Ask me about working in a psychiatric hospital

[jackflashdrive]

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.

[SlowHabit]

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?

[jackflashdrive]

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.

[SlowHabit]

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

[WhoIam]

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.

[jackflashdrive]

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.

[YoungOne]

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?

[SlowHabit]

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.

[WhoIam]

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?

[miajag]

More stories about crazy people doing crazy things plz.