Psych Ward

This is going to sound crazy, but I actually liked the psych ward.

I felt safe there.

It was clean, roomy, and had a pleasant atmosphere. The staff were helpful and kind people. It was basically a safe place to go when I needed safety from my own mind.

Let me start by saying that I don't think I want to go there ever again, it was still a psych ward, and still a prison that I couldn't leave. But it was what I needed at the time.

At the time, I was having my first (and so far, only) psychotic break.

I had spent the last four nights trying to get help, but wasn't getting any at the first emergency room I went to. They simply gave me a sedative,and sent me home. I wasn't a danger to myself or anyone else, so they couldn't do anything for me.

Finally I went to a different, bigger hospital with it's own psych ward, and was able to get a bed after two nights of waiting. I was still not sleeping or eating, and I was getting worse. I had to commit myself for a 72 hour hold, because I wan't suicidal.

They gave me and antipsychotic, Haldol, and it started working within just a couple of hours. I slept for most of that first day, and I felt emensely better when I woke up.

I was still somewhat psychotic, but it was nothing like before. Most of the hallucinations were gone, and I could differentiate between delusions and reality for the most part.

I had my own room, and my own bathroom. Everything was neat and clean. The food was good, and we got to pick our next meals from a small menu.

There was a large staff, probably 1 to 1 per patient. There were about 25 other patients there, and it seemed like it was always full, because it was hard to get a bed there.

Later I found out that this was the best psych ward in my state, from several of the other patients.

It was not a residential psych ward, only a kind of temporary holding place for evaluation, for the less crazy of us. I saw a little bit of craziness while I was there, but most of the patients seemed relatively normal.

We were mostly left alone.

There were some classes, like art and goal setting, but mostly we were left to wander around.

Bored.

There were no books or magazines, except for plenty of Bibles. There were a few board games, but I never saw anyone playing.

We watched TV in the evenings,and chatted with each other mostly. I made a few friends. I wasn't sure how long I would be staying, so my sister brought me some books, a notebook, clothes. We couldn't use real pens or pencils, we had to use these weird rubbery pens.

They let us have our phones, but we had to keep our chargers in the office, because of the long cords. No shoes with laces, no spiral notebooks, no belts.

The second night, I had Ambien to sleep, but it made me have sleep paralysis, and I had to fight with a demon all night. Every time I closed my eyes, he would be right in front of my face, although I couldn't see him. Eventually I just ignored it, and managed an hour or two of sleep.

I'm a smoker, so that part of my stay really sucked. They gave me a patch,and I could have a piece of nicotine gum once every hour.

But I was still really restless, and wandered around quite a bit. The third day, I finally met with a psychiatrist for a bout 20 minutes,and he diagnosed me with Bipolar 1 Disorder with Psychotic features.

He asked me if I wanted to go home, and I said yes.

Unfortunately I had to wait the rest of the day,and I was really bored. My neighbor from the next room was really sweet, and we hung out a lot. She was an elderly woman, and seemed perfectly normal to me. i wondered why she was there. Right before I left, she pulled me to the side and whispered "Satan is alive and well!"

I gave her a hug, even though touching other people was against the rules.