Valanio

We had one women who was in and out constantly. She didn't have custody of her kids but you could tell she was really trying, it wasn't drugs, she just a some serve mental illness and she would come in and be a handful sometimes, a lot of hallucinations and speaking to voices (or internal stimuli) and we loved her. She was so sweet and kind, we felt so bad for her because she couldn't control what was happening to her.

One day we came in and found out she had overdosed and died the day after her court appearance where she was again denied custody of her children. It was heartbreaking. To answer your second question, I honestly don't. The day I leave here will be a huge weight of my shoulders, this defiantly is not my career for life.

The patients themselves are not over exaggerated. I've seen patients here that are very much like what you would see in a movie.

This is only one example, as their have been many, but we got a girl once who we swear had to be possessed. I'm not religious and even I had questioned myself. She would stare at you in a way that would send chills down your spine, it was just empty but also so powerful. She would rock back and forth and mutter to herself, from what we could hear it was a lot of stuff about the devil. There were times she'd grab her face and scream as loud as she could. It was honestly beyond terrifying.

I've only ever worked at this facility so I can't say for others but only recently have I seen accurate descriptions of a psych ward. Shameless did a good job, so did the Netflix version of Degrassi. Over the last decade we've seen a huge shift to more socially acceptable facilities. We have no rubber room and no jackets. We still have bed restraints and of course we still use involuntary medication injections but it's defiantly not like it's shown in the movies, or at least not here anyway. I know some faculties still have rubber rooms or use tazers.

It's hard to say because 1: I'm not a psychiatrist and I don't want to give false information as any I have is strictly experience based. 2: I only ever see patients when they are already here so their behavior changes in different environments.

All I can really say is that if you know someone who's been diagnosed with a mental illness, talk to their doctor about what you should look out for. Personally, if his medicine is working for him just be sure he keeps taking it. Probably the most common issue I see with return psych patients is they forgot or stop taking their meds (especially if they're helping because they think they don't need it anymore). Make sure they take their medicine and that they understand that them feeling better is not a reason to stop, that means it's working.

All the time. We get people from all over the state so police usually transports them if they are involtarily committed. In my experience a majority of police does not know how to deal with psychiatric patients. Just recently we had a cop harass verbally and physically a 16 year old girl while he was helping us bring her inside the facility. She wasn't doing anything wrong and it was not handled well.

I'm not sure there is much anyone can do to improve that situation. Police are trained to protect people and someone who's psychotic is even more dangerous then someone who isn't because they're unpredictable. In there line of work I would personally find it hard to interact with psych patients outside the hospital. I can only do it as well as I do because I'm so used to it and asking them to require some kind of psych work history is too far a stretch.

It was a huge problem when I first started working. I almost never find myself in that position anymore as I just got used to interacting with them. The only time it's still uncomfortable is when I have to do the physical check on them, which is an in the door full body check to check for scars, bruises, etc so we can't be liable if an injury occurred outside the hospital, also to check for illegal items. We don't touch their body but I still have to check under their scrotum for any hidden items and they have to do a squat and cough. It's never comfortable and it never will be!