Posted by pretty_paints on December 23, 2004, at 10:35:12
In reply to Re: Locked Up » ed_uk, posted by tensor on December 23, 2004, at 9:36:35
Hiya, this is a good thread Ed.
I too was held as a voluntary patient. In response to Mattias, who asked about what they would do if you were admitted for depression: In my opinion, hospital is a great place if you are psychotic/manic/paranoid/confused/angry/suicidal. Well, it's not great. I mean certainly for anyone psychotic/manic/paranoid, they are going to hate being put into hospital and believe a lot of things linked up with their delusional thoughts, like the nurses are out to get them or whatever. So I'm not saying it's an enjoyable place, but I think it is the safest bet for people who are any of the above. They can give you sedatives when you get worked up, I had lorazepam when I was in. They are also low stimulating environments, which give psychotic patients less stimuli to bounce off of. However, I think for people who are depressed, hospital is not such a great place. I mean sure, there are lots of depressed people in hospital and if they are suicidal then yes it helps them, but the way I saw it was: In hospital you have NOTHING to do, nothing to occupy yourself with. Nurses arent always very friendly. Your room is usually cold and uncomforting, you don't feel relaxed. You're usually surrounded by a bunch of weirdos (yeh yeh I know, that's not very PC, but you know what I mean). The things psychotic or manic people say can upset you. I used to get cushions thrown at me in the tv room by a woman who thought I was out to get her, hmm. Oh I don't know, it is generally just a depressing place to be.
So I think hospitals are basically good as an "emergency" option. If things suddenly change, or you feel out of control or spontaneous, you don't know what's going on, then they are good. If you have just been depressed for a long time and not really getting much better, I don't personally think a stint in hospital will revive you (but of course that is just my personal opinion). The reason I'm saying all this is that I had major depression all year from the January. By the august I was going psychotic so I went into hospital, and so I can say that it did help me in that respect. The reason I went in was, well for many reasons, but mainly because I felt "crazy", I felt like there had been a shift and something was different. I felt out of control, I didn't feel safe. I didn't feel exactly depressed, but I just would keep fantisising about guns. Imagining them for hours, all different types of high-tech guns going on, kept having fantasies about shooting myself in the head. I kept imagining it and it felt really great, the noise of it, the cold metal. But I didn't understand what was going on because I didn't really want to die, I didnt feel that depressed. I locked myself in the bathroom and started cutting my arms (have never done that before), for NO reason. I just felt like, why not? Let's see if I can cut my arm open! It felt like a movie, like things weren't real. At home, my parents didn't have a clue what medication I was on (no that's a lie, they did, but they didn't know exactly) so I was left to handle it all by myself. The doc told them I was suicidal, so they should look after my meds and issue them to me. But that was no good because I was DEVIOUS. All I had to say was "no no, I am supposed to take all of these tablets", and they would have believed me because they thought I was more in the know than them. They wouldn't have challenged me. It was so easy to pull the wool over their eyes. So I felt like I needed to get into hospital. I did the same in hospital but the good thing was, you can't pull the wool over the nurses eyes there. I asked for scissors to cut up some magasines and make a picture, but they would only leave them with me for a few minutes. They kept all the medicines in a locked up room, so obviously there was no chance of anything like that. To me, I saw hospital as a great place to "sit things out" and wait for the weird feelings/thoughts to pass. A kind of safe house.
It also is very difficult if you have to see a new doctor. You have to relay the whole story to them and it gets very tiring. You might not like them, as I didn't, and that just makes you feel worse. You'd be dieing to get back to your own doctor.
On the other hand, one thing I thought I'd get out of hospital was having some physical tests done, blood tests and what not. So at least that could rule out anything which might be causing problems.
It depends on how you feel though Mattias, if you feel like a stint in hospital would do you good, then certainly you should persue that.
Anyway thanks for this post Ed, I look forward to reading stories of people who have been sectioned, or not. Cheers :)
poster:pretty_paints
thread:433249
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20041223/msgs/433308.html