Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Throughout college I worked as a psychiatric technician. The hosptial was strictly for people without insurance who were confined because of active homocidal/suicidal ideation, or psychosis. There were units for both kids and adults. I worked mornings/evenings for the first few years (when I thought I actually wanted to do become a clinical psychologist) and I worked nights for the last year or so.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Do you feel sorry for them?

Do you ever think of banging one of the hot psychotic chicks? If so, is it possible [and legally] for such an action to occur?

Do they sit around all day by themselves or associate with workers/other patients?

Do they have visitors?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Do you feel sorry for them?

Yes. The ones who were really mentally ill (vs. homeless looking for 3 hots and a cot) were almost all [censored] up in a way that you could easily say "jesus that could have been me" and empathize. Some examples:

"D" was a completely normal 16 year old girl when she started exhibiting signs of schizophrenia. Went from being a good-looking honors student with a black belt in karate and a bright future to being a meh-looking batshit crazy 30 year old with a black belt in karate and no future. She had a scar running up her stomach from when she stuck a knife in her belly to remove a nonexistant baby. She'd also swallowed Draino.

"P" was a totally normal guy who was changing his oil one day when he felt something bite him. His hand started swelling up and he went to the ER where his hand swelled to unholy proportions and became gangrenous. He entered a state of consiousness half-way between sleep and awake that he never left. It was later determined that the bite was caused by an exotic venemous Korean snake that probably hitchhiked in a crate that was delivered to one of his neighbors.

"R" was our 'memento guy' (if you saw the movie). He developed encephalitis as a complication of an STD (I think it was hepatitus) and couldn't form new memories. Most annoying guy on the planet. Since he couldn't remember anything he was always in this fresh state of confusion about where he was. Imagine being around a guy for months who is asking you 100 times a day "where am i? where's my mom? etc." Interestingly, he would always ask the same questions in the same order, so we started posting the answers to his questions on every vertical surface of the unit and just tell him to read it. He'd always start reading and then when he got to the end he'd say "No, no, listen you've made a mistake I don't have a memory problem." Once I took him to the bathroom to look at his reflection, since he had aged 20 years or so since he first lost the ability to form new memories. He turned white as a ghost and just held his hands to his face with a blank expression, but of course five minutes later he forgot all about it.

I have a lot more stories like this but I don't want to ramble. Point being many patients had a story you could identify with.

"Do you ever think of banging one of the hot psychotic chicks? If so, is it possible [and legally] for such an action to occur? "

Hot chicks on the adult unit were few and far between, because mental illness does not go together neatly with one trying to look her best. The kids unit had some 16 and 17 year old girls occasionally who were cute but I was never into that. In any case it would definitely be very very illegal.

Actually, one psych tech scumbag Robin gave a girl on the adolescent unit his number and told her to call him when she was discharged. They met up and he gave her weed and banged her. That [censored] was of course arrested and sentenced to something like 10 years in jail. I think he was 30 and she was 16.

"Do they sit around all day by themselves or associate with workers/other patients? "

Suicidal patients just want to sleep all day. Of course the facility can't bill the government for 'therapy' if they are sleeping so they would force the suicidal patients (and everyone else) to go to these stupid group therapy sessions led by none other than myself (or other techs whose only psych qualifications were a high school degree). Non-suicidal patients were often up and about. We'd play basketball sometimes but most of the time we'd just watch TV.

We had smoke breaks all the time and that's mainly what the patients looked forward to. Finding a creative way to punish patients by taking away their smoke breaks (but not technically breaking the law) seemed to be a hobby of some bitch nurses.

Do they have visitors?

