IAMA 20 year old who voluntarily admitted themselves into a psych ward, was told nothing was wrong with me and then wasn't allowed to leave. AMA

So uh...how did that make you feel?

Hahahaha, pretty crappy. I had a secret pen and notebook (you weren't meant to have pens, incase you tried to stab yourself I guess)

The girl I shared a bathroom with never spoke to me once, but I befriended a bipolar man, who played wii tennis with me and told me about his kids who he was trying to get better for. He was an incredible artist and he painted me a bonsai tree with chinese words that I think say 'peace happiness and love' before I finally left. It was sweet.

There was also a girl around my age who escaped with me to the park one day. The doctors told her she had teenage angst as well, but I may have peeked at her diary and she definitely had more problems than that. I think about her sometimes, and I really hope she's getting better. She was lovely.

What did you do with the pen and notebook?
A. Doodle your days away
B. Write down your inner most thoughts and feelings
C. Fill it with raps like biggy did when he went to prison
D. all of the above

Mostly B, but a little of D. Mind you, I can't rap for shit, so it was mostly really depressing attempts of cheering myself up.

Poetry is a great way to express yourself. You might not be Snoop Lion, but don't be ashamed of what you are.

You are the best person.

Did they have a big table with people drawing things with their fists?

Mind did.

We had a big table, but it was mostly people painting or drawing normally. The tv area was full of the silent people who would sit and stare.

What kind of problems does she have?

I couldn't say for sure, I think there was just a lot in her mind that she wasn't dealing with. From what she told me she took a lot of mind altering drugs as an escape, and from what I read she had such a deep hatred of herself and absolute dependence on others to love her.

I had a breakdown over a chick once and went to the ER for quick help to calm down. They sent me home in a cab and it dropped me off at a psych ward where they took me inside.

Like you, they told me I was fine, but I still couldn't leave. And I had a job that they wouldn't let me call to explain.

Crap.

Haha a lot of my final breakdown had to do with a guy I was seeing, and the demise of the 'relationship' brought out all of the flaws in my life choices, and I couldn't deal with it. Not his fault at all, but definitely an eye opener to me.

Luckily, I was really close with my boss and she was a major part of convincing me to admit myself.

They should have let you call, that's ridiculous. Not sure where you're from, but Australia has a system called 'official visitors' or something like that, who work as advocates for inpatients.

How are you feeling now?

Ah.. that was when I was around 21, I'm 36 now. Since then I've learned how to deal with abuse from women. ;)

But, honestly, I needed someone to talk to that wasn't my friends who heard me whine about it all the time... it was before the whole internet explosion. I do have to say that after the whole incident, I was DAMN sure that I was okay and glad to be out. Was definitely an eye-opener.

I think that was what pushed me to do it. The idea of having someone who would listen without having their own agenda or wanting gossip. Unfortunately, I was confronted with an environment which was more focused on medicating my problems away.

What kind of breakdown? You took yourself to the ER because of a breakup??

Not sure who this question was for, but I'll answer it too. No, but the breakup was caused by my ridiculous insecurities and distrust of men. Throughout the breakup process, he messed with my head a lot, and it revealed to me my complete instability.

Are you still there?

edit: Portal Turret is real

No, this happened a few months ago, but I haven't really spoken about it, so I thought this might be cathartic.

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They gave me no reason. I tried to check out the next day, they told me I had to stay and start taking new medication. I said I wanted to beat this drug free, as a bad reaction to new anti-depressants is what landed me there in the first place.

Then suddenly, my doctor was away and I couldn't see anyone else, then I needed to attend more therapy, then I wasn't doing enough in group sessions, then my doctor was back, but he was too busy to see me, then I had to make peace with my mum before I could leave, then I couldn't leave unless it was into a responsible adults care. (Please note I live in Australia, so by law I was an adult at this stage...)

Sounds like a blatant money grab. This screams scam.

It was all paid for by medicare though, that's the thing. I didn't leave a cent out of pocket. (Except for what I should have been earning at work, I guess)

Same here, I don't believe I even received a bill (though I had insurance), as it was run by the state.

It was weird though, I remember there was a clause that was like, if you use private health care, you can pick your doctor but you have to pay money, and if you just stick to medicare, you cop the doctor they give you and you don't have to pay anything.

They don't think you're wise enough to make the decision to leave, but financial decisions are definitely not off the board. You'd have to be insane to want to pay.... but... maybe it's a test o_O

I definitely passed that one! Rather, my bank account balance forced me to pass that one.

The money comes from somewhere.

Thanks Julia Gillard, I guess?

Underpants.

