I spent 10 months living with the criminally insane in notorious Chattahoochee Florida State Hospital. Ask me anything!

Can you comment on the reality of an institution like this, versus the stereotypes portrayed in TV and movies?

Did you need to be there?

Severe mental illness is different in person than what is seen on tv. There were a lot of schizophrenics, and you find yourself feeling sorry for them. A lot of them are very sweet. In the hospital I was at, the only abuse came from the patients. The staff had such restricted ability to restrain or seclude patients that often we were left feeling endangered being out on the floor with someone in a rage while staff stayed in the office behind unbreakable glass. Patients rights have gone too far and mentally ill patients are not held accountable for their actions, even ones who are fully aware of what they are doing and that it is wrong. There is also a lot less freedom in mental hospitals than you see in tv, less freedom than in prisons even. No cigarettes, absolutely no caffeine, no privacy.... there are group showers and the bathroom stalls are only separated by curtains. There were about 20 beds in a unit and each bedsection (containing four beds) was separated only by a 4' wall for monitering and so staff could jump over them. We were not allowed to have pencils or pens, if we needed to use a writing utensil we could check out a "pen" from the nurses station that was just a flexible ink tube with pen tip, no hard plastic casing.

I was court ordered to be there, I had a criminal case and got some good lawyers who got me acquitted for insanity because of my bipolar disorder. But I was one of the, if not THE, highest functioning patient/s there.

How many manic episodes have you had in your life time?

Just one full blown one, several hypomanias.

It's not really Ask Me Anything if you dont want questions on why you were there. At least, a broad outline?

Armed burglary and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Can you elaborate how this related to your bipolar disorder?

Being pissed off in a manic, bipolar state is completely different than being pissed of in a more mentally healthy state.

Were you off your meds?

Yeah, i had to go off them because they were elevating my blood pressure to dangerous levels, I had an appointment in just a few days to get on new ones.

what was the sketchiest situation you found yourself in?

The one that freaked me out the most, a middle-aged biker friend of mine and I went out on the yard (electric barbed wire fence, all that) and he introduced me to a man he had lived with in a past unit. The man was very bizarre, scrawny and spaced out, and my being a lady, he took my hand and kissed it and greeted me, it was bizarre but not unusual in that kind of place. Afterwards my friend told me the man he had introduced me to was a serial killer who ripped out his victim's nails and teeth. I later confirmed with staff that this was true, and that his father had died and he killed his victims so they would keep his father company in heaven. Staff also said he had an episode on a real crime show that he was proud of.

So the hospital didn't segregate males and females? That sounds dangerous.

They did in living areas, but we mingled outside, in classes and in the cafeteria until they decided to always keep us separated towards the end of my stay.

What were the circumstances that led you to being there for that time? Do you feel that you are or were insane? Do you think your spending that time there was appropriate given your mental state and circumstances?

I'll probably say it quite a bit, but I don't want to discuss my case. I was acquitted due to severe bipolar disorder, which anyone can also ask about. Being bipolar I do not consider myself insane... actually "insane" is just a legal term, not a medical one. The closest medical term is probably psychosis, which I have experienced for brief periods being Bipolar type 1. Manic phases can often end in temporary psychosis or in lesser forms can at least carry psychotic features.

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Because you live in a society where people are expected to behave according to predefined societal norms.

As a result of your illness you experience reality differently than those who don't share your diagnosis.

This doesn't make you a bad person. It just means that other people have expectations of you and if you don't follow those expectations you may end up in a mental facility or corrections facility.

Edit: words

As bipolar, I can say you don't usually wind up in hospitals because you are not behaving as expected. They try to only hospitalize people who are at the time a danger to themselves or others. I am grateful for mental hospitals and have voluntarily committed myself for treatment before.

What is the worst thing any of the inmates do to you, or someone you know?