They could get visitors for one hour each day. Only two visitors could come in at a time so, say, if two parents and a sibling came to visit and if the nurse was a bitch (and there were plenty), then the three couldn't go in together and someone would have to wait outside.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Man, that is some sad depressing shiet [img]/images/graemlins/mad.gif[/img]

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Please explain what a psychiatric technician is and what the qualifications and responsibilities are. My mom is a social worker and is always trying to get me to stop playing poker and get a job like this since psychology is a major interest of mine.

edit: ok, just read your first response and see you only need a HS diploma. I thought maybe you were a psychiatric nurse or something with a lot of specialized training.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

WAI: A psychiatric technician supervises the patients in an inpatient facility. This involves planning and running activities (e.g., taking patients outside for smoke break, handing out and lighting cigs, making sure nobody tries to escape over the wall), managing patients by talking them into not doing something undesireable (e.g., hitting another patient because he pissed on him while he was sleeping), and sometimes physically restraining patients (e.g., carrying them into seclusion room and holding them down while nurse injects sedative). How often you need to do the latter varies a lot depending on the facility. Some facilities go to physical restrain and seclusion as a first resort and these places tend to be much more dangerous for both patients and staff.

Qualifications vary wildly depending on the state. Some states require psych techs to be trained and certified with some sort off degree prior to working, and quality of care is probably better in these states. Florida being the worthless shithole that it is, all you need to be a psych tech in Florida is a High School degree, though some of the better FL facilities require two years of college (any subject) as well.

It is a pretty interesting job, which is punctuated throughout the day with moments of high adrenaline. Unfortunately, too many power-hungry [censored] become psych techs in FL.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

OP,

1)On average, how long did each patient stay at the psychiatric hospital?

2)How much was the psychiatric hospital charging per day?

I worked at a group home (adults with mental illness) and I saw a bill for one of the Resident's there when one of them got taken to a psychiatric hospital and the government got charged about 3k/day. A total of about 20k for a weeks stay. Yikes.

3)What's your take on the psychiatric hospital's role on the patient's improvement?

4)How cool were the Psychiatrist that you were working with?

5)What's your opinion on psychotic meds?

6)Best/worst part of your job?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

I forgot to ask if it's anything like "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest." The part about power hungry nurses is probably true, considering that the dynamic exists in a forum with mods haha.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Are you a big guy? From what my mom's told me about the group home she worked at, the guys were the size of NFL linemen and even then it sometimes took several to restrain a kid who was really going nuts. Did you or any of your coworkers ever have to go to the hospital as the result of a confrontation?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

More stories about crazy people doing crazy things plz.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
Are you a big guy? From what my mom's told me about the group home she worked at, the guys were the size of NFL linemen and even then it sometimes took several to restrain a kid who was really going nuts. Did you or any of your coworkers ever have to go to the hospital as the result of a confrontation?

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't want to Hijack OP's thread but i'll answer it.

I would consider myself a big guy for being an Asian. I'm 5 feet 10inches and weigh 240 lbs (haha, i need to lose some weight).

The group home I work at is for Asians. There are 3 males and 1 female resident. The guys average about 5 feet 6 and 160 lbs, so i'm not scared of them physically.

Your mom must be tough to be working with patients the size of nfl linemen. A 6'3 240 lb dude going crazy would be scary. Luckily for her she's got backup.

Luckily no one has gotten hurt at the group home I have been working at. There had been a few occasions where my co worker could have gotten hurt. One of the Resident was throwing a tantrum and she basically trashed her room.

My co worker heard all the racket in her room but decided not to go in her room until she was done. When the noise stopped, she opened the door to find her room totally trashed. Lights, bed post broken and makeup all over the room and on the walls. She was in a fury because yesterday she couldn't return a open dvd to Target and various other personal issues. If my co worker would of went into her room, she could of easily been hurt. Luckily she waited though.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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More stories about crazy people doing crazy things plz.

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I gotta admit these stories are amusing and sad at the same time. I've worked at my group home for about 1 1/2 years now and have experience some crazy things. Paranoid Schizophrenia can make people say and do very weird things.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
The group home I work at is for Asians.

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Wait, are you in asia? Does everyone just happen to be asian or is this some kind of private racially-exclusive facility?

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Your mom must be tough to be working with patients the size of nfl linemen. A 6'3 240 lb dude going crazy would be scary.

[/ QUOTE ] Ha, no, it was the orderlies (or whatever they're called) who were that big. From what she's said, some of the teenage girls came close though.

