What's life like in a mental hospital?!
Question: What's life like in a mental hospital?
Does everybody eat lunch together?
What are usual events? (Not during lunch).
How are the rooms sorted really? Like, are people with the same conditions together in the same side of the hospital, and do you get a roommate?
What do they allow you to bring there really? Like, are you allowed to wear some sort of rope item there?
Just... What's life like in a mental institution?
I'm asking these questions because I'm writing a story about a girl who goes to a mental institution. I want to honor people to went there. Because I suppose I think that they are NOT crazy actually. They are just... well.. unique.
Thanks!
Answers:
Most people act pretty normal in the mental hospitals I have been in. A lot of people are there for depression.
Most people don't go to a stand alone mental hospital-it's usually a wing off a regular hospital, and looks like it, too, except there aren't IV's all over the place. By law, most places, you can wear regular clothes, but no belt, shoelaces, anything longer than 8" or so.
Lunch is like normal lunch in a cafeteria, but plastic silverware. One time, a lady got REAL silverware on her tray by mistake, and she discovered this when there were no staff in the room, and we all had a good laugh about that. She didn't tell staff, just put the silverware away in the cart with her tray so the kitchen staff wouldn't get in trouble. You get to order off a menu. Some places, there is a coke machine.
Big problem-never enough phones. 2 phones for 20 patients. I'm middle aged-no way am I gonna kick a teenager off the phone when they talk on and on to their mom or dad. so then I rarely could talk. This was a problem at every hospital.
Anyway, I've never had psychosis, so I guess I'm not just...well...unique.
PS I read the former answer, the TV is always going, you can't get away from it, and every hospital I have been in except the state hospital, had cards, games, puzzles and novels available. The state hospital was horrible. They have been mostly shut down in this state now.
edit LOL Kirek was editing too! So funny.
That's ok (forgot your username, wish YA! would keep that up when answering questions) I thought maybe you were being cute and sometimes it is so hard to tell when you aren't talking face to face. No offense, or I wouldn't have answered you. Enjoy writing your story.
every hospital is different. (some of the patients there told me about other hospitals they'd been in.)
the one that i was in:
-during lunch, you eat lunch in the cafeteria. that's it.
-everyone eats lunch together
-if we weren't in therapy (group and single) or eating, we were watching movies in a lounge room. No games, just a TV and some chairs.
-As far as I know, we were all sorted randomly. I was in sharing a room with a guy that I suspect was a pathological liar. I was in for psychotic depression. You are sorted by gender, though.
- You can only bring clothes. Shoelaces are removed. Anything that's sharp, rope, or poisionous isn't allowed.
I liked the other patients that were there because I didn't have any standards to live up to. Everything was so open and honest, supportive. I would hate to go back though.
EDIT : OH and there is only about three phones. and you need money for those phones.
They are ranked in severity. They won't have you sitting down eating with serial killers or murderers. Think of it like a nursing home.