I was recently involuntarily held in a mental hospital where I went through prison like conditions (strip search, had to wear scrubs, was locked in a room outside certain times a day, stuff like that) and thankfully came out in one piece after 8 days of this crap. I was just wondering why we subject people to these conditions when they haven’t even committed a crime?
Hi! Mental health social worker here- it’s for the patient’s safety, safety of other patients, and worker safety. Many people coming in are there because they’re at risk of harming themselves. Staff have to make sure (1) nothing that could possibly be used as as a weapon on themselves or others is identified and removed and (2) a thorough status of the patients needs documented when they come in. Oftentimes, people come in with injuries or conditions they either don’t mention or don’t realize are issues. If someone has that on their body and it’s not documented at intake then it could later be used as saying they received an injury while staying at the hospital. Many people coming in are depressed but are without a typical sense of reality and just need a safe place to be temporarily but some people coming in are having full psychotic episodes where they’re not in the same reality and information is misconstrued, they’re experiencing paranoia and making statements that people are hurting them, etc. I know that the process of everything must be really difficult especially when you’re there because you’re already going through something difficult but it’s kind of the only way to ensure everyone is safe. Unfortunately, staff can’t go strictly off what someone says or does to determine what intake process they have since there’s a large amount of people coming in who say one thing but you quickly find out a very different thing is going on with them. Hope all the best for you! I don’t work directly in our inpatient hospital but adjacent/work on processing their assessments for the state so still somewhat familiar and I worked in a residential setting with minors previously. If you hear someone in social work state that “anything can become a weapon,” they’re not kidding. I’ve had so many innocuous things become weapons in my time.
I guess I get what you mean but it was still humiliating to strip naked for strangers and open up if you get my meaning. I still feel humiliated by it.
Okay, sure. But the alternative would be “someone gets stabbed”
No, that would be the response.
I’d rather be stabbed since I have a death wish
…you realize that means you in particular actually NEEDED to get searched, right? I was about to say “oh you got caught up in the rules that keep other people from killing themselves” but no, you personally actually are why those rules exist then.
There are lots of things I could say about the lack of intermediate options for people with lower acuity/less severe mental illness but if you were actually having thoughts of wanting to be dead then a unit that controls things that strictly may actually have been completely appropriate.
Still sucks. You don’t even wanna know what the ICU does to keep people alive; they have a tube for every hole and then some. It’s certainly traumatizing but if the other option is being dead it’s generally considered a worthwhile tradeoff, same with intubation or any other terrifyingly invasive shit we do to keep people alive. Sure the throat tubes keep you breathing and therefore alive, but it’s not actually like, good for your throat. A lot of the healing after a hospitalization is from the hospitalization itself, for any type of hospitalization for any type of disorder.
Could also have been a sketchy facility tho. Plenty of those exist too. It can be hard to tell from patient reports like this because of how much the intense emotional states can affect perception.
I don’t want to hurt anyone else, just myself. I can’t help it at this point so I don’t think mistreating me is going to solve it
If you want to hurt yourself, it’s their duty to make it as difficult as possible for you to do a very thorough job of it. Unfortunately, it’s a long line of patients before you, who came up with very creative ways to bring in weapons, that made the staff put you through that humiliating experience. They have seen too many deaths, and suffered injuries themselves.
And remember, if someone jumps a woman on the street and beats the shit out of her or cuts her open, she hopefully gets some kind of support. But if she’s a nurse on the job, her supervisor will react with “what was your failure that caused this to happen?” They can’t really control what goes on in their patients’ heads, so they control the things they can.
I thought I had bodily autonomy? I can get an abortion if I want, not sure why I can’t blow my brains out if I want to under the same principle. Seems a weird reason to incarcerate someone.
And again, I never hurt anyone there or anywhere, I’m not a violent person. Isn’t that what matters, only if you want to hurt others?
If you want to blow your brains out, it’s unfair of you to do it where it will hurt the careers and reputations of others, and traumatize them with the knowledge they failed to help you survive. Not to mention cleaning up the mess you leave behind.
Also, the violent people who do want to harm others are often very good at lying and pretending to be like you. I believe you, but the staff can’t afford to take your word for it. Even if an individual believes you, they would be penalized for not following the protocols, which were written in the blood of those who believed the wrong person.
By the way, I’m glad you live in a place where you can get an abortion. That’s not a given anymore. And I’m sorry you feel so cruel towards yourself. I hope you can become able to be kinder to yourself.
When you are committed, you lose a lot of your rights, and I’d assume this would go as well. (Not passing a moral judgement here)
No, it’s about self harm and suicide as well. Being suicidal is a symptom of depression, not a free choice. In most (all?) countries psychiatric wards are oblieged to protect you from suicide.
It’s not just you that they’re worried could get stabbed, it could be anyone.
