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[Memeki]

I thought about posting a topic about my experience in a mental hospital for a long, long time. Its a little hard for me. But Big Ed's thread inspired me. I'm finally gonna do it. I have so much to tell that I'll do it in separate posts. And all of you former patients, you post too. you share as well.

When I was 14 years old I became severely, severely mentally ill and I was admitted to a state hospital around here. In fact, I admitted myself. I felt guilty, being so batshit crazy. I felt guilty, mucking up everyone around me's lives with my craziness. So I admitted myself, well I made my mom. Apparently that hospital is abandoned now, but I doubt it, and I could care less if it was. I ain't got all pretty memories there, and the good memories were of the patients, not the building, so it has no nostalgic value for me.

I was in the adolesence outpatient program. Spent my days there and my nights at home. It was a tiny section of what looked like an office building tucked away in a commercial plaza. Was an odd place for a hospital unit. Was ugly too, nothing visually pleasing about the place inside or out. I only liked some of the staff. There wasn't enough staff. And I had some crazy patients alongside me, lemme tell ya.

What memory should I start with... well, hmmm. Food. They had the crappiest stereotypical hospital food. We weren't allowed any caffiene, our only choices to drink were ginger ale or apple juice. Most delicious apple juice I ever had but they seldom had it. Not even water. Just ginger ale if there was no juice. I drank so much goddamned ginger ale in my time there that I couldn't drink it after being discharged for years. And snacks. We got no snacks, except from this super nice old lady who'd bring us oreos and peanut butter and ice cream. She loved us. She told us she worked with adults with sicknesses like ours, and we were all to young to have to deal with those same sicknesses, it broke her heart. Wish she coulda came and brought us snacks all the time. Otherwise all we got was bruised and mushy fruit, or saltine crackers. I ate those sonofabitching crackers by the boxfull. Still have mad craving spells for saltines today. And the dinner. Oh man. Stereotypical cafeteria food. I refused to touch it. Even the cinnamon apple slices had no flavor. That place should've offered more food, I was going even more crazy from lack of appealing food. Blech.


There's a ton more stories to come, I'll post them from time to time. The rest of you post your stories in the meantime.

[Memeki]

Made a little friend there, he was 12. Adorable, chubby little troublemaker. He was sweet, but he was in for slicing someone (at school?) with the lid of a can. I wish I could have sliced up MY elementary school bullies like that. Anyhow. We were all troublemakers cause we all were bored and all hated being forced to do our schoolwork sent by teachrs rather than get the mental help that we all needed. So we caused trouble. The place was right above a blockbuster video and the window was right over the entrance, and I dared the kid to pour the remnants of a can of ginger ale out the window. He did, right on some poor shmuck's head. Man did I roar with laughter and man, were we busted good. Looking back it was mean and immature as hell but man it was funny at the time.

Most trouble I got in was for trying to throw bananas and saltines to a homeless guy down on the street below. Misbehaving was the only thing that made some of the other patients get along with me. They hated me, most of them. When I did bad, stupid stuff I got attention and I liked it. And the nurses were too easy on me. I never even got "time out." They made it way too easy for me to get away with funny, immature stuff.

That reminds me, I had a great friend there who was like a big brother, we always got along from day one, and see, the place had this door with a bar on it that you'd push to open the door, but it had a code that needed to be used, if you just touched the bar the alarm would sound, in case it was a patient trying to escape. Clueless delivery men always set that thing off. It was amusing. One night I dared my good friend to lick the bar. He did. Yes, it set the alarm off. Yes, we laughed hysterically and yes, all we got was chastized for it.

[Kitten7]

Memeki
I really love this idea of posting our "fond" memories.
When I am in a better place, I'll try to do this also. I can't include some particulars, as some here were some of the few saints involved in keeping me alive.

[Memeki]

There were and are some wonderful, fantastic people in the professional field of mental health. But every rose has gotta have some thorns. So when I mention my dislike for the nurses that worked with me, I hope you do not think I am degrading nurses and doctors as a whole. I was just unlucky enough to get stuck in a crummy facility.

The majority of nurses there were very, very dumb. Like I said I used to like to get into trouble just to screw with them. I crushed up saltines and put them in apple juice and told the most clueless nurse there that I puked in the cup, and she believed me. It amused me. I was a mean tease because they were so damn dumb, and they treated us patients like we were little kids. They should have worked with kids, not teens. We were all teens once, think back... teens don't like being looked down on. Teens (most) have a degree of responsibility and maturity that kids don't. Just because we were mental patients didn't change that. I resented being treated like a child. I've dealt with too many damn nurses and social workers who give me this wretched tone like I'm a little kid who enjoys being cooed at. It's all the more a touchy subject in the field of mental health because I ofen wondered if those nurses were questioning my intelligence, because I was a patient. Made me angry.

