I just was discharged from this hospital's inpatient program today. This is my tell-all experience as a hyper-verbal individual w/cptsd, autism, adhd, ocd, depression, severe anxiety, & attenuated psychosis.
Due to my upbringing & adult-experiences, I have been going into episodes where I self-injure by hitting my thighs & head. My partner couldn't stop me, & once I get too desperate for the self-injuring to stop my mind turns to suicidal/homicidal thoughts. So my partner took me to this hospital.
1st, we waited in the lobby as I tried to hold myself together, but the wait was so long that I began self-injuring in the lobby. I tried asking for an update on how long it would take & was told 10 minutes. It was longer than that & I self-injured in public while waiting more than once.
Next, we waited in a claustrophobic-inducing bare room with the door open. I tried expressing to the staff when I was escalating to the point of self-injuring again, & was told I would have to wait. Upon beginning to bang my own head against the wall a staff-member simply opened the door & said something along the lines of stop that. I continued to self-injure a lot in the room until finally I was given food, & the assessor came in.
To me the assessor looked ill. Female-presenting, they looked like they had a bad rash on their face and also like they happened to endure a stroke in their life. Appearances aside, they couldn't hear my answers & I had to repeat myself for each question. As I tried to answer fully they would stop my response, promise to get back to it, and then move me onto a different question after finishing writing the part of my answer down that I was allowed to get out.
I was checked in, & the staff that assessed my body for injuries were very friendly. They checked like 10× with me b4 cutting the string on my pants which allowed me to realize which string they were talking about & say no after I'd been saying yes repeatedly. There were good experiences amongst the traumatizing!
I was put into ward 100. The 1st thing now that I can think of to report is that despite expressing that I was on my period, I was never given a single pad throughout my entire stay. I asked the day-staff three times for larger pants before giving up as socializing and expressing my needs is hard 4 me. My largest frustration was that the staff didn't tell me anything about the way things worked, so I asked my fellow patients.
I was given a seneca cigarette several times a day during a smoke break. This jarred me, as I don't smoke cigarettes, but it was the only time I was allowed to be outside & I do smoke cannabis so it kept that routine feeling the same. The first thing I told my partner when I could was that I took up smoking cigarettes! Sounds like the opposite of healing.
The snacks given are unhealthy chips, overly-processed granola bars, white sandwich bread with american cheese in it, etc...The three daily meals tried to be sufficient with the protein content, but the vegetables were lacking & the only fruit I can remember were canned pineapple.
Throughout the first night I was able to get some sleep, & happily I woke up before another patient began screaming loudly. The screaming patient started several other patients to start yelling "bootyjuice her already," and later, "It's been over an hour, bootyjuice her or I'm gonna knock her out." Turns out the most angry patient was there for insomnia!
The patients explained to me what “booty juice” was referring to, & they said it a lot during my stay in 100. Later, in 700, the patient I mentioned it to didn’t know what it was either.
One patient in the 100 was struggling badly w/constipation due to repeatedly only having food they were allergic to to eat. The constipation had lasted over 2 days so I worried for their health, but the staff didn't seem concerned. Another patient suffered gout from the food. It damaged my psyche to have to watch & do nothing for their suffering.
