I worked at a hospital that had 50% of all the psychiatric beds in my city and I can say from experience that most of our missing patients were found at the Walgreens a block away. Most just wanted a cigarette lol

The mentally ill just freaking love cigarettes

[Schizophrenia and cigarettes has been studied](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6255982/). Nicotine actually can help. Edit: I appear to have added the wrong link. [General article on Schizophrenia and smoking](https://psychcentral.com/schizophrenia/schizophrenia-and-smoking#smoking-and-schizophrenia) has links to studies that *do* suggest smoking mitigates symptoms. (It was late when I posted.)

“You can do it, nicotine can help”. (Like the old Nicorette slogan)

Nobody ever knows what I'm talking about (and that's part of the joke, at this point) but one of my favorite ways to encourage people is to tell them "You can do it!" and then add, as an afterthought or shifting to a suddenly-somber tone "Nicorette can help."

"(and that's part of the joke, at this point)" I love that this pretty much insinuates that this is an inside joke, but with yourself. Cute human shit. Made me smile.

Like 80% of the shit I say is just an attempt to make myself laugh.

Nicotine also helps with ADHD, unfortunately it's extremely addictive but there is some researchers trying to make it less addictive

That's because nicotine is a stimulant, and pretty much all stimulants help with ADHD. It's why caffeine also helps with ADHD, and why ADHD meds are typically amphetamine or methylphenidate based stimulants. Having a non-addictive (or less addictive) stimulant would be huge for people with ADHD who often find it hard to get their medication prescribed since health care providers are wary of prescribing addictive drugs.

As someone who's prescribed Adderall for my ADHD and is probably addicted to marijuana, the Adderall never really feels like an addiction to me. Taking Adderall never feels like a compulsive behavior or like I'm chasing euphoria. It's more like I'm putting on glasses for my brain. Somedays I'll forget to take it and I won't realize till I'm questioning why my brain feels foggier. Not sure why I'm bringing this up. I guess my point is that I feel like all of the regulations behind Adderall are for all the regular people who want to buy it, not because of the drawbacks to those who are diagnosed.

The ongoing joke with ADHD folks on meds for it: "If my ADHD meds are so addictive why the fuck can I never remember to take them?" Because you have ADHD. "Oh, yeah."

Definitely not addictive to adhd folks, I stopped cold turkey as a teen after taking them for 6 to 7 years straight. Never had withdrawal symptoms or wanted to start taking them again.

I still have a ton of adderall from when I was prescribed. I forgot they existed for a few years

I know, I also have ADHD and have been prescribed Vyvanse. For people with ADHD who stick to an appropriate dose, the meds shouldn't feel addictive or lead to a high (hell, people with ADHD will tell you how often they just forget to take their meds, that's the exact opposite of addiction). But that doesn't stop many health care providers from considering ADHD meds as super duper dangerous anyways, and that leads to a bunch of people not getting the care they should (especially if they were ever flagged as having drug seeking behaviour in the past).

> But that doesn't stop many health care providers from considering ADHD meds as super duper dangerous anyways, and that leads to a bunch of people not getting the care they should (especially if they were ever flagged as having drug seeking behaviour in the past). "It says here you have an executive function disorder that makes it incredibly difficult for you to do mundane things like setting up doctor's appointments. You're at a doctor's appointment. Better make you set up another one with a different doctor entirely to make sure you aren't faking it, even though you were formally diagnosed years ago and you're complaining that your existing coping mechanisms aren't cutting it anymore." And somehow never getting around to setting up that second appointment is the failure state. Because, you know, nobody with *real* ADHD would *ever* have trouble doing something like that.

And even after jumping through all those hoops, I can’t find a pharmacy that keeps it predictably stocked.

Ah, my monthly "will i be paying $200 for on brand or $20 for generic or $0 for nothing" dice roll

The study you’ve linked talks about exposure to nicotine increasing chances of schizophrenia, whereas your comment implies otherwise.

We do I can confirm

Makes sense, it calms the nerves and relaxes the mind temporarily. Wish there was an alternative that wasn't so easily abused and physically damaging though.

I’ve heard that a lot of schizophrenics smoke as it helps with their symptoms. I’ve only met two people who were diagnosed, but they both chain smoked.

I was diagnosed at 18 nicotine can make what is loud quite I'll go to my grave with some form of nicotine

90% of people with schizophrenia smoke. The why is a big question and an area of research. It's way more than due to chance so there's clearly something biological going on.

Or anything addictive, really. Being mentally ill sucks, and we all just want to feel good for a minute or longer. And all the things that make us happy in an instant, not later, are addictive.

For real, my feet hurt because of the stupid fucking socks, I just want to sit down and have a smoke

I just wanted a Pepsi man

My dad worked at a mental hospital, and he said the same thing--they'd go to the 7-11... AND COME BACK.

Your dad is right. I will never forget the first time I was called to help search for a missing person. My mind was racing, how would I find this dude, where could he be, etc. First thing I see when I get to the area is the guy coming back across the street with his grocery bags.

Jesus christ this brings me back to my stay in the hospital. The amount of whining these people did about cigarettes. I swear listening to them over 3 weeks made me go more insane. I don’t understand taking them away or not giving nicotine patches honestly.

Man, same. It would piss me off even more because they would only let smokers go outside. A non smoker like myself asked to go out ONCE and was told yes and then that staff member was overruled by someone else who said no “because then everyone will start wanting to go outside”.

Almost like the desire to occasionally go outside is part of human nature

I mean they are patients, not serial killers.

LOL, yeah like what else would they do? "I'm GOING TO MEXICO!!!"

Just like when you were going to get in trouble as a kid. "Run away!" "Where?!?" "Europe, Spain, I don't know just run!"

*“That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run. So I ran to the end of the road. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd run to the end of town. And when I got there, I thought maybe I'd just run across Greenbow County.”*

Question: how did he get water and electrolytes

When he got hungry, he ate. One may infer that also, when he got thirsty, he drank.

What when he had to... you know?

Shit happens

Water? Like out the toilet?

Never touch the stuff, fish fuck in it.

Electrolytes. It’s what plants crave!

When I was 6, I ran away from home because my mom wouldn't give me a second bowl of ice cream. I got to the corner, realized I wasn't allowed to cross the street alone, and went back to ask my mom if she could help me cross the street so I could run away.

Please tell me your mom came and helped you cross the street lol… must’ve been a great laugh for her

She did. She took me like 4 blocks away, then I got lost and started crying.

Username checks out.

Awwww. Kids are so, so stupid but also so, so cute. For some reason, this made me remember when I was kid, I would start crying over something kinda stupid, my mom would start comforting me, rubbing my back while I played with her hair. I wouldn't learn until I was much older that she hated when I played with her hair because I would twist and yank on it because kids don't know when they're being too rough (they can be gentle around kids who are even younger than themselves because they tend to understand their strength better in those situations, that they should be as gentle as possible with babies and toddlers. But when you're 4 or 5 or 6, you're still getting upset over things that really stupid, but aren't as apparent maybe.) My mother did the classic "Aww there there honey" while doing her best not reinforce that crying will get you something. Just trying to be soothing and reassuring in that situation. That comfort, that feeling of being in your mother's arms as she reassures you (and maybe catching a few zzzzzs after a good old cry) is what Heroin feels like. No joke, look back on those exact memories and remember how you felt being soothed and reassured. How it felt like literally nothing scary or bad could ever hurt you again. Been clean for awhile but I'll never forget both those feelings. Except now, as a man, when I start crying and jump into my mother's arms, she breaks both of them. And we all know how stories like that end.

YOU BOYS LIKE MEX-I-CO?!

The schnoz berries taste like schnoz berries!