I had a beloved journal that I took everywhere with me to write in (which I did frequently) and I wouldn't put it in the closet with the rest of my belongings. As all facilities do, they would make us give them anything we could harm ourselves with... scissors, razors, pencil sharpeners, wires, batteries. They tried to take my journal because it had a metal spiral like most notebooks. I gripped it and gave them the death stare of the devil and they never tried to take it from me again.

They were so stupid about not letting us eat on the bus. Ate an apple in the van when the bus wasn't working, the driver didn't give a crap. Cell phones weren't allowed on the bus either, but I call to the driver while on the bus "Hey Scott, you give a crap if I call my friend?" and of course he didn't.

Let's end this with a funny memory. The friend that was like my brother was walking with me and the group down the hall, and there's this random out of place laminated map on the wall, and he tells me to run my hand along it. I did. I could feel a hole in the wall under the map. He told me that a kid who was taken away by the police very shortly before I arrived had punched a hole in the wall, and they didn't even bother to fix it, they just placed a happy little map over it. There was also a massive hole in the wall in the girl's bathroom which they didn't even bother to try covering up.   

[Memeki]

Now, while I'm at this topic, I'd like to set something straight for those who don't understand or fear/look down on some of us "former patients." I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here; in fact, no one here to my knowlege has ever done such to former patients. It's just that there most certainly ARE people out in the world who look at "loonies" differently.

Keep in mind that patients are brought in for vastly different reasons. Some have suicidal tendancies, some have no family to care for them, some are sick killers, some are just plain cold and mean, some are mentally challenged and cannot function in a regular society, and some are ordinary people with seemingly ordinary lives, who just happened to have something tragic happen to them.

I was in a very bad place and time in my life when I was in that hospital. A very important person in my life had betrayed me and I didn't know how to react. I couldn't function. I went insane. All I could think was that she was gonna come back into my life, and she wasn't. And I couldn't accept that. I look back at that me, and yes, I was a little off the deep end. But, I feel remorse for my past self. I was so lost and scared and literally had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. I had it rough all my life- I was severely and traumatically abused as a child, had big problems with bullies all throughout school, nothing in my life was stable, I never seemed to be able to develop social skills, had severe depression and anxiety problems... it made me lose it for a while there. All of us lose it sometimes, some of us worse than others. You gotta understand why people end up needing mental help. I didn't ask for all this "static" in my brain that kept me from functioning normally. I didn't ask for those terrible things to happen. No one does. No one wants to be mentally ill. It's gotta be looked at in that perspective.

Now look at me. Years later I've grown to become a fairly happy, remarkably mature, and fairly intelligent young woman. Some would never know that I'm a "former patient." I've got some great friends and some good creativity skills and a great deal more positivity than I once had. Yes, I still see a therapist. Yes, I still need medication to function. Yes, I still have some "static" and trouble functioning in certain situations, but the measure of my growth is remarkable.

I'm a human being. All patients are. And I'm one of the lucky patients- I was able to get help, get discharged, and grow strong and function in society. The experience has helped me to grow, certainly.

Like a hospital patient with broken bones, mental patients can heal, and learn to walk again. They may always have a little trouble with those bones that were once broken, but they live on regardless.   Patients are not ones to be feared or criticized.   

[TootUncommon]

It isn't my place to judge anyone - Only God can do that.  I am reading your stories because I want to know the other side.  Most times you don't get to hear from the patient - only the caregiver and there are always two sides to every story.  Keep posting please. 

[Memeki]

Tonight I noticed something about myself that really shone through at the hospital. I always gotta be working with my hands. Eases tension. Knew a lot of people who constantly needed to keep their hands preoccupied. I'm like that but not so severely. I'm a jeweler as well as a writer, and I draw sometimes, always got in trouble in school for sketching or writing during class, I take pleasure in trimming and pruning my rose garden, and I lost my job as a servant partially because I could only focus on manual work for extended periods of time rather than computer work.   I'm taking breaks between typing at the moment because I'm in the process of weaving a hemp rope. My hands work faster and more efficiently than my eyes can when I bead jewelry. Always gotta take care to hold my hands back, otherwise I'd be fidgeting with everything in sight during class and such.

