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#residential treatment
againstme · 4 months
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completed my first month of residential mental health treatment today someone please be proud that i haven’t entirely lost my shit
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xxflutterinax · 5 months
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onceuponafosterkid · 11 months
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Residential Treatment Facilities
In the state of Colorado, they decided they want to close down residential treatment centers across the state. Their goal in this, is to place foster youth with foster families instead of treatment facilities. As someone who grew up in foster care treatment centers, I have a couple thoughts about this. Hypothetically, this is good idea. Every kid deserves a loving family. What I don’t agree with, is pulling kids like me out of a traumatic situation and placing them with a family who are not trained or prepared to deal with aftershocks of trauma. I lived in an abusive house for 12 and a half years. When the state finally pulled me out, they placed me in a residential treatment center where I had access to 24/7 therapeutic services. Without those around the clock services, I would have committed suicide. I went through a phase where almost every day I was fighting to die. I did not want to be alive. If they had placed me in a foster home instead of a treatment center, I would have killed myself, and I would have burned out every set of foster parents they placed me with. You cannot expect foster parents to be able to handle a child with the amount of trauma and behavioral issues I had. That is a job for treatment counselors and therapists. I do not believe youth should be institutionalized to the point of not being able to function in a normal society, but I think youth need time and space to stabilize in a therapeutic setting before they are placed in a family. Otherwise, it will not work. You cannot expect parents to perform the same tasks as a therapist or a counselor. You have to pick one, you can’t be both a therapist and a parent to a kid. It’s unfair and unrealistic to the youth and the parents.
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trans-axolotl · 4 months
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hi, i wanted to ask if possible (I'm sorry if this is a little invasive!) but what treatment program did you go to? I'm looking for some and I'm receiving mixed singles right now..
hey! I'm comfortable talking about it. I'm assuming you're talking about the eating disorder treatment program I went to, not the other psych wards I've been to, but let me know if you meant something else.
I went to the Eating Recovery Center in Washington. i have a lot of mixed feelings on it. i really hate the entire structure of residential treatment and think that it is inherently carceral and coercive. ERCWA was a really restrictive treatment program, we were on a locked ward in a medical center, there were a lot of shitty + abusive staff, and there was just so much bullshit the entire time, like having no privacy in the bathroom, no doors on the bedrooms, barely being able to go outside, having so much of what we said and did monitored, the fucked up ways they used NG tubes, a really ableist psychiatrist, etc. treatment was pretty standard CBT, DBT, ACT, RODBT, random "skills groups" that felt like a waste of time with a lot of therapists and interns who had no previous therapy experience. I got medically stabilized through that program and was able to achieve pretty sustainable changes in my disorderly eating, but i really credit that more to the peer support then to any of the actual "treatment."
But compared to some other programs i don't think it was the worst. You can have your phone all day which was a huge benefit to me, since most programs take your phone. while i was there they had a dietitian who accommodated custom ARFID menus--she doesn't work there anymore, but they probably still do ARFID menus. they had multiple trans staff members and let me stay on hormones. they also don't kick you out for self harming and can handle a higher level of medical complications. ERCWA is run slightly different then some of the other ERC locations though, and I've heard a lot worse stories about other ERC locations. this info is all only true for adult wards as well--i would not recommend ERC for teens. i don't really know if i would recommend ERCWA at all to people but i think there is some things that made it more tolerable then some other treatment centers, and that if you have some specific needs, it might be one of the only treatment centers that can accommodate some things.
sorry, i feel like this isn't a super helpful answer, but i just have so much anger towards residential treatment and have a hard time recommending any places, even though i don't think ERCWA is the worst option.
if you have any more questions I'm happy to answer--i can also post old photos and videos that show my room, schedule, etc. i also have a lot of friends at a variety of different treatment centers and can answer questions about some other centers if you have any.