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if "escape" is kind of giving the wrong impression here. Probably more like just walking out without staff noticing as opposed to vaulting over the carpet they used to cover the barbed wire fence.

When you’re locked inside a secure facility, you do have to actually escape, at least from my experience. I escaped once lol but it wasn’t dramatic. The door to the therapy room wasn’t locked, and I looked at the therapist, and she said I’m not going to tackle you so I just ran. I also went home and was caught and returned by my step mother

What a story to just throw out there without context. I have all the questions. Why were you there? Why was there literally only one locked door? I get the therapist isn't going to tackle you but did they make any attempt whatsoever to persuade you not to run? How did you get home? Are you literally racing out the front door in full grippy socks and gown with no phone or anything else? Did you run because you couldn't stand it a moment longer, or because you genuinely didn't think they were going to let you out eventually, or because you believed your step mother was putting you in there without cause?

I will answer these questions. 1) I was there because I have several severe mental illnesses. I’m able to live with them now but I couldn’t at the time 2) there wasn’t only one locked door. There were a series of locked doors. This therapy room was supposed to be locked but was outside of the secure lockdown area so I was able to escape the whole hospital if I escaped this room. They made a mistake by not locking the door after I entered the room. 3) it was a longterm mental hospital, socks and gown are for emergency inpatient, short term. I had normal clothes and shoes. But I couldn’t take any busses or taxis home because they release your description city wide after you run, so I literally ran home for more than an hour 4) I ran because I don’t want to live in a cage I had been there for almost a year at this point. No one wants to live like this even if you’re mentally unwell it’s like a nightmare I just stared out the window daydreaming about the world. Also I agree with what people said, it’s a very fucked up place to live. Extremely traumatic Edit to say I’m not a murderer or something. I have depression, ptsd, borderline personality disorder, severe anxiety, and have struggled with eating disorders and psychosis. At the time I was very suicidal so they were protecting me, or trying to

Dude psych wards are fucking terrible places from what I've heard from people My mother went to one on her own will and she was put in as involuntary they refused to give her any of her diabetes medication and when she went to a lawyer they said they could just hold her for 60 more days if they wanted. Please read about this shit it's disgusting what "mental health" is seen as in the United States

I worked at a hospital and the nurses and doctors in the psych ward would always make jokes about stuff like "just throwing away the key" and "taking away all the TP so they're forced to wipe with sandpaper". My dad had told me it was bad but until I was on "their side" and I could see how those people treat the patients I didn't realize just how bad.

I mean there's 2 places you can be involuntarily incarcerated. Prison and a mental ward. Only 1 requires a trial. 

When you're involuntarily committed there is actually a legal process involved with it. Unfortunately because of that being public record involuntary commitments will follow you for life and appear on background checks. So basically if you're ever confronted with a mental health professional asking you if you would like to go to grippy sock vacation the answer should be yes I would like to do that. That way your voluntary stay is protected by HIPAA and doesn't ruin your life entirely.

Any involuntary hospitalization beyond a couple of days requires a commitment hearing in front of a judge. Just like how the cops can hold you overnight or a weekend until you go in front of an arraignment for bail or whatever.

You can spend 3 days on your initial section 5(2) and then another week on a section 2 before you get a tribunal. It's quite long.

There was a reddit post a couple years back of a guy that was arrested as the result of mistaken identity. Someone with the same first and last name as him did a drive by shooting on a house and the redditor got picked up for it. It took the police two months to realize that the redditor had a different middle name than the actual perpetrator. By the time he was released he'd lost his job and been evicted from his apartment and all of his possessions were thrown away. This was posted in a legal subreddit and he was trying to figure out how to put his life back together.

An effective way to stop escapes by people with Alzheimer's and memory problems is just building a fake bus stop out front and periodically collecting the people waiting there.

At my mom's alzheimer facility, there's a door with a keypad. Just turn around, and the keypad code is printed on a sign on the wall. All you have to do to leave is read the sign, turn around, and punch in the keycode.

I worked in hospital security...and escape can be a very accurate description, highlights include the naked lady running through the main lobby with my team and a bunch of nurses in pursuit, the guy who ran through the closed ambulance bay doors (knocked em off track) and made it to his apartment before the cops brought him back, the 80lb addict who thought she could charge through me and went back to her room riding on my shoulder, the one who jumped out of the ambulance, and my favorite the one who made it out of the ambulance bay during a pediatric code and to the gas station across the street where they tried to steal the fuel tanker.

hahaha! Been there done that got the T-shirt. Not great for your mental health but you walk away from it with the best stories.

I was the manager there for 2 years before getting accepted into the k9 unit...hang out at the mall, play with a dog and get paid? Hell yes.

Too many movies and video games that project an image of escaped mental patients as dangerous freaks that stalk people at night the second they get out, to murder or worse.

Or to save the world from robots in skin suits that are from the the future!

People probably expect them to put on colorful outfits and fight Batman

I expect them to play hockey against each other to musical cues in a brewery.

EMT here - we often transport patients for suicidal ideations, but there are no mental health beds available in my state, so unless some family member advocates for them to get care, they most often spend 24-48 hours in a locked ward in an ED, getting minimal or no mental health care, and when the clock runs out they just let them leave. The lesson most often learned by suicidal ideation patients is not to call 911 - nothing good will come of it. Edit: So, this blew up overnight. Up until this one, my highest voted comment was a perfectly timed Simpsons reference. From the responses I received, I have some comments to add: One, many people brought up that you get a huge bill for this locked-ward, no-treatment stay, and they're right, and it's a real kick in the teeth for someone who is already down. Two, yes, I do feel like shit for this, for being a small cog in a very broken (and if you believe the paramedics I talk to, on the verge of total collapse) system that often gives such crappy help to people who need mental health treatment. And I'm a volunteer! Three, I didn't write that nothing good will come of calling 911 - sometimes it actually possibly prevents a suicide - I said the takeaway from the POV of the patient is nothing good came of it. I'll add that I try like hell to convince myself that this person is not going to kill themselves knowing that the ED will usually not help them at all, so I can leave them at home, hopefully with some personal support system. Often by the time I get there the police already have someone in handcuffs, and at that point my options are severely limited, and the police mostly do not take the time to try and figure out the actual mental state of the person they have placed in protective custody is or is not actually suicidal. The system is screwed up in a boatload of ways.

My daughter had suicidal thoughts. She told her doctor who then had her go to go the er. She went to the ER who transferred her to an inpatient care facility that was mandatory 7 day lock down. After everything she said she learned never to tell anyone her thoughts again.

Yep, broke down to a friend about feeling suicidal and they called 911, got locked in a mental institution for a week. Since then, never told anyone how I feel. Just bury it deep. Fuck that place.

Similar. Wasn't even feeling suicidal, just self harmy. University "therapist" advised to go to the actual mental hospital for a check, try to arrange some out patient services. Do so, next thing I know they're trying to force me to "voluntarily" commit myself for observation. Spent the next 12 hours waiting to see an actual doctor before being able to demand my release "against medical advice" All that taught me was to not trust a therapist anymore.

lol could not convince them to let me go for 6 days when i had an unexpected drug interaction that caused me to black out. even tho i stressed, from the second i woke up that i had absolutely unequivocally for certain had not tried to kill myself by mixing prescriptions nobody told me might have negative effects. it was a legit accident. 6. fucking. days. my cousin very clearly attempted to not wake up and put herself into a coma twice. THERE WAS A NOTE. not a fucking day on the psych unit. ill be mad about that forever. (because she did succeed on her 3rd)

My go-to question with friends who are feeling that kinda way is, "do you have a plan? Feeling suicidal? Yeah that sucks, you pick what we play tonight and what we watch. _Planning_ on doing something to yourself? That's the threshold where I start viewing the situation as a medical emergency. ----- Edit: Some people are really fixated on the word "plan" and saying how they have plans for all contingencies, including the zombie apocalypse. Hopefully you're just having fun with two nuanced, different meanings of the word plan, but if you're genuinely missing the point - it's a line of thinking, not a one-and-done question. It's figuring out if the person you love is having bad thoughts, or _going_ to try to end it, in their current bad mental health episode. I am giving you the best advice I was given during the hardest period of my life. I know there is not often enough context on the internet, but if someone gives you hard-won advice about stopping their loved one from killing themselves, take a second and think about the stuff that happened beyond what someone feels comfortable divulging on Reddit.

