Have you ever been committed to a mental ward?

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Did learn how to smuggle razors though... Except secure ward had metal detectors. Not so easy. Black coffee was banned. Although I learnt how to play obstacle course games in the pitch blackness with another patient, and how to pick locks (very, very useful).

There was a hell of a lot of hierarchy there... If you went to some of the night staff and said that you really could not sleep, they would give you milk (oh for f***'s sake). Other night staff on other nights would dish out sleeping pills like sweets . The nurses generally treated anyone annoying badly and anyone that was so ill that she couldn't know night or day with a lot of pity. Some nurses hugged you, some stayed three metres away from you. Healthcare Assistants... don't remind me! Half of them can't even speak English! d00d. The only way I got out of hospital was by becoming a really fake, nice person, and buying the consultant psychiatrist an expensive fountain pen lol, even though half the time, I was pretending to take my pills, then going to the loo and spitting them out.

Last edited by SteelMaiden on 12 Aug 2007, 2:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

I've never been in a mental ward, but I must point out, some of these stories are downright frickin scary.

I did for approximately half a year, when I was 15, it was a ward for teenagers. It wasn't what I expected it to be, actually I learned some important things, and it was quite refreshing. Well, to start a bit earlier, I grew up in a small town but was tought in a large class. In the ward I lived in a bigger town and the class was small. Both of these were good as I have always loved the anonymity, shopping, culture and events happening in big cities, and I got better grades in the smaller class. (Now, ten years later, I moved to an ever larger city.) It was also the first time I was away from my parents for an extended time, which was good too. Still I rebelled about being there, mostly because it happened at a time in my life where I just wanted to be NT, whatever the price, and the longer I was there the less I could feel like one.


Yes, but not more or fewer than anywhere else. Unfortunately I lost contact to all of them, since I moved to another country.


Nope, no meds at all.


Wouldn't say so, though I'm afraid I teased one of my room mates with phobias a lot - he was bullied by some others too - wish I could say sorry today.


After breakfast, hospital school for some hours - as I said it was a small class of mixed ages, with very nice and understanding teachers. In the afternoon sometimes we did group therapy (which I hated), sometimes single talks to a psychiatrist, sometimes activities in smaller groups, like cooking food, baking cookies etc. (that's where I loved to cook). Oh and I learned it's not a good idea to put french rolls in microwaves for 5 minutes, unless one wants to set of a fire alarm. But there were also lots of free time, when I could read books for myself, watch TV etc.


Well, of course nothing that was a potential risk to anybody, but mostly everything else, I think even obsessive behavior in some of the others wasn't discouraged a lot. During the first weeks I only got to leave accompanied by a nurse or social helper, but later I was allowed to go out alone often, then I would enjoy wandering through the city, shopping, visiting libraries or churches, listening to talks, or riding trains (the latter I wasn't supposed to do, but I'd say "I'll go shopping downtown the afternoon" and ride a train to some other city instead - part of my rebelling I guess).


I didn't tell many... especially nobody in my current relations knows. The school I left pitied me, some of them were sorry and thought they'd bullied me too much.


Lol, it didn't change my life a lot. I guess I got more independent though.


Lol again, what do you think it was, a jail or something? (Probably my opinions about jails are as mislead as what many believe about mental wards.) A friend tried to commit suicide but luckily wasn't successful.


The most eccentric, I guess was a guy who was extremely afraid of (some kind of) radiation. Sometimes the nurses had to force him to the TV room and he'd try to escape all the time. We had a good laugh about that, nice as kids are at that age :S

Conclusion: It was nothing like mental wards in the movies, there were few rules, and the staff was mostly very friendly and helpful. Still, thinking back on it I'm surprised how little was done to help people - so much free time, so few talks to psychiatrists. Sure, we were under supervision and our reactions to social situations were written down, but it felt more as if they were writing a scientific study than diagnosing and training us. I was released without a diagnosis and at least one friend was too. I wonder how that's all they could come up with, when my AS traits are quite obvious today. But then this was 10 years ago, I was not the person I'm today, and knowledge about ASD was more sparse than today.

Yeah, and they were NOT fun times.

I was confined to a mental ward for an initial ninety day period whilst they figured out a) why I was depressed & suicidal and b) why I thought that getting on a bus carrying a carving knife muttering under my breath that I was going to kill my girlfriend was a good idea.

Now THAT'S a nervous breakdown folks ! !

After ninety days I was moved off a secure ward and they spent the next six months putting my mind back together. No ECT as my parents wouldn't sign the consent form but they did everything else.

Ed Almos

No, but I used to fear that I would end up in one someday.

razors were a type of currency in the hospital. So were ciggerettes.



good gawd, girl! I SOLD my thorozine I stashed behind my tongue on the ward for ciggies and canteen food.
The first straight jacket I saw was being used on a woman that was admitted and we all thought she was just drunk when she came in - and she was! This was back before it was well known that Nyquil liquid cold medicine was 80proof alcohol and she had been sober through a self help program for over 20 years and had just taken some for a cold one evening - the allergic reaction that is alcoholism kicked in immediately and because alcoholism is a progressive disease ( it keeps getting worse even if you stop drinking for 20 years, only to leap out like an enraged lion when given alcohol again)
Anyway, she was looped that night and in the straight jacket and the next few days still in the jacket because she was so embarrassed she was suicidal - and her health had really suffered. . poor woman!

and the padded cell was right there on the ward. Open if unoccupied and a little chicken wired glass window to see anyone in there that was in there. We were always reminded of it's presence cause it was next to the nurses station and we were encouraged to remember it if we didn't want to take our meds.

