Let's tell some stories about being in the psych ward or talk about any medications we're on or regale tales of funny adventures we went on while we were psychotic or manic or otherwise in a cuckoo state of mind. I like hearing about your guys' lives because I can usually relate a lot. It feels good knowing other people are going through what I'm going through.
I'll reply to this thread in just a little bit, to just describe some of the people I've met during my times in the psych ward. Also, feel free to ask me any questions about being in the hospital or any meds you're not sure about or any mental illnesses you're struggling with. I've talked to a lot of mentally ill robots here and I've read a lot of psychiatry books, so maybe I can offer some help.
Just to let you know a little about myself: I've got schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Just like bipolar patients, I cycle through manic episodes ("up" periods, where everything seems perfect and you feel unstoppable) and depressive episodes ("down" periods, you're all probably familiar with what depression is), as well as "normal" periods where I'm not having any mood problems. But unlike bipolar patients, I can experience persistent psychotic symptoms during both of these episodes (bipolars normally only go psychotic when they're severely manic). What sucks more is that I can suffer from psychosis even during the "normal" periods, when no mood episode is present. The psychosis is the schizophrenic component of my illness.
So you can kinda see how my illness overlaps with a lot of other mental illnesses, right? I'll do my best to help you with anything you're struggling with, since I've gone through a lot of the worst of it.
I'm hypomanic right now, which makes me really talkative and extroverted. I really wanna chat it up with my robot friends, so I hope you guys respond. Sorry in advance if I ramble on too much about stupid shit.
>>27678891
Hey OP. Just wondering about your schitzophrenia if you're comfortable talking about it - when you feel "up" does your power level change? Can you behave normally on an "up" or are you just crazy?
And do you take meds and stuff for the "down" periods? Also, have you ever tried psychedelics or are you not supposed to?
I understand if you don't want to talk about your condition, I'm just curious.
Okay, my memory's a little fuzzy but I'll try to remember some of the patients from the ward.
The first time I was in there, they had me placed in the drug recovery wing because there were no other beds open for me. Everyone was completely miserable in there. All the patients wanted to get out ASAP, so they could run home and finally shoot some dope, to feel well again.
There was this one guy who was going through a really rough time, withdrawing from a several year dependence on suboxone. It's weird, because the first few days he was actually completely fine. He was telling everyone all this cocky shit, like: "Hey, guess I'm tougher than I look! I can quit opiates just fine." or "I bet God's looking out for me, he took away my withdrawal because I've been such a devout Christian." He was telling everyone at the meetings that he was quitting opiates for good, that he didn't need them. Then like overnight, everything kicked in really fucking hard. He was sweating bullets, shivering even with like four blankets pulled over him, crying his eyes out until they were really red, and he was even rocking his body back and forth on the floor, just to distract himself from the pain. He'd be talking non-stop about how he was gonna get out of there soon and pick up his suboxone script from the pharmacy on his way home. I felt kinda satisfied seeing him get his just desserts for being such a cocky prick about kicking his habit.
I'll continue once I think of some more.
Having a little trouble understanding the schizophrenic part of your disorder, like I understand the ups and downs but what is the psychosis?
I've often wondered if there is something wrong with me bc I too have these rapid mood swings I just never express it to other people. People can never really tell what kinda mood I'm usually in. Be never seen any doctors but I'm pretty sure I'm not normal you know? Like I can't imagine other people feeling like I do everyday.
>>27679245
Just google what psychosis is, like really. It's you losing contact with reality. Delusions, hallucinations, etc.
Itt, dipshits/hucksters who fell for memes and think they have diseases.
>>27679323
my parents have made it so I cannot go on google, I'm on an app right now on mobile. They don't know what 4chan is so they allow it. Yeah that kinda clears up the schitzo part.
>>27679195
yeah I used to take subs if you take 32 mg,you can last the next day as well before you go in withdrawal
so monday morn take 32 mg, that will hold off withdrawal till wednesday morning mostly. obviously by the end of monday you wont be high anymore, tuesday wont be great but it wont be full blown withdrawal. and then wednesday it will kick in
that's probably what happened to him, took a big final dose
>>27679323
Dr. Googlee PhD.
