Hey all, I was wondering if anyone has been institutionalized, either voluntary, or forced. If so, let's hear about your ecperience! I myself was (nonvoluntary) at silver hills in new cannan ct. Wasn't as bad as I thought the experience would be, but then again I was doped out on meds most of the time. I was diagnosed with psychosis NOS (not otherwise specified, ha can't put a label on me) and was prescribed 400 mg of seroquel, which I have since given up. If anyone else wants to, we can swap stories if you drop a post.
I have never been institutionalized but it's my secret dream to be ;). I'm curious how it would look like. Any stories?
What did you do to deserve it?
In reality, they are a bunch of kiss-asses at those type of places. My bro was in one for a bit for suicidal-attempts, and they wouldn't make him doing anything: take medication, participate in group-stuff, etc. Of course that was a more temporary place, but that's where most people go when they are put into such places, and usually released about a week or so later.
I've been institutionalized three times. It's actually quite boring. All we did was sit in groups and talk. It's not "Ooooh creepy, dark asylums!" like many people think.
Involuntarily when i was 12, for around a month.
After constantly trying to get them to realize there was nothing wrong with me they eventually listened to me.
Whole thing was due to my mother, who in turn was arrested after my release and handed a pretty huge fine for wasting government money by getting me put there.
Whole experience wasn't too nasty because i was in a kids place. But i hated everyone there and did not enjoy it at all.
Also it took a fuckton of careful planning to not let anyone know it happened.
I constructed an elaborate lie that i was having special stomach surgery in a foreign hospital because they were the only place that had equipment that could do it and i had to stay there while it healed and it didn't leave a scar since it's a new thing.
Elementary school kids are pretty easy to trick.
Three times, involuntarily because I was under 18 each time and my parents/doctors made me go. I think I was.. 16? when i was released from the last one. basically it was hella boring and just had a lot of group therapy. 3 weeks at a time was pretty much the cap on that shit because that's when insurance would always run out. I can't believe all my health insurance got wasted on that stupid bullshit. It really did nothing for me, I got where I am today all by myself by power of will. (and look at me now, posting on gurochan... haha :P really though.)
Once for me, involuntary. At first I was excited and had fantasies of meeting an attractive insane person or getting sexed up by a doctor. Unfortunately, speaking to other patients was discouraged, and people usually got punished for it. They feed you a ton of food, I gained a million pounds. You don't get to listen to music, which killed me. I had to watch Indiana Jones every week. Animal Planet was the only television channel we could watch.
I organized poker games. I guess that's not allowed. My punishment was to spend a week alone with only Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Basically I came in nice and trusting, expecting to socialize. I left paranoid and cold.
my experience wasn't as bad as the one's i'm hearing. I went in expecting Arkham Alsyum, but all it was, was
There were some cool people there, so it wasn't all bad.
Two funny ancedotes:
If you've seen Silence of the Lambs, you might remember the part where Dr. Chilton tells clarice that she can only give Lecter soft paper with no staples or metal paperclips, and that he can only use felt tip pens. This is actually true.
Also, one night at about 2 AM (that's when newbies usually arrive, because you have to go to a real hospital first, and then take an ambulence ride to the psych hospital) this guy named Micheal is assigned to be my roomate (luckily I almost never had to have a roomie) we grunt hellos at each other and fall asleep. Next morning, he shuffles out of our room and sits on the couch for about two minutes. Then without a word he just starts freaking out, flipping tables over, throwing chairs. The rest of us were quickly hustled to the gym, but on the way there, we hear on the radio "WE HAVE A CODE WHITE ON MAIN 3, REPEAT CODE WHITE ON MAIN THREE" well main 3 was the section I stayed at, and I later found out that code white means two huge orderlys pin you down and jab you with tranquilizers, and your portered off to main 4, which apparently is some heavy duty shit.
I can type up my full experience if anyone is curious, just drop a post or send me an e-mail.
Four times, involuntarily. Peds, though, which is about as boring as you can get.
As has already been said -- boring groups, bad movies, and I didn't even have good books to read. D: The main sources of entertainment were coloring sheets, card games, and watching the nurses trying to make their Vocera badges work.
(The latter was the most entertaining, I think. Nothing like watching frustrated nurses screaming at technology.)
I stepped on a tree frog by mistake once. Too bad that's not my kind of guro.
And I got my first kiss in the psych ward, but it was pretty boring otherwise.
(I was actually allowed to use pencils. o: The golf kind, at least.)
>>7
Oh god, sorry if that's rude, but I lol'd hard. Thank you for this.
