#mental health inpatient

[woundofglory]

Please pray for me.

I am inpatient at a psychiatric hospital right now, working on healing my depression and anxiety. I will be here for 2 months, so please pray that I am safe and healthy. I will be holding the Lord’s hand this entire time.

God bless 🤍

#prayer request #layne speaks #mental illness #mental health #inpatient

[this-smile-is-real]

Hi.

My name is Hannah and I am 27 years old.

I have lived with Complex PTSD and Anorexia since I was 6 years old.

Over the years I have also been diagnosed with depression, anxiety, panic disorder, Functional Neurological Disorder, Fibromyalgia, a large bowel that no longer works and Costochondritis. I have had 46 hospital admissions both medical and mental health over the past 8 years to date (date of posting is April 2024)

I require weekly psychology, dietitian,, GP and physiotherapy appts as well as weekly medication costs, and other specialist appointments frequently.

I have been on the disability pension since 2019 but that doesn’t even begin to cover half of what I require and I have thousands of bills outstanding and money required to access the supports that I need to not be in hospital every few weeks.

I so appreciate the current cost of living but would be so grateful any donation large and small so that I can begin to truly live. Believe me when I say I have exhausted every option possible to try and get on track and moving forward.

Thank you for reading x

#medical expenses #medical costs #inpatient #hospitalisation #prayer request #prayer #faith #Christian #fibromyalgia #spoonie #chronic illness #gastrointestinal #ed recovery #recovery #mental health #personal #mental illness #cptsd recovery #cptsd therapy #donate #donations #donations needed #help needed #send help #reblog #urgent #signal boost #functional neurological disorder #disability #actually disabled

[macgyvermedical]

My Experience in Inpatient Psych

So I know a lot of people on here have talked about their experience in inpatient psych facilities, but I'd like to add mine just to give all you writers out there a writer-focused one. It's below the cut just in case you have to sit this one out for your own reasons.

To give you some background, I am 30 years old and have had hallucinations since about 16 and bizarre intrusive thoughts (someone living in my house that wasn't supposed to be there, somebody poisoned my walls, etc...) for about a decade, as well as very severe anxiety since I was about 3 years old. This is something not a lot of people know about me, even people I am friends with IRL.

The only thing I am actually diagnosed with is anxiety, which I'm starting to think is a failing of the psych systems I have been a part of. I have had counseling off and on and prior to this hospitalization I took escitalopram, aripiprazole, and gabapentin prescribed by my primary care doctor- all for the severe anxiety.

Quite frankly, I should have been in inpatient psych at least a few times before this, and it's by sheer dumb luck that I've survived to continue this blog.

On Friday, I was at home alone and made a few pretty bad decisions. I wont say what they were because frankly they're embarrassing, but they have to do with self-harm. I was scheduled to work Saturday and at about 9pm I realized that if I drove myself to work I would crash my car. Since my wife drives me sometimes, I figured I would just ask her to.

I told my wife and she asked- even if she drove me to work, since I was a nurse, would I be able to keep myself safe around insulin or other potentially dangerous drugs? I couldn't answer that question. We talked for a couple hours and came to the conclusion that I probably needed to go to the emergency department.

At this point I figured they would evaluate me and release me because I couldn't possibly meet the criteria for inpatient. I was wrong in this assumption. After telling them the decisions I had made that day, the feelings of wanting to die in a car crash, plus about a previous attempt, they recommended inpatient. Turns out, when you're a nurse, you can make some really bad life choices with the knowledge you have, and they didn't want to take any chances.

I was given paper scrubs to wear (so I couldn't hurt myself with my clothing or a hospital gown). I was also given a patient companion (someone who sits in the room and makes sure you don't hurt yourself).

They gave me the option of signing myself in voluntarily, or putting me on a writ of detention. A writ of detention is a piece of paperwork that allows a medical professional or law enforcement officer to hold someone for 3 days in a psychiatric facility against the person's will for the purposes of psychiatric treatment. Whether you sign the voluntary or get placed on a writ, you cannot sign yourself out. You need to wait until the psychiatrist taking care of you thinks you're ready to go.