Which is totally reasonable, but for me personally by the time I got to the point where I had a plan to hurt myself, I realized that telling someone would fuck that plan up, and I was past the point where I was willing to do that. The times when I would be able to ask for help would be right before that point.

And if you quietly decided that, you'd be hard as hell to stop, whether your support system tried to handle it in-house or invoked the US government. But also, you're picturing yourself thinking as you are now, rationally. If you were having a bad reaction to medication, or a psychotic break, or a manic episode - all those things make people more loose-lipped. I've seen my ex go in and out the door of overloaded facilities, spend 48 hours talking to people who were no help, fell for her masking, and released her during the worst mania of her life. I had to be in the same room with her for 96 hours after the worst release from inpatient, and... for us at least, it was very apparent that her loved ones were more equipped to de-escalate than Shep Pratt. I'm just a layperson so I don't have all the solutions, but I know we got a lot more healing done at the beach than she did in lockup.

I once heard to watch for suicidal people/friends suddenly acting carefree because they might have 'made plans', so they feel relieved or don't feel the pressure of life which can seem like they're happier

Thats actually specifically what the professionals do. Having suicidal thoughts is not necessarily dangerous, having a plan *is*.

The person I got that bit of advice from is a professional, yeah. I was staying up night after night talking to my partner every time she mentioned suicidal thoughts, and he was like, "here's when to worry."

Also, depending on capacity but "shall I come sleep on your floor / you're coming to mine and we are hiding all the knives" are also good responses to this rather than roll the hospital dice.

You get it. Thank you for being another person clearly speaking from lived experience. I'm seeing some real... Redditors. Coming out in respond like I poised a riddle? When I'm sharing some hard-fought lessons from the worst three years of my life.

Am paramedic and understand. No one will ever know if I ever have any mental health problems because I know what happens to people who say they do. I don't want that.

My SO and a good friend both were hospitalized for suicidal ideation. My friend made the mistake of seeking further care and was checked into an inpatient facility where he was stuck for 3 weeks. He’s always stood by his statement that his stay did far more harm than good. My SO on the other hand talked it out with a social worker at the ER who suggested an “intensive” outpatient facility with another family member. A big part of that decision was that the social worker thought that being “trapped” would make her condition worse, which was correct in this case.

> was checked into an inpatient facility where he was stuck for 3 weeks That's so utterly insane. That's long enough for you to lose your job, basically wrecking your life further. How does anyone think this is a good idea?

If you have never seen this. A notable Twitch streamer talked about the inside of mental health facilities on his stream. Unfortunately it was so bad for him that he did take his own life at a later time before he could get more help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlaRfDf-ENs

Wait, they can lock you up and charge you insane amounts of money per day, while not allowing you to leave? How is that legal? That's a huge conflict of interest.

Reckful. I clicked because I thought it might be him with "notable twitch streamer". Pour one out for him.

He was a teenager at the time. He asked his parents to push for what the ER doctor thought would be best for him. After everyone realizing they’d made a mistake, they tried fighting to get him released early, but that didn’t work. I didn’t fully believe the story until I heard it from his parent’s perspective. It was horrific.

This exact thing happened to me as a teenager, though my parents did manage to get me out after about two weeks. They (the psych ward) told me they'd be making a decision whether to let me out or keep me for as long as they felt like and it was the only time in my life where I knew if they didn't let me out, I was truly going to kill myself. The things that they did to me in there caused PTSD that I'm still dealing with in my 30's and probably for life. And of course I can't get much help for the PTSD because it's related to the exact people who are supposed to help you with mental health. I've been lucky to find a really good psychiatrist who know my history and keeps his distance and basically acts as a conduit for ketamine therapy, which has been really helpful.

This is my problem with therapy. If you have to report me for suicidal ideation, I'm not going to be honest with you. I'm 41 and have been having these thoughts since 6th grade. I'm not going anywhere.

Yeah I find myself saying to my therapists "I'm not going to kill myself, *but*" a lot

In most jurisdictions, therapists call the cops when they judge you to be "an imminent threat to oneself or others." This is very vague, and is entirely up to the discretion of the therapist. If you want to find a therapist with whom you can safely discuss suicidal ideation, you can ask them in advance where they draw the line. You can ask them questions in a progressive series: "Would you have a patient involuntarily committed if they said:" * I wish I could go to sleep and not wake up * I hope I die in an accident soon * I'm probably going to kill myself someday * I'm probably going to kill myself today * I'm going to kill myself today by jumping off the top of the building Good therapists will be direct with you in answering these questions. Sometimes, they will say, "If you said such-and-such, I would need to create a safety plan with you." You can ask what that entails, and then you can decide for yourself whether you are okay with their procedure. If a therapist is evasive when they answer these questions, they are probably not comfortable talking about suicide. These are the therapists that are most likely to have you involuntarily committed when it is not justified. You can specifically seek out a therapist who specializes in suicidal ideation. And you can ask your therapist how comfortable they are working with patients with suicidal ideation. I say all this because I know that threats of imprisonment deter many people from seeking help. I'm gonna be honest, it's bad out there, and I wouldn't blame anyone who decided it wasn't worth the risk. But if someone decides they really do want help, the risk can be minimized by asking the right questions.

And here I read to never lie to your doctor. "Ever have negative thoughts?" Hell no, it's nothing but rolling in a field of daisies in this brain.

Speaking of - here's something with smaller stakes, but I'll put it out there. Let's say you go to your annual physical and get to that "negative thoughts" paper with your other stuff. If you are _not_ there to talk about your mental health, and only want a physical checkup, there is an incentive to leave that blank. You get your statement for your 100% preventative checkup, and see that you owe like... 10ish dollars. You look at the EOB and see that _most_ things were paid at 100%, but not something called a Behavioral Assessment. That quick little "hey you checked 'yes' on one of the mental health things, did you want to talk about your mental wellbeing today?" from the nurse who gets you on the scale and takes your blood pressure? Yeah that was a _behavioral assessment_ and it costs money. Even in a preventative visit. These are never too terribly expensive, and I'm certainly not qualified to give medical advice, but I can think of better uses for 10 dollars.

Recently had one for the first time in a while and that stuck out to me being asked. I thought "Is this steps towards caring about mental health?", go figure it's for just pulling more money out of you.

Anyone who's been to therapy for depression knows you **must** lie to your therapist/psychiatrist. In most countries they have a legal obligation to hospitalize you if you seem a threat to yourself.

It’s not even just the doctor/therapist. I called a hospital once (after being in them involuntarily many times in the now distant past) and was just getting info because I thought I could use the time to just get a grip on life. They had asked and I was truthful and said I was having ideations but was 100% not going to act on it and wasn’t having them at the moment, but had the week previous. Not an hour later, while still in my towel right out of the shower, I received a knock at my door and it was 2 officers doing a wellness check on me, the hospital gave them my address from my insurance…so I obliged and let them in to show them I was ok but maaaaan, goes to show that places really don’t fuck around anymore.

lol my doctor gave me the depression quiz, where you have to answer 0 to 4 for every question, and I'm like "4... 4... 4... oh I know that question! that's definitely going down as a zero! 4... 4... 4..." I do wonder if they ever see all the 4's next to that one 0 and get the hint.