sending you the best of luck anon, I hope you're able to find the support and care that you need <3
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carrotzcake · 11 months
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eating disorder treatment [group on the medical complications of EDs]: gastroparesis, IBS and related digestive health issues are common
also eating disorder treatment: eat this objectively large amount of food in 45min. *punished for eating too slowly* *punished for incompletion* *punished for bathroom usage immediately after eating*
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the-dino-system · 5 months
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Leaving for residential again (this time in Missouri) on the 22nd of this month. Wish me luck yall
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angeldustanalog · 5 days
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idk if this would be an emotional flashback or just like, a memory, because really what's the difference amirite fellow traumaqueers ha ha ha ha ha , but like sometimes when i smell weed, which i do in fact smoke all day every day with my 3 girlfriends who yes also smoke weed bunts so i am very used to the smell, it is very much a staple of my living space and has been my entire adulthood excluding when i was in treatment and couldn't smoke. but like sometimes i smell weed and my initial response is like oh my GOSH there are kids doing DRUGS this is absolutely BUCK FUCKING WILD im gonna get in TROUBLE and DIE which is the normal response and *then* i remember that i am 28 years old and i regularly do harder substances and then im like hmmmm. wtf was that shit. and then i frantically do anything i can to not think about it just nope not going there not today not now not ever ever again
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ED art from when I was locked up in food school
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one rlly fond memory i have of residential is that, when the unit got rlly chaotic (aka ppl were fighting) i could ask staff to take me off unit to a classroom to watch videos abt daredevil. i was rlly heavily hyperfixated on dd, and those moments rlly helped me get through some hard days. the staff with me would sometimes talk with me abt daredevil, too. something as simple as that rlly helped me. i sat on a beanbag chair and watched videos i had already seen dozens of times before residential, and everything was okay for a few minutes. i was not hundreds of miles from home. people weren't yelling and hitting each other just down the hall. big fuckin shoutout to makayla and alicia for taking me i fuckin love u guys
also one time i watched a video with chip zdarsky and he mentioned his series sex criminals a few times and i was rlly rlly curious what it was so alicia let me look it up on the smartboard thing i was watching on. i couldn't remove it from the history after i was done tho and that was a big problem bc this was in the younger kid's room 😭
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trans-axolotl2 · 1 year
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2022 reflections
usually always do a thing at the end of the year where i look back at the year and do my wrap up journal entry. thought i'd post it here <3 trigger warning for eating disorder discussion, no mention of weights or numbers or really much specific behaviors.
January 2022: Most of the things I remember from this month is top surgery recovery. The recovery was sort of sensory awful, but it brought So much joy with it and I also felt so joyful that I got to be with my boyfriend and he was there during the recovery process. I remember it being really horribly cold but not awful. Got really into jellyfish randomly and started hyperfixating on them after going to the aquarium. first time i started having the ceiling people hallucination!
February 2022: genuinely can't remember much of february. I think I was getting more and more invested in learning stuff about antipsychiatry. I think this is also when things started getting bad eating disorder wise again and I was also having a bunch of trauma flashbacks. i was really determined not to admit to myself that anything was wrong because i knew that if i started admitting one thing was wrong then everything was just going to fall apart and I didn't want to do that right then.
March 2022: I remember celebrating my birthday with friends and going to Nationals for ballroom dance! both of those things were super fun. Physically was feeling so fucking horrible all the time + was having mobility issues. Pretty sure I had a lot of pretty bad paranoid psychotic episodes during the month? can't quite remember. had like a spiritual experience while reading a book of trans poetry and decided I wanted to journal outside for like a month but then stopped lmao. got a little better mood wise because it started being sunnier out and i was going outside more! pretty sure this was when I joined a new antipsych org.
April 2022: Things were definitely spiraling pretty badly with my eating disorder but at this point I had stopped seeing my dieititan and it was reallly going downhill. Still desperately trying to hang on. I remember sleeping in and skipping a lot of classes and feeling physically horrible all the time. got doxxed by some neo nazis because I was counter-protesting their transphobic protest. I remember having some really good times with my college friends though!
May 2022: Finals season! I remember being so unwell but spending hours every day at the library and writing some really good papers and just being so stressed even though I passed my classes. Changed my hair from purple to green. Moved into a different dorm. Started a new job. Got really manic. Got forearm crutches to help with my mobility challenges! Started to recognize that my eating disorder was actually getting really bad again. The second half of May was kind of nice though.
June 2022: Both my jobs were stressful but not awful. Eating disorder was really, really bad, and I physically felt awful literally every day. It was getting out of control. My treatment team started suggesting residential treatment. I went to a drag show, got manic at pride and got way too drunk at pride while on a call with a treatment center lmfao. Had fun with my friends at pride though :). Probably the worst my eating disorder has ever been and just the whole month I remember feeling tired and hating myself and just so completely miserable in a way I've never felt before.
