazy, or I would sit and stare at the wall all night or something like that. Once I asked if I could use one of the quiet rooms and they said yes but they didn't let me make it a nightly thing so I was back to barely sleeping for several nights in a row.

Thanks you guys!! !! !! ! Thank you so much because I have been so scared for a few weeks now and it's not getting any better yet. I didn't think any of you were going to help me and I couldn't find help anywhere online yet but still looking. Yes I am with a relative. That seems to be part of the problem because they can have easy access to me me if they want. I plan on leaving I just need more time to get everything worked out so that I can without them stopping me. I'm pretty sure if I left right now they would make lots of trouble for me so I'm setting up plans for that in a little while and researching as much as I can online for this until I get all that ready. I am not in danger to myself or anyone else. However it is group abuse, they've chosen me the one to pick on when I'm not even doing anything wrong. The only reason I can think of is because I don't gossip about others like they do. So actually I'm nicer when they are mean, but I guess just because I'm different than several close family members they're singling me out. Real bad thing is when I tell them stop when they should stop it makes it worse. It makes them do it all the more and makes them do even more emotional harm. So even if I try to get them to stop it only makes them worse. It's been real bad even since left message here last. So I lock a door to my own room since there is supposed to be a protected right to individual privacy. That makes them more mad because then they can't be mean to me when they want. So the way they've been acting is like they're going to gang up on me and try to involuntary do that. For the only reason I want to be left alone because they are the ones abusing me just because they want to. I know some people do get involuntary done to them that should never be because they are singled out and family want them to suffer, just because they aren't like the rest for a wrong reason. you're great help is sure appreciated though makes me feel a little better just getting a few replies. I'll keep my online search in the meantime.

So what I really need is someone to give me more advice about pre-emptively doing or knowing something. Doing some sort of pre work or knowledge where they aren't allowed to do that to someone. I read about people having right to dignity and freedom, so it sure seems like there must be some laws where they aren't allowed access to someone just because they feel like it. If more of you could give me more ideas on that would sure be helpful and help me sleep easier until I can leave.

Also your help on what to say if get there, and how to act, so they don't think anything is wrong with someone once they are there also. I read here that when some first get there they are so scared, or know they should definitely not be there, of course many would act strangely when there, just the shock of knowing they shouldn't be there.

No one wants to be around people that are abusing them badly, there isn't supposed to be anything wrong with that a person's right. So no one should be able to make anything wrong with that when they are the perpertrators abusing someone.

Any human rights things that help people so other can't treat them wrong. Or lawyers for human rights you know that would talk to me online or something for advice on how to stop something like this. I just got a letter from one family member few days ago. Saying 'the family' several times in it and trying to make me afraid, so that I should feel alone. So that I should feel alone with no family help so too much shows something real unfair is up I don't know about. The obvious use of that term many times throughout was to try to make me feel real alone as well.

Thank you very much for your great help.

Are you male or female? Your profile says you are female. If you are female and 18 or older, you might try a battered womens' shelter. Yes, really. Women in abusive situations do have that recourse most of the time; and it needn't necessarily be physical--it can also be emotional abuse, like what they are doing threatening to have you committed. I don't think they would really turn you away because it is parents and not husband doing this to you. Plus you would probably have access to a counselor who could interview you and determine that you do not, in fact, need to go to the hospital. If you really, really need to get away from home, that might be an option, and is generally better than a homeless shelter.

Twice.

My mother suggested it a couple of times and I nearly went once myself. But being crazy without any Internet is just a receipt for more insanity.

Thank you very much any good tips at all are helpful. I'm female and over 21. They are close relatives other than parent also. It really looks like it is group abuse and they victim blame all the time too. So when they are abusive to me which they are first 99 percent of the time they blame me for their own completely unfounded agression. I never am agressive with them first anything I do are nice words in defense, telling them to stop whatever it is sometimes. Most of the time when they get like that I just calmly answer and ignore them, doesn't help.

Battered women shelter? You think that is pretty safe? Because I was told to avoid anything where they can turn you over to adult and family services, because I was specifically told many times adult and family services can make a person look real bad based on their own wrong opinion. I'm looking for someplace completely safe, where they are an independent group, and they don't turn you over to other agencies or tell other agencies. So that a person is not put into the cycle of being incorrectly labeled and people trying to take their rights away. So some place independent of the others that help people on their own, and don't turn people over to others. I heard it is important to avoid being turned over to others because then that cycle of incorrect labelling can start and continue. I imagine these posts will help someone else reading this someday, since this is about people getting committed, many when they shouldn't even be.

So recommnendations on independent shelters or independent abuse help or conversation.
Where they are there to honestly help someone, not to put someone in the cycle and turn them over to others that put them into the cycle. Anything else anyone can think of talking to those that are independent helpers online or talking to lawyers that give people advice about this. I'll be spending my whole day and night researching this more, but amazing with all the research I've done not finding a lot of tips online when there should be. Anyone that has been to womens shelters or other things themselves and know something that is completely safe about these in their own experience or really helped keep someone safe they knew. Thank you very much for your greatest tips and help.

