My Stays In The Juvenile and Adult Psych Wards

The Juvenile Psych Ward

Life wasn’t so sweet to me at sixteen. It was rather sour, actually. I landed in a juvenile psych ward after switching antidepressants, while ignorant to the fact that I had bipolar disorder, causing me to enter psychosis without warning. I never knew such a place existed – psychosis – nor did I know there were such things as juvenile psychiatric wings in hospitals. It was a lot to learn that year.

I entered through the secured doors at the juvenile ward in 2004 with my head covered in the sheet the hospital escort gave me. As if  involuntarily put on a haunted house ride, I hid because there was no telling what to expect. Just like the illness itself, there was an unexplained approach to entering the psych ward. No one told me where I was going, how long I was staying, or what it was going to be like. Like bipolar disorder’s emergence, there was no briefing beforehand.

I met Holly, a patient aid, who served as a personal monitor and guardian angel. Her bubbly personality and gracious demeanor gave me hope that I would eventually be back to better and have a normal life again. I didn’t take to the kid across the hall who laughed like the Devil himself, but we saw through that encounter.

I did learn that these fellow young patients were struggling with symptoms above and beyond their control, and the staff were there to care for us. Because of aid Miguel’s laugh and hearty enthusiasm to joke around, I knew I was in a safe place. Because of Nurse Phyllis’ guiding me in the Twenty-Third Psalm at midnight, I knew I was in a safe place. It was all because of the people there that made me feel safe.

The Adult Psych Ward

Journeying forward into 2012, the year of the impending apocalypse, I happened to end up behind another set of secured doors for my own good, though it didn’t feel as safe this time around. I was in the adult psychiatric unit and scared to death because I actually was so far into psychosis I didn’t know where I was.

Upon orientation to the ward, an aide approached me asking for my wedding band for “safe keeping.” I realized this wasn’t the juvenile ward in the least. The clocks were off an hour from each other, the schedules changed weekly, phone lines were disconnected every other night it seemed, and the patient rights hotline number didn’t connect, ever.

I learned that some of the patients and even staff were bias toward me. A Med tech drugged me to sleep with a concoction of Ambien and who knows what. Another aid drew a picture of a “sh** sandwich” and told me I had to eat it because that’s what life dealt. And why didn’t they put me back on the meds I had been on?

Could my husband’s prime healthcare plan be the reason they didn’t get me back to normal straight away but kept me there against my will? Because most people stayed a max of a week, or less. Not too many had the luxury of such a good health insurance plan.

I was in and out from August 31st to October 31st. Because of these and the majority of encounters here, I felt I was not in a safe place. Granted, I couldn’t afford to be at home alone, but there were seldom any people to call friends here.

Psych Wards Need Help Too

By the grace of God, I came to. I was out of my mind for a good three months in 2012, leaving me to a few more medications plus the ones I originally had been on prior to my hospitalization. Help (finally) came. My journey back to reality was a long road, but I eventually stabilized and I’m well now.

So what do we do? It is my hope that those entering the psychiatric career field would seriously consider their motives for helping those with mental illness. It is not for the faint of heart, nor for the lack of heart. The career of a med tech to psychiatrist should embrace the realities of those in their care, and listen to their stories.

That’s all I wanted in either psych ward: to be believed and listened to. It is possible for this experience to be more pleasant, civil and nurturing. It is imperative patients are treated with dignity and not like second class citizens. We are weak and fragile beings, despite the erratic behaviors and outlandish delusions. We all want the same thing, and it is possible to have, if the care teams would just raise the standards of treatment.

Both experiences, at sixteen and twenty-four, I recognized the need to seek psychiatric hospital help. They were, at the end of the day, help. For a juvenile unit, my experience was, in general, beneficial. However, if there were a more nurturing, comforting, friendly, caring system, I would vouch for that over the system I found in the adult ward. It’s bad enough to be subject to a mental illness.

Having to be subject to the current system made me feel like it was my fault I was ill. It shouldn’t be that way. There should be a Holly for every scared patient. A Miguel to make the depressed patient laugh. A Nurse Phyllis for those who doubt God’s goodness.

And at the end of our stays, we should all be cared for and given enough tools to make it home so as to never return to the psych ward again. Is that too much to ask?