I say this all because of what went on in the hospital. We had but one hour of recreation, and only kiddie crafts to do, nothing more. No scissors (remember the rule above) no pipe cleaners cause they're sharp, just glue and glitter and paper and paints and stuff like that. I often worked on a very deep drawing in that time, but when I finished, I took a load of popsicle sticks and built a huge cabin out of them. Splashed paint and glitter all over it. Can still remember the sheer restless angst I'd take out in making that thing. The paint and glitter splatters, they really did artistially show how troubled the maker of the cabin was. I don't usually believe that artistic stuff but that was remarkable, how it showed. Hard to believe I'm the one who did it. I ended up throwing away the cabin but kept one of its walls and I still have it somewhere, maybe I'll take a photo if I find it.
When I finished that cabin, I just took all the colored pencils and sharpened each and every one until they were sharp as a pin. We were allowed to use those electric sharpeners.   

I'm a HUGE supporter of occupational therapy in mental hospitals and programs. Working with your hands and creating things really does relieve an immense amount of stress and brings satisfaction. In the books I read, sometimes I wish I could go to some of those hospitals just to weave and do woodwork and crafts to be able to sell and make a living that way. I wanna make a living that way. That's living, to me.

[Big Ed]

Please go on Memeki.  Everyone's heard my stuff.  You were on the other end of my stories in a way.  Yours is a perspective that needs to be heard.  I know state hospitals from the employee's end of the spectrum.  Yours and others insights would greatly add to understanding.

[Memeki]

I deeply respect you from your posts Big Ed. Clearly you understand that everyone in the setting of a psychiatric hospital is a human being- the doctors, the nurses, the patients, everyone. Unfortunately not all of the nurses, social workers, psychologists, etc, both in the hospital and out, seem to grasp the simple concept that patients are in fact human beings like you and I, with rights, feelings, and the need to feel respect.

Like I said earlier, I've seen too many people in the mental health profession who should really be working with children and not adolescents and/or adults. Those people didn't understand that there are countless mental illnesses and disabilities, and everyone is affected by them differently. No patient is exactly the same as another, ever. And to assume that they know the level of my ability to function or my intelligence before they even know me is highly insulting. In mental hospital settings, where the ratio of patients to doctors makes it absurdly difficult to treat each patient individually and equally, is very difficult, and I can understand that. But bless those who try. Bless whose who take such a job and do it to help the patients they work with and not solely for a paycheck. And those who keep right on going and helping everyone you possibly can, no matter how hard it gets. To those who take this profession and make it that way... thank you.  But, back to the poor doctors I've dealt with. Speaking in terms of psychologists and social workers who are MEANT to individually speak with patients and work with smaller groups of patients... that's where the understanding of patient individuality is very crucial. And some of the nurses at the hospital I was at just couldn't grasp it. I would be teased and harrassed by other patients, who honestly weren't even all that bad... but the nurses would hardly chastise them. They seemed to take an approach "oh, they're mentally ill, they can't help it" Yes they can. They were mature and functional enough to learn to stop being nasty to others, even I knew that. Cause one of the girls came up to me at dinner and pulled me aside and personally apologized. And I know they didn't make her do it, I know she did it on her own terms.

Thinking back, it makes me sad. I think there was just one girl out of the group who was a true nasty, secluded bitch. She chose to be. The others, they teased one another and caused trouble, but so did I, out of sheer boredom and desperate need for attention. There were good kids there, they were all damn good kids for the most part. Those who hated me did cause I was an easy target- shy and dersperately ill. The kid I called my big brother, I walk into the group, and he asks me "you all right? You look sad" I almsot wanted to say "no I ain't alright, otherwise I wouldn't be here." But I think he knew that.

They took a rehab approach that I did not like. Soon as I walked in they made all the other patients introduce themselves to me. "Hi, I'm so and such, I'm 16 years old, and I'm here for manic depression, bipolar, and attempted suicide." I can still hear myself quietly, scaredly responding "I'm 14... and... I don't know why I'm here." Every time someone new came in, everyone would flatly say their lines in monotone like it was a tedious ritual. I got to that point too. "I'm 14 and I got depression and anxiety and OCD and I overreacted to losing a friend and the nurses say they think I got ass...burgers or somethin like that."