LOL FOR DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

if, if you are taken involuntarily, you must try to remain as calm as possible. resisting physically will only cause additional problems for you. make sure you express that you are not planning on harming others and are not planning to harm yourself or commit suicide.

did i mention to try to be as calm as possible. way important.

look at many homeless people wandering the streets of large cities. severe mental illnesses. no where for them to go. our #$&*@$%& government spends more on taking care of murderers and rapists than trying to help people with mental disorders. wish i could think of someplace safe for you to turn to.

many of us hope things turn out ok for you.

I never stayed in one but I once got took to one to show me round to see if I wanted to stay. It looked too boring and I probably would have ended up causing trouble. Thankfully the pshyciatrist gave me the choice and chose no.

Rianna, unfortunately nothing is perfectly safe. Your best bet is more like "safer than where you are now". Are you in physical danger, or in enough emotional stress that you are at serious risk for depression/anxiety and other stress-related conditions? if so, you should consider finding a way out of your house--you are over 18 and you can live on your own; I'm recommending battered womens' shelters mostly because they have resources that can help you find a job and an apartment, and are less likely to allow your family in. I don't know whether it's the best option, but it's the one I thought of.

How about making a new topic with your situation and your question, and maybe some of us will know some other options.

Ill tell you from experience this is how to go. Try and find people that are there for stupid things and stay away from the ones that look like troublemakers. Be as helpful to all as possible but not to the point of being taken advantage of. And do not under any circumstance let the doctor find any anger or any other feeling when he tells you that your stay will be longer. One guy was told this and he went off agressively, turns out the doc was just testing him and had ordered his discharge papers already.

Whoa. Extremely bad when a person can't show normal human emotions because if they do they wrongly say something is wrong with them. When everyone should have a right to want to protect themselves and show normal human emotion. Sounds like it means you have to act like a nice quiet robot instead. Not a person at all. If I could do my life over I would find a way to change these laws and where mental health doctors couldn't so easily as they do say something is wrong with everyday normal people. It's extremely shocking that these things and laws like that weren't changed many years ago and it's still going on.

It has helped me a lot and giving me some small hope at least because I didn't have any idea what to do for weeks up to few days ago because of this. Thank you very much for helping and you're helping all the other many who will see this when they find it for same reason I did. Because they are real afraid someone is trying to do that to them.

I believe there should be completely safe places somewhere for some weeks. Even if it's just a good person in a regular home or apartment, that will help someone only for awhile who was just in an abusive situation only trying to get somewhere safe. People shouldn't have to worry about leaving one abusive place only to enter another what nightmares. There doesn't seem to be enough people in the world who try to make others feel really safe. I read that people are supposed to feel safe in their persons. Supposed to be a right anyway.

I will remember to stay as calm, quiet, robot as possible sounds like that's what they expect humans to be like, unrealistically, so sounds like that is what a person really needs to do. I'm also talking to shelters right now, sounds like there might be a very few where everything is confidential. The only thing they turn into adult services is statistics and not names, at least that is what they say. So talking to a very few that say they do. Also if you're around the Portland area somewhere within a few counties from Portland away or less, in Oregon and want to talk to me online to give me some tips and offer any help, send me a pm here please so we can talk about it. I might need someone to help me get my stuff out in a rush so I can get to a safe place, someone I can trust that can rescue me if I need it to get some place safer. I don't think a cab will help because my stuff they'll still probably try to keep from me since they are in a harming mode and they are in aggressive mode without care. Thank you for being nice enough people to help someone that needs help, and really to you also Callista. Will never forget those that helped me here thanks very much. Good people are the ones that help those that need help I always remember and try to help people too. I'll be able to give someone else tips also after I get though this if they need some help about any abuse. Best wishes. Thank you for your great tips any others any of you can think of at all.

A real important question that can help many people going through something like this too.
I read that everyone has the right to deny being drugged up if they are in a mental facility at any time. Based on experience of those that have been through this.

DO YOU SAY ANYONE DOES HAVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE BEING DRUGGED UP? OR DO YOU SAY THEY TREAT YOU A LOT BETTER AND RELEASE SOMEONE SOONER IF EVERYONE TAKES THEIR DRUGS AT ALL TIMES WITHOUT COMPLAINT. Also if it is take the drugs at all times without complaint, should people also not state they would rather not take them, while they're doing it. And just take them without saying they'd rather not at all also. Please let us know about that important problem and how they view the people regarding the taking of their drugs. Some of this that still goes on now is pretty unbelieveable looks like everyone anywhere should have knowledge about that part of culture that is still wrongly happening to too many people it shouldn't be. Thank you very much for your great help to several of us reading that need help with this currently.