I didn't believe at this point I needed to go inpatient, but I took the voluntary option because there are some perks, like being able to leave within 3 days if appropriate. At this point I was convinced I was probably going to have to call off work Saturday and Sunday, probably be out of the hospital Monday, have a few days to rest and be back at work on my next scheduled shift after that, which was Thursday.

Well, that's not what happened.

Because of some of the decisions I had made, along with bed availability, they wanted to keep me in the observation unit overnight before they sent me to psych. I stayed overnight in a unit that shares staff with the unit I work on, so I was taken care of by my coworkers. This was surprisingly not that bad. I like my coworkers and they were really professional about it.

Saturday I felt like I was in a fog all day. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't color or write. I worked out some in my hospital room and paced the halls once or twice. Mostly I hung out with my wife and occasionally talked with my companion, but even talking was difficult. I had refused ativan because I felt like I had no hope of finding a medication that made me feel better, and I figured I didn't want to take the one medication that might actually work and then not be able to get it ever again.

Around 7PM I took a 45 minute ambulance ride to the facility. Getting my blood pressure taken is a big anxiety trigger for me, but my brain felt so scrambled that I couldn't express this well. They took it every 10 minutes on the ride there and by the time I got there it was in the 170s/100s (BP goes up when you're having severe anxiety). This was not their fault of course, but no matter how much I thought about telling them or refusing the BPs, I just couldn't do it.

When I got to the facility I was greeted by a tech who took my BP again (150s/90s this time), showed me around and looked through my personal belongings (basically just the clothing I came in with since my wife took my phone and wallet knowing I wouldn't be able to have them on the unit) to make sure I didn't have anything I wasn't allowed to on the unit. She showed me around my room and was really thorough with telling me how things worked, what the rules were, etc..

The rules included:

No patients allowed in other patients rooms

No personal belongings that had strings, belts, or laces, or that could be used as a weapon

No caffeine after lunch and no free access to caffeine

No personal electronics (including eReaders and watches). There was a TV in the day room and 2 phones mounted to the wall for patient use

A little later my nurse came into my room and asked me a ton of questions. Here's the thing about any hospital- you get asked the same questions over and over. By the time I'd gotten there I could give my story in under a minute. Or at least, that's what it felt like. There were only 2 clocks on the unit, at the nurses stations.

The unit itself was laid out in a "T" shape. There was a main nurse's station at the place where the two hallways intersected. At the end of the long hallway there was another smaller nurses station, a cafeteria/day room, and a "comfort room" which was a small room off the day room that had a collection of the oldest and worst donated books that have every come together on a bookshelf.

I did some pacing that night and then went to bed, but didn't sleep particularly well.

On Sunday morning the tech woke me up to take my blood pressure, which was, not unsurprisingly, still high. It was about 5 AM so I got up and paced the longer of the corridors for about an hour. Breakfast was served at 8 and the food wasn't that bad. The coffee was about the worst I'd ever drank, which I suppose helped with the no caffeine goals.

Just after breakfast I met with a psychiatrist on an iPad for about half a minute, and I'm not exaggerating there. The only questions he asked were whether I was suicidal and whether I would be fine with tripling my dose of aripiprazole in light of the hallucinations. I had had a 50-lb weight gain in the last year so I asked to switch my med. He switched the med to cariprazine. That was all.

I had a much longer meeting with my nurse later. All the nurses did an excellent job of assessing me, asked tons of questions, and it seemed like they really tried to figure out what was going on. That day I also met with a social worker, and a therapist, and a nurse practitioner. Each of them did an assessment to see what my needs were while I was there.

There was also a music therapy session where I cried my eyes out to Because of You by Kelly Clarkson.

I was really tired by the end of the day but I also didn't think I could sleep so I asked for trazodone. I should clarify that when I say "I" in this piece I really mean my wife convinced me to ask because I legitimately didn't believe I needed or deserved any of the things I asked for at this point. To my utter shock and surprise, they gave me the trazodone.

My first night on trazodone was amazing and I realized I hadn't slept well in a long time. With trazodone I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the blood pressure cart came rolling down the hallway at 5am. The second I got up on Monday morning I was wide awake.