I remember the dreamy woman that was my roommate, sweet Melinda. Her particular madness was seducing psychiatrists and orderlies because she LOVED being pregnant. They took away every child she ever bore, and she was very sad about that, and looked forward to being pregnant again. We used to swap suicide ideas like suburban housewives swapped chicken recipes!

I've never been in a mental hospital, but I have few friends who have. One had a manic episode where she basically became psychotic for 3 days and didn't sleep or anything. She never really told me anything about her experience in there though. Another friend was in there for depression, and he had this delusional roommate who always used to tell him crazy stories. My friend hated it there. And then another friend has been in there a few times- whenever she tried to kill herself she would end up in the mental hospital for a while (although her last visit she checked herself in voluntarily for suicidal thoughts). She also didn't tell me too much about her experience, except that I know there were some really messed up people in there, whom she sometimes had to calm down and take care of when they got agitated.

RichardBenson: I encourage you to talk about it.


SteelMaiden: What did the lorazepam and diazepam do to you when you DID take it? Were yiou able to make plastic, glass, procelain or wooden shanks? Was the consulting psychiatrist a nice person? No? The other staff didn't seem like your type either.


Edal: So for you it's a success story? Cummon, tell it!


Xanadu: That reinfoces a lesson for me: always ask for the phone numbers and email addies of the people you care about! And why did they force that guy into the TV room?

Nope, just worried it might happen one day. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to be in one though. It might be nice to have someone take care of me. But I'm just a lazy ass. Most of them are probably terrible anyway and not at all like I would think.

I know; it must be nice not to have to worry about food and shelter, but you can apply for disability and that's how you can get free money... and you can go to food banks and stuff. I plan to do that. But I still plan to be a successul person. But I'd hate the filthy bathrooms that some people described. But there are compensations for that, like making lots of kooky friends, being able to sue the living s**t out of anyone who abuses you (class actions are especially fun!! Solidarity rocks!), and being able to tell people, "I survived this joint; can you?"

I've been in the mental hospital 3 times in my life. All three times I was in there for only a week at a time. Two of those times were last year and the other time was a long time ago (11 years ago) when I was 13 years young. It was extremely boring there each time. My severe depression put me in there each time. I almost went in there this year because I went crazy. I was hurting myself all the time and almost committed suicide. But they didn't have any beds available oh thank God for that. I didn't want to go back to the hospital again. All I do when I'm there is fiddle with my thumbs and read books. The hospital didn't really help. All they do was put me on medicines and talk to me 5 minutes every day in therapy. The main thing the medicines do is make me fat. It only helps a little bit. There are a lot of groups in the hospital including art therapy. That was one of my favorite groups. I like to draw. So, that is my experience with mental hospitals. Knowing my luck I will go back before the year is over.

North Dakota State Hospital in Jamestown is being used to house sex offenders who have been labeled as "sexually dangerous individuals". They are civilly committed after they have finished their prison term. Personally, I don't think these kinds of people should be in a mental hospital with other run of the mill patients. I think there should be a special sex offender prison for these people.

Someone I work with quite closely politically is a psych nurse. I have never been able to fully trust him for this reason. It may be him who locks me up and refuses to give me the good pills one day if I lose it spectacularly.

Double post.

Last edited by Graelwyn on 13 Aug 2007, 8:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

~Your experiences really do make me think of 'Girl Interrupted', I have to say, lol.
It sounds as if it was so different back then.

Anyway, the answer for me is yes. I was in the same private London psych hospital twice. I took my first overdose when I was 14 but in spite of endless overdoses between then and 22 when I was sectioned, they never put me in a psych ward...always a normal ward. They told my mother I just didn't belong in a psych ward and they thought it would make me a lot worse. Even when I cut up my arm so badly I needed 98 stitches, they didn't section me or even keep me in. They just stitched me and sent me home. When my weight was at 70 ibs, I still was at home, lol. I was a mess, to be honest... bad bullying at school and my mother's non stable behaviour towards me, plus the legacy of child sexual abuse and the connected guilt really affected me badly.

Anyway, I was in voluntarily, to give my mother a rest, the first time...2 weeks that was for and it was okay.
But the second time, my mother had come in my room and I was on the window ledge of her top floor apartment, and she decided she couldn't cope with me anymore. I was just in a very bad way, almost verging on delusional. If I wasn't taking sleeping pills so I wouldn't have to live through the days, I was getting into insane rages bought on by things she said or by my own self loathing, and cutting myself with anything that came to hand, regardless of the consequences. It wasn't a calculated 'lets cut to get someone's attention' sort of thing, so much as pure rage and anger and pain.

Anyway, I don't think she realised I would be sectioned. I was put back in the same hospital and they gave me sedation and the next morning, I was woken up to have the sectioning order read to me when I wasn't even alert enough to have a clue what it meant! My mother was very upset and angry as it was taken out of her hands. I kept trying to escape and run off, and finally they confined me to my room. I was stuck in a room for 5 weeks with a nurse guarding the door. I was not allowed out of it at all. They did nothing when I banged my head on the wall, tho occasionally I got a nice nurse who would brush my hair to calm me down. I hated it there. I got rather institutionalised, and in the end, they released me, not because I was better but because they couldn't cope with me lol.

Graelwyn, what does "sectioning" mean exactly?


Fogman, do you wanna tell about the attempted shotgun suicide? What did it look like? Was it hell for that person? I can't imagine; it must have been a shock!