Posted by sonic_gb on December 9, 2007, at 0:47:44
In reply to Re: Hospital admission put off until tomorrow., posted by bleauberry on December 8, 2007, at 20:48:52
Wow, bleauberry,
That's not much of an endorsement for inpatient psych care. I'm sorry your experiences have been so negative, but I am still hoping that this ~10 day stay will be productive. I know I needed to be admitted somewhere or I would have ended things, or had some sort of separation from reality. I'm not expecting to leave cured, and I expect my depression may persist for some time. My goals are to get off the benzos, totally change my AD's, and get set upwith some sort of talk therapy or CBT.
The kind of facility that I'm at (and I think Maxime was at too) is nothing like a locked down psychiatric ward. It is a house with 12 "short stay emergency patients" who are, for the most part, free to come and go as they please. It is staffed by psych nurses 24/7, and there is a single psychiatrist here on weekdays.
What I find particularly depressing in your experience was the lack of caring pdocs or nurses. I still haven't met the psychiatrist that works st this facility yet, but I'm hoping that he will be caring, empathetic, and willing to spend some time working on a treatment plan with me. I know the psychiatrist who had me admitted here, who I only met once, seemed to share all of the qualities I was hoping for. He will be the one to take over my treatment when I leave here.
Anyways, I guess this experience will really determine what my general thoughts are on inpatient treatment. I still have some hope.
Sonic
> Not meaning to crash the party, but I found hospital stays to be something to avoid, not something to pursue. Hospitals are for the most part do not have the means to provide what you need. Even if they did, or some do, a week is a joke. Heck, my last day of a week in the psych ward I was on my knees in the hallway crying and sobbing with depression that was worse than when I arrived. They let me out the next day anyway.
>
> The experts you are hoping will care for you in the hospital rarely exist.
>
> Meals are decent, but dreadfully lacking in the nutrients we need. Especially since they don't even test to find out if you need magnesium, chromium, zinc, B vitamins, etc that could all easily be playing a huge role in your depression.
>
> No outdoors. No sunlight. Locked doors to the ward. Surrounded by sick people. Nurses learning the ropes. Doctors learning their way up the ladder. Lonely. Very lonely. Family at home without you. Man oh man. The whole thing is just not conducive to healing.
>
> If someone is deadset on killing themselves, then the hospital serves a purpose of buying some time, stalling the event, and hopefully turning a page to a different chapter. But is one going to leave the hospital any better than they went in? After just a week? I never saw it.
>
> I do know one guy who was admitted as suicidal. They started him on prozac. A week later, out of the hospital, this guy was a brand new guy, happy, bouncy. Prozac worked fast for him. Hospital made the event happen. But for the most part, that is a very rare success story.
poster:sonic_gb
thread:798905
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20071204/msgs/799678.html