# What are mental hospitals like?



## MrBakura91 (Dec 11, 2011)

Can anyone tell me? my only mental image of them are like creepy white buildings and like a cross between a prison and a concentration camp, what are they really like? there not that bad are they?


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## Pesten (Oct 22, 2012)

apart from what i've seen in films, i dont know


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## Monroee (Aug 26, 2009)

They can certainly seem like a prison to people. I've been in one twice, and both times I had an emotional breakdown from being in there.

They are probably not as bad as you imagine but they still are not a place you want to go unless you're in immediate danger to yourself. It's honestly mostly boring, you just sit there with all the other people and watch movies or write in your journal. They watch you take your medication, they check on you every 15 minutes when you're sleeping, they escort you to the cafeteria "if" your'e on the list to be able to go there. If you're on suicide watch you can't leave the ward. It's extremely repetitive, all the activities and such are planned to the very minute.

Most of the people in the ward aren't psycho crazies, just depressed or Bipolar. There was one Schizophrenic the last time I went but she wasn't that bad. The real bad person was this guy with horrible PTSD, he would go into rages and I was terrified.

At mine, yes, there were white walls, white beds, no door on the bathroom just a curtain. The workers locked a multitude of doors behind them wherever they went. _After _I got stable on medication and got well again, is when I had the emotional breakdowns. It's one thing to be in there for your own safety. It's another thing once you're perfectly safe and then it turns into a prison, you have to convince them you're ready to leave, and the locked doors _really_ start to get to you.

I know I'm saying all the negatives here... I don't believe they are same as depicted in movies, and they are certainly helpful to people who are in danger to themselves. I'm grateful I was in those two times because I was in need to be safe. But they definitely aren't somewhere you'd want to be. I definitely don't view it as a pleasant vacation, unless you enjoy being locked up and watched.


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## Aries33 (Sep 22, 2011)

There kinda like a hospital with all white walls sectioned off with rooms , the one i went to had a outside area where you can go and play basketball but it was closed in ( high fence around) all the gates had pad locks on them so you couldn't get out, the sleeping/ showering areas were like dorms with a long hall kinda like in a jails and there was a door locked on the other end ,

the tv room was quite big with comfy chairs that you could sit in and watch tv, but the tv was high padlocked on the wall ,in that same room there was the medicine desk where it was all closed off by see through glass kinda like a teller bank, and then there where these other rooms that where locked off from each other ,sometimes i would see this guy walking from one end of the premises to the other opening closing doors by key, you kinda get use to the sound of doors opening and closing,

in the morning they would wake u up, tell you its breakfast then as everyone walks into that room they lock all the doors until a certain time (usually around lunch time) then you would have to line up and get lunch , same with dinner , i remember one support worker yelling at me for not returning the plastic cutting knife because she thought i was going to use it for something else, stupid b#^ch i forgot about it, and then they had this one room small padded room with sealed off door kinda like a small cubby house where if you acted up they threw you in there for a few hours until you calmed down, most of the people in there are actually insane or suicidal, some of them have been in there for years and years and though they take the meds there still not well enough to leave, i never had beef with any of them though i have had a few real weird ones talking crap to me, not making any sense, i was in there because i had a nervous breakdown and had psychosis and was trying to commit suicide, when you got more well they would transfer you to the open hospital but even still a lot of these people would talk crap and not make sense

the open one is very much like normal hospitals you can buys stuff from the delicatessen or do your own washing, it was very open , i use to walk out of the hospital grounds and go down to this horse farm nearby and read a book, they even had a small chapel and library, funny thing about the open ward hospital it was very very open kinda reminded me of those big colleges you get in America with long lush green lawns....


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