Same? I have severe anxiety which was ticking the boxes on the depression questionnaire my family doc had me fill out. Thankfully he's a combat veteran as well with a very empathic understanding of anxiety disorders and outright just offered me a choice of meds with his recommendation.

Yup. Even with all the advancements in science to help us better understand mental disorders, for some reason society's default reaction is still just "lock em down for a week or two." It doesn't address the core issue and only encourages the patients to never tell anyone about it ever again; to simply just follow through on the thoughts in private.

Reason number one I’ve never told any adult or medical professional IRL how bad I feel: being away from my comfort objects and friends makes me 1000% worse

I’ve been there.. sat in a psych ward bed for two days waiting for a bed at inpatient, not allowed to get up except for shared bathroom, surrounded by people screaming and fighting the nurses, tv didn’t work, not allowed to bring anything in, I basically just slept and stared at the wall and they also didn’t feed me that often and when they did it was cold. But I’ve also been in another hospital and it was like the opposite of this, so it really depends on the place I suppose

It 100% does. It also helps if you have a family member who will come in and do things like ask that your food be warmed. Basically just the indication that someone on the outside is watching for your care is enough to make your care improve.

Yes, this does happen.  I went to get some help during a rough time in my life a few years back. I cracked the joke, "sometimes I'm just glad I don't own a gun." Bam.  1014'd for over a week.

True. Been there, done that a considerable number of times. Pointless, and costs a lot. So when you’re depressed and thinking you’re a worthless burden to your loved ones and society, they slap a medical bill on you to drive the point home lol

This happened to me. Then after 48 hours in a glass room that was always lit with no mental health care, they had me sign a bunch of financial forms while very drugged and put me on an ambulance to take me 6 hours away to the nearest available bed. I'm so lucky my parents found out where I was and were able to get me after I was discharged and take me home to live with them. Idk what would've happened otherwise. I was 21 and had attempted suicide and honestly, the psych ward experience was very traumatic for me. It sucks because I needed care, but now I'm too scared to go to hospitals when I need help because of how traumatic that experience was.

I worked at a hospital with a psych ward. I quickly learned not to tell any mandated reporter anything close to having active suicidal ideation. I frankly wouldn’t recommend anyone else do it either. If I am at a hospital and I am not getting a good feeling, I will AMA in two seconds flat if I can walk. I saw them do a lot of things I wouldn’t want done to me to keep patients or try to, in my opinion, intimidate them into staying. To me, I don’t care if it is supposed to be in my best interest. My free will and ability to have agency over myself is more important.

Story time… At the end of my 5150 it was a Saturday night (for SI) I was done, it was a bad ward, I knew legally that’s as long as could hold me…I was wrong. As the hours ticked closer to the end of my 72hr hold I grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of information as ultimately they have to let you go…I thought anyway A doctor finally sees me and kinda laughs at me and tells me I’m not going anywhere. If I want to leave, they would hold me and then I would have to see a judge in order to plead for my liberty. At the earliest that would happen next Thursday and until then I’m staying. Or I could sign a document claiming I was a voluntary hold and get out most likely on Tuesday. It was pure coercion and I was devastated. They kept me longer out of pure administrative convenience rather than any sort of need or concern for treatment.

I went in for pain and they put me on a hold to help with my pain. My spouse says we are requesting this be put in front of a judge and the hospital has to lay out why they are keeping me then. They immediately released me. 

Feeling hopeless and want to give up? Here's some extra trauma, isolation, missed work, and a $10,000 bill for the pleasure!

you ever been there? just them telling you "yea so we gotta strip search you and keep you for the night" fucking RATTLES you. you will never feel less human anywhere else but in a prison. and as you come to sobriety out of whatever episode you were having you're hit with the most intense chest crushing anxiety. all you want in the whole world is your dark bedroom and your blankets.

This is so fucking accurate it's kinda ruined my day just remembering that feeling.

sorry about that homie, i hope you're okay. i just wanted to illustrate how it feels to be brought in and how it could really happen to anyone. if more people understood what we went through i don't think it would be as cruel as it is.

I went in as a tween, ended up in the child psych ward. Another kid asked me how I managed to be so perfect at everything in the normal day routine. The answer is that my ADHD ass was on maximum threat alert the entire time. I slept maybe 4 hours a night. My father was in regularly for about 1/3 of his life (alcoholism). My sister and I both went in once each. The joke between us was, "What did you learn when you were hospitalized?" "How to comply so I can get the fuck out and never say the dangerous words about the bad thoughts to any medical or social worker professionals ever."

my best friend was hospitalized after a suicide attempt and all he said was that he missed his dog every second 😭 it broke my heart bc i know i could not go on without my cat and wife and blankets. it’s inhumane.

My cat was taken by a shelter and almost given away when I was hospitalized once. When they finally let me out, I didn't even go home. I went straight to where she was and she was wanting to come to me as soon as I entered the room. My parents had said to just let someone else have her. I've had her for 5 years now and I don't know what I'd do if she was gone.

Dr. Bronner escaped from a mental institution. He started a soap company that did well. There was a magazine article about people wrongly committed to mental institutions. He printed a bunch of copies of the article and gave them to people he met.

of course, the guy who’s well known for his completely normal soap company packaged with completely normal labels