I paced a lot Monday. I went to a goals session in the morning where I gave a goal to write 3/4 of a page. I didn't know if I could do it or what I was even going to write about, but I know I like to write and it might be a reasonable introduction to getting back to life.

I also was having kind of a rough day brain-wise. My brain was coming up with all the ways I could hurt myself in my room. There weren't a lot of them, but it was trying. I told the nurse during her assessment and she asked if I felt I could keep myself safe. I asked her what she would do if I said no. She said they could move me to a more secure part of the unit and give me more supervision. I knew what part of the unit she was talking about, and I didn't want to go there (no space to pace, and pacing was keeping me alive right then). So I told her I could keep myself safe (if anything, the idea of moving was good motivation to do stay safe in itself). I hallucinated some black and white blood cells falling from the ceiling and music coming out of my vents.

I also had another meeting with the social worker to figure out discharge plans. I voiced in the meeting that I wasn't sure that I could trust my wife, since it felt like at the time she was the one who exaggerated my symptoms to get me in here. The social worker said we had really good communication skills, since this was something I felt needed to be said in front of both of them and we both stayed really calm through the whole thing.

I finished the day with an art therapy session that really helped me turn a corner. The prompt was to draw the emotion(s) you felt right now on one side of the paper, and to draw the emotions you wished you could feel on the other side. For the first time I realized that my emotional state was actually really bad and that the suicidality hadn't come out of nowhere, and that I needed help.

When my wife came to visit later that night I was able to tell her about my breakthrough, even though I still felt a little bit like she had done something to get me in here and I still wasn't sure I needed to be inpatient.

Tuesday was a lot better. I felt like I had woken up out of some kind of fog and I had no idea how long I'd been in it. I went to goals group, a spiritual group, and group occupational therapy. My goal was to be more social and I made a friend and we paced together and worked out. I read a quarter of The Martian by Andy Weir (my wife brought it for me because the best thing on the bookshelf was Louis L'Amour). I wrote about how good I suddenly felt. Turns out, I thought, a few days of good sleep, lots of therapy, and a new medication or two will really change things.

A quick side note about The Martian. I highly recommend it to anyone who is chilling in a psych hospital but has the ability to read while they're there (I sure didn't the first few days). I don't really know why, but the first few times I read it, I felt like they had created this superhuman character in Mark Watney just so they could throw a ton of wild things at him for the story. This time reading it, as a suddenly not suicidal person, I realized anyone with Mark's skill would have done the same thing and not just died on Sol 7 to get it over with.

Wednesday I woke up not feeling nearly as good as Tuesday, but still like the fog had lifted. I was a little disappointed (I hallucinated my cat (thanks for coming to visit me, Corina), some spiders, and just felt kinda meh. But I remembered how good I felt the day before, and that really kept me hopeful about going home.

I saw the psychiatrist again and asked to go home. He joked a little about me staying till Christmas, but ultimately he said as soon as his note was in I could go. I ended up leaving at about 12:30 with my wife.

In the time since leaving I have required a lot of support from my wife. The medications are all locked up, so are the blades and anything I could use to hurt myself. My wife has me in eyeshot at all times. I can't drive due to intrusive thoughts, so she does all the driving now. I quit my job because I feel like it was a big part of why I ended up as bad as I was. As someone who has been a pretty independent person this is a big change of pace, but something that is really necessary to my healing.

Ultimately at the end of my hospital stay, I was prescribed escitalopram, gabapentin, trazodone, cariprazine, and then a few days later propranolol. I'm currently on a total of 5 psych meds and honestly I don't care one bit because its so much better than being not on them at this point in my life.

#mental health #personal #writing reference #inpatient psych #suicide mention #hallucination mention

[archivegeo]

Opinion: 9 Questions, most are short answer (links to SurveyXact)

"hospital for the insane" patient rooms -> museum exhibit?

Responses are quite personal as they relate to mental illness, BUT they're fully anonymous & will only put into my Spring research portfolio to be seen by two faculty members at a university in Denmark.