July 2022: Agreed to start the process of going to residential treatment. Spent the first three weeks just doing intake calls, getting on waiting lists, doing research, everything. Made a beautiful little stuffed animal bear with forearm crutches and decided I wanted to reopen my Etsy but then got institutionalized lmfao. July 22nd 2022, I was admitted to residential treatment for my eating disorder. The first couple weeks just felt like a daze. I loved my original millieu that was there from my week one. Four people discharged the week I was there, but everyone there was so welcoming. I didn't get to go outside for all the weeks I was there in July, and I ordered a lot of stuff on amazon like yarn and a paint by number set. I remember just feeling like none of this was real and was still convinced I would be out of there in four weeks. I still was really incapable of understanding a lot of the ways my eating disorder was a problem. Thinking back on it most of what I remember is slow summer days, playing a lot of Bananagrams with my favorite staff member, and being so overwhelmed and confused. Also remembering the upset about the door curtains. Had a lot of realizations about trauma and control and how my eating disorder worked. I started making everyone origami creations and also started journalling every day becauase I felt so scared about the psych record being the only record that matters.
August 2022: Was overall a really difficult month. Still instituionalized and had to deal with my university trying to kick me out and then making the decision to take the semester off. Started really feeling a lot of the violence of institutionalization. I started really, really becoming close friends with patients and we would spend so much time together cause every day that's all there was to do. August 2nd was the first day I said out loud that I valued recovery. I started having some motivation now and then, and got into a cycle where I could get on the highest level for a couple days and then would dramatically crash and burn. A new patient came who like irrationally annoyed me for a week lmfao because he was really Christian. I ran community meeting for the first time and loved it because I loved complaining. Started getting really close with one patient in particular and we were helping each other at meals and keeping each other accountable. Started struggling with SH in treatment so I got put on protocol. there was a really dramatic incident that happened in treatment because the staff were fucking incompetent and two of my best friends in treatment got kicked out. one of my tumblr mutuals came to the same treatment center and that was really lovely because i was like thank god another trans person to talk to antipsychiatry with and then now they've turned out to be like one of my best friends for life (and im seeing them next week actually!) One of my fav patients who I felt really protective of stepped down and I got to do her warrior leader name ceremony at her sending ceremony and we all cried.
September 2022: Probably one of the most difficult months of my year so far. Growing closer and closer to all my friends in treatment. This was the month I had a feeding tube in for 3 weeks. It was really, really difficult. Sensory wise it felt awful, emotion wise it made me really really depressed, and meant I couldn't go outside. It was just so so difficult. When I got it out I remember how proud and happy everyone was and the support of everyone really kept me going. Was the creation of the Pisces full moon!!! The feeding tube was really the turning point in my eating disorder recovery. It was the moment I realized that it was never going to stop, that these justifications were never going away, that there was never going to be the point where I was happy and that all these intrusive thoughts were really just the surface level manifestations of a way I coped with my trauma. Realized a lot of the ways I coped through avoidance. Realized that day by day that although I didn't choose to have a brain that told me to cope in these ways and suggested restriction a million times a day, I could actually choose to counter them. Was not fucking easy and I could not have gotten through it without everyone.
October 2022: Went to the emergency room and then got well enough I went out on passes! I went to the zoo, to the craft store, to the aquarium, to the mall, to the coffee shop. We had a lot of new admits who would come for one day and then elope. I started actually getting a lot a lot a lot better. Really putting in a lot of work and also really feeling so much energy and able to connect with my friends. Goblin club!!! Did my weight exposure and then stepped down to partial hospitalization on October 18th!!! I was so nervous but so happy to reunite with my friends who were in PHP. Started staying in the supportive living with my treatment bestie and really loved spending evenings with them, having a ravine experience, all of that.
November 2022: Complete emotional roller coaster. PHP was sort of the time to stop avoiding things. Became so close to the PHP patients as well and really did a lot of like, collective processing of instituionalization trauma together. Emotional highs and emotional lows but all together SO transformative. One of my treatment friends wrote us a song that made me cry. i cried so much and just. Felt so completely healed in ways I had never anticipated. Got nose piercings with my patient friends. We got another patient to tattoo us all matching recovery tattoos. We went to build a bear together and got really drunk together. I cried so much at my sending ceremony and we stayed up really late my last night just talking with these people I've grown to love so so much. On November 18th I was discharged from treatment. I felt so completely insane being back in the real world--I didn't know what to do or how to act. Started couch surfing with friends. Spending time in Ohio, and then off to Pittsburgh.
December 2022: Adjusting to being back in the real world. No longer going through each day measuring what would happen compared to the schedule of meals and bathroom breaks and outside breaks and group therapy. Still keeping up with my outpatient treatment. Doing embroidery again!! Spending time with my best friend from high school and watching a lot of reality tv with them. Having a few low mood moments and psychosis, but overall feeling fragile but good. Then going to Philly for Christmas and feeling the best I have in weeks. Spending Christmas with my extie and his family and just. Realizing how much better I'm doing. how much more at peace I am. How I'm motivated and excited and know that I am deserving of so much better. How at the beginning of this year I thought I was horrible and couldn't make friends and leaving this year with so much love and connection in my life. Knowing that I won a research grant and can do even more stuff next year.
