Posted by deirdrehbrt on March 28, 2006, at 13:20:41
In reply to Anybody here been locked up before?, posted by Deneb on March 27, 2006, at 21:46:12
Hey there.
I've been hospitalized eight times... almost 9. Some of the times they went so far as to do a strip search. Really, though, it's just a way to keep you safe. They have to make sure that you don't have anything that you can use to harm yourself.
My local hospital has even adopted a policy that when you go there for a suicide attempt that they make you remove your clothes and put on a paper outfit. That's kind of degrading too.
I had tried to hide things to hurt myself among my posessions, and they searched well enough to find them. I was surprised, but then I'm not the only SI or suicidal patient they've had. One hospital actually inventoried the plastic cutlery they issued you to make sure you weren't stashing it.
Being in a locked psych-ward isn't fun. It's meant to insure that you're reasonably safe when you get out, that you aren't going to hurt yourself. The times that I went in, it seems to have worked for a while. Looking back though, I wish that I had been more honest with them about my drinking. I could have saved four years of in and out of those places.
As for the mental health act, all of the hospitals I was in had the Patient's Bill of Rights posted on the bulletin boards for everyone to see. Don't know what was going on in your case, except as others said, hospital staff can get busy. Still, when I was told something was going to happen, it did.
I hope that things are better now.
--Dee
poster:deirdrehbrt
thread:625341
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20060324/msgs/625528.html