The staff would get pretty beat up on a regular basis. Black eyes etc. One girl in my bedsection was mad at another girl and smeared her feces on the woman's bed. Another girl who habitually ingested batteries, needles, etc and had a ruined stomach and threw up all the time, she vomited into a cup and threw it on someone. Most fights were broken up before they got bad and most patients went after the staff when they were mad.

What was your brightest moments while there?

My favorite moments were conversations I had with some of the staff members, who were great. Any time family or my boyfriend visited was wonderful, and they came up pretty often considering it was a 6 hour drive. I made a friend there, a 60 year old bipolar woman who was in a severe dissociative and paranoid state when I arrived. She didn't talk or move or eat, had to be escorted and forced to shower because she was afraid of showering, and just laid in bed and got bed sores. A while after I was there one night she came in the day room and opened up and was very friendly, told me I reminded her of her daughter and that she had thought I was her daughter planted in the unit with her when I first arrived. She laughed and told stories and told me about her family for a couple of hours. Then the next day she switched back to how she was, like the night before had never happened. Over the next 10 months she started coming out of her dissociative paranoid state more and more and I helped her and she helped me, her progress was slow and she often regressed but by the time 10 months was over she was eating in the cafeteria, had put on weight she needed, and was socializing very much like a normal person. She always credited me with her recovery.

You're a good person :). Upvoted.

Aw thanks! Not that great of a person, we stayed in touch for a few years after i got out, and she got out for a few months too, then just sank again and went back in. Last i heard she was still in. She became very needy, would freak out and panic if I didn't pick up my phone every day. After she sank she never seemed to recover quite, she wasn't quite the same person. I actually ended up avoiding her calls until she stopped calling, i was under a lot of pressure from her and just couldnt really deal with it anymore. Her children had distances themselves from her years ago, and now I sort of understand why... i think with her children distancing, she sort of treated me as the daughter she wished she had. I still feel guilt about it.

What was it like?

That's a broad question. To start, I can say you learn to sleep through screaming and banging and get used to other people's body fluids showing up in weird places.

Did you benefit from the treatment there at all?

Did they have and did you experience rubber rooms, shock therapy, or a straitjacket?

How long of a prison sentence would you have faced if your lawyers hadn't succeeded with your insanity deal?

I did not benefit from the treatment there all that much other than from the daily routine, regular sleeping schedules and diet, and regular medications routine. All these things are important in maintaining mental health when you have bipolar disorder. Many of the patients were very low functioning so the treatment beyond medications was so basic and simple that I didn't find I benefited from it. I never experienced rubber rooms, but they may have those in solitary confinement. They actually do not do shock therapy at that hospital, although I have had outpatient shock therapy since and I can answer questions about that as well. They didn't use straight jackets, they usually calmed people down either by holding them down and injecting them with shots of sedatives in the butt, or in a restraint chair. And again I don't want to discuss possible prison time or my case.

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Not as much as medical journals say it do. Success rate is supposed to be decent but among the 10 or so patients I was with who were receiving it, only one noticeably improved. The other ones just told the doctor they were improving so they could go home. We had the newest electrode placement, bifrontal, which was supposed to be nearly as effective as traditional bilateral but with fewer negative effects. I actually made a blog about my experience, i believe the address is www.electroshockme.blogspot.com

I was studying to go into the mental health field (didn't work out due to disability, but shit happens) and was very surprised by the frequency with which electroconvulsive therapy is still employed. The studies on it in medical journals go on and on about its efficacy, but I was never able to find studies that were without bias (the researchers had a stake in ECT working as advertised). And there was a shocking lack of studies which looked at the long-term negative effects of ECT.

The best I could find, which was often glanced over, is that in a small percentage of people who undergo ECT there is no long-term recovery of reduced mental faculties. And that's a terrifying prospect in a therapy which can be forced on people.

Forced? I am pretty sure it's never done involuntarily anymore.