Her best story from this group home (which was for really [censored]-up teens) was the convicted sex offender who escaped and was later found at a nearby farm. I think you can connect the dots.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Slowhabit: Yes, very much like Ken Kessey's book. There's no way he could have written that without a lot of experience in a psych hospital. Things are better now then they were then. 15 years ago the state was removing patients teeth if they bit a staff member, and doing much much worse. Patients have a lot more rights now, which is a good thing. Still, power hungry [censored] take what they can get.

WhoIam: I am 6'3 and weigh 160 pounds, so no I am not big by any means. Just another skinny white dude. There were a few big black dudes, but they were the minority.

The bigger people were generally but not always more likely to get into altercations because they felt they had less to fear. This is of course more dangerous for everyone.

Youngone:

1)On average, how long did each patient stay at the psychiatric hospital?

They were all Baker Acted so we could legally hold them for 72 hours without a court review. In practice we basically forced all the patients to sign in voluntarily by telling them that if we had to send it to court then it would indicate that they were not cooperating with treatment and that they would end up staying much longer. Of course once they are in voluntarily they can't just back out of it on a whim.

Some people were there for months, but it was a short term facility and average stay was probably a week to 10 days.

2)How much was the psychiatric hospital charging per day?

I think about a thousand per day at my first facility. The second place I worked at had two different units, one that was for people with insurance and billed at much higher rates. Same staff rotated through both units and there was no real difference in treatment except that they got to be around other people with insurance if they had insurance.

3)What's your take on the psychiatric hospital's role on the patient's improvement?

I primarily worked on short-term units for people with acute disorders, though towards the end I worked more with people who were more stable but chronically ill. I think the tremendous financial cost and life disruption associated with being confined unexpectedly against your will has a lot of long lasting negative effects. There are some benefits to some people to being locked up for a period. Appropriate psychotropic drugs are also helpful for some disorders and they get that in the hospital.

4)How cool were the Psychiatrist that you were working with?

I didn't have a lot of personal contact with the psychiatrists so I'll just say that they didn't strike me as very interesting one way or another.

5)What's your opinion on psychotic meds?

At my hospital, for any potentially violent or actually black patient we would use 'chemical restraints' quite liberally. I didn't agree with many of these uses. For disorders like bipolar disorder and depression and a few others, psychotropics are often indispenisble and have helped turn around the lives of countless people.

6)Best/worst part of your job?

Best part was that this job was often very interesting. I got to know people and have experiences and stories that I simply couldn't get any other way. Even the experiences that I thought were awful at the time (I'll tell a few if people are interested) make me smile in retrospect, and I'm glad to have had them.

Worst part of the job was the sense of futility about so many of the patients situations. The most you could do was be kind and treat the patients with more respect than others were giving, but I often had little hope that the lives of these people would be anything other than miserable.

Edit: Oh, and yes whoami sometimes staff had to go to the hospital. One patient snuck up on a nurse he didn't like and picked up one of those big metal trash cans and whalloped her across the head with it, seriously injuring her.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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More stories about crazy people doing crazy things plz.

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I'm getting some sleep now but I'll post more stories tomorrow. Actually I'll leave you with one story first.

So there's a large black woman named "G". She is approximately 6'2 and weighs 300 pounds easy. She is locked up for depression/suicide, and does not cooperate at all with the treatment so she stays locked up for months at a time.

There is an 8 foot wall that surrounds the courtyard where clients smoke. Whenever G would arrive at the hospital the first thing she would do whenever let outside for smoke break is make a beeline straight for that wall, and my God this woman would hit it running and go right over. Of course we expected her to do this but we couldn't really stop her because there are so many smoke breaks a day that she can just wait for one in which there aren't three people standing between her and the wall.

Funny thing is that G would always run straight to her sister's house, so when she would hop the wall we would just call the police and they would be there waiting for her, bring her back in, and then G couldn't go out for smoke break for a few more weeks.