Overall this year has been one of the most challenging years of my life in a new way. Not the worst year of my life by far, but one where I had to push myself and I had to do a lot of work. And just. 2022 is a year I'm going to remember forever I think. The people I've met this year--E, E, M, C, A, I, R, J, S. The friends who have been there for years and are still here. The memories of goblin club, outside breaks, PHP adventures, the snaps we'd write each other. Idk. I think that's what defined my 2022. Community. This year more than any other I have felt loved and understand what community looks like when you have to fight for it to exist every day, when you're surrounded by violence and power and coercion every day and you still manage to show each other that much love.
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runfast-runfar · 9 months
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Life Lately ~ June 2023 ~
- I’ve been out of residential treatment and in PHP five days a week for 1.5 weeks now. It’s been a rollercoaster, that is for sure. 
- I miss work so much. Like, so so much. It’s hard to explain bc I don’t miss the work itself that much, but I love the people I am around at work. My closest friend is also someone I work with, and so it’s been sad knowing I don’t get to go on walks for coffee, and randomly catch up throughout the day. I am looking at another ~4 weeks in PHP (meaning being out of work), and then I will step down to IOP for a while. The potential problem with IOP is it is 3 days a week, and I will have to leave work two of those days quite early (i’ll have to leave at 2:05pm and then the third day, friday, I won’t be able to go into the office at all bc the program is 10am-3:30pm fridays. That is a big ask considering they have been giving me this whole time off, full pay, to do this program. I just want this process to be over. I want to just go back to my life and be done with all of this treatment. It’s mentally and emotionally exhausting. 
- As ready as I am to go back to work, I also am so nervous for it. I am anxious to be around that many people again (there are ~75-80 people in our office). I have gained a pretty significant amount of weight atm from refeeding/my weight not having stabilized yet. I LOVE my therapist at my PHP program (her name is Jess and I talked to her each week when I was in residential, she just wasn’t my official therapist until I got to PHP) and I want to get to keep seeing her forever lol! I know I will get to keep seeing her during IOP but I also am a little worried if work doesn’t let me do IOP/take the needed time off I may have to leave against medical advice and not complete IOP. And that would mean not seeing Jess which would be very difficult for me. So it’s just a bit of an up in the air clusterfuck atm. 
- Some happy things are happening too though. My brother, our mutual friend and I are going on 3 apartment tours this upcoming saturday and I am SO SO excited and ready to be moving out, so fingers crossed one of these places works and we get it asap bc living at home is rough. 
- I am dog sitting for Finn and I LOVE my time with him! He is the best pal ❤️
- It was my best friends birthday and I made her a card that I painted and I haven’t done anything art related in a while and it felt nice to do. I need to do it more. 
- We do cute little fun activities in PHP often, and I got to make a little sand sensory “garden” and I love it! I am leaving it at program for the time being to play with there, but when we move out I am oddly excited to put it in my new room lol!! 
- And then the Taylor Swift concert is a little over a month away and I am SO EXCITED (also SO NERVOUS!) I was originally going with my brother (I coerced him to go with me) but my friend is able to come now, which I am so excited about, but it also made me weirdly extremely nervous too. She’s my closest friend and I love her very much and am so glad she’s coming. But I’ve never been in a social setting like this with a friend honestly ever. I haven’t had many friends since I was a little kid, and I’m nervous about it. I’m nervous to be in a crowd, and I get nervous around friends, even close friends, and I am a little worried about being in both those situations at once. I also don’t know how to act.. like I don’t want to be weird and too excited about it bc that’s weird.. but I also don’t want to be too rigid and a buzzkill... ugh.. why am I like this!? So, that’s been a bit stressful and on my mind for the past few days. It’s frustrating too bc it’s not that I don’t want her to come, I really do. I just wish I wasn’t so anxious about everything all the goddamn time. That would be freaking nice. 
- Anyways, no program today since it’s Juneteenth! So I walked down to get coffee with Finn this morning (I also slept in until 8am which is late for me lol), and then I have been laying in bed with Finn all morning! Yesterday I went on my first run in about 4 months now, it was an easy 30 minute run which felt conflicting. I was so happy to be out there again. No back pain, and it just felt like being back “home” in a way. But it was hard because I was running 8+ miles daily and in such better shape then. Okay.. maybe not “better shape” bc eating disorder.. but the difference in athleticism is real and hard to reconcile with. Anyways, went on that run, and then I did my favorite peloton class afterwards. And so today is a rest day. I will do some light yoga later, but I am freaking sore and so it’s been a relaxing day. Although apart from those workouts yesterday I laid in bed all day yesterday too haha! I actually movie marathoned all 6 Scream movies yesterday in bed which was amazingggg lol! I am rewatching Scream 6 now, and then I am going to watch all the Purge movies today! (can you tell i’m on a horror movie kick lol!) 