I took some psych courses in University and one of my profs was full of anecdotes about patients he’d cared for, there were people who were perfectly nice and calm and then in a split second something would go unpredictably wrong and they’d be savagely attacking whoever they could get their hands on.
And then a moment later they’d be beside themselves with dismay over having “lost it”, apologizing sincerely and profusely. He said it was really hard keeping on your toes in there. He permanently lost his hearing in one ear when one of his patients slapped him out of the blue one time, to both of their surprise. If anything remotely like a weapon was easily accessible it could go very badly.
I’m sorry your experience was unpleasant, and of course I can’t remotely speak to it myself - it was your experience, not mine. But it could be that the stuff that was done was for everyone’s protection.
Thanks but they had no reason to think I’m going to hurt others
I think you may have missed a significant chunk of what I wrote. The prof told me that they couldn’t know who was going to try to hurt others. Often the patients themselves didn’t know whether they were going to hurt others.
I’m not a nutcase so there’s no threat of that.
And how do people know that? How do they know you’re not pretending to not be a nutcase?
Do you understand that people can pretend to be kind, normal, etc as a way to sneak things in?
I’m sorry you had to go through these things, but you seem to lack some serious awareness of others.
You may not be a nutcase, but you’re definitely lacking understanding for others. How is anyone supposed to know you’re not a nutcase? Only you are able to know that. It’s simply impossible for anyone else except if they knew you for many years.
Touché salesman
That’s because, despite all of the excuses this person has made for themselves, the point is to humiliate you. They want to make sure you know your place, that they are in charge, and that standing up for yourself is futile.
I havent made any excuses
Adding that the scrubs part is specific to that location as not all hospitals follow that. Ours allows clothes from home if they meet certain requirements (and are thoroughly checked first). The only time scrubs would be used is if someone didn’t have enough clothes or if they came in like on a hold as you mentioned and nothing was available that was deemed safe. I know there are some places that just use the same outfits for everyone regardless. Our location also doesn’t do mandatory outside time or anything like that. Time spent in different groups, community areas, and outside are all just really encouraged. If someone is avoiding that thing then they process it with a psychiatrist as it’s usually due to something like depressive symptoms getting in the way and we want to address that.
I work with psych patients. It’s mostly to screen if they need to be in/out patient, new prescription, or whatever they need. Our hospital mostly gets people that have detention orders (judge orders them to get help at the facility) which means they can’t leave until they’ve been evaluated by a therapist and a plan to help them is setup. Sometimes it’s people that either chose to stop taking the meds for whatever reason or ran out of their prescription and can’t afford to get more and get brought in for their behavior. There’s patients that come in every 4 or 5 months because their prescriptions only last 90 days.
The scrubs allow patients to have clean clothes that we know don’t have anything they can use to hurt themselves or others. Some patients haven’t slept, eaten, showered in days. Giving them a shower, clean clothes, and food helps a lot.
I had a patient that while anxious and going through somethings, was talking to me, venting, occasional jokes, etc. Calm and polite the whole time. Out of nowhere, they ran towards another patients room, but only got half a meter in. They squared up like they were going to fight me, but immediately went back into their room after I asked them to. Once in the room they starting kicking the bed trying to break off a piece of rail.
By that time security, RN, and 2 other staff members were there to witness the patient wrap a blanket around their neck and try to choke themselves. All this within about 90 seconds. From calm to actively suicidal. I got yelled at for allowing the patient to enter another patients room.
There are patients that scream, threaten to kill you, and are overly aggressive and then break down crying after you tell them to stop yelling.
I’m sorry OP had a horrible experience and mental health doesn’t get appropriate funding. I’d say 95% of ppl are good patients, but the rules are for the 5% that aren’t and we can’t know which ones are gonna be the 5%.
this sounds heavenly for mental recuperation!
That’s not a lot of paragraphs.
Fuck your safety.
https://youtu.be/kL3QPQuDY3I?feature=shared
I’m sry, but I’ve been to lots of psych wards in Germany, and none were anywhere near this restricting, and there weren’t many incidents.
Patients attack you cause your system treats them like convicts. Treat them like a human and they will react way better
Imagine having to explain such an obvious fact of life to someone who claims to work in mental health, and what that means for the people they’re in charge of “helping”… 🤯
Sorry, but I don’t buy this. Many, many years ago I had a loved one in one of these prison-like institutions - I fought hard to get her out of there and into a better place.
Miraculously, her (supposed) “violent tendencies” disappeared the moment we got her out of the prison-like place and into one where she wasn’t treated like a subhuman.
No, no, you see, they must treat patients like subhuman, otherwise how will they know their place?? (/s but only just, since that’s exactly how many people running and working in these hell holes actually see the world).
You are wrong thinking that it’s right.
I would literally rather die than go to one of your prisons. I have clinical depression, all my friends know that trying to involuntarily hold me would not end well. Once was enough.