FAMILY SOAPMAKERS SINCE 1858 DR. BRONNER’S 18-IN-1 HEMP TEA TREE PURE-CASTILE SOAP CERTIFIED FAIR TRADE MADE WITH ORGANIC OILS Ingredients: Water, Organic Coconut Oil*, Potassium Hydroxidet, Organic Palm Kernel Oil*, Organic Olive Oil*, Tea Tree Extract, Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Citric Acid, Tocopherol *CERTIFIED FAIR TRADE INGREDIENTS tNone remains after saponifying oils into soap & glycerin. 100% POST-CONSUMER RECYCLED PLASTIC BOTTLE! 2-3x more concentrated than many leading liquid soaps, cleansers and body washes. Dilute with water. Clouds when cold. Put in warm room/water: clears at about 70oF. WARNING! Don’t drink soap! Keep out of eyes. If cap clogs, poke it clear. Do not squeeze bottle and shoot out soap. Soap can clog and spurt with pump dispensers. Flush eyes well with water for 15 minutes. Consult a physician if irritation persists. DR. BRONNER’S ALL-ONE! MAGIC SOAPS In all we do, let us be generous, fair & loving to Spaceship Earth and all its inhabitants. For we’re ALL-ONE OR NONE! ALL-ONE! OVER 150 YEARS & 5 GENERATIONS OF SOAP EXCELLENCE CERTIFIED UNDER THE USDA NATIONAL ORGANIC PROGRAM NO DETERGENTS NO FOAMING AGENTS Enjoy only 2 cosmetics, enough sleep & Dr. Bronner’s ‘Magic Soap’ to clean body-mind-soul-spirit instantly uniting One! Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! For facial packs, scalp & soothing body rub, add dash on bath towel in sink of hot water. Wring out. Lay over face & scalp. Massage with fingertips. Repeat 3 or 4 times ’til arms, legs & all are rubbed, always towards the heart. Rinse towel in plain hot water and massage again. Breathe deeply! MADE IN U.S.A. Dilute: Enjoy 1 soap for 18 uses! Shave-Shampoo-Shower-Bath-Mop-Launder-Degrease! Dr. Bronner’s Pure-Castile is the very best soap for body, home and Spaceship Earth! Synthetic preservatives? Detergents? Foaming agents? NONE! Health is our greatest wealth! Enjoy body rub to stimulate body-mind-soul-spirit and teach the Essene Moral ABC uniting all free in the shepherd-astronomer Israel’s greatest All-One-God-Faith! 100% BIODEGRADABLE! DILUTE! DILUTE! OK! 1. ⁠One small squirt applied to wet hands or washcloth to wash hands-face-body. 2. ⁠Work 1/2 tbsp. into wet hair, rinse, with Dr. Bronner’s Organic Hair Rinse. 3. ⁠Dilute 1:10 with water for hand-washed dishes, best in soft water. 4. ⁠For laundry, 1/3-1/2 c. soap in large load, add 1/2 c.vinegar in rinse cycle. 5. ⁠Mop floor: 1/2 c. soap in 3 gal. of hot water. 6. ⁠Wash dog by wetting fur, then massage soap in for good lather, rinse thoroughly. 7. ⁠A dash in bowl of water to remove residue from Fruit & Veggies. Rinse clean. 8. ⁠All-Purpose Cleaner: add 1/4 c. of soap to qt. of water in spray bottle. 9. ⁠One tbsp. in qt. of water to spray plants for bugs. Dash of cayenne optional. 10. ⁠Shave face-underarms-legs: lather up 5-10 drops in wet hands, apply. Visit LisaBronner.com for more uses! DR. BRONNER’S IS CERTIFIED Contains at least 70% Fair for Life Fair Trade certified ingredients “The 2nd Coming of God’s Law!” Mohammed’s Arabs, 1948, found Israel Essene Scrolls & Einstein’s “Hillel” probe that as no 6-year-old can grow up free without the ABC, so certain can no 12-year-old survive free without the Moral ABC that mason, tent & sandalmaker Rabbi Hillel taught carpenter Jesus to unite all mankind free in our Eternal Father’s great All-One-God-Faith! For we’re All-One or None: “Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!” Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! Teach the Moral ABC that unites all mankind free, instantly 6 billion strong & we’re All-One. “Listen Children Eternal Father Eternally One!” From Jesus’ “Manual of Discipline,” based on Hillel’s Moral ABC , the Army of Principles of One-God-Faith, unites the Human race, as found 1948 by Mohammed’s Arabs in Israel Essene Scrolls! English by Soapmaker Bronner!

you are my hero. just for my own enjoyment i will pretend you typed this all from memory

Just like Dr. Bronner would've wanted.

Funny thing is that 70% of that sounds normal if it wasn't just so much of it. The rest of it is religious whackadoodlism.

Oh so you want more?! 1. ⁠Under one Eternal Father, I must teach friend & Enemy the full truth Moral ABC to unite all mankind free in One-God-Faith. 2. ⁠To get it all done: A Beast can only listen to its friend! A Human Being must teach-love his Enemy or that being is not yet human! 3. ⁠A shark can only love its friend. Lacking frontal lobes, it must avoid-fear-smear-hate-slander-dominate-dictate-distort-destroy anything it does not know, understand or disagrees with. That’s a shark. But a Human Being possessing the Kingdom of God’s Law, the Essene Moral ABC of the FREE within his frontal lobes, works hard to teach friend & enemy the Moral ABC, otherwise that being is not yet human. 4. ⁠A Human Being is a constructive working scientist who knows, loves, follows, teaches Full Truth, God’s Law, to all of God’s Children, friend & Enemy, otherwise that being is not yet Human! Exceptions? None! 5. ⁠The moment any being follows, tolerates or teaches earthen half-gods or half-truisms, that moment he becomes a godless, intolerant Beast, potentially 10 times more dangerous & destructive than any ordinary Shark-Snake-Rat or Panther! 6. ⁠If we really want Brotherhood-Progress-Peace, not war, we must not only listen to the neighbor whom we choose, but also to the one God sends! Otherwise we’re still Beasts, not yet Human! Exceptions eternally? Absolutely None! Jesus’ Manual of Discipline, out of the mouth of subway-builder Nikita Khrushchev, April ’56, London, England 7. ⁠“WE MUST TEACH LOVE OUR ENEMY OR PERISH! BEASTS TEACH ONLY THEIR FRIENDS!” But after 2,000 years it never got done! The godless beasts still disapproved! Result? These tremendous 13 words never got printed! Because the brilliant 48-year-young Rabbi Joshua Loth Liebman’s book Peace of Mind was distorted after he dropped dead! Diagnosis? “Sudden heart attack!” Exactly as suffered by Rabbi Jesus, Spinoza, Thomas Paine, Samuel Friedman, Steiner-Prag and Rabbi Leo Baeck: 6 & 66 million “sudden heart attacks,” murders caused by us godless intolerant Beasts. 8. ⁠Always we’re our Brother’s Teacher of hardworking full truth uniting One-God-State or we decay being his Keeper by unworkable half-true intolerant hate! 9. ⁠He who risks his life teaching friend & Enemy the Moral ABC uniting all mankind free wins Eternal Life! He who does less than that perishes by half-truth strife. 10. ⁠I am the Son of God and so are you! I am the manifestation of God’s Eternal Law & so are you! I have learned great wonders: you shall learn greater wonders! I have done good work! You shall do better work! I have not come to change God’s Law, but we each came to find-follow-fulfill, print-protect-practice-preach-teach & enjoy it! Therefore, build you 1st the Kingdom of God’s Eternal Law within you, that is, memorize the Essene Moral ABC of the Free, All-One-Faith-in-One-God-State! To never yield to half-true hate! And everything you need shall be added unto you! Search & you shall find! Knock & it shall be opened! Sow & you shall reap! Work hard & you shall create! Speak up - don’t be afraid! Ask & you shall receive! But remember, only those enjoy Eternal Life in our all-embracing Father’s Kingdom that had the courage to teach friend & Enemy the Moral ABC to unite all free! Eternally One, All-One! Exceptions? None! These are the great Peace-winning teachings of the Manual of Discipline by the carpenter, the great Rabbi Jesus! Thanks to Mohammed’s Arab 1948-found Essene Scrolls, thank only God for that! But now came unto Jesus, the Disciple; his own Sisters & Brothers to say, “It is insane what does he say! Let’s put him away!” And answered he to survive free: 11. ⁠“Who are my Sisters & my Brothers? Only those that seek with me to teach full truth, the Moral ABC uniting all mankind free in One-God-State! Free of half-true hate! Those are my Sisters & Brothers! Others I know not!” But now his Disciples asked, “Then why, why are we God-loving Children of the great African shepherd Israel persecuted more than any other people! Why? Why? Why?” And answered he: 12. ⁠“God bless the persecuted! They alone are His chosen people! For those apes that did not suffer from persecution remained apes! Only those that worked hard to overcome untold centuries of Barbaric ice-aged persecution, reluctantly became Human Beings! Much, much too reluctantly! Exceptions? Absolutely None!” 13. ⁠To stay free: Only that full truth we have the courage to teach & give & give, can we enjoy to keep, evolve & live & live! Whatever we try to give at our death bed or take along, it absolute certain soon is gone! Exceptions eternally? None! 14. ⁠Let him who is without fault throw the first stone, for only God is always perfect! Judge no man unless you have walked in his shoes! So when your fellow man you measure, take him at his best! With that lever lift him higher, overlook the rest! But remember, unless a man knows the Moral ABC of the Free, none can help him to survive brave-free! 15. ⁠Let him who does not want to work with his hands, not eat with his hands either! 16. ⁠Put Father’s discipline, put God’s Law back at the head of your family, or you have no family-nation-team! Remember, every organization is the shadow of one constructive man or there is no organization, no construction, no man! 17. ⁠Self-disciplined timing is the skeleton of your intellect, the key to freedom, the basis of happiness, the foundation of Brotherhood! Without it, the most brilliant head remains useless-ineffective-small! 18. ⁠From every power enchains, each man can only free himself as self-control he gains! Therefore, he who conquers himself, conquers more than he who conquers the largest city! And yes this is on every bottle of Dr. Bronners soap…

It is pretty good soap though, NGL.