- Well, I hope you are all doing well, and have a great week ahead of you! 🫶 
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againstme · 6 months
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can someone please tell me a positive experience they had with mental health care whether that's going to the hospital or residential because things are looking so shitty and i need to get help but i'm so scared and i don't know what to expect at all
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I work at a residential treatment center for kids and I got all of them into The Owl House and upon the finishing it a couple weeks ago I have now also gotten them in to Gravity Falls ❤️‍🔥💕
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iatrogenesized · 10 months
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*actual* things said to me by mental health providers
“Haha you would’ve looked so funny with buzzed hair!”
“Do you like swimming so that you can pee in the pool?”
“So are you going to kill my colleague here?”
“You’ve been hospitalized 13 times in 5 years? That’s a lot. I’m sure you struggled in school.” (I have over 200 units despite the hospitalizations).
We ran out of medications to give you. You’re “treatment resistant”
“It’s unusual for a girl to try to hang herself. I would’ve expected you to overdose.”
“I live with sensory issues too. You just have to learn to deal with them and not make physical adjustments that disrupt others.”
“DBT residential wouldn’t change your life significantly.” others said “DBT is the thing that will help you.”
“You’re too traumatized for our program.”
“We’re a program for clients in crisis, but if you’re actively harming yourself, we can’t help you.”
“I’m excellent at conceptualizing cases, and yours is extremely complex. I don’t know what to make of it.” (It’s not.)
“What is your full name?” (asking for my deadname in front of all the other clients after specifically being told not too)
“Wow what was lactating like? I’ve never actually seen that side effect before”
“Here’s your skincare routine.”
“You’re quite a nice young lady- I would expect you would have a boyfriend.”
“I’m going to have to call 911 if you don’t move from that chair.”
“Your therapist said we’ll have to call 911 if you don’t move.” (This was a flat-out lie)
Anyone else?
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trans-axolotl · 1 year
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one week left until i step down to partial hospitalization :) it's going to be a very busy week. i'm going out for a solo breakfast pass to a restaurant tomorrow morning which I'm nervous about cause I haven't been to a restaurant for months. on tuesday or wednesday i'm doing my weight exposure and will learn what my weight is for the first time since getting here. on thursday i'm getting a root canal. on friday i'm going out for lunch with my mom (and going to the botanical gardens.) on saturday i'm going to the aquarium with my friend. and of course still have to go to the six meals per day and four therapy groups a day and individual therapy and psychiatry and dietitian meetings throughout the week and still living at the hospital. but in a week i will be out of residential treatment and i'm so excited!!!!
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*Happy* “Pride Month” from the Psych Ward
WELCOME, WELCOME ONE AND ALL TO THE PLACE OF RAINBOWS AND UNICORNS!
...To the psych ward
Here we will accept you for who you are! We will never dead name you. We will use all of your actual pronouns, no matter your gender expression!
Here at the psych ward, we are inclusive of all races, genders and sexualities. 
We are your refuge!!!
If ever something is wrong or you feel as though you’ve been wronged based on your identity, just fill out of matter of record and we will address the matter in a quick, professional and appropriate way. We take our matter of records very seriously by glancing at them and then throwing them in the trash because the cisgender and heterosexual, or normal person, just simply didn’t know better. Why should we address that or try to educate the normal person? The normal person's feelings and words are always valid. 
We definitely acknowledge and are well educated on different gender identities and sexualities. The terms asexual and non-binary mean the same thing... right?
Asexuals are unhealthy in that they won’t have sex. Having sex is a natural, healthy and necessary part of life in order for your treatment to progress here. 
We announced and clapped that pride month started yesterday!! Then we continued to give an award for the non-binary for being the client of the month. This incredible feat is such a step forward in how progressive we are. We even used her pronouns and said “She did an amazing job moving forward in her recovery. She should be proud of herself for all the hard work she has done”. We were so considerate in using her pronouns of she/her, even though she’s said multiple times that her pronouns are they/them. 
Another thing we take into great consideration is the well being of transgenders. It will be ensured that you will be isolated by everyone in the community, since no one wants to live with a tranny. To enforce this, we ask every client who needs a bed, “Would you be OK living with a transgender?”
WELCOME, WELCOME! 
To your own personal refuge. 
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