G did not like this one bit. She wanted to escape. So one morning I am doing the room checks (basically making sure that patients are alive -- we were supposed to do them every 15 minutes but in practice they get done just at the beginning and end of a shift). I find G naked in her shower with her eyes closed. I can't wake her up so I go get the nurse. The nurse determines that her vitals are fine and believes that G is just faking. So the nurse goes and gets ice and PUTS ICE DIRECTLY ON HER NIPPLES. Yikes. But G didn't move or react so then we call the paramedics. While we are waiting for them to arrive the nurse tells me to put G in a wheelchair. WHAT?!? She wants me (a 160 pound thin guy) to lift a 300 pound woman into a wheelchair. She orders me to try. So I have to wrap my arms around G's wet slippery body and try to lift it. It was like trying to lift a 300 pound water ballon. My arms went right into her, with the fat rolling all over me. Then the paramedics arrived and used a special lift to get her on a stretcher and they took her to the real hospital.

Within 10 minutes of being at the hospital G escaped and ran home to her sister's (in a hospital gown). The woman was faking the whole time. She faked her way through the ice! That woman needs to learn poker.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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Wait, are you in asia? Does everyone just happen to be asian or is this some kind of private racially-exclusive facility?


[/ QUOTE ]


This is a private group home that attracts many Hmongs in St. Paul, MN because all the staff speaks Hmong and we are culturally sensitive to their needs.

At this group home, there are 2 Vietnamese and 2 Hmong residents. The other 2 Vietnamese resident speak English so communication is not a problem with them.

I'm pretty sure we are not exclusive to Asians. I would need to ask my boss though to find out because she makes all the decisions when bringing in new residents.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
"P" was a totally normal guy who was changing his oil one day when he felt something bite him. His hand started swelling up and he went to the ER where his hand swelled to unholy proportions and became gangrenous. He entered a state of consiousness half-way between sleep and awake that he never left. It was later determined that the bite was caused by an exotic venemous Korean snake that probably hitchhiked in a crate that was delivered to one of his neighbors.

[/ QUOTE ]
can u elaborate on this guy he sounds interesting

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

gehrig: You can imegine what "P's" life was like if you think back to a time when you first wake up but you are not quite sure if you are really awake or just dreaming. Very drowsy and confused. Actually when I allued earlier to the situation of a guy pissing on him roommate in the night I was thinking of "P" (ya ya, p/pee). He woke up, walked over to his roommates bed and relieved himself on his roommate. Roommate was not happy at all.

I think the way P "came down" with mental illness was probably the most random of anyone I had seen and that is what fascinated me msot about him.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

This is a really interesting thread.

Any chance you could elaborate more on some of the schizophrenics? For some reason I am in utter awe and absolute fear of how it just seemingly strikes anyone at random.

I've heard psychotic drugs (LSD, shrooms, etc.) can trigger it to develop in people sooner in life, but if you are going to get schizophrenia, you are going to get it, even if you never did the drugs. Any chance if you know if this is true/false/just pure speculation?

Thanks.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

I'm sure this will be a very interesting thread, but I'm even more sure this will also be the most depressing one ever. Outside of being a quad, nothing bothers me more than the prospect of me or a loved one falling severely mentally ill, or, worse yet, having a Girl Interrupted moment where you are held in a mental hospital when you really don't want to be.

I'll try to read this thread when I'm better prepared, though.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

OP - huh, I never thought this would happen but this is a 2p2 thread I'm going to forward to my father (he's a psychiatrist, for many years in his career he dealt with extreme cases of schizophrenia and clinical depression before he went into private practice, where the patients suffer from much less severe symptoms).

My question - what is your view of suicide? Has it been altered by your work?

-Al

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
"Any chance you could elaborate more on some of the schizophrenics? For some reason I am in utter awe and absolute fear of how it just seemingly strikes anyone at random."

[/ QUOTE ]

Odds are pretty good that you or someone you love will not get Schizophrenia. It afflicts one percent of the population (though if an immediate family member has Schizophrenia then the odds go up dramatically).

I have lots of stories about strange schizophrenic behavior. My favorite is probably the story of "Milky" (which is the nickname the nurses/techs applied to him, which he didn't like at all).

Milky was about 60 years old, had pasty white skin and snow white hair. This is not why he was called milky. He earned his nickname because he refused to eat anything but dairy products for his meals. Three times a day he would be served a heaping helping of cottage cheese, covered by slices of American cheese, and he would drink a few cups of milk along with it. Every meal.