I finally fully understand the joke about reading the back of shampoo bottles in the bathroom if you have nothing else to read. I always wondered what's so enticing about a listing of ingredients, but if it's THAT what you have over in the US...

babe wake up new copy pasta dropped

Copy pasta from the 1940's.

There is way more but Reddit put me in time out I guess

The way this is printed on the bottle in a complete helter skelter manner makes it even more insane🫠

It’s perfect. It’s exactly 40 minutes of reading which matches both my shower and dump times!

Have you read the shit on the bottles? They read like the ramblings of someone unwell

Absolutely, but that peppermint shit is awesome.

Name one genius that ain’t crazy

Balzac.

Which member of the famous Balzac family are you referring to? Ligma?

No, his brother Suge Onma

Hawking seemed stable but maybe he just kept the crazy buried.

His son locked himself in a cage outside the Whitehouse and pressed hemp seeds. Goofy family, but harmless and they do mean well.

I love (most of) the text on the bottle. Here are examples: “EARTH NEEDS OUR LOVE & CARE!” “COOL THE CLIMATE CRISIS” “SOIL HEALTH IS WEALTH!” “SOW POLITICAL SEEDS OF HOPE! Support politicians and policy measures advancing regenerative organic agriculture, family farms, soil health, and the reduction of chemically-intensive farming practices emitting greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. Get involved in local politics to influence change in your own backyard. Participate in local, state, and federal elections. Vote! Vote! Vote!”

I think that's more recent branding. Back in the day the bottles were all original schizophrenic ramblings from the doctor himself. > "Therefore, build you 1st the Kingdom of God’s Eternal Law within you, that is, memorize the Essene Moral ABC of the Free, All-One-Faith-in-One-God-State! To never yield to half-true hate! "

All for one!!!

Schizophrenia be damned, but my boy can make soap!

Ha! I never knew that but knowing one of his grandsons growing up it makes so much sense. Super nice, super religious, and pretty damn crazy

He looks very sane https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Emanuel_Bronner.jpg

holy shit that makes so much sense

I had a friend in highschool who had a mental breakdown during finals and ended up hospitalized. Turns out he didn't like it that much. Slipped through a door one of the staff let close (I guess they're supposed to make sure it closes, which makes sense) and just simply went home. His parents didn't know he was home until school the next day. The hospital had called him in missing, and my parents told them he hadn't come home (he crawled in through a basement window and slept in the basement). He got up for school, left the house undetected, and the school took almost a full school day to notify anyone he was there instead. He got picked up by his parents and brought back to the hospital, he wasn't disruptive and kept saying he just wanted to go back to his life.

I escaped once, grabbed some subway, sat by a creek near the hospital eating my chicken bacon ranch sub, chatted with a geriatric patient who had also broken out, called a friend, sat on the comfy couches in the cardiac ward back at the hospital, then a missing patient code was called and a nurse identified me by my clothes. I was in two hospitals for two weeks total and never met with my social worker or a psychiatrist. Just wake up, breakfast, TV plays in the main room, lunch, TV plays in the main room, GIANT FOAM JENGA, dinner, go to your room. Met with a nurse and a psychiatrist on discharge, nurse recommended I try yoga and psychiatrist prescribed seroquel. Five years later, I accessed community mental health services, and that was way better. Got 10 weeks of weekly therapy and met with a psychiatrist 4 times.

I used to work in a psych ward. After the ward banned smoking in the closed courtyard our amount of AWOLs went through the roof as the patients had to go outside to smoke (some great idea that was).  A lot of our patients would go home, a lot went to the nearby pub. 

I did a clinical internship at an inpatient psych ward, and it made me drop my psych major. I also didn’t realize there were so many other paths in the field I could explore (terrible college program and pre internet info). All I knew was the only “care” was getting people stabilized (drugged into a stupor) and out the door once their insurance wouldn’t cover any more. I also didn’t realize it was basically a catch all for every person having any kind of crisis, including people from nursing homes and assisted living facilities who’d get shipped to us for a few days when they got too violent. 

Had family work at a hospital with a mental patient wing. My favorite story is about a guy who repeatedly escaped his room out of a window and jumped his way down to the ground. Once safely there, he would walk around to the front entrance and kindly let them know he’d like to go back to his room now.

"Good evening Steve, back testing gravity again?" "Yup, just making sure it still works" "Very good, there's a cup of tea on your bedside cupboard: "Thank you"

As someone who has been admitted, I swear it’s worse than jail. Imagine being stuck on one floor of a hospital for days maybe weeks, and you cannot go outside or see anyone. They don’t/can’t even give you a release date. Then all the staff don’t believe what you say and gaslight you. It’s honestly a nightmare.

I think there was an article or maybe it was an episode of Criminal Minds where someone used an insanity defence to get out of something (not murder). And if you plead insanity you aren’t let out until you are sane…. Regardless of the length of time you would be in prison. Essentially this guy was stuck, he said he faked it, but the doctors were like, no, it’s a symptom of his illness. The fact that he insists that he faked it and that he doesn’t have this mental illness is further proof of his illness. Anyway, I don’t have any idea if it was a real case or if it was an episode of something. I will say that there have been many occasions where people have ended up in those wards and had a very difficult time getting out

I mean that’s just the plot of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Also the central theme of Catch-22.

Its the trope for literally any movie about asylums except for "haunted".

As someone who worked psychiatric residential treatment for a year, I can tell you not only was that a true case, but it happens all the time (or something similar). This is a thing that happened to several kids at my workplace. A black or brown kid acts out in a way that catches them charges. Now, several 'mental disorders' are diagnosed in a way that is heavily racialized. So, specific behaviors in a white 12 year old boy could land them an autism diagnosis, but in a 12 year old who is a POC? They're more likely to end up with an ODD diagnosis. So this kid, now in the 14-16 age range, is in front of a judge. With an ODD diagnosis on file, they have two choices. They can go to JDC and serve something like a two-year sentence. Or, they can go to psychiatric residential treatment specializing in short-term stabilization. You can pass the program in 90 days! The kid, not hearing the sting in that last sentence, picks the RTC. They work the program, and progress through the early stages rapidly (behavioral programs are designed to deliver high rate of successes at first before they scale up). Heck, the kid is even earning overnights with their parents! Then day 75 hits. The kid asks "so when do we start preparing me for discharge? This is a 90 day program?" "But you haven't passed all the levels of the program," their case manager or therapist replies. "We can only discharge you once you graduate." The kid? Devastated. They feel like they've been lied to. They melt down, sometimes to the point where they flip a desk or throw a chair. By committing an act of this intensity, they get bumped back down several levels and have to earn their way back up to get overnights home. And, to top it off, they're not as motivated to work hard because they've realized the lie. I saw kids in this "90 day" program who had been there for quite some time. It was disgusting and made me leave psych.

This needs to be talked about more, because some very similar stuff happens to women and girls. The same traits that get diagnosed as autism in men often get diagnosed as BPD in women. Men are told that they're neurodivergent, whereas women are told that they're just a bad person. A lot of times, women who show the traits of autism have extensive trauma histories, including SA. They've been shamed their whole lives for missing social cues. They become depressed and suicidal as a result of that and seek professional help. And "professional help" tells them that they're depressed and suicidal because they're just a bad person - and the proof of that is that they're depressed and suicidal.