I used to stash all my money in my shoe. Made things awkward when I needed to pay for things and I'd forgotten to take it out prior.

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I guess. I don't know how keeping the reason from me was meant to help me though.

How did you get out?

In the end, I had a really tearful conversation with my mum, told her where I was and that she had to come and get me so I could leave. She'd always kind of discounted my mental instability, and I think this was a big eye opener for her as well. She had to come up for 3 days and see the doctors separately and together before they would release me completely into her care. We talked about a lot and our relationship is pretty strong now.

How were the patients generally treated? Was the staff made up of complete douche-bags, or did they actually respect the mentally ill?

There was one nurse, who was the kindest, most caring lady. She and maybe three of the other nurses were so respectful and genuinely wanted to help.

Then there were the bitchy ones who were clearly just trying to get experience, would spend their whole shift watching movies in their locked room and completely ignore everyone else, or the control freaks who would talk down to you, make things up and put them on your file so the doctors thought you weren't complying, etc.

do you regret failing at committing suicide?

Sometimes.

The biggest tipping point of that was my friend succeeded a few weeks later. He was the most incredible person and I was so filled with anger that I'd failed and he'd succeeded when it should have been the other way around. I still regret it sometimes, but so many good things have happened since then that it's become something I've started to see as an important part of my past, but that needs to have no impact on my future.

Wouldn't being held there against your will be considered illegal imprisonment?

Yeah I guess.

In the long run, I've come to realise that I wouldn't have made such a huge leap in recovery had I left when I wanted to, but at the time it was really scary, and the other patients agreed that something wasn't right.

Nothing is ever right in psych wards... atleast the one i went to these people were less qualified to help people than me.

Totally agree, I had one good nurse, and I dreaded every time she wasn't on. Some of them are absolute control freaks who are convinced everyone in there is a lesser person. Makes me really mad.

Sounds like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

I never finished reading that book. Maybe I should.

Yeah, it's good in some ways that they force you to really think things over.

I had so much time to myself with no phone and visiting hours were pretty limited, so there wasn't much else to do but think. I had a notepad and I was able to kind of fashion my mind into the person I wanted to work towards being, as opposed to the jaded, twisted, shadow of a person I was then.

I'm getting there now, which is nice. Off the drugs (both illegal and legal) too, which I think has helped a lot. Forces me to deal with things in reality, stops me from spending so much time trying to escape.

I think they have legal authority as a type of "guardian" at that point, if they have reason to believe you may hurt yourself. They pump you full of drugs and then you really aren't able to make logical decisions if you walk out the door.

That sounds like a horrible Catch 22; that you can't leave because you're you lack the mental faculties, and you lack the mental faculties because you're drugged, and you're drugged because you lack the mental faculties.

And if you resist the drugs, they find other ways to drug you.

I wouldn't take the anti-depressants, so they demanded I take the sleeping pills, which turned out to be horribly addictive. Spent about a week feeling so sick after I cold turkey stopped them, because nobody told me.

Jon Ronson talks about a case like this in this Ted Talk. He presents the case of "Tony", who convinced doctors he had a mental illness in order to avoid a prison sentence for fighting. He consequently served an indeterminate sentence at Broadmoor, as he was not able to prove he wasn't really mentally ill and ready for release. It starts at 2:00 in, but the whole talk is so entertaining you might want to listen to the whole thing.

This is one of the many reasons I'm so troubled about the calls to identify and commit the mentally ill following the Newtown tragedy. Pretty much anyone could be diagnosed with some mental illness or another at some point in their life.

That's cool, I will definitely watch that, I love TED talks.

There's meant to be a ridiculously high rate of mental illness worldwide, but I think just plain sadness gets turned into depression and things spiral onwards from there.

Would you rather fight 100 duck sized horse or 1 horse sized duck?

Hahahaha! That's easy. I'd rather fight neither, but I would prefer to face one horse sized duck, in the hopes of taming it and becoming queen of the pond.

Have you ever been attacked by a duck? Sorta unnerving how angry they get and how hard they can hit despite their size.
Swan? Terrifying, just run.
Emu? Fucking forget it. I was just glad I was only taking care of it for my neighbor and it was in it's pen. That's right, it was in it's pen and I was STILL scared of it.
Horse sized duck? Nope.

I've totally been chased by a duck, it was a scary moment.

There's an emu at taronga zoo in an open enclosure that you can walk through. Everyone ran scared of the emu, and I walked around with it, my hand over it's shoulders. We were the best of friends.

I took care of my neighbors birds while they were away for a summer. Ducks, chickens, geese, and two constantly pissed off emus. I tried to be friends, but they would have none of it.

Hahaha bitchy birds are the worst.