#polls #research #mental health #mental illness #schizophrenia #asylum #gradblr #researchers #studyblr #inpatient #study blog

[bartonbones]

im literally never not thinking about how sweet and meaningful it is that carmy sends richie and marcus to the places of his memory....i know logistically it's about connections but it's also just the fact that he's made these connections in the first place...he doesn't think of himself as likable or memorable or even that someone people might remember as anything except exceptionally good at his job but we see each time that people remember him fondly and want to send love back home to him....carmy stumbles badly when it comes to expressing himself he grew up with a stutter he feels still probably that mikey ultimately rejected knowing him but he's so willing to share these fundamental pieces of himself with the people he believes in even if he doesn't assume they'll recognize it as him...this dear thing this probably last really cherished memory of inspiration and cooking the last thing he probably shared with mikey and he's willing to share it with marcus without him even knowing...anyway it's sweet. he trusts them so much and he believes in them so much and it's why he takes it so badly when he thinks he's failed them in the finale...

#i just....he. him. little shrimp man. #i need to see him in an inpatient mental health program

[solpng]

good evening beautiful phone app ppl i am back

#hooooo boy today was a doozy #i finally was able to see a doctor and got prescribed a few meds for whatever demon is in my body #going to 3 different urgent cares was crazy but it was what it was ig #had a pretty big fight with my mom and actually did kinda fr have a mental break #i swear i was joking ab that earlier but gd did it rlly happen 😭 #anyway so yeah i ended up having to make a phone call to a mental health center that provides inpatient/outpatient services #got an appointment/assessment tomorrow morning yippee #i'm trying my best to get myself sorted out like i can't keep living like this

[pushingprozac]

since everyones mad at taylor swift for romanticizing and trivializing mental illness i want to take this moment to remind u that

1) she can eat rocks

2) former/currently institutionalized people are allowed to feel HOWEVER THEY WANT about their situations and trauma. I am dead serious. if they cope with using visual aesthetics of hospitals, that is their business, and is a nonissue, and I do NOT want to keep seeing you guys shitting on traumatized people just trying to get by while taking out your anger on taylor swift. you do not have to like that she did it, but no fucking way should you be judging survivors of institutionalization in the same way.

#r txt #taylor swift #anti taylor swift #ableism #disability #institutionalization #inpatient #5150 #mental illness #mental health #hospitalcore #psych ward #psychiatric inpatient

[intrusive-thoughts-only]

When you realize that is in your best interest to go into inpatient hospitalization, I feel so out of control with my life.

Dropping all of my responsibilities feels like I cannot live properly as a person.

But I don’t know what else to do …

#actually bpd #bpd #mental health awareness #bpd feels #bpd mood #mental illness #mental health #mentally exhausted #emptiness #inpatient hospitalization #voluntary commitment #actually cptsd

[try-and-try-and-try-again]

TMI

Somehow the staff lost my contraceptive for ３days. I started it about a month ago because my period came back and freaked me out and I couldn’t cope with the sensory ick, the pain and the gender dysphoria (I’m not even near a healthy weight so why is it suddenly here??).

Anyway, because of this I’m now on my period again! I’m in agony. I can’t stand it. Paracetamol is not helping. Should I have asked for the codeine they prescribed for my sciatica?

#personal #ed recovery #mental health #inpatient #autism #menstruation #gender dysphoria #contraception #pain

[detentiontrack]

Reminder that not everyone can get their drivers license within the time frame deemed "socially acceptable". Sometimes it takes extra time for financial reasons, physical health reasons, mental health reasons, accessibility reasons, lack of support reasons, etc. It's a difficult process and it's completely acceptable to not get it on your 16th birthday, or to not get it at all. There's nothing to be ashamed of and I'm tired of people being judgemental towards adults who don't have their licenses.

#half reminding myself #i was inpatient or at the worst time of my life when i was 15 1/2 so i couldnt get my pemit #and then between my adhd and my ed and family drama and moving it took a really long time to finish training and to get my learners permit #so i'm turning 18 in a week and a half and i'm barely learning how to drive in drivers ed #mental health #positivity #actually disabled #disabled #autism #adhd #actually autistic

[this-smile-is-real]

It’s a new day.

