Scout

My good psychiatrist (who actually knows what she's doing) says I have OCD and that it's also likely that I have schizophrenia. I used to frequently have intrusive thoughts and voices that told me to hurt myself and other people. The DOC raised my meds, but it wasn't working and I was afraid I'd accidentally hurt myself or somebody around me. I went to a psychiatric hospital with the intent of them just doing a checkup and putting me on a good medication and giving me good therapy.

Well, I was stuck seeping on a couch in the ER for the first night (very uncomfortable), and eating what they said was oatmeal but it tasted more like cardboard. And the next day I got moved to a unit with other people who had autism just like me, but then they decided that I was "too dangerous" (when I was actually less dangerous than all those people), so they moved me to the unit with people who had tried to kill themselves and/or kill other people. This one tiny girl tackled some security guards and then tried to go after me. So...it was "room time." I hate that. They're stereotyping me. They treated me like a criminal. And they treated me like an outcast because I barely spoke. It's always been hard for me to turn the pictures in my mind into words and the words into sound and the sound into speech.

And thank God I didn't have to go into the "quiet room." Seriously, I saw blood on the wall in there.

They even denied me access to the medications that I need for serious medical problems. Good thing my parents busted me out of there, because that place would have driven me insane.

Tavel

I totally agree, places like that are really...bureaucratic. That's an odd way to describe it. They have a system and everything must conform to the system. When really, the system should conform to the patients.

They don't help anyone...they just shove everyone into the loonie bin so they don't bother polite society.


By the way, I'm very fascinated with autism. I'd love to experience your way of thinking. Not forever, I like thinking in words...but it would open my mind to a new world that words can't explain. I think it would be very liberating.

Indian_villager

The mental care system is set up terribly. But honestly I don't know how to improve it to make it viable. Your experience with them is terrible and no one should have to go through that, but I can't think of any reasonable ways of fixing it, There are ideal fixes I have thought of, but nothing realistic.

As far as the voices telling you to do things, remember it is still up to you weather or not you want to listen to them. You still control yourself. It reminds me of the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley.

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance 5
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 10
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate: 15
I am the captain of my soul.

Good luck with everything.

Scout

Thanks everybody. Everything you say is completely true.

Seriously, that place was messed up, and I think my mom is going to write a complaint. They could have just stuck me in a regular hospital ward, since I'm not dangerous to myself or other people. I'm still having nightmares. It didn't even seem all that bad to me, but the fear that struck me with every step said otherwise.

That poem is awesome. I've gotta remember that one.

Indian_villager

Glad I could help. And that Ideal situation I was talking about is individualized care, there is a show about to come on fox called mental which is a drama regarding this.