Smh at mental illnesses groupies.
There is nothing wrong w/ you dorks outside of gullibility.
>>27679373
If you have a problem get the fuck out nigger. Is Ik I don't have a fucking disease but I'm not normal either. I'm pretty sure everyone on this website has mental disorders anyways.
>>27679441
Sounds rough, don't subs have a lighter withdrawl or am I mixing my opiates up?
>>27679493
Get a real hobby faggot. This shits pathetic.
>>27678960
I'm completely comfortable talking about my condition. It's my pleasure to bring more awareness to mental illness. Lots of people fear the mentally ill because they don't really understand them or what they're going through. I'm more than happy to clear up any confusion people have and answer questions, so we can hopefully erase the big stigma that mental illness has been given.
>when you feel "up" does your power level change? Can you behave normally on an "up" or are you just crazy?
My power level soars through the roof when I'm manic (the up periods). I can stay awake for days and days without feeling even a little sleepy. I also become ridiculously chatty and friendly, which is really uncharacteristic of me because normally I'm really quiet and reserved. And it's very hard to keep still too, it gives me this urge to move around and use up some of this pent-up energy. I like to go out for several mile walks or do hundreds of push-ups just to make me a little more tired and relaxed afterwards. Tiring myself out is helpful to do right before bed, because otherwise getting some sleep is very difficult.
>And do you take meds and stuff for the "down" periods?
Yes, I'm constantly supposed to be on these two types of medication: a mood stabilizer and an anti-psychotic. The mood stabilizer helps to dampen the intensity of both my manic and depressive episodes, while the anti-psychotic, like the name suggests, prevents psychotic symptoms. I take both of these even while I'm depressed because, even though it's not quite as dangerous as a really severe manic episode, depression is still really disabling for me and it's very common for me to get psychotic during particularly bad episodes.
>Also, have you ever tried psychedelics or are you not supposed to?
I've tried them a couple times. I'm definitely not supposed to, but I don't ever really do what I'm supposed to (not because I'm some edgy dude though, mostly because I'm just plain stupid).
>>27679558
>Get a real hobby faggot.
Yep, this:
>muh condition
>muh medication
circlejerk has gotten really fucking old.
>>27678891
>get admitted
>walking down hall to room
>person walking towards me backwards, no clothing, diarrhea flowing out butt
>MFW not sure what do
>staff person says "uh oh, we got a turbo overload, brb, keep going your room is 303"
>Getting scared
>Walk around turbo and find room
>guy is already in it, looks like living in forest for 3 years
>I say hi
>he says can you help me?
>I say ok
>starts talking about fairies, demons and evil dragons
>get more scared
>turbo wranglers come into room and say he can't be here
>he starts walking out of room on his hands
>I follow because he's my new leader
>can't walk on hands
>throw tantrum
>go outside to play
>playground is full
>have to pee
>pee on slide and get in trouble
>MFW this isn't psych ward, it's kindergarten
>>27679245
>I understand the ups and downs but what is the psychosis?
Psychosis is when your brain's chemistry goes all out of whack and you start to lose your grip on reality. Psychosis is a huge label that we've just kinda thrown a lot of very different stuff into. It can manifest itself in a huge range of ways and everyone experiences something a little different, so I can't tell you exactly how it might feel if it happens to you.
Most often, people who are psychotic experience one or both of the two characteristic symptoms: delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are where your brain grabs on to some irrational belief, trusting without a second thought that it's completely true. It's very difficult to reason against delusions. Some common ones are that you're being followed or watched, that you're some famous figure, that you're a religious prophet, that your loved ones have been replaced by imposters, the list goes on and on. You're probably a little more familiar with hallucinations, which happen when you sense things that aren't actually there. Hearing voices is the most common, they usually give you commands or comment on what you're doing or sometimes they even just spit out some gibberish. A lot of the times I see things that aren't there too (visual hallucinations), like huge swarms of insects or disturbing ghostly apparitions or even just my friends and family. Other people can smell and feel things that aren't there too, but I've never experienced that.
