Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital

sharkbitten · #1 09-28-2007, 09:35 AM

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.
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Temp Hutter · #2 09-28-2007, 01:31 PM

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.

jackflashdrive · #3 09-29-2007, 04:49 AM

"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.

dmisfh1 · #4 10-01-2007, 04:35 AM

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?

kurosh · #5 10-01-2007, 05:24 AM

[ 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?

ssaul2 · #6 10-01-2007, 04:04 PM

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.

jackflashdrive · #7 10-01-2007, 06:30 PM

[ QUOTE ]
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.

[/ QUOTE ]

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.

knowledgeORbust · #8 10-01-2007, 08:30 PM

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.

jackflashdrive · #9 10-01-2007, 06:26 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ 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?

[/ QUOTE ]

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).

jackflashdrive · #10 10-01-2007, 06:23 PM

[ QUOTE ]
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?

[/ QUOTE ]

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.