On smoke breaks he would always have cigars that a family member would bring to him. He would suck down two cigars over the course of the 15 minute break, literally puffing on the cigar like he was in a race.

Milkys thought was incredibly disorganized (as is characteristic of schizophrenia). He would spend his days walking around the unit mumbling about this or that, occasionally walk up to a tech or nurse and start complaining loudly about a perceived injustice like 'Why does this guy get to wear a belt and I don't?" "This guy" of course being a visitor to one of the other patients who is now scared shitless that milky is going to bite him in the face (while Milky occasionally got agitated he was never violent).
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"I've heard psychotic drugs (LSD, shrooms, etc.) can trigger it to develop in people sooner in life, but if you are going to get schizophrenia, you are going to get it, even if you never did the drugs. Any chance if you know if this is true/false/just pure speculation?


[/ QUOTE ]
Environmental factors can definitely trigger the onset of schizophrenia. E.g., a period of high stress such as separation from family. I've never heard of illegal drugs such as these triggering the onset of schizophrenia but it certainly seems plausible that the drugs could have such an effect. For the most part Schizophrenia is something you will get or not get but timing can vary.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
OP - huh, I never thought this would happen but this is a 2p2 thread I'm going to forward to my father (he's a psychiatrist, for many years in his career he dealt with extreme cases of schizophrenia and clinical depression before he went into private practice, where the patients suffer from much less severe symptoms).

My question - what is your view of suicide? Has it been altered by your work?

-Al

[/ QUOTE ]

If people ask the right questions I have some pretty good stories that would probably make your father wince.

As for my thoughts on suicide: My last year of college I asked my professor in an abnormal psychology class if she thought it was ever OK for a clinical psychologist to suggest to a patient that they were better off dead. I said that, statistically, a lot of these people are just doomed to lives of misery and wouldn't it be better for them to end it now. This class was full of hot chicks (male:female ratio = 1:5) and as I asked this question from the back of the room they all turned around and looked at me with really disgusted expressions. I knew the question would get this reaction (which I definitely was not seeking), but I couldn't help myself.

My professor's response was that there is hope for everyone and clinical psychology takes the perspective of trying to heal people in whatever way it can, rather than solving the problem by helping people eliminate themselves.

My own opinion is that many people who express the desire to die just want some overwhelming problems in their life and body chemistry to be over. Psychotropics can help people with the latter and have saved countless lives. In my experience relatively little is ever done about the former (if it can be done at all).

Edit: As a clarification, I should add that I believe relatively little is done about life problems when these problems stem from long-running patterns of maladaptive thinking/emotions/behavior.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

How do patients release their sexual needs? Conjugal visits?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

What field are you presently working in?

As an interesting aside, just about everyone I know is neurotic to various degrees, are on meds, or can use them (I am in the latter, tbh). I think it is interesting that psychiatry is based on looking at people as a bag of chemicals. I never understood this, as certain people need help with many problems with their own lives. Although you may not be able to relate to this person, a person may be willing to learn to live a normal life. Some people didn't have, or didn't register, that guidance.

What is your ultimate conclusion about psychiatry, or psychoanalysis?

I think it is interesting, that my own problems manifested about two years ago, about 7 months after learning poker. I find it interesting that you say that certain conditions are .genetic. My own mother was repeatedly in and out of psych wards for bi-polarity.

She was also a shining example of what the human brain was capable of. Graduated Valedictorian and Alum caum laude. It wasn't until later that she fell apart.

Pretty scary to think about. What would you say to someone in my position?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Re: Sexual Urges. For some time a girl from my school named Kim worked as a tech at the hospital. She was without a doubt the hottest thing in the city. She worked as a stripper at a high-end strip club in New York during the summer, and Playboy picked her up for some online version of Playboy. She was also very very intelligent.

Anyway one guy Mike would always walk up to the nurses station, put his hand right down his pants, and start jacking off right in front of her. She would deadpan "Mike stop that it is not approrpiate" but was otherwise unaffected.

Some adults would occasionally sneak into other rooms for a little action, but that was relatively rare. The adolescent unit, OTOH, was a very different story. We had a motion-sensitive alarm that we set at night, and boys and girls rooms were on opposite sides of the hall. That didn't stop the kids from trying their best to sneak across the hall to [censored] though.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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What field are you presently working in?"