As broad as the amount of different types of mental illnesses, there are different patients, with different stories. I hope you all can share you stories too, they're guarenteed to be different than mine I'm sure. Please share them. I'm feeling better sharing my experiences, and you all might feel better too. Ain't the nicest thing to talk about but it helps people to understand all of us better. In everyone here's hobby of UE and abandoned hospitals and mental health, it's something that needs to be known, just like Big Ed's stories. Stories of both patients and staff can help kill the myths that seemingly endlessly taint the image of psychiatric hospitals as a whole.   

[Memeki]

I think those who wish to understand these matters will very much enjoy this video. It is a fantastic video, done by former staff members of, specifically, Kings Park Psychiatric Center, but this could be said for many other hospitals of the time I am sure. They talk about patients they've had and the introduction of medication and the massive change it brought... very good, moving video well worth watching. Bit long so sit back and relax and put aside some time to watch the whole thing. http://www.kingsparkmuseum.com/Page2.htm scroll down to the middle of the page, to the film on the right "Kings Park State Hospital- Potrait of a hospital and the town it created" by Jim Fleming, and click that- you will need some kind of flash or media player.

[Kitten7]

Memeki

I know I said I'd share my story also but to be honest I don't have your courage.
my story will lack what's necessary and say too much. It won't have the soul and honesty it should have. It may be too honest, too reckless with people's feelings.
It will sound whiney and self absorbed. It will lack your candor and purity.
I know it isn't a contest but I feel it's important to say it correctly since it was and is part of me.
Many here know some of my history starting in a general hopital psych unit & progressing to DSH and elsewhere. I don't want to chance making my story the same old stuff with the general misconceptions of state hospitals nor minimize the impact it had on me. This topic has , for me , no middle ground.
There are actually three sides to every story. Yours, mine & the truth in between.
Just know I get it and have the same general feelings you do.
There is a lot lacking in psych care but there are those places & staff who go over and above what's expected and give their heart. I have been lucky to see both sides. I saw the genuine concern of some and the indifference of others. I also worked in the profession and then the reality sank in as I was on the "other side of the keys".

Please continue your story. It needs to be heard and the  talent you have for telling your truth is compelling.
Thank you for having the courage I don't.

[Memeki]

Talking about my days at the hospital is very hard sometimes, because I blamed everything that was going on around me on myself. A lot of those things really were all my fault. Kills me to think about. Those feelings went on for as long as I can remember and even to this day- that sure I'm a sweet girl and I try very hard to be good, but something always happens where I start some argument or offend someone or do something to piss off my mom... It happens too often, and I try so hard for it to not happen. I'm always getting into trouble and yelled at and scorned upon by everyone for some reason or another that I did not even mean to happen. People always get mad at me and sometimes never even tell me why... and all I do is try to be good, yet try to take care of my own self.    I can't even describe the feeling I get when someone tells me "you're a good girl, you're such a good kid." Brings tears to my eyes. I don't know why that's so important to me... maybe, maybe it was cause of my dad. Or lack of a good dad. He never said I love you, he never told me he was proud, that I was a good girl, that I was pretty and sweet and smart... only that I was a brat and a slob and fat and worthless. And he was an abusive fucking drunk. Mom loves me, I know she does, but she's hard on me. She needs to be, because I do poorly sometimes... but I feel like she is disappointed in me cause I'm doing miserably in school and have no job and have no skills other than photography and jewelry making... those don't matter. Most parents around here are only proud of their kids when they make the honor roll and get into some rich ass college. I guess I ain't worth a damn in that case. I love me for who I am... I guess that's all that matters.

Anyway. I was in a program, not in a hospital, but in high school, that was wonderful... just amazing. Helped so much, and did everything right in doing so... I need to talk about that in another post because right now I'm just feeling pretty low.

[Kitten7]

The true measure of a person, and I'm talking about you in particular, Memeki, is the intent behind your actions. I beleive they've all been honest & honorable.  You ARE a good kid. You are worthy not because of acheiving honors in school or a high paying job, but because you ARE.

[Memeki]

I can't get too in-depth of that program at school... my heart can't handle sad nostalgia tonight. But, part of what made the office it was in great was that it was personable and enjoyable. It was well-decorated for the holidays, warm in the winter, air-conditioned in the summer. There were always enough chairs to sit in and they didn't rush you out of there when you really needed them. They made you get comfortable and relax.   Things like that matter not just in a small program like that, but in hospitals as well. It's hard, with certain patients in certain units, like patients who would eat or destroy anything not nailed to the floor... but patients, yes folks, are humans just like you, and don't you enjoy a room that is decorated beautifully? I'm reading some history books and I have to smile at the photos of beautifully decorated dayrooms with lots of places to sit and relax and be comfortable. Warms my heart. Warms it even further when I read and hear about the nurses who would bring in decorations from home like tablecloths, paintings, vases with flowers, anything to make a ward or dayroom more home-like.