Have been awake since 1am with a couple of hrs sleep beforehand.

I will not give up fighting for my healing.

I have tried the public system. I have tried the private system. Every psychiatrist I have ever seen has said they don’t know how to help me.

I’ve had 3 day hospital admissions, 10 month hospital admissions, 43 hospital admissions so far in 8 years. 8 different therapies, more and more health issues but I will NOT give up.

Healing is out there and I will make it happen. Im not entirely sure how but I will continue to pursue recovery from all things (21 yr eating disorder; decades of cPTSD, FND, Fibromyalgia, seizures, a very damaged bowel and gastrointestinal system etc.

I have goals: complete my undergraduate Psychology degree with the Honours Year, complete my Masters in either Clinical Psychology or Developmental Psychology. I have goals to write, to speak, to impact, to inspire, to show that hope is real and freedom is possible.

I will not give up. I will keep fighting for my future so that I can be supported in all of my endeavours and also help to empower others to change their lives.

Also so open to avenues, people and suggestions for help that I haven’t yet tried.

I will not give up.

#disability #therapy #cptsd #FND #fibromyalgia #faith #ed recovery #christian #recovery #mental health #personal #mental illness #inpatient #dreams #goals #healing #prayer request #spoonie

[dromaeocore]

I know I talk a lot about issues within inpatient psychiatry and how they affect the patients (and this should frankly be the #1 priority), but I think how these issues affect the staff is important too. This paper goes into moral injury amongst psychiatric hospital staff in depth, and is the only systemic analysis I've been able to find on the topic.

Some quotes from staff members that I found particularly striking:

"The medicalisation approach of care for psychiatric patients has overlooked the principles of “care” in the context of nursing, and consequently the emphasis seems to have shifted more towards safety management. . ."

"What stops me from acting was I am part of a team . . . if I intervene in these situations I’m interfering with primary nursing, and I think I would be seen as splitting the team by taking the side of the patient."

"When I expressed my concern over what seemed like a blatant error in diagnosis, my instructor . . . who I held in really high esteem . . . just said “Docs don’t misdiagnose . . . there’s no misdiagnosing here,” and I was thinking, “Are you kidding me? Like, isn’t that against everything we’ve ever learned about critical thinking and looking at the specifics and questioning. . .?”"

"It’s not to be taken lightly when you put your hands on somebody. It’s wrong really. It’s like the opposite of therapeutic touch."

"I run to another ward when we hear the assault alarm and find a half-naked woman lying on the floor. As I understand it, the patient has “moved into top gear” and will be given an injection. . .. I’m distressed about the woman lying there half naked (why didn’t anyone think of covering her with a blanket?)"

Most of what the article discussed in the "implications for practice" section is about giving psychiatric healthcare workers more avenues to report immoral acts, along with trainings on how to deal with moral injury, but I have another takeaway. Both patients and staff are traumatized by this system. Why aren't we fundamentally changing something?

(Additionally, this system is perfect for burning out staff that have strong ethics and leaving the abusive staff to run things. So there's issues on both a systemic and individual level.)

#psychiatry #mental healthcare #inpatient psychiatry #moral injury #psychiatric abuse #abuse cw #public health #psychiatry critical #psychiatric nurse #psychiatric staff #mental health nurse #psych ward #psych hospital #tfw a cool epic paper came out JUST A FEW MONTHS AGO WOOOO #why is everyone not clambering over themselves to give this post notes. Surely there is something wrong with them and not me

[caught-between-black-and-white]

Have I looked hundreds of times how big my suitcase is and how much fits in? Yes.

Have I already thought about what clothes and things I buy before inpatient begins? Yes.

Have I been thinking about which songs I want to listen to all the time? Yes.

Have I already thought about what I would like to take with me to make the room in which I come more beautiful? Yes.

Have I already thought about outfits? Yes.

Have I thought about which books to take? Yes.

Have I already thought about which stickers to stick on my laptop for the stay? Yes.

