I feel like after almost a year i am finally able to talk about what i went through when i was hospitalized multiple times in a psych ward. The night that i got admitted i almost killed myself, my anxiety and depression made me want to take all my sleeping pills or take a knife to my wrist. I used the suicide text line and after deciding that i was not able to make them think i was safe they sent 7 police officers, 3 fire marshals, and a paramedic duo to take me to the hospital. At the time i was hyperventilating and could barely move, they put shoes on me and practically carried me to the ambilance. After arriving they stuck me in an isolated room that caused me to freak out and hide under a shelf in a corner where my abusive gf at the time comforted me and my roommate came and yelled at me for not letting her know what was happening and that i was lucky the cops didn't do anything concerning her weed stuff. After 5 hours they moved me to a psych unit in a wheelchair. I was put in a room that i shared with a man missing a leg. The days i spent there were heavily regulated, breakfast at breakfast and drinks were available at 830-9, group activity or therapy at 10-1130, lunch and drinks at 12-1230, second group activity or therapy 130-3, dinner at 7, lights out at 10. The menus for food was basic hospital food with restricions based on our health, activity varied between the different psych wards i visited but all had some kind of hands on work you could do and the best one i was in had computers you could use the internet on. Group therapy was interesting in only that i got to know my fellow psych ward inmates better, all were there from depression to drug use to straight up too mentally unstable to be in public. All day the doctors would take people in their office and evaluate them and in my case gave and adjusted the medication to get me stable again. The evenings were quite boring because all we had was 2 tvs and if we were lucky maybe a playing card deck. I was able to have my roommate bring me books to read. I had to call my work from the phones that we were allowed to use, in sight of the nurses station with cameras looking at us, and try to tell them i got hospitalized with no date in sight of being released, being a driller that operates heavy machinery i couldn't tell them i almost killed myself, and thankfully theu accepted that and welcomed me back after 4 months off. The people i met in there were quite genuine and caring people, the inmates and day staff, the night shift in ecery psych ward i was in couldn't care less about us and just wanted us to be asleep for the whole shift. In psych wards people tend to bond over the shared experience and they promise to keep in touch afterwards, but it is hard because when in the hospital we all acted different, i was able to stay in touch with my group of friends for about 2 months before we either just seperated or they went back into the ways that sent them to the psych ward in the first place. When i got out of the psych ward for the last time, a month in a half total time, i couldn't see in a moving vehicle, everything got blurry and i could barely make out that i had 5 fingers on my hand, after 2 in a half months my doctor cleared me for work and my work hired a person to drive me from site to site and help out where they can so i could work. The psych ward also made me have a scheduled psychiatrist appointment before they discharged me. When i was in there i realized i was in an abusive relationship and cut it off a couple of week after i got out. My father who visited me in the psych ward has been in prision and when i told him what it was like in there he told me that was worse then prison because although everything is similar at least in prison you got to be able to go outside and get fresh air. And that is my experience from the psych ward. Now time for me to try and not cry and go to work.