Were the rooms more like jail cells (think Silence of the Lambs) or was it an average mental ward? What was they layout like? Security? Did you have to follow the patient's schedule? (Lights Out, group therapy, etc.)

we didnt really have rooms, we had bedsections that were separated by a 4' wall so if you stood up you could see across the whole unit. Each unit had 20 or maybe 25 beds and had a day room, nurses station, bathrooms/showers, hallway and bedsections. It was pretty standard mental hospital interior but much less privacy. We had nurses and employees on the unit, usually 4 of them total, and a security team that staff could call. In the forensic building there was a cafeteria where meals, church and dances were held, a hair salon, and classrooms for groups and classes... including competency classes to prepare itp (incompetent to proceed) patients for court, lifeskills classes, and recreational classes like gardening, crafts, etc. The hospital itself was like a small city, besides the forensic building there were civil buildings (non forensic patients) and mr (mentally retarded-yes its a clinical term) buildings, there was a gymnasium where dances were held, there was a large clinic with various doctors and specialists, a dentist building, halfway houses... most forensic patients never got to leave the forensic building except for doctors appointments, and when we left we had to wear a padded belt with arm cuffs and be escorted by staff who held onto the belt by a strap.

There were the bcu units, which were solitary confinement, for people too dangerous to be in general population, but we never saw them and were not allowed to know where they were located. I dont want to know who stayed in them, considering the amount of violence and number of murderers already in general population.

You said you were in the forensic building, how is that different than the non-forensic building? One for the criminally insane and the other for the non-criminally insane I'm guessing? Also, I know someone that is there, he's the son of a friend of the family. He killed his abusive father only to be found insane by the court. Because of the lesser degree of your crime are you still living right next to these people who have killed due to their mental illnesses? If so, did it take you a while to get comfortable being around them knowing that they're medicated for their safety as well as everyone else's?

First of all, I know I used the term criminally insane in my post but it's actually not a medical or legal term, it's a pop culture term. The legal term is "not guilty by reason of insanity", and you don't have to be chronically insane to qualify, you just have to be deemed insane at the time of the offense as I was.

It sounds like your friend's son was probably granted insanity partly because his father was abusive. I think sometimes certain circumstances make the judge want to take it easier on you, and are probably more comfortable with an insanity plea then. My case revolved around abuse as well.

Yes, everyone is mixed together no matter the severity of their crime. The only people who are separated are those who are too violent to be with other inmates, but it has nothing to do with the severity of the case. I wasn't generally too concerned with my safety, most violent people were so heavily medicated they were basically just sedated. Drooling. And half asleep all the time.

What course of therapy would you recommend for a hopeful chainsaw killer who kept buying yardsale chainsaws that won't start worth a damn?

Would this pattern of behavior point to self sabotage and issues in early childhood, or just poor economic sense and planning?

If i were his therapist i would buy him a brand new chainsaw and make all of his wildest dreams come true.

And relocate him to Canada.

I wanted to say to let him loose on the park near my apartment that is full of homeless people who steal our things off our porch, but thats insensitive. Wait, no, i really liked that lawn chair.

Please elaborate on the coed dances you mentioned, there have to be some stories out of those.

The memory that stands out strongest in my mind was a girl who thought she was jennifer lopez, she ripped out a picture of jlo's face from a magazine and taped it to her forehead for the dance.

Dances were mostly horny men lacking women to dance with, most people were overmedicated and didnt really do what anyone would consider "dance". The most active dancers were usually the mentally retarded people, some of the women would be all up on the men.

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The most interesting, or the overall craziest? The interesting one was plenty crazy, but one stands out as particularly crazy to me but she was mentally retarded as well so she was not all that incredibly interesting.

Who was the craziest person there (besides yourself)?

