What It's Really Like in a Mental Hospital

The media like to portray psychiatric as dark places where only the truly insane dwell. Watch a movie where a character is in a psych hospital and you will most likely see them being given electric shock treatment, restrained, and drugged up to the eyeballs. I spent a week in one of these hospitals when I was struggling with depression and tried to commit suicide. I would like to set the record straight about what really happens when you are admitted to the psych ward.

It is NOT like the movies.

When I first went to the hospital I was expecting to go to someplace that was horrible. I was wrong. The walls were brightly colored, there were comfy sofas and chairs in all the day rooms, and inspirational posters everywhere. The bedrooms each had three beds in, there was a chalk board above each bed so that you could write your name and draw on, floor to ceiling windows with a view of the garden, and plenty of places to put your belongings. It was plain but homely at the same time. The only reminders that you were in a psych hospital were the fact that the windows couldn't open, everything was bolted down, and there was a big poster stating your rights as a both a voluntary and involuntary patient.

All of the staff treated us with respect and kindness. Whenever I had a question, they would answer it. They did all the could to make everyone's stay as easy as possible. One of the staff even helped me with a story I was working on; his job description didn't include helping the patients write stories but he did it anyway because it made me happy. There was no abuse; the staff did not shout vile things at us if we decided to not cooperate with them. We weren't treated as crazy or menaces to society; we were treated as what we were, unwell people who needed to be in the hospital.

Treatment (Lots of Therapy)

All of us were treated with a combination of medication, therapy, and life skills. None of us were given electric shock therapy or doused with freezing water. Techniques like that were used a long time ago, back when people didn't understand mental illness. Electric shock therapy is still used to treat severe depression but only when all other treatments have failed. How they do it now is much more humane than back in the day, they put you under general anesthetic so you won't feel or remember anything.

The treatment I had involved changing my antidepressants to something slightly stronger, being given an anti-anxiety, and having lots of therapy. The majority of the therapy was group therapy, so we all did it together. I found it very helpful to know that there were 10 other people going through pretty much the exact same thing as I was. We also had art therapy where we painted and made crafts, along with recreational therapy where we played sports. I did have some individual therapy where I was able to discuss exactly what had led me to try and commit suicide. When I went in I was scared that I was going to be tied down and drugged, that was what I had been told happened in psych hospitals. Never once was I tied down or restrained in any way, not even when I got very upset at one point and screamed at the staff. They just let me scream because that was what I needed to do. They watched me to make sure I didn't hurt myself or anyone else but so long as it was just screaming, I was free to do that. I wasn't drugged; in fact the psychiatrist hesitated to even give me a very low dose of anti-anxiety meds because they make you sleepy. They didn't want me out of it because that would be like putting a plaster on a broken arm; it's not going to help at all. They wanted me alert so I could work on solving the problems that had bought me there in the first place.

The Other Patients

I was surprised to find that all of the patients were just like me, normal people that had become unwell. The majority of them were there for trying to commit suicide like I was. A couple were there for problems stemming from drug addiction. There was only one person who was there that had psychosis. We weren't all wandering around muttering to ourselves, we had normal conversations with each other and did normal things. We were just like patients in any other hospital.

I met some really amazing people there. Some of them I am still friends with to this day. None of them were crazy or bad, they were sick just like I was. We all helped each other to get better. Even though I was only there for a short time, I felt like I became very close with both the other patients and the staff. I shared things with them that I hadn't shared with anyone because I knew they wouldn't judge me. In a way, the other patients were just as instrumental to my recovery as the doctors, counselors, and nurses were.

If You Have to Go to a Psych Hospital...

If you find yourself being admitted to a psych hospital or ward, don't be ashamed. You wouldn't be ashamed if you broke your leg and was admitted to the orthopedic ward. Mental illness is an illness just like any other, you have no control over whether it happens and you cannot make it go away with willpower alone. There is nothing wrong with needing to go to the hospital for a mental health problem; you have an illness and you are going somewhere to get better, that's it. When I got out of the hospital, my parents told me not to tell anyone where I had been. My family and most of my friends didn't want to talk about it, they wanted to pretend that it never happened. This made me feel like I had done something wrong, that I was bad for going to the hospital. I was quiet about it for a long time until I realized that I have no reason to be ashamed. I didn't become severely depressed on purpose and I didn't do it to cause stress to my loved ones. I also realized that sharing my experience could help others. Going to a psych hospital is a very scary thing. I wish there had been someone to tell me that there was nothing to be afraid of. So here I am, telling you that psych hospitals are not the awful places people think they are. It's okay to be scared but you don't need to be.