Posted by Deneb on March 27, 2006, at 21:46:12
I was just thinking about my experience with being locked up...
When you were locked up, did the people there look through your stuff?
When I was locked up for ODing to get out of a midterm, they looked through my backpack with gloves on. I felt a little violated. Plus, what did they expect to find anyways. I felt a little offended that they would use gloves to go through my stuff. Perhaps they were expecting a moldy lunch or something?
I hated that they ignored my many many pleads to see the Mental Health Act and requests to see a lawyer many many times. I don't think they took me seriously. They kept ignoring me. The nurse explained things to me, but I kept on asking for a lawyer anyways. They would say, "OK, I'll go see if I can find a copy of the Mental Health Act for you," and then they never bring it to me.
It was also really boring there. There was nothing to do. I was too wired from lack of sleep to read or watch television. I'm glad my family came by to see me everyday. They made the time pass for me. Even my little cousins came to see me. It was really embarrassing to be in a hospital gown and pants. Some people there wore normal clothes, but not me. :-(
I think the nurses and doctors where nice to me despite sometimes ignoring my requests. They microwaved my dinner for me the first day when I wasn't hungry at dinner time and got hungry later. One thing I noticed was one could get dehydrated easily. There was only a water fountain next to the nurses station. Luckily my parents bought me my water bottle.
They let my Mom bring me my comforter and pillow from home. They also let my parents see me past the visiting hours. My pdoc there took pity on me and gave me Ativan because I was scared and couldn't sleep in a strange place.
I even threw a tantrum and threw M&Ms and sat past the forbidden zone. They didn't punish me, they reasoned with me.
Nothing bad happened to me there, but it felt horrible at times to be locked up. Yep, I value my freedom, don't ever want to the locked up again. I think they made a mistake in locking me up. I think maybe the pdoc who locked me up was taking a better safe than sorry approach. Plus, I overheard the main pdoc guy tell his two students(?) that I had never been "assessed" before and that was their rationale for locking me up. I don't think I would be locked up if I ever did the same thing again, not that I would of course.
I came out of this with a diagnosis of adjustment disorder. Blah. I guess they had to put something down to explain my behaviour.
I'm just wondering...is my story typical?
Deneb*
poster:Deneb
thread:625341
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060324/msgs/625341.html