The craziest person with the most wild behavior was Pinkie, although it's hard to choose just one because there were different kinds of crazy. Pinkie was mentally retarded in addition to being schizophrenic, and was a crackwhore. I don't think anyone knew her real name, when the police picked her up she insisted her name was Pinkie and I don't think she had any identification. She drooled a lot, and liked to talk to my boyfriend on the phone (and drool into the phone). She was lactating because of her medication and one time while we were watching tv she said, "hey watch this", Ilook over and her breast is out and she squirts breast milk on me. She would spend hours in the bathroom every day yelling at her reflection in the mirror, threatening it and cussing it out. Often she would yell at it as if it were a person in her past, angry about something in her past and would sometimes would squirt breastmilk at her reflection. She was also convinced she was pregnant and had a pseudopregnancy so that her body began acting pregnant. She seemed to always have vaginal infections and would call people over to look at a clod of something that came out of her that she insisted was her baby. She would also fly off the handle and attack various people, flying over anything or anyone in her way.

I feel terrible that this is the funniest thing I've ever read. She actually angrily squirted breastmilk at her own reflection... And the vagina part is disgusting. Holy shit.

It was kind of funny but more of a pain in the ass when you have to live with it every day haha

How did these other patients influence you and your condition? I always wondered if a high functioning patient can be influenced negatively by others who are in a way worse shape than him/her.

edit: I feel the need to clarify this: I spent a little time with pacients in a psychiatry hospital (I was a psychology student, I was practicing) and I felt very tired and a bit confused each time when leaving the place. So I'm wandering if the others affected your mental health, or if you feel that they could've

I don't think any of the patients negatively affected my mental health. I felt I related to the staff more than the other patients, and found my interactions with patients were more similar to the staff's interactions with them (sort of like interacting with children) more than the interactions between patients. I also generally talked more to the staff than i did to the patients.

I can only imagine and don't know where to begin...what is the weirdest behavior you noticed that your sure is an affectation of what they have done?...(so anxious for a reply now..)..

Not familiar with affectation.... rephrase please?

1 a : the act of taking on or displaying an attitude or mode of behavior not natural to oneself or not genuinely felt b : speech or conduct not natural to oneself : artificiality 2 obsolete : a striving after...im not an asshole,sorry, its.like chicks that talk in a baby voice because of paris hilton,they think guys like that,so they adopt it and do it.

So, I'm saying, based on what you know about what each inmate did, was their a super weird behavior you noticed that you felt they displayed as a result of the crime(s) they committed..? Anything that stood out? Just curious..

Uhh. You mean, did any patients pretend to be different than they were because of their crimes? I don't understand how posing has anything to do with a past crime. A patient was rumored to have killed herself because of guilt from her crime, she had murdered her infant son while delusional that there were demons in him. She was a young girl, about 20, and died in her bed a little after I got out, had seizures one morning and just died. Patients said she had cheeked meds and overdosed. As for someone posing to fit the crime they committed, not really. Most of them seemed to genuinely believe they did not commit the crime, some of them didn't believe what they did was a crime.

Were the units separated between genders? Did male and female patients interact on any level? Any "romance" going on?

Yes units were separated by gender. We saw the men was out on the yard or at lunch and at dances (those were a hoot) and in classes but eventually they cut off all unneccessary male and female interaction (only saw eachother at classes). People would sneak in the bathrooms for blowjobs and a young girl I knew gave an old guy a handjob under the dinner table, I guess it got worse than usual and that's why they cut off the interaction. Women got pregnant there too, babies concieved and born at Chattahoochee. The state would take them of course. Mostly the actual sex happened on the grounds when residents were moved out to civil units (usually this was after a few years of good behavior).

There was also a romance between a woman and an older psychologist. He did therapy with her and fell for her, then went against hospital rules to bail her out of her arson case, and then married her when she got out. He got fired. I had class with her and he would always show up, he also suggested I begin one on one therapy with himwhen I first got there but that never happened...

I have a few questions; please answer what you wish :)

• Was this your first-ever experience with a mental facility?

• During the court case, when your "not guilty by reason of insanity" plea was accepted, what was your reaction? Did you feel relief because you were avoiding jail time? What were your reactions when you learned of the upcoming stay at the hospital (dread, fright, curiosity)?