I have a lot of confusion over my moods too. It's something you've gotta teach yourself. You can't really cure that with meds. Maybe you can stop yourself every once in a while to ask, "What am I feeling?" You can find some emotion charts online, which might help you find the right word to express your mood. Just gotta keep practicing it until it sticks.
>get admitted
>gets out in smoke yard
>see 10/10 skinhead finnish qt
>talks with him everyday
>eventually fuck in the psych ward in my room
>mfw he got admitted to another hospital because of that
>>27679558
I play guitar, have a gf, make ww2 models, read literature, and many other hobbies in which I pour my time into. But I'm lazy sometimes so I take interest in learning about the minds diseases.
>>27679974
Thanks for clearing that up man, I was? What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you bc of your condition. And do you ever see like Ravens or birds lining the streets or various places? I've had a friend who was like you and he was always seeing crows lining the street following him.
I am a psychiatric nurse that works on a psych ward in the UK. Just got back from work. Ask me anything...
>get admitted after parents caught me trying to hang myself in my closet to escape government monitoring
>psych nurse at the admitting hospital talks me into going voluntarily, so no court record of it
>diagnosed major depressive, schizoid, manic, generalized anxiety, psychosis, and many more
>assigned a room with a depressed guy who tried to slash his wrists before being found by his girlfriend
>we befriend each other almost immediately, and spend the days playing cards in the social room
>eventually make a few more friends in therapy sessions
>one is an alcoholic girl who was going through withdrawals
>one is a girl suffering from psychosis who thinks her imaginary boyfriend is out to murder her
>one is a depressed guy who threatened to murder his father
>one is an anxiety riddled Asian guy who had a panic attack and tried to cut his own throat
>and the last one is a middle aged woman who has suffered from mental health problems all her life and been admitted to every psych ward in Virginia
>together we played card games and watched TV to pass the time
>these people were pretty much the only friends I've ever had, me being a shut-in and a high school dropout
>eventually stabilize after taking medication for a few weeks
>doctors decide to release me
>friends all say goodbye to me as I walk out to meet my mom in the lobby
>tfw none of them contact me afterwards
>tfw I gave them all my email and phone number while I was leaving
>tfw I went back to browsing the internet all day, locking myself in my room, and pissing into bottles after release
I wish the psych ward did more for me. Having friends was an amazing experience that I'll never forget.
>>27680582
What has been your weirdest experience while working there?
>>27679195
I also met this bipolar girl who was around my age. She had really severe insomnia problems, so she got addicted to benzos. The doctors in the ward had her on a big cocktail of all these high-dose sleeping pills, trying to get her just one full night's sleep, but she said she was so tolerant to them that they actually made her more awake and restless. She said they felt like Adderall to her. Kinda weird how they did the opposite of what they're supposed to for her.
Then there was this one pudgy middle-aged woman. She was really pale and Irish-looking. I kinda figured she was just like a typical lower-class single mom and she didn't really tip me off as someone I'd want to talk to. But we were coloring pictures together and she was telling me all these stories about her life, so I started to get an idea of what her history was. It turned out that she was like a really big-time mistress in some city in California and she protected a lot of young hookers with an iron pimp-hand. Those hookers reeled her in some serious dough too, so she had a nice cushy chunk of money for a while. I guess she earned it too; she told me all these stories about how she'd beat the shit out of grown men who tried to run away with her money or laid a hand on her girls. I couldn't even imagine her doing any of the stuff she said she did, since she didn't look like that kind of person at all. Whenever a West coast hip-hop song came on the radio though, she always knew every word, so I dunno maybe she's legit. The doctors had her on k-pins which she kept calling, with this smug smile, "legalized dope". I don't think she actually had any anxiety, I'm pretty sure she was just unashamedly getting high off the k-pins. But who am I to judge?