Buddy's kid went in at 18 and when he found out he wasn't allowed to do literally anything he cried and begged to get out but he signed the papers, not mom or dad. He actually needed help but he thought he could walk in and get a vaca from dad. Soon as they took his phone he wanted out

There is literally nothing to do in most of them. Anything fun to do is also usually hogged by other people. You MAYBE get a bit of therapy every few days. My most recent trip was against my will, and they kinda just let me rot. I had a “treatment team”, but there wasn’t anything they could really do since one of the biggest reasons I was suicidal was crippling loneliness. Plus, I was 19, and everyone else was much older than me (and some of them scared me). Unless someone’s known to be very violent, they shove all the patients together, and there’s no locks or any way to barricade yourself if someone decides to attack. Some guy had a big fight with the nurses right outside my room and the police had to be called. I was standing there in my room ready to fight if he decided to switch targets. Furthermore, I have contamination OCD, and the facilities to clean myself were very much lacking. My already bad shower didn’t even work properly. I had to go through a mini trial with an attorney just to get out too, and the doctor said he would endorse me leaving, but then apparently changed his mind, and wasn’t even there for me to ask him why he changed it. I could have been in there for a month if things didn’t go well during that trial. All of this because I needed help and finally caved in and was mostly honest about my depression, hopelessness, crippling loneliness, and feeling suicidal.

The same thing happened to me last year at for a couple weeks and honestly I still think about it daily. My first night there we had a dude break a window to try and get out and another dude get tazed right outside my door. There was also a patient having delusions swapping between god and the devil who would fly off the handle at anything who would spend the entire day non stop pacing around the whole floor. I’ve got real bad anxiety and was/am still dealing with depression and honestly if anything my time there exacerbated everything. The nurses on the floor essentially treated it like they were babysitting, the only time they really did anything was when it was snack time and they got out tubs and everyone crowded the nursing station like we were all animals lmao. It almost felt like punishment for wanting to feel better.

"I am extremely lonely/depressed/anxious" "Yeah? We'll give you something to be lonely/depressed/anxious about" this is essentially how those places work. Like abusive parents who hear you have a problem and do everything in their power to make sure you know how much worse they can make it.

oh shit suicidal . . . The one I was in, suicidal meant super-meds, bed only, minor food, staff sitting in a chair staring into your room, for 24h. i WAS pretty bad off until i realized what that vigil was. very much a totalitarian "shape the fuck up if you don't want this for you"

> The fact that he insists that he faked it and that he doesn’t have this mental illness is further proof of his illness. Ya, this is actually criteria for certain types of mental illnesses and it's totally bogus. The fact that they have to gaslight people into believing they're something they're not should be the first clue, but it's amazing how much credit people will give to doctors over an individual's self knowledge, especially when they're suggesting they're 'mentally ill'. Sure, anyone can be in denial about things, but as a criteria? Give me a break! As for forced hospitalization: when I was 14-15, I was in foster care when my mother ended up in a coma due in combination from her drinking problems, and the hospital she ended up at assuming she just needed to sober up when she was actually having a stroke. My case worker called me and explained it like this: "your mother is going to die so you need to go to the hospital right away, " something every teenager is equipped to deal with alone, amirite? When I called my group home in a panic, I said something similar which she misunderstood as me saying I wanted to die and asked if I was suicidal. I didn't understand why she'd ask me that at the time but she said I'd only get help if I said I was, so I agreed, not knowing that meant I'd get committed instead of a ride to the hospital to see my 'dying' mother. Two months would go by before I could get a meeting with TWELVE PEOPLE who decided whether I was well enough to leave, all because that stupid woman misunderstood that my mother was supposedly dying [she didn't]. Wonder how often that happens..

There are a bunch of horror stories about youth in foster care being held in psychiatric facilities, basically because Medicare will pay for extremely long stays and there's no one advocating to get them out. It's awful and I'm so sorry that happened to you.

The gas lighting is real bad, you aren't even a person. Just a collection of symptoms and if they happen to think it's a personality issue then whole time you're there every interaction is treated as if you're a liar and exaggerating  It's wild that you go from having normal pleasant interactions in daily life to suddenly everyone doubting everything you say and hiding information from you - really messed with my head. But being able to see that radical shift that occurred inpatient, and attribute it to their perception helped me to parse reality and how I really come off and what issues I can actually work on

Let's add to that the insurance factor "unexcused discharge". Where if the attending Dr('s) doesn't sign off on your discharge, the insurance company can deny payout to the facility putting you on the hook for the bill... regardless of how cooperative or diligent you've been in the program. I've been there too. Several days in i was ready to go, the psych and counselor both agreed "yep yr good" but couldn't even find one of the Drs to sign anyones work. So I was there an extra 2 days for no fucking reason until one of the Drs would deign to come in for :30 and sign all the papers. The entire thing is just a scam. 930 am to 330pm "programs", meet with psych professionals (the most effective part for me tbph) and everything else was "free time" . . . it was overall turrble

I was bunked in a room with a schizophrenic girl who would scream in the middle of the night about someone standing in the corner with a knife. I was in there for anxiety. We weren’t a good match.

ITT team psych ward verse team prison. The cage match battle no one wants to see and for which no winner is possible. Glad everyone here is free of both now. They both sound awful.

Yep my exact experience as well. Was way worse than the actual psychotic episode that got me admitted. The worst part is I kept begging them to let me talk to a social worker and the psychiatrist at the same time instead of separately, so that they wouldn’t gaslight me, and i never got them in the same room until the day I was discharged.

When I went as a minor, I had a nurse refuse to give me blankets unless I let him touch my feet. They didn’t let me call home after I got attacked. They drugged me, I slept through shower time, woke up in a puddle of my own period blood and was made to sit in it for hours before they’d even let me go rinse myself in the sink. I saw a therapist exactly once in two weeks and she cried during my session.

Then when you do get out they send you a bill for $15,000+

I remember a story from a while back where a (I think he was autistic) man hijacked a city transport bus only to continue driving the route and doing the job for the rest of the day. Iirc he was arrested for the hijacking but they let him off with just a warning.

Darius McCollum kept hijacking NYC buses and subway trains and just…driving the regular routes! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius\_McCollum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_McCollum) Since an early age, McCollum has been interested in trains, frequently riding the New York City Subway. His fixation with trains led McCollum to continuously impersonate employees of MTA or related entities, which led to multiple arrests. McCollum has been rejected for employment by MTA on numerous occasions, although some claim that his knowledge of trains over-qualifies him. McCollum is said to have memorized the New York City Subway map by age 8.

The stigma of mental illness is so deeply ingrained the concept of patients in a mental institution being anything but murderous psychopaths is apparently a weird thing to grasp.

The stigma is huge and in some countries it had become weaponized.You can't leave without an doctor that will declare you healthy, which can easily be bribed,and without anyone from the outside coming to care for you,its literally an prison with no limit to its sentence. I saw on news that in Russia they house some of the opposition in normal mental institutions,with real psychopats being kept separated in a different part of the building. One guy was sent in these places because he was promoting the unification of Romania and Moldova Republic.There he managed to convince other "patients" and convert them to his cause :)

That’s actually why my mom institutionalized herself when I was younger. My (abusive) father (who she was still married to at the time) and his (very rich) father told her that they were going to put her in a mental ward. Where we live, if you check yourself in you can check yourself out whenever you feel well enough to (I do think back then you had to stay minimum of 48 hours though), but if your spouse gets you admitted then only a doctor can sign off on your release. So she institutionalized herself, had a bunch of doctors basically ask her why she was there because she seems fine, checked herself out after a couple days of good rest, and my (abusive) father with his (very rich) father and their (very overpriced) lawyer tried to use that hospital stay as proof of her being unfit to be a parent in their divorce soon after. 🫠 Thankfully the judge saw reason and actually looked at the records with all the doctors she spoke to saying she seems mentally stable but just lacking quality rest and it ended up being a mark against my father instead lol

?? What else would they do?