• In the facility, what was communication like? I saw that you had mentioned phone usage in a few other comments. Was phone usage permitted only a few times a day/week? Was it heavily monitored? Where were your visitors permitted to go/not to go?

• In your opinion, what was the dumbest/most WTF rule that patients had to follow in the hospital?

• This may be a bit personal, so again feel free to ignore, but as one of the highest functioning patients there, what was your reaction to those who exemplified traditional/stereotypical "crazy" on a regular basis? Did you ever say things like "Am I seriously looked upon in the same way as these people? Am I one of them?" Or was this something that never bothered/affected you, like you thought "It's a big facility and each of us has a unique case; it's unfair/dumb to group us all together under one collective description"?

• How do you deal with the stigmata that is attached to "someone who has been in a mental hospital?" After all, most of society has this singular, degrading view of mental treatment facilities thanks to everything from media portrayals to even Halloween attractions. Personally, I think it is frustratingly wrong that mental health care is singled out like this; you wouldn't see movies/TV DARE to attach the same degradation to, for example, a cancer ward.

Thank you!

No, this wasn't my first stay in a mental hospital. I had been involuntarily committed to several short stays (about 3 days) in highschool. I was 19 when I went in the state hospital. The wards were sort of similar to mental hospitals I had stayed in before, it was mostly the patients themselves who were a whole other level.

I was very relieved to be found not guilty by reason of insanity, I knew because I was high functioning I wouldn't be in the hospital too long. My armed burglary charge was punishable by life and my aggravated battery charge carried a maximum of 15 years. I was also glad to be getting out of jail, it took six months of jail time before I was ac

Sorry, my phone is fucking up. I have to do this on my phone as I don't have internet service right now. I was in jail six months before i was acquitted.

We were allowed two 15 minute phone calls a day, but it wasn't monitered very closely most of the time unless the patient was a phone hog.

The rule I hated the most was the no caffeine rule. Then again, I understand it because crazy people, i learned, cannot handle caffeine. Families would sneak caffeinated beverages in during visits and some patients would go nuts after drinking it, theyd get belligerent and sometimes have to be escorted back to the ward.

I never worried about being "one of them", if anything I felt more sane by comparison there than in regular society.

Most people don't know my history in mental hospitals and with psych treatment, although still more than is necessary know because I am more open about it than some people may be and maybe more open than it would be wise to be. I guess I try to be somewhat open about it to certain people because I want to help raise awareness and understanding. It has come back to bite me in the ass though, rumors spread and people you don't even know label you a "psychobitch". I relocated when I got out of the hospital for this reason.

Thanks for bringing light to Bi-Polar disorder. My mom suffered from it, and it's led me to have some apprehensions about dating bi-polar women. Specifically, the hypersexuality worries me, as I've heard from plenty of bi-polar female friends how they were with someone for years and then had an episode and went out and slept with 3-4 people in a day or two.

Can you shed some light on your relationship experiences, and how you've managed them in the past? It would be great to hear some positives, as I do not like to rule out an entire group of people, and feel like an asshole since I have so far. Only if you are comfortable sharing, of course. Thanks!

There are different types of bipolar. Bipolar type 2 only experiences hypomanias, which are milder and more manageable manias. Bipolar type 1 experience fullblown manias that can develop over months and can grow to psychosis. Some bipolars lean more towards depression, like me, some lean more towards mania. Amount of insight and responsibility in managing your disorder can also make a huge difference in relationships and behavior. Also, sticking very strictly to a medicine regimine, recognizing when you are developing symptoms and getting promptly into a doctor are important in symptom management.

Sometimes symptoms happen. Mine are mostly depression as depression is the strongest feature of my bipolar, but they can be aggravated or irritable depressions and can cause some instability in relationships. But again, when I notice I've experienced this once or twice in a matter of days, I get right into a doctor and have it under control quickly. Some people respond to meds better than others, too.