Have I already thought about what hair color I want? Yes.

Have I thought about dyeing my hair there? Yes.

Have I already registered for the clinic? No.

Have I at least sent the request for cost coverage? Also no.

Planning CEO 👀

#mental health awareness #inpatient diary #my inpatient journey #inpatient awareness

[bartonbones]

i do quite honestly spend a lot of time thinking abt what's best for carmy berzatto. i worry about him like a son. i worry about him like i am his primary care provider and i am legally held responsible for any decisions i make lest i be sued for medical malpractice

#when i write fic i need u guys to know im thinking like this always #i JOKE about inpatient psychiatry services but WOULD that be the best thing for him?? #i think forcing him to take a break from the kitchen is the only way you'll get anywhere with him #and i think inpatient or at least a day program would provide that defined reason why he can't be in the kitchen #like it's an issue you'd have to force w him #but also NOT force in a way that would aggravate more issues #like if his break from the kitchen is just richie guarding the door i think it'd just make things worse #he's getting kicked out again; mikey was right not to start a restaurant w him; ect #so it needs to be something he either radically chooses or is something that is no one's direct choice #i.e. an inpatient hospital stay #whether for psych issues or something else #anyway. i want to write an eighty page care plan regarding carmy berzatto's mental and physical health #i am crazy. i am insane.

[p0is0n-is-th3-cur3]

I want my Spotify wrapped already I’m inpatient 😡😡

#I’m super inpatient #I need to see how fucked up my mental health is

[gracegrove]

Apologies for being MIA for a bit. But I kinda got forced into a vacation...

I want to first of all state that I am safe. That I am unharmed.

I do have COVID though, which fucking sucks ass because I'd never had it all until now.

But as some of you may know, the past couple of weeks were dealing me some very stressful and very very bad hands. And on Tuesday last I just reached a threshold where I didn't think I would be able to take much more stress, bad news, or any other combo without actually reaching a point of seriously harming myself. So I asked my mother to drive me to the emergency room.

Maybe I'm naive or too optimistic, but I thought they'd evaluate me and believe that I wasn't at serious risk, get me a quick set of referrals to a good psychiatrist (finally). And that I'd get to go home.

nope.

I got sectioned on a psych hold and was kept at the hospital for 4hrs before being transferred to the "psych emergency dept." (it was nothing more than a glorified hallway full of people in various states of mental health crisis including myself) of another nearby hospital for another 10hrs. Then I was transferred 30mins north to an inpatient facility.

When I got there and the intake nurse slapped the sign-in forms down in front of me, I wanted to read each of them carefully because I know the laws are tricky and that a 3-day hold can easily turn into a mandatory 3-month hold if you're not careful. She said to me "People are waiting outside, you need to make up your mind..." in a rather impolite way and I had barely slept in a day and hadn't eaten or drank anything. So I refused to sign the paperwork. She stuck her nose up at me, pulled out a pink sheet of paper, and made a point of telling me that I was now under "Involuntary" commitment and told me to go back to the locked waiting room.

When I met the next intake worker, his name was Edwin. He asked me calmly why I hadn't signed my papers. So I flatly told him why (leaving out that his coworker was a _ _ _ _ _). He was very kind and told me not to worry, he pulled out the same forms, but unlike her he went through each form and explained what each one was for and what would happen if I did or did not sign it. So I made the conscious choice to sign my papers. I asked him during my processing if this still meant I was "involuntary" and he said "no" because I had signed myself in. I owe Edwin a solid.

The first night was rough. I didn't want to be there. I was still upset. I got lucky though that the next morning I met some good folks. Real funny too. The only downside was that I got COVID on my third day and was put on isolation the whole rest of my stay until discharge. ...I spent way too much time staring at the wall.

I'm out now. At home. Stuck in my own room at least. I'll be meeting with my therapist much more often because of this (sure she's gonna love that). But at least they hooked me up with a new psychiatrist to see on Friday and a new Dr's office to call and schedule with as well.

So that's where I was.....

#tw suicidality #tw mental health #tw inpatient #tw mental illness #tw mental hospital #tw personal