What It's Really like in Mental Hospital

Recently, a friend asked me what life is like inside of a psychiatric hospital. As I have been to two different hospitals since October 2015, I decided to give an accurate, real life description of an “asylum”. The general population’s concept of what a mental hospital is like is based on what horror movies and Hollywood have decided to paint it as; a terrifying, abandoned, ghost/demon infested labyrinth where stupid teenagers or ghost hunters hold séances. While I have never been to an abandoned mental hospital, I can assure you that today’s psychiatric facilities do not use barbaric torture devices on those who suffer from mental illness. 

When you first get to a psychiatric hospital, whether by ambulance or police car if you’re being transferred from a hospital or whether you come on your own either voluntarily or involuntarily by a friend or a family member, they will take you to a room to do a “skin check”. This is to see if you have any self-inflicted wounds such as from self-harm or a suicide attempt and to document any tattoos/scars/piercings you may have. If you came by ambulance or police car, you probably don’t have any clothing on other than the gown they gave you at the hospital and the clothes you were already wearing that day. You may not even have any ID or your phone or your wallet, and if you do, the nurses will have taken it from you and put it in a bin that will be kept behind their desk until you are discharged from the hospital. 

You will be taken to your room. It will be small, with two cots and a bathroom. You may or may not have your own room, and if you do have your own room, rest assured that within a day or two, someone will probably join you as new people come in every day at all hours of the day and night.

You can’t have certain things, things that people on the outside take for granted, like belts or shoelaces or floss. Some places let you use a fork, knife and spoon, while others may only give you a spork. Some places let you keep your toothbrush, shampoo and conditioner, others don’t. Some places allow smoking, others don’t. Some places let you go outside, others don’t. If you’re a woman, you can’t wear a bra with underwire. You cannot wear any clothing that has ties or laces or strings. The night shift nurses will wake you up early every morning to take your blood pressure and temperature and will also do it at night before you go to bed. 

Nurses and therapists are always watching you and writing down everything you do during the day. You never get a moment alone except for when you go to the bathroom. If you want to shave your face or legs, a nurse will have to come with you to supervise you. You will see people are the absolute lowest point in their lives. You will meet people who hears voices or see things, or who talk to themselves and have full conversations with no one there, and you’ll have people who don’t, or can’t, talk. You will hear stories from people’s lives that sound as though they come straight out of a horror story; stories of abuse, neglect, addiction, death, dysfunctional families, incest, pedophilia, trauma, the list goes on. Some people sleep a lot, either because they hadn’t slept in two weeks before they got to the hospital or because the medication the psychiatrist put them on is making them tired. Some people don’t sleep at all, or very little, which is often a result of their medication or for other reasons. 

Some nurses care about the patients more than others. Some are amazing and will go out of their way to help a patient, whether it’s talking them through an anxiety or panic attack, or holding them while they cry uncontrollably, and there are some who are mean or cold and you can tell they really hate their job. While you’re in there, you will do mostly the same things every day. Eat your meals, go to group therapy sessions, sleep, take your medication, maybe see a therapist in a one-on-one session, and see your psychiatrist so they can keep tabs on how your medication is working.

Group therapy sessions can either be talk based or art based. Art based therapy can include playing board games, coloring or painting pictures, and music. There is only so much you are allowed to do while you pass the free time that you have in between group sessions; you can’t have your phone or listen to any music. You can watch TV in the common area, but you can be sure that the channel will soon change once other people join you. The best ways to pass the time are to color or to read, as you are allowed to bring your own books. The food will either be somewhat decent or terrible, and if you have any kind of food allergies or are diabetic, you need to make sure a nurse knows so that they can accommodate you. 

The two psychiatric hospitals I have been to are what are known as “short term” hospitals, meaning a person stays there one to two weeks, depending on the severity of their mental illness, as they are not equipped to deal with long term patients who require more intensive care. 

As some of you may also know, I once was hospitalized for my eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, back in 2007. I stayed there for 81 days, including my outpatient therapy. I celebrated my seventeenth birthday in that facility. But it was different from the two I have been to recently. This place was only for women suffering from eating disorders, alcoholism and drug abuse, along with other emotional issues. This wasn’t exactly a typical hospital, as they employed the use of equine assisted psychotherapy, meaning they used horses in many therapy sessions. Every morning, the nurse would come wake you up and weigh you. You were never allowed to look down at the scale. They also employed the twelve step program, which is common with Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) and only once you reached a certain step were you allowed certain privileges, such as being able to receive mail, make phone calls to family and receive phone calls, or go to the bathroom without having a nurse go with you (you were never allowed to shut the door all the way or lock it, because they didn’t want anyone throwing up.) During meal times, the nurses would sit and watch you, documenting everything you ate. If you didn’t finish your meal, it would be saved for you to have at snack time. If you didn’t eat it then, you would be forced to drink an Ensure meal shake. I did that only once and I never made that mistake again (Ensure is disgusting, by the way.) 

Here's the bottom line: psychiatric hospitals are not at all how Hollywood likes to portray them. Yes, they do have a history of violence and abuse, but they aren’t like that anymore. They are places for people to get back on their feet after they have broken down. They are a safe place for a person to get the mental health care that they need in order to function.