Posted by pretty_paints on December 2, 2004, at 13:47:54
In reply to Re: On the psychiatric ward....., posted by ladyofthelamp on December 1, 2004, at 9:20:13
Hi guys!
Just been reading these posts and thought I'd add my own experience.
I'm 20 and I was in for about 3 weeks in August, I went very psychotic.
My experience of it was ok. The place wasnt very clean, quite dirty. I had my own plain, cold room. I got my parents to bring in my duvet to stop me freezing. I saw a doctor about 4 times in total. Different ones too, not always the same one. None of these were my normal pdoc and I was too ill to really give any of them an accurate description of what had been going on, so that didn't help at all. In fact what I found unbelieveable was how I was expected to give massive amounts of information to them. I was brought in and shouved on risperidone straight away. This knocked me out so I slept all day long. Nurses used to come round with the doctor, drag me into a room and then they'd ask me a million questions about how my illness had progressed that year. It was ridiculous. I could barely even make sense of what they were saying. I was worried that if I didnt tell them everything right, like when symptoms had started or when various things had come about, that they'd diagnose me wrongly, which would lead to more problems. They could have got in touch with my normal pdoc and picked her brain, but nooooo.
For me, it was good going away because everything had gotten very intense in my house. I had been running around locking myself in the bathroom, screaming at my parents. I had left university in January due to mental health problems and I'd been home all year. My parents had been great caring for me and I think they were reaching their limit, so me going into hospital gave them a bit of a break. It also gave them some time to concentrate, who had been totally overlooked. He hadn't gotten the grades he needed for Uni but that had fallen by the wayside due to me, his crazy sister. So it was good for him to get a break too.
In hospital, there were no therapy or activity groups. I spent most of the day pacing pacing pacing round the hospital because the risperidone gave me such bad leg restlessness. There was a nice cafe, so friends used to come and see me and if I felt up to it, take me for a cup of tea. The food was really nice actually. When I changed to Olanzapine I became absolutely obsessed with food! It was suddenly sooo delicious! The nurses were kind of nice. I thought they were trying to drug me and rape me at one point, but I think that was my head. I only really trusted one of them, Emily. She was sweet, had big brown eyes, I really liked her. The others were all quite young which was weird. Some were my age.
The other patients were all quite, er, spontaneous. I tried to find the situations funny, otherwise I would have gone even more crazy!
There was a little old lady who got dressed up every day really nice, with her little bag and posh jewels. She used to sit there at tea time reading out the menu, "Lasagne, mmmm, delicious!", "Crumble, mmmm, delicious!", every day the same! And she kept shouting to imaginary people "go away, leave me alone".
There was a man with a broken leg who had jumped off a car park. He was nice, he got me extra chips on my first day.
There was a woman who used to crack up and laugh hysterically for no apparent reason. She used to put her knife and fork down and hold her stomach, laughing away. And then people around her used to join in until the whole table would be laughing! You can imagine the situation.
There was a lovely old lady who had bad anxiety attacks. She used to get really panicky all the time.
And then Debbie. Debbie really went wild while I was in hospital. She thought I was the devil reincarnate because I wore a red coat and jumper. She used to run around the place screaming "I dont want to die! I dont want to die!". She was really terrified one morning when she got her period, and she was convinced she was loosing her baby. She wasnt pregnant but she thought she was giving birth to "Jesus' child". I remember she got the laughing lady involved in her escapades. They were convinced that the nurses were out to get them so they tried organising an escape by ringing this helpline called SANELINE, but they didnt have the number. So they ran around going "we need the number for SANELINE, we need the number for SANELINE!". The head nurse came out and was like, "No, *I* need the number for SANELINE!". Ha ha.
Anyway I'll leave it here. Sorry I went on a bit long. xx
poster:pretty_paints
thread:420511
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041201/msgs/423395.html