[/ QUOTE ]

I play poker for a living.

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What is your ultimate conclusion about psychiatry, or psychoanalysis?

[/ QUOTE ]

Many people think of Sigmund Freud when they think of psychiatry, and psychoanalysis was Freud's method for treating patients. Modern psychiatry has pretty much abandoned Freud wholesale. I used to have a lot of contempt for Freud and thought he and his methods were basically worthless. I still feel this way as far as his psychoanalytic treatment techniques go, but I've also come to see some of the truth about some of his ideas when it comes to basic psychological theory.

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Pretty scary to think about. What would you say to someone in my position?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not exactly clear on what your position is, other than that you have a family history of bipolar and some unspecified problems. You can PM me and I can give you advice about what kind of treatment you might seek, or (and this is the better move for you) talk with a primary care physician who can refer you for treatment if need be.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
gehrig: You can imegine what "P's" life was like if you think back to a time when you first wake up but you are not quite sure if you are really awake or just dreaming. Very drowsy and confused. Actually when I allued earlier to the situation of a guy pissing on him roommate in the night I was thinking of "P" (ya ya, p/pee). He woke up, walked over to his roommates bed and relieved himself on his roommate. Roommate was not happy at all.

I think the way P "came down" with mental illness was probably the most random of anyone I had seen and that is what fascinated me msot about him.

[/ QUOTE ]
so a couple hours ago my mom calls me

she says that 48 hours ago my sister had an adverse reaction to some prescription drugs. her face was getting hives and her whole body was itching until she passed out.

when she woke up she was in what sounds like the same state as "p" which she hasn't gotten out of yet. the people in the er didnt have a lot of answers so she's going to a doctor tomorrow

pretty [censored] up

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Does it sometimes feel that the only difference between the people who work at the hospital and the patients are that the employess get to go home at night?

I'm not trying to be a smart ass or anything, but I worked with a guy a while ago that did the same thing as you and had quite a few stories as well. He made the above comment and I was wondering if you felt the same way.
thanks. Interesting thread.
[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

I am having flashbacks to my time living in a mental hospital. I had just turned 17 and my parents convinced a judge that I was a danger to myself and/or others. I had run away from home because they did not approve of me dealing drugs from their house (imagine that!). I was subsequently picked up by the police and taken to live in a mental hospital for a couple of months. Oh the joy.

What I loved the most was the tinted windows so you never really knew what the outside looked like. I remember being released and thinking how green everything outside looked all of a sudden.

Smoking was definitley a big deal and only the staff had lighters and matches. Everything you did was controled and I hated it. I could not even take a dump with the bathroom door closed.

My saddest story was probably the 50 year old fat lady sitting next to me at lunch that wet herself while we ate and I had to change seats because it was bench seating. She gave me the saddest look when I moved away from her.

Moral of the story: kids, stay away from drugs. You end up in the strangest places.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
gehrig: You can imegine what "P's" life was like if you think back to a time when you first wake up but you are not quite sure if you are really awake or just dreaming. Very drowsy and confused. Actually when I allued earlier to the situation of a guy pissing on him roommate in the night I was thinking of "P" (ya ya, p/pee). He woke up, walked over to his roommates bed and relieved himself on his roommate. Roommate was not happy at all.

I think the way P "came down" with mental illness was probably the most random of anyone I had seen and that is what fascinated me msot about him.

[/ QUOTE ]
so a couple hours ago my mom calls me

she says that 48 hours ago my sister had an adverse reaction to some prescription drugs. her face was getting hives and her whole body was itching until she passed out.

when she woke up she was in what sounds like the same state as "p" which she hasn't gotten out of yet. the people in the er didnt have a lot of answers so she's going to a doctor tomorrow

pretty [censored] up

[/ QUOTE ]

Sucks man that is [censored] up.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

"Does it sometimes feel that the only difference between the people who work at the hospital and the patients are that the employess get to go home at night?"

