My Experience with The Psych Ward

[Butterfly_Wings_of_Hope]

I apologise in advance if this thread comes off as a whinge/rant but I honestly believe that some of the nurses that "treated me" need to be exposed for their horrendous attitude towards sexual assault trauma and psychiatric trauma in general.

So here is my story, and I share with you the honest truth of what happened to me.

My name is Beckie, I am thirty years old and I live with Bipolar Disorder and Anxiety.
I recently admitted myself to hospital twice over the past month, because I was having paranoid delusions brought on by escalated anxiety and sleep deprivation.
I stayed in the psych observation area for three days, went home and ended up back in the system due to relapse.

When I went back in and was shown around the psych ward by the psych nurse, I realised I had a made a grave error. The place looked like a prison, and in truth my stay there was very much like prison even though I was a voluntary patient.

In my opinion, a psychiatric hospital should be warm, encouraging and supportive but what I got was the opposite. For the first 12 hours of my stay, I was in constant tears and begging to go home to my mum and husband.

All I needed in that moment was one of the nurses to hug me or just hold my hand but the nurses treated me like a leper and wouldn't touch me. Out of a team of about 10-15 psych staff, only ONE kind nurse called David had the emotional intelligence to give me a first pump. One other beautiful nurse called Margie listened to my poetry and gave me the time of day to help me with one of my poems.

Besides those two, the others were all cold and/or condescending.

One nurse even ignored my cry for help when I told her that I was afraid of being raped.
I have sexual assault history and I had strange men walking up and down the corridor next to my door and I was afraid that one of the men might come into my room and rape me.

When I went to the nurse for help, she told me I had nothing to be scared of and to just go back to bed. When I went to her a second time she shook her head at me, ignored me and went back to her paperwork.

She didn't give a damn about how terrified I was that I could be raped, and her paperwork was more important than me feeling safe in my own environment.

The lesson I have learnt from this, is that I will NEVER take myself to ED again.

What I experienced was actual hell and people NEED to know about this.

I don't mean to come across ungrateful but this is the reality of our mental health system.
 

[Croix]

Dear Beckie~

I like your poetry, see your other thread.

OK I'd like to answer you - frankly, however I also want to bear in mind anyone else that reads this thread.

To them I would say all hospitals, like all people, are different, and it is possible to get one with indifferent staff. It can happen. This does not mean they are all like that, and while I'd not pretend all public hospitals are wonderful, they do a job and actually do help -I'm an example. I have emerged non suicidal and in a much better shape. It is the staff, not the facilities, that make the place. One way or another I've met a fair number of psych staff, and on the whole they've been fine.

OK, now hopefully people will not be reluctant to at least consider hospital when it is needed. It does a job, separating you from the world and giving time, plus treatment and supervision in safety.

Now your experience has been absolutely ghastly. To have a nurse that could see you were in distress and shrugged it off twice is appalling. If you are in frightened that should trigger action, reassurance and other measures to make you feel safer. Some psych nurses become hardened to the ward environment and should really be rotated to other duties.

I've very glad there were two there that were human, David and Margie. They sound exactly what you needed and it's wonderful they were there. I had one who actually went to his home and came back with books for me to read, a form of escape from the ward I guess. It worked very well indeed.

To be as frighten as you were in there simply makes the original trauma from earlier in your life that much worse, and harder to recover from. It must have seemed an endless night for you.

Do you think it might be worth making a complaint? I'm sure for that particular combination of staff there may be others in your situation, ignored and looked down on. What do you think? Bear in mind it may be difficult, it does depend a lot on who gets to talk to you and get the facts.

In any event I'm glad you are out of it, and I'd suggest if you ever became overwhelmed again please take steps to ensure you do not go back to that particular facility.

Croix