Posted by Elizabeth on July 19, 2001, at 11:59:19
In reply to Re: I'll hold your hand if you'll hold mine » Elizabeth, posted by shelliR on July 18, 2001, at 22:46:02
> Sheppard Pratt is a private psychiatric hospital, outside of Baltimore. Zelda Fitzgerald had several stays there during her life. They have beautiful grounds there and a gazebo, where she apparently sipped wine to help her sleep through the night.
Ahh -- sounds much like McLean (a Harvard teaching psych hospital in Belmont, MA, about a half hour drive out of Cambridge, which has housed a number of celebrities -- the book _Girl, Interrupted_ takes place there). Good to know if I'm ever in Maryland again (I'm from Rockville originally) and happen to go insane. :-)
Is Sheppard Pratt affiliated with Johns Hopkins, by any chance? It sounds like a teaching hospital.
> As far as the TCAs working, I never got past the first day on two different ones.
Which two?
> That hospitalization was the lowest point of my life.
Hospital stays of any kind are no fun, and psych hospitals can be especially unpleasant in their own unique ways.
> I had hit rock bottom, signed in there, and realized there was a basement to rock bottom.
That's a great line. < g >
> Sheppard Pratt has a good reputation, but the particular unit I was on (short-term evaluative) was awful.
Again, sounds a lot like McLean! People I knew when I was in college who went there had awful things to say about it.
> I was there for a month (which is what my insurance covered), but there were people in there up to a year.
I don't know about Maryland, but Medicaid in Massachusetts will cover a lot, probably more than most private insurance. I've encountered people who had MassHealth and spent a year or more in the hospital.
> I was not really part of that era, and never part of the federal government at all.
What era was that? (chronologically, I mean)
> From what I've heard Sheppard Pratt now gets through on endowments.
Private psych hospitals aren't doing so well these days, with managed care and all.
> It's closer and I think almost everyone on that unit ends up with an MPD (DID) diagnosis.
At McLean, it's "borderline personality" (John Gunderson, who pretty much invented the concept as it's known today (in DSM-III and IV), has been there for many years).
> Someone I know from one of my hospital stays was in there with Rosanne Barr, during her "multiple period"--she was going on talk shows afterwards talking about how much fun it was to have different personalities. The woman who was in with her, did not believe that Roseanne was really multiple. Anyone that thinks multiplicity is a lot of fun is almost definitely not multiple.
That's pretty funny. I didn't know anything about Roseanne being in "the bin." If what you heard is true, I agree that she's probably not experiencing dissociation. MPD is a sort of fad diagnosis in some hospitals (just as borderline personality is at McLean), and some people who crave attention or are very suggestible probably pretend to have it, or are convinced by their therapists that they actually do have it. I think it's probably a real condition, but not nearly as common as some people seem to think.
> What does are you hoping to get up to on desiprimine ?
300 mg. I need to talk to my pdoc about getting my serum levels tested; there are some weird things in my history (like an oddball reaction to dextromethorphan) that suggest that I might not metabolise tricyclics normally.
-elizabeth
poster:Elizabeth
thread:67742
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010714/msgs/70853.html