This line was a common among staff, and there is some truth to it. Nurses who seek out the psychiatric field tend to either be lazy, incompetent, or crazy -- so in this regard I guess calling a psych nurse crazy might be the least bad thing you can say.

Also earlier someone asked about comparing psych hospitals to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I answered but forgot to add that a lot of patients deploy the phrase "Nurse Ratchet" intentionally as an insult (though they often get it a little wrong -- "you are forcing me to take my meds? OK Nurse Ratcher"). Strange case of life imitating art.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

If you had to guess, what do you think is the proportion of people who have onsets of schizophrenia, or are "functioning" schizos in the "real world" vs. ones in clinics/hospitals?

Do you think the majority of people that have this disease are diagnosed and treated?

Or is there a large percentage that goes undiagnosed/misdiagnosed because they do not seek professional help or are never found out to have it?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

[ QUOTE ]
They were all Baker Acted so we could legally hold them for 72 hours without a court review. In practice we basically forced all the patients to sign in voluntarily by telling them that if we had to send it to court then it would indicate that they were not cooperating with treatment and that they would end up staying much longer. Of course once they are in voluntarily they can't just back out of it on a whim.


[/ QUOTE ]
Is that true or did you lie to them?

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

How high of a chance is there of someone being detained there when it is not necessary? Would you say this happens often? I think I would act/look crazy if I was in a psych ward and people treated me like I was mentally ill when I really was not.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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If you had to guess, what do you think is the proportion of people who have onsets of schizophrenia, or are "functioning" schizos in the "real world" vs. ones in clinics/hospitals?

Do you think the majority of people that have this disease are diagnosed and treated?

Or is there a large percentage that goes undiagnosed/misdiagnosed because they do not seek professional help or are never found out to have it?

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It is pretty much impossible to have schizophrenia in the states and go without diagnosis. Unlike most other mental disorders (e.g., autism), schizophrenia really doesn't have a 'milder' form. However, the extent to which a person with schizophrenia is exhibiting severe symptoms will ebb and flow.

There are functional schizophrenics, but they tend to be the exception rather than the rule. I'd guess the ratio would be something like 10:1 but that is really a wild ass guess.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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They were all Baker Acted so we could legally hold them for 72 hours without a court review. In practice we basically forced all the patients to sign in voluntarily by telling them that if we had to send it to court then it would indicate that they were not cooperating with treatment and that they would end up staying much longer. Of course once they are in voluntarily they can't just back out of it on a whim.


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Is that true or did you lie to them?

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It was true that if they did not sign in voluntarily and the court ordered them to stay that they would probably be held longer because they were not cooperating. However, if they did not sign in voluntarily then a court would often release them, so if you looked at the expected-value in terms of hosptial days of signing-in or not, refusing to sign in was probably much more +EV (uhh, where more +EV equals less hospital days).

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

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How high of a chance is there of someone being detained there when it is not necessary? Would you say this happens often? I think I would act/look crazy if I was in a psych ward and people treated me like I was mentally ill when I really was not.

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There was an interesting study a few decades ago that contributed to many positive reforms in mental hospitals. Researchers got themselves put into mental hospitals by saying something like "I'm hearing voices." Then, once in the hospital they acted completely normal and said they just wanted to get out. Hospital staff evaluated everything these researchers did from the standpoint that they were crazy and it actually took extraordinary measures to get the researchers released.

In practice nowadays the only way you will end up in a hospital against your will is if someone with power and a vested interest in seeing you stuck in the hospital works to achieve that end. This most frequently happens in a parent/child situation, as Temp Hutter pointed out happened to him.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

Hi, I'm also interested in schizophrenics. Any experience with some highly intelligent schizophrenic patients? Or any particularly interesting conversations with them? Stuff that was out there but that you could kind-of almost relate to. Those guys like John Nash are fascinating to me. Are these types of functional/highly intelligent schizophrenics studied more? I'd think there's some value in hearing a lucid schizophrenic describe his own situation; any comments on that?

And I've read that manic bi-polar people, or, more particularly, people going through hypomania can have brilliant moments and speak well.

Re: Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital
 

So was this guy "P", who got bit by the Communist North Korean snake permanently screwed up by it? He never recovered?