this was in the united states, but the experience probably differs quite a bit from state to state. where i was, there weren’t that many activities besides a deck of cards and occasionally some TV in the evening (usually nature channels or something similar). i did get quite good at shuffling cards due to all the free time and limitless access to playing cards.
i can relate to what you said about people treating me well and having interesting conversations there, and it is very nice to talk to other people who might be going through some similar problems. what you said about actually being able to talk about yourself is very true, and that part was also super nice. there’s a culture of “what happens in the mental institutions stays in the mental institutions” that seems to permeate them. i think it helps people open up a lot more and leads to some very interesting conversations that likely wouldn’t be possible elsewhere. in my case at least, not having much else to do probably also meant that people were more incentivized to try to find more interesting things to talk about.
i’m pretty sure the places i went to were for profit (awesome how that works by the way), so that probably corrupted things a good bit. it really felt like the primary goal was “containment” instead of being a therapeutic experience. it felt very sterile and cold, but some of the other patients made it a nicer experience than it otherwise would have been. it’s also worth mentioning that both of these places were a small section of a much larger hospital and that certainly didn’t help things very much.
although it sounds like you had a much nicer experience, which is good to hear. it sounds like what you went through is a lot closer to how i think these places “should” be run.
I was lucky that the place I was at provided activities and better food than I was used to. But there really wasn’t much actual therapy and the meds didn’t help.
It’s been 20 years and I would definitely say it was only the other patients that provided me any long term benefit. Really let me see through my own problems and understand stuff that other people went through too.
For example the girl who somehow managed to get through life despite having full on hallucinations of a guy playing a solo guitar session 24 hours a day.
Or another girl who had her stomach pumped from a suicide attempt. She had a birth defect that unfortunately made her look like a goblin just without the green skin. Hope she turned out ok everyone felt for her.
Also met the first probably trans person before I knew that even existed. The facility kept apologizing for misplacing a girl with the boys for a week based on appearances alone. But they were like seemed fine to be there.
this was in the united states, but the experience probably differs quite a bit from state to state. where i was, there weren’t that many activities besides a deck of cards and occasionally some TV in the evening (usually nature channels or something similar). i did get quite good at shuffling cards due to all the free time and limitless access to playing cards.
i can relate to what you said about people treating me well and having interesting conversations there, and it is very nice to talk to other people who might be going through some similar problems. what you said about actually being able to talk about yourself is very true, and that part was also super nice. there’s a culture of “what happens in the mental institutions stays in the mental institutions” that seems to permeate them. i think it helps people open up a lot more and leads to some very interesting conversations that likely wouldn’t be possible elsewhere. in my case at least, not having much else to do probably also meant that people were more incentivized to try to find more interesting things to talk about.
i’m pretty sure the places i went to were for profit (awesome how that works by the way), so that probably corrupted things a good bit. it really felt like the primary goal was “containment” instead of being a therapeutic experience. it felt very sterile and cold, but some of the other patients made it a nicer experience than it otherwise would have been. it’s also worth mentioning that both of these places were a small section of a much larger hospital and that certainly didn’t help things very much.
although it sounds like you had a much nicer experience, which is good to hear. it sounds like what you went through is a lot closer to how i think these places “should” be run.
I was lucky that the place I was at provided activities and better food than I was used to. But there really wasn’t much actual therapy and the meds didn’t help.
It’s been 20 years and I would definitely say it was only the other patients that provided me any long term benefit. Really let me see through my own problems and understand stuff that other people went through too.
For example the girl who somehow managed to get through life despite having full on hallucinations of a guy playing a solo guitar session 24 hours a day.
Or another girl who had her stomach pumped from a suicide attempt. She had a birth defect that unfortunately made her look like a goblin just without the green skin. Hope she turned out ok everyone felt for her.
Also met the first probably trans person before I knew that even existed. The facility kept apologizing for misplacing a girl with the boys for a week based on appearances alone. But they were like seemed fine to be there.