The Quiet Room

She couldn’t comprehend the hospital’s rules. She went into her bedroom to escape the racket of people cackling, shoes squeaking, Bob Barker barking from the T.V. set, and the fax shrilly ringing. The noise hurt her ears. The next thing she knew a crowd of men stormed her room. Pinning her limbs behind her back they carried her kicking and screaming to a dirty, barren room. Unceremoniously, they dumped her on a gym mat, rushed out and locked the door.

She was bewildered as to why they would play a trick on her. She panicked even more because the walls were closing in on her. Banging on the door she screamed in vain to be freed.

She thought they wanted her to do gymnastics on the gym mat. After several handsprings she found instead the men surged back in. She fought them tooth and nail, but was overpowered. They forced her on a table and tied her in four point restraints. Outnumbered but not defeated she escaped twice, shouting gleefully she was the great Houdini reincarnate. She thought surely her cleverness would win her release. Each time they tied the leather tighter until she was truly trapped.

She thought that they wanted her to pee on herself, and so she did. They just took her gown away. She laid naked and spread eagle for all to see.

After a time her terror grew so great that she forgot where she was. She forgot she was in restraints.

She thought a great epidemic had swept the nation. Stricken, contagious and in isolation, paralyzed and dying, she was in desperate need of someone to hold her hand and comfort her, to tell her she was not alone. A worried nurse peeked in the window in the door, but didn’t stop. Because of the epidemic the staff shortage was severe. They too were dying.

She passed into a soft green space. She watched her soul shine and ascend toward Heaven. Before entering Heaven’s gate her soul was examined and found wanting. She crashed into the depths of Hell.


Later when she felt more cognizant her doctor came to visit. She stretched her hand to touch his hand. He stepped back swiftly, and her heart plummeted.

By the time she left seclusion the other patients were afraid of her. Her moans and screams of pain had echoed through the halls at night and sounded animal not human.

I wish someone would have thought to hold my hand.

Maybe some of the state workers on this site developed ptsd from secondary trauma they experienced at work. Maybe that is a reason for the high emotion and defensiveness on this thread and in some of the comments I have made myself and why this argument has been going on for years. When you have trauma it is hard to let it go and you keep revisiting it no matter how upset it makes you. The more I read the anger on this thread more compassion I feel for the staff because I feel for sure the conditions were traumatizing. I am really glad I found this
website.

Emotions are really high in these comments. Usually, when i comment on this website i only comment about the stuff which triggers my ptsd and my emotions are dominating my thoughts.

Today I am a health care advocate. I work in nursing facilities. I work with a great guy who was in a state institution for people with intellectual disabilities for decades. He's been living in his own apartment for a few decades and has had an incredibly valuable and fulfilling life since. I am so glad it wasn't wasted.

The other day we were talking to a women about the conditions she is subjected in the nursing facility she told us she was scared of the nursing aid who "cared" for her in the morning. For example, she threatened to drop her on the floor and break her head if she didn't stop complaining. My coworker told her with lots of compassion that he knew, because he had been there many times. She was afraid to report because of the repercussions, but agreed to talk to state ombudsman about her options and the protections he could provide. When I talked to the ombudsman a few weeks later he told me he had gone to visit her only to learn that she had reported the nurse to the facility administration who had fired the abusive aid. That took so much strength. I think it was the compassion of my friend that sparked it in her.

I worked in a state hospital in NH briefly in high school. There were a few good staff and most were average and grumpy with no training. Just dumb trainings that made no sense to them. The day staff never saw the night staff except at shift change. In my experience in psychiatric hospitals when the staff are alone with you some of them are abusive. Well, there goes my ptsd. Anyway, some people are blind to the abusive ways of their coworkers either because they look the other way on purpose or they are in another room and don't see it. A lot of people might think the way they treat others is appropriate behavior modification when it is experienced as abusive. When people have been institutionalized and leave the institution with the proper supports they prosper. Plus it is a hell of a lot cheaper for society. Its a good thing.

I was in one seclusion room that was like no other I had ever been in. It had a big window in the wall with a partition on the other side that could be easily moved aside by patients or staff. You would be given a bedpan to squat over and pee in on the floor like a dog. When I was on the other side of the window i never knew what the patient locked up needed more, human contact or privacy to pee or shit. By the way, some people have been put in seclusion rooms so depressed and lonely that they have suicided. I don't think seclusion rooms are designed for particular populations like "spitters".

One more thing. It is important we all have different experiences. While a few people may like being restrained, some feel trapped. For many it reenacts trauma from past abuse. This is true for people with mental illness, DD, children, whoever.

almost every psych hospital has seclusion rooms. Hospitals which are better managed and aren't overcrowded use them less. Hospitals where the staff are well trained in conflict management and trauma use them less. Hospitals that involve the patients in their treatment plan use them infrequently. A few including a few forensic hospitals don';t use them at all. On the other hand, on the extreme some hospitals use them as punishment for not following rules or talking back. Both staff and patients are sometimes injured, Patients are sometimes stripped of their clothes and traumatized. Seclusion and restraint are horrible. Many mental health professionals and patients view S&R as treatment failure. African American and Hispanic patients are restrained and injured significantly more than whites. Today patients are still killed. More often they are not used anymore as punishment. They are used when a person is agitated or angry or is hurting theirself. Some places are trained to teaching patients skills to deal with their emotions effectively instead of acting them out, Those are they hospitals where they are seldom used. they are used in special education, and sometimes children suffocate. Very sad. Their is a movement to change seclusion rooms into comfort rooms. There may be stuffed animals to hold, murals on the walls or soft colors and a comfortable chair or two. The client has the freedom to go in the room and deescalate if they are frustrated, or ground themselves if they are frightened or feel like hurting themselves. I go through difficult periods when i am in the hospital, but i have never seen a comfort room. It would be nice,

Thank you for all the comments. They reflect the reality of what I went through and are very validating. It is hard to find others who have been through seclusion rooms.

I was traumatized in seclusion rooms. These naive comments are upsetting. It is like no one has any idea of what thousands and thousands have suffered. This happened all the time in the best of hospitals! in my experience they were barren, white dirty holes. I was thrown in by a crowd of men with no understanding of why. Years later I saw a nurse who worked at a world renown hospital where this happened and asked her why they put me in seclusion. I worried it was because I was violent. She said that I was never violent. It was because they thought I would hurt myself by accident or deliberately. I was put in restraints in the seclusion room. I lost touch with reality and thought I was paralyzed. I thought I had died and gone to hell. They left me alone in my pain. What Tim said rings true to me. Some staff may feel like they have less rights than patients. I disagree, and I feel that those staff should quit.

I have been in too many seclusion rooms in community hospitals a private hospital. They were horrific, all of them. This was the 80's. They are still in use, and still abused.

You sure it wasn't a torture rack? :-(

WOW...awesome...reminds me of "Back to the Future"!

Good thing they haven't figured out how to post odors on the Web yet...LOL!

Actually, I grew up in the area and my parents were around when it was still in use. There were quite a few patients with psychiatric issues here as well from what I understand. Just chiming in...!