have you ever been to a mental hospital? was your experience "just like the movies," or, even BETTER? was there a scary nurse and sleepwaking patients and creepy old men, etc.? time to tell all---

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

Answers

Um. This might propel you into Pamie's faux pas forum, but yes, I have. And no, there is nothing about them that can even come off as a good story.
A relative of mine is manic-depressive, and I've been given the opportunity to see the insides of hospitals on a few occasions.
The only real way I can describe it is this: remember the bus scene from Benny and Joon? How it was kind of creepy, the way she started pacing and yelling like that - how she seemed okay, mostly, but just wasn't, somehow? It's like that. Sad, and somewhat creepy.
And if you get to hear any of the stories of people you'll find in there, it gets worse. All sorts of people. All different levels of education, intellect, etc. All struck down by faulty things in their heads. You find yourself thinking "it could have been me." "That sleepwalking lady is someone's grandmother. That scary guy went to the same college my dad did." They never say that in movies.
Sad, yes. Scary, yes. Amusing? I wouldn't think so.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

My mom's a psychologist and has worked in several. As for the mean nurses, yes there are some out there. Yes, real abuse does occur. For the most part, though, they're just normal folks who try to help people when they can, get frustrated when they can't, and who have developed rather a rather dark sense of humor to deal with day to day life.

As for the patients, ditto what Julie said. You'll find all kinds. Some are sweet, some are sad, many are angry and with good cause.

Of course, my mom did have some good stories: like the time she had to help on a field trip to King's Island theme park (the one where Mr. Brady lost his plans). Evidently some wacky performers were freaking a couple of her patients out, so my mom pulled one aside, pointed out her nametag, and then went into a story about how one of her patients had killed his family for being too loud and annoying (she made it up- all of the folks on the trip were harmless). Needless to say, they weren't bothered any more.

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2000

i'm bringing this up not to make people feel uncomfortable, but just b/c i visited shoal creek two weeks ago, and it was SO different than the time my mother kidnapped me from 10th grade and threw me into baywood hospital for a week.

i think what bothered me so much was this one guy- we'll call him "frank." he's like 30ish, but would just walk around with his head down, scooting his slippers. he was so drugged, i wondered why he was there. during group gatherings, you'd have to push him on the shoulder to make sure his head wouldn't fall into his painting, or food, or on the floor. he would walk the halls at night with a bed sheet around his body and a shirt on top, so it looked like he was wearing a skirt.

actually, the one guy who REALLY freaked me out was mentally handicapped and never had his zipper pulled up. he was always asking people to play chess with him. some did, i left the room when he entered, he freaked me out so bad.

the not-so-funny thing was it seemed like almost all of us were in the hospital for the same reason- depression and suicial inclinations. i mean, it got to be really really depression being around half-zombied people that were also really depressed. my husband HATED visiting there, and we'd only hang out in a small room with no other people. he actually brought up a good point- shouldn't deepressed people be able to walk through gardens and flowers and pretty things that make most people happy, instead of gettin gmore depressed about themselves and others that were way-worse then they were? it seems like a good idea. would the insurance cover it, though? medication and therapy seemed to be the only offerings, though i'm out now and lucky enough to have an art-therapist. thank the gods.

sorry for rambling. work is truly boring now, and i'm leaving for houston at noon. my aunt is in the final stages of cancer, and it'll probably be my last visit with her.

i'm going to cry.

if you made it this far, thanks for listening. :)

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2000

Yes, I used to work at a private psychiatric hospital (which is what they're called by the way, "mental hospital" is...well...a little scary, and kind of insulting to the patients - if you ask me).

Most of the patients I worked with were there for depression, which is much more common than most people realize. Clinical depression is extremely debilitating, and usually is accompanied by various other conditions such as substance abuse, eating disorders, suicidal thoughts or tendencies to name a few.

Anyway, the place I worked was private, which meant that the patients had money or decent insurance. It wasn't a scary place at all, and to tell you the truth, 90% of the patients I saw over 3 years time appeared perfectly normal to the outside world, but had gotten to a point where they could no longer keep it together and needed help.

I worked on the VIP unit, which meant that I saw alot of celebrities suffering from "nervous exhaustion", which usually meant that they had burned out from too much partying or were dealing with an eating disorder or depression (or in some cases both). No, I can't tell you who any of them were, I signed a confidentiality agreement and the hospital can and would still sue me for violating it.

I did have a couple of patients with multiple personalities, and I've gotta tell you - it was fascinating. Our hospital had one of the leading experts on multiple personality disorder on staff, so patients would come from all over to be treated by him.

The grounds were beautiful, and they called it a "campus", to sort of ease the patients into treatment I guess. We also had amazing food and lot's of it.

I think no matter how nice the hospital however, being a psychiatric patient is frightening and disorienting. The stigma attached to mental illness is awful and the less you understand, the more likely you are to make judgments about people who have been hospitalized.

-- Anonymous, March 06, 2000

I was placed in one.It was like hell for me.They were always forcing pills down my throat,I couldn't do anything I wanted to do.I couldn't go have a cigarette,I couldn't have a cup of hot coffee.I couldn't go anywhere ob the grounds alone;one of the staff was constantly following me around;looking over my shoulder making sure I wasn't going to "flip out".At one point,they wouldn't let me interact with anyone else in there because they claimed i was "scaring the other patients"because of hallucinations I would have.They treated me like I was a dangerous serial killer or something.At night I had to sleep with my door open and they had a staff member come by to "check" on me every 30 minutes.They would watch over my shoulder when I ate,they thought I was gonna use my fork to kill someone or something.And they were always carrying their stupid little notebooks around,noting almost everything I said or did.it sucked.

-- Anonymous, July 13, 2001