I think that was a big problem with the place I was admitted to. It was nothing but a bland, smelly, tiny office building with holes in the walls and stains on the carpets. Not a framed print in sight. No decorations, nothing. "Too dangerous." All of the people there while I was there wouldn't have done anything bad with some decorations, I'm sure of it. I'll bet they would have enjoyed it as much as I would have. Everything about that dump was just so... bland. I can remember vividly just how damn white the walls were. It was nearly torturous. It really did make me feel like I was trapped in there, like it was a surreal cage with no welcoming, cozy aspects of it whatsoever. I recall spending most of my time staring out the windows. They apparently let us outside sometimes, I begged and begged the nurses to let us have an "outside" day, but not once did they let us outside in my time there, except when we all walked to 7-eleven one night. Off topic of what I was talking about, but I got in trouble for buying a stuffed cat there that night. We weren't supposed to have stuffed animals cause we could hide drugs in them or some crap like that. Well I had a fit of desperation and puppy dog eyes, and they didn't take my cat away. Still have that cat. For nearly a year after purchasing him he still reeked of cheap coffee. (edited to fix misleading typo)

[Memeki]

I had a dream the other night that reminded me of the mindset and time period I was in around the time I was admitted to the hospital. Before I was admitted, remember, I was an ordinary 14 year old high school student. Well, ordinary is not a very good word to describe me then. I was passionately into theater back then. I tried out to be in the school play. All I got was ensemble- the nameless bunches who dance and sing in the background while the lead roles have the spotlight on them. I still treated that play like it was everything. I HAD to do exceptionally well in that play. My small background roles... every note had to be perfect, every little step and twirl just right, perfect posture and facial expressions... I religiously practiced. I mean, everyone did under our strict director, but me, I had my friend burn all of the songs in the play to a CD for me, I practiced at home, singing, dancing, when no one was around.both unfortunately and convieniently, I was severely injured in an accident that year. I say it was convienient because I used it as a cover-up: while I was really in the mental hospital, I claimed I was at the ordinary hospital for my injuries. Everyone bought it. And I was truly injured and maimed from that accident, so no one could not be able to believe my story. It did affect my ability to stand upright and dance. But I did it so passionately... every little step, every twirl, kick, pivet... on the dot perfect. One song in particular I was so determined to get just right... I'd dance to it again and again, I'd imagine the dress I'd wear, I hacked off 8 inches of my beloved curls to get the short hair look the director preferred... that song, that dance, I did in my dream the other night. It was so real. I really heard the full song and remembered the dance, step for step, in my sleep.

That kind of memory is significant for that time... because I forget a great deal of that time. It was as if my brain blotted out reality because I didnot want to accept what was happening. I apparently said things I don't remember saying. I gave a good friend a sharp smack acros the face for apparently drawing insulting pictures of me. I'd snap and yell and pick fights. I don't remember why, or exactly with whom. I secretly tried to take the lead role from a girl, and she was such a nice and funny girl, I don't know why I did it, I can't remember why... and though I'm telling you a lot of what went on in the hospital, that's not even half of it, I can't remember much of it at all... I don't remember anything the nurses said in single meetings, at times I'd forget my own name... and the things I DO remember, I remember vividly... the melancholy things, the painful things, the moving things. And the songs I'd listen to again and again on my CD player. Oh man, it was a terrible place to be in, that mindset. A terrible terrible place. It was winter and it was cold, and it was dark by the time I headed home at 5:00 from school every night at even later from the hospital... that contributed to the mood I'm sure. I think the best image for the place I was in at that time was one night I remember vividly... I was trembling and twitching from fear and plain brain static, I was walking home from the bus stop, limping from my injuries, crying from fear and sadness and uncertainty, and listening to "Memory" on my headphones. It was snowing. It was a long but beautiful walk home, dark and beautiful, and then when I was almost home I was very nearly hit by a car. I didn't bat an eyelash, was too numb from everything to even hardly notice it.

I'm so, so glad that it's over and that I've healed. So glad. But I look back at those days with a nostalgic, almost beautiful melancholy air, and feel pity for such a young, scared girl, who literally had no place to go to escape the terrible problems she faced then. I can't believe that was me. It's enlightening.