>>27681304
There was this other older woman, around 30 years old or so. She told me she'd been in that hospital for like fucking half a year. If you've been to a psych ward, you'd know nobody could stay sane living in one of those tiny psych wings, with no way to stretch out your legs or even just go outside for a little bit, for half a year. You could see she was kinda strung-out and had a severe case of cabin fever. She had all these nervous tics and fidgeted a lot, she was a bit jumpy, and she'd spend hours pacing back and forth along the hallway.
I asked her why they were holding her so long and she said that her doctor is like a close friend of her parents and her parents asked him to keep her there for a long, long time. They didn't approve of her recent divorce or something, so they wanted to punish her. The doctor keeps labeling her as delusional whenever she talks about how much she wants to leave the hospital, which keeps her there longer. Because she was stuck in the ward all that time, she lost her home and she had her child taken away from her and she had to spend Christmas and New Year's in holed up in that wing, with just a bunch of crazies for company.
Pretty fucked up, if you ask me.
feels bad reading your story robot, maybe you could stody and go to work in a mental hospital to meet more people like that? but if you're caring for them they'll never be your 'friends'
>>27681604
was for
>>27680668
deserves a you at least
>>27680389
There was one afternoon where I was just fooling around on my guitar. I had a website with all the chords for this song opened up and I was practicing it. Somehow I got it in my mind that I wrote half the verses of the song and that the musician who actually wrote it was counting on me to get the song all finished up so the world could hear it. It felt almost like a divine quest for me to get this song all finished.
While I was playing the song, trying to get it right so that it could be released to the world, I got this second delusion (out of nowhere) that I was controlling a spaceship way up in the atmosphere just by playing my guitar. I could like see the spaceship's arms moving around every time I hit a new chord. I was so scared to hit the wrong chord, because then I'd fuck up our entire mission. The whole world was counting on me. I'm pretty sure I was just playing random notes at that point though. I was way too out of it to be producing coherent music.
Eventually I just started doing something else and I forgot about both those delusions entirely, until it hit me a couple days later: "Wait a sec... you can't control spaceships with a guitar!" and I realized I had been delusional.
>>27680389
Also no, I've never seen any birds before. I've seen bats a lot though.
>>27679593
Thanks for the answer.
>>27681470
That is very fucked up. Can't believe someone would abuse their power like that and make someone more insane. Could you report it or something?
>>27681304
What are k pins?
>>27680868
There is so much weird everyday it just becomes normal.
Saw a 66 yo man today quietly praying to a green cigarette lighter. When I asked him what he was doing he said he was in direct communication with god and was asking him to send the ward 5 military helicopters to protect the ward.
>>27681920
The woman told me that the doctor got the hell out of there a couple weeks prior, before she could do anything. He voluntarily stepped down from his position at the hospital, because all the sketchy stuff he was doing was raising a lot of eyebrows from some of the staff there. I'm sure a few of the other doctors warned him of what was going on and advised him to leave before someone could do something. Doctors are pretty close-knit like that, so they'll do all sorts of unethical stuff to protect their own kind. And the worst part is, he's just gonna find a new position at another hospital and he'll never face any repercussions for his blatant abuse of power.
I don't really need to file a report, since I'm sure that woman is gonna do everything she can to make sure she gets some kind of compensation. She said she spent the last three months writing up a bunch of legal documents (she wrote it all up in markers, because those were the only writing utensils we were allowed to have) which she was going to use to file a lawsuit against the hospital for unjustly keeping her there. I don't know how that'll go.
K-pins are slang for Klonopin. Klonopin's mostly prescribed by doctors for anxiety. Most people would consider it to be the most recreational benzo out there, because it can get you pretty high.
Am I the only one who has tripped BALLS on sleeping pills?