I have had a lot of rocky relationships especially when I was younger and still learning to manage everything, but now I am 24 and can happily say I am in a pretty healthy relationship with a wonderful guy and we are actually expecting a baby in December, and I am actually at a place where I am comfortable with this and feel stable and functional enough to start a family. There is hope.

What was the length of your hospitalization based on? Was it usual for patients to spend almost a year in the hospital? I ask because the psychiatric ward I was in did not keep people for very long, but it also wasn't for severely psychotic individuals.

10 months was actually about the minimum stay for someone found not guilty by reason of insanity, most people were there multiple years and were transferred to less secure areas of the hospital after forensic instead of to a group home like I was. The judge has to decide to let you out based on psych reports, and psych reports were done every six months. My first one, done at six months,got me the recommendation to leave but it then took 4 months to get me registered with a group home to go to, communicate with the courts, set up a court date etc.

Okay, I'll ask. Why were you in there?

I don't care to discuss my case but as stated above, I hired some good lawyers who were able to get me acquitted because of my bipolar disorder.

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I was in for armed burglary and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. No my case was not covered by the media. Society wasn't too hard to integrate back into, freedomwas amazing but took some getting used to. I was scared of getting arrested all the time. You don't have total freedom after the state hospital though, you go into a group home to reintegrate. I remember on the ride to the group home on my release my mother brought me a black and mild to smoke and I was afraid to flick the plastic tip out of the window because I was afraid of being arrested. I was also afraid of knives because I hadn't been around them in a year and a half, including jail time.

I assume you have seen the movie "Chattahoochee"?

One of my favorite Gary Oldman films!

I actually have never seen it but when I went in my dad watched it and got a kick out of it! I've read all about it but have never seen it yet.

How did this experience affect you? Did you change as a person, looked at the world or people in a different way? Any behaviours or habits that you haven't had before? Or some that you have had to change after leaving the institution?

Between 6 months and jail and 10 months in chattahoochee, i have a lot more empathy and feel a lot more human.

I wanted to ask you this before you sign off - have you considered or been told that you may be borderline personality disorder? Sorry if this has been answered already.

YActually ive been recognized as having borderline traits, and I believe was diagnosed with it at one point as a teenager. But doctors disagreed about my diagnoses back then. Either way, it's improved a lot as I have gotten older. Why do you ask?

To be honest I don't like associating myself with the diagnosis because some of the most nightmarish patients were diagnosed as borderline. I don't know if or how swallowing batteries, sticking knitting needles into your stomach through your belly button, etc are borderline traits but "those" patients were always diagnosed with borderline.

I have a baby-mama that I suspect is borderline. She didn't do self harm like you describe, but she is extremely adept at making herself the victim, no matter the circumstances, never takes responsibility for her actions or words, and has no control over the level of her reaction to a given stimulus. I remember once I fell asleep while putting our daughter to bed, and she was mad about that for almost an entire day. This is a very tame example. She had the whole 'I hate you don't leave me' thing down pat. She also hated the idea that she may be borderline personality.

She sounds very borderline. How old is she? I had some abnormal relationship instability when i was younger and a little bit of the clingy "i hate you dont leave me" cliche but i didnt have the attention-seeking or victimizing that a lot of bpd have. Like I said though, I pretty much grew out of it. Don't know if it was real borderline or emotional immaturity of a teenager. Bpd can be very difficult

Did you see anyone who was really faking it?

My middle aged biker friend claimed to be, but maybe he was just trying to impress me. Supposedly his grandmother had him hospitalized as a teenager when he was on shrooms and he was able to pass off the high as schizophrenia, and has been using the schizophrenia act to get out of criminal charges ever since. One time he went missing to the cafeteria for a week, staff gravely told me he had relapsed into hallucinations. When he came back he told me he had reported hallucinations to keep up the image, not knowing theyd keep him on the ward for it. He always seemed mentally functional to me, and to this day I am inclined to believe he was faking it.