>>1
400mg of serquel a day must have been terrible. I was on 100mg a day for some time and it made it impossible to become aroused ot to feel any sort of emotion besides despair at not being able to masturbate. I tried taking 300mg and upwards several times (I was very bored) and could barely walk, and could never manage to stay awake for more than an hour after taking them.
the only similar thing I've been in was a week long out-patient thing. Sometimes I fantasize about being institutionalized, at someplace with a nice green courtyard where I could relax in the sun. As long as either what books or what music you could have were not restricted and any medication that was prescribed was resonable, I think I would prefer it to my current life. I seem to share Yossarian's love of hospitals, and have even thought about pretending to be crazier than I am to get into one, which I suppose makes me pretty damned crazy.
Only twice...its was pretty boring each time but the arts and crafts we managed to do were epic.
>>13
I was a zombie. Luckily they cranked it down pretty fast. Also for everyone here who's been in, did they strap you down for the ambulence ride? The guys said they didn't have to if I didn't want to, but I told them it's be more fun that way. I'm just wondering if getting straped in is standard.
>>14
About the whole post, except for the last sentence, maybe.
>>16
Zombie was exactly the word I was thinking of using, that or robot, but I was afraid it might sound too trite.
Your comment about being strapped down reminds me of another time I was treated like a mental patient. I was lying on the damp ground near my school in a drizzling rain (I love the Rain) when my next class was beginning because I was terribly tired. It was very comfortable, and it also got me away from the teachers and shit head administrators and the soul crushing edifice that is my high school all of which I for the most part hate fervently (the architect of the two high schools in my school district did in fact design prisons previously.) I was lying face down and after about ten minutes of soothing snoozing someone in a nearby class noticed me and yelled out asking if I was alright. I answered with a weak thumb up. Soon enough I was being whisked away by administrators (I found out students aren’t allowed to open exterior doors once school starts, and it’s a very well understood informal policy that students should not do anything unusual) and hidden in the nurses’ office so that as few people would find out about the incident as possible and was left to wait there, being eyed nervously by the various staff members now involved, until the ambulance came.
They put a blanket over me and strapped me down, which was both comfortable and comforting. I kind of liked the EMT, who was convinced that I was stoned.
“Did you take any drugs?”
“No.”
“Did you take more of your medication than you were supposed to?”
“No.”
“Did you take any pills?”
“No.”
“If you took any drugs we need to know to help you”
“I didn’t take any drugs.”
“We are going to find out if you took any drugs from your urine sample”
“That’s fine.”
I enjoyed the hospital room somewhat (a regular one, not in a psychiatric ward) but unfortunately I was not strapped down. My parents came, and eventually it was determined that I was just very tired, and the only real physical illness or injury I had was the prick on my finger where the EMT had tested my blood sugar.
Ah, good times.
Listen kids, the only good part of being institutionalized is to avoid THE LETHAL INJECTION. Anything about it just plain sucks, especially if you're being forced to remain in dope mode all the time.
I was hospitalised in a psychiatric ward voluntarily - I was pretty much told that if I didn't agree to go, I'd be sectioned.
The ward was in a terrible state, maybe not as bad as you see in films, but the shower heads were broken so you had to direct the water on to yourself with your hands and at one point, all the sinks started bubbling black water. The central heating was broken, and it was January.
Everything was grubby and needed maintenance - I wish I'd taken my camera.
As for other patients, there was a fanatical Muslim who kept preaching, playing rap music loudly, and getting put in the seclusion room for violence. A kleptomaniac prostitute who was probably an illegal immigrant had her pimp and his other girls come visit, and she was often found in other people's rooms nicking stuff. There was an old woman who walked around the corridors chanting that she's worried, a catatonic black bloke with one leg, and a boy who threw cardboard urinals around and tried to touch me up in the laundry room. Strangely, the piss pot thrower behaved perfectly normally when his girlfriend visited. Oh, and there was an old man who walked around naked.
I made friends with a guy who needed an operation but who said he'd refuse to have anaesthetic, and a wheelchair-bound bloke with one leg who was actually quite normal and interesting. Despite leaving me alone to be cornered by an able-bodied nutter in the laundry room, the nurses had a huge problem with me talking to the wheelchair-bound one-legged man in his room. I suppose they thought he'd run me over or something.
Fagnames and their antics.
We're all cool and nice.
Hey, read some of the stories above. Aren't we all cool and nice ?
>>24
>>25
Actually, that's synonymous ! (gets a fire extinguisher)
I've never been institutionalized, but my sister has for quite a while due to taking drugs. You have to get a letter from your general practicioner even before seeing a shrink here, so you can only get in a psychiatric ward if you really look like you need it. They basically only let in tripping drug addicts and real maniacs.
Hell, GPs are overpowered nowadays, lol.