>be me 14
>was on pills for depression anxiety...and sleep
>doc gives me strong pill "usually for adults over 18" he tells me
>this will make you sleep
>night time staring at ceiling waiting to feel sleepy after taking pill
>look over at my spiderman pillow at the end up my bed
>it starts moving and slowly becomes no longer a pillow but a sludgy red and blue sea creature/octopus with huge eyes. Spidermans web-like disign on his suit looked like tons of tenticles and I could swear I saw slime oozing from it
>scream for mom
>she comes in (she tells me I had the blankets up to my face crying - much of this night felt like a dream but she assured me it wasn't the next morning)
>mom sits by bed trying to comfort me while I'm having conversations with people who aren't there (not full convos, just "who are you? what are you?" kind of things)
>pear of jeans I left on the ground after changing into my pjs is now a big fucking snake
>start to panic because I thought the snake was biting me (I remember seeing "it" lunging at me over and over again)
> pee myself (first/only time I ever wet the bed)
I don't remember much after that but I apparently got cleaned up and went to sleep after even though I remember almost nothing of the event. My mom ended up throwing them out the morning after so I never got the name of them but I remember them being blue and the first letter of the pill was a V. it's been years since so I don't even know what I was on
TLDR: sleeping pills put me to sleep
pic is pretty much exactly what it looked like at the foot of my bed.
>>27682514
fuck forgot the octopus pic
I was in an all-female ward for three months. I liked talking to everyone. Everyone smoked a lot. I spent a lot of time walking in circles around the garden.
@OP, female post psych patient here
Was in an adolescent ward for three months due to morbid depression, anxiety, borderline personality disorder and PTSD. What was your stay like? Who was the worst patient when you were in? Feel free to ask any questions.
>>27682751
feel free to fuck off back to cocksvill in chadland you fucking roast
and fuck you twice for using @
I was the junior doctor who worked on a psych ward for the last 4 months that was in a similar thread to this one about a fortnight ago, I've since changed jobs to general medicine which is both good and bad.
Last post of the last thread was some dude asking me about smoking and psych conditions and how he noticed everyone in the psych hospital he was in smoked. It's true, including the staff (all of the nurses I worked with smoked loads) but I'm not aware of any studies to actually look into smoking and it's effects on psych conditions and can't be arsed to look it up.
It's pretty useful to let an informal patient who is asking to leave have a smoke before speaking to them and convincing them to stay in, they are usually more agreeable afterwards.
>>27681470
Now I'll tell you about yet another middle-aged woman. Psych wards are full of middle-aged women, just so you know. This one was a short little black lady; pretty well-dressed and well-groomed, with her hair freshly trimmed and styled and everything. We were all in the TV room and she started saying some stuff kinda softly, but barely loud enough to hear. I listened in and realized she was complaining because she didn't get her meds yet. So I said, "Hey, I've got the same problem! The nurses won't give me my meds either. Are we gonna get them anytime soon?" or some shit like that.
The black lady turned her head and started talking directly at me, which made it so I could actually hear what she was saying. I realized she wasn't complaining about psych meds, she was actually telling this elaborate story about how the doctors planted a chip inside her ear drum to read her thoughts but the area around the chip got infected, so they had to secretly perform ear surgery on her and now she was waiting to get some antibiotics to make her ear all healthy again. I kinda tried to avoid her, because if you listened to even just one of her sentences she'd follow you around the ward and keep blathering out nonsense words for what felt like hours and hours, with no end in sight. The only intelligible thing she ever talked about was this ear infection she thought she had. The lady just couldn't wait to get her ear medicine. But obviously there was nothing actually wrong with her ear, so there's no way the doctors were going to give her antibiotics.
I felt really sorry for her and her family though. Her dad came into visit her and he looked really sad seeing his daughter in that state. He was trying really patiently to talk to her about what kind of stuff she needed from home, but the lady kept cracking up at him and laughing at nothing. She kept trying to divert the conversation over to her ear infection. I felt really bad for both of them.
>>27678891
I have asperger, Add, Ocd, and well obviously depression.
bullied munipulated abused threatned with a knife against my throat, i had whole groups turn against me.
I'm to tired and apathic right now to type it all out, i had my share of suicidal thoughts as well.