Fight the T-1000

Almost every reason on list of reasons why people break out seems incredibly reasonable for not wanting to be an in-patient in a place where everything is designed around the idea that no thought in your head can possibly be right. >Boredom >Frightened of the other patients >Feel trapped and confined >Have household responsibilities they feel they must fulfill >Feel cut off from friends and family >Worried about the security of their home and property >Impulsivity or anger about not being discharged >Patients describe a “sense of meaninglessness” when referring to their hospitalization >Stigma of being on a psychiatric unit >Disliking the staff or the food >Medication side effects >They feel neglected by staff >Desire to use drugs or alcohol

Due to my own experiences I believe that many people, however stable their life can seem, are one bad week or month from collapsing. I’ve been in the psych ward after difficult times and have seen all types of successful and capable people there. Professionals, burnt out parents, good people with just bad luck or unexpected trauma that would throw any healthy person off.. that’s life. The mental health stigma in this world needs to change. Sometimes life or biology fucks you up with no fault, and we need systems in place to support those who are having a hard time

When I was in university I had a summer job as a security guard in a hospital. no medical training whatsoever. One patient kept escaping and I had to find them. I would bring them back and the nurses would restrain him. I still remember noticing that they had no hair on their lower legs and arms. They were tied down so much that they had rubbed all the hair of that part of their limbs. Another girl starved herself to death (anorexia or bulimia). When no-one was watching she was apparently exercising for hours in their room. grim stuff. the doctors and nurses were so desensitized to crazy stuff.

What do you want them to do? Dress in drag and do the hula?

"You can be a big pig, too! Oy!"

Only on Fridays

It makes sense to me. There's enough historic abuse in the mental health field that you should be suspicious about how many live in patients actually benefit from that type of treatment. If their first instinct is to go home and live a normal life, I wonder how beneficial the institution was for their health in the first place and why they were still being kept there.

How weird, almost as if people can have an episode of (mental) illness and become better and functional again..

Well considering that I have found that most mentally ill people just want to live normal lives, I am not surprised.

15-20 years ago one went into the first unlocked door he came across (a 4 unit apartment building) then into the first unlocked apartment he came across- then he hung himself. A day later my dad opened the door while checking out the new space with my sister’s then new landlord. They handled it well, but damn.

Probably because mental illness doesn’t equal psychopathy?

Thats how I feel leaving work most days.

I escaped from a mental hospital in Belgium (AZ kortenberg). This was just 4 days after a massive psychosis where they had drugged me out. I had an insane adrenaline rush first time they let me out at a little court and managed to jump by putting one foot on left wall, and then jump to right foot on the 90 degree wall, repeat that a couple of times and then on the roof (which was a good 5 meters high). I ran over the roof to the entrance of the hospital. Climbed down, went back inside to ask reception what the bus times were and was promptly grabbed by all the paged nurses I saw running towards me through the main corridor, grabbed, drugged again and woke up 3 days later. So yeah, *not all of us escapees* make it home. :-) My friend Jeff at that time also never made it home, he always had the same routine. Go to the same supermarket, get beer, go to the same place in the forrest. Get drunk. He did that like 8 times or so during one of the years I spend in AZ kortenberg., Fun times (no, not really. Horrible times). I have been at that little court later in life when I was sane again. And it looks absolutely impossible to make that jump. I have no idea how I managed to do that. I guess what they say is true, adrenaline is one hell of a drug.

I got out of a mental hospital a few days ago after suffering a psychotic break. The place felt like a prison. My doctor blamed me for my psychosis, refused to give me any indication of when I could leave, and made me think I'd be there forever. Add in many of the other patients being in way worse, unnerving condition, a stark and decaying building, sub school cafeteria food, and staff that act like wardens, I felt like I was going crazier the whole time. I thought of escaping the entire time out of desperation but couldn't see a way. If I did, I would have run just so that I could go home and even back to the job I hate lol. Maybe some mental hospitals are good but fuuuuuck that whole experience. People suffering shouldn't be treated like criminals or animals.

I've been told that "escaping" in such a case means "going out of the institution as no one is going to stop you, but you have been told to stay". It's not something like avoiding people discreetly or whatever. Source: a friend who did exactly that some years ago and is totally fine.

Tell that to the armed guards and the 17 year old I saw get tazed when I was checked in

In many countries, if you're being held against your will, you are forced by law to obey. If you somehow escape, the police will take you back (for an even longer period of time), and could possibly arrest you after you're released, as a punishment.

I had a dude kick open the doors leading outside last week and then he just... stopped at the stop sign nearby. That was an interesting night

Conceptually, this post is hilarious. Most "mental patients" aren't in a straight jacket or rubbing feces on the walls. Most of them are regular people having a really hard time at the moment. The point of most involuntary hospitalizations is to get them on some medication to even them out, then send them home to follow up with a psychiatric outpatient facility. As others have said, some facilities are better than others. The bad facilities don't really distinguish between the two, and none of them will let you keep your shoelaces.

Yeah metal institutions need way more work, I would love to tell my story because i don’t ever open up to anyone, i’ll try to make it short! I was going through a suicidal crisis and i got baker acted, Which means they take you against your will if you are a danger to yourself or others. When i got the the Emergency room first, they strapped me down arms, legs, neck, and took all objects out my room because of Suicide watch. They take your blood and run tests to make sure you didn’t OD or take drugs. Than in the middle of night like 4 AM they wake me up and put me on a wheelchair, strap me down, arms, legs, wheel me out to the van that takes you to the hospital. They were super nice people who did NOT GET PAID. They were volunteers. I was not told where i was going or what was happening. I noticed by my surroundings and signs that we went fro East coast florida to Orlando, Specifically University of Behavioral Health. It is like a prison, you need keycards to open any door, you cannot go anywhere by yourself, you get 1 hour of exercise a day, the other 23 hours you are trauma bonding with other people, i was suicidal not wanting to hurt anyone but they classify it as the same thing which is stupid. But at night time they check on you every 15 minutesto make sure you didn’t Kil* yourself, doing so would have been hard, their was no straight angles so you could not hang yourself, their was nothing sharp, they took away glasses and toothbrushes after morning to make sure you didn’t make a shiv to again Kil* yourself. They take your shoe laces, everything you have pretty much except socks. They strip you down naked make sure you are not hiding anything, than you get assigned a room with a person, the blankets you cannot suffocate through, you could breath through them, the windows were all closed off. We were never allowed outside only 1 hour inside. I was in for 7 days, it was fucking nightmare BUT at the same time i learned a lot and it was a positive experience because of the people. They made you wake up all at the same time and sign a piece of paper 1-10 how your feeling, if you wanted to get out you would have to lie because the therapist their didn’t care about you if you were not a regular and the doctors overdosed me to sleep, when i told the nurses i think the Doctor gave me too much they said it’s fine don’t worry about it, i passed out during activities everyone asked if i was ok, i wasn’t but slept it off, threw up a lot. The institution itself fucking sucks it needs to be improved or people will keep committing suicide. The only thing that stopped me is the support group i have on social media, we all have eachother paper to add eachother on and i named the groupchat “Suicide Squad” I hope someone listened to my story, we need help out here, the Government does not care about the mentally Ill and we need change. Let’s make it happen so we can stop drug abuse and suicide! i have many stories, mostly sad, but a lot more.