Opinions on Hospitals

Hello! I've been gone for a couple weeks due to personal reasons, and am back looking for advice. I've been admitted to the mental ward of my local hospital three times, and none of them were positive experiences. Because we would all be out at different times for different reasons, they thought we were just faking mental illness; I don't blame them, considering from their eyes, sometimes I would be psychopathic, others I would have extreme anger issues, others I'd be extremely depressed and suicidal, then I'd be manic, then I'd be schizophrenic. Now that I'm out, I've been seeing an absolutely wonderful therapist named Sherri, who actually believes me and is helping me so much. She's helping me to believe that I have a personality too, not just the alters, and she's being so supportive in my goal of integration. However, she's the head of the mental health agency in my hometown, and that means that she's so busy that she can only see me once every two weeks. I thought that would be enough, but it isn't. We've talked about it, and there's no way for her to see me more often. I try to make it through each two weeks, but it's getting harder and harder. She's the only source of rationality besides Katryna, and she gives us the advice that we need to stay alive.

Recently, though, it's been worse than normal. The girl that almost all of us are in love with officially chose her new girlfriend over us, and that's been really hard to get over. I've had mental breakdowns every second day, the body's sick, Kass killed herself, Z is coming out all the time, Katryna's in overdrive and constantly stressed out, Ashley's going out and doing dangerous things to prove we can be happy without her, and Michael...well, he's actually been great. He's doing his job as the protector really well. However, in doing so, he's repressing all of his anger and letting it build up inside, and soon he's going to snap. He's extremely destructive when he snaps, and I'm worried that he'll hurt or kill someone. B, too. He's been getting worse lately as well. He cut up the body one night and wrote "DIE" all over my bathroom wall. I'm constantly going back and forth between being shut down and being suicidal, and I think Kass is coming back soon. I don't know how I know, but I do.

The reason I'm going into this is because I don't think I'm going to be safe for much longer. If I don't do something stupid, Ashley will. Z will support the violence and adrenaline-seeking activities, and he'll manipulate us all into doing it. Michael's going to snap and kill someone. If Kass comes back, I'd probably let her kill the body. And I can barely function normally anymore with all of this going on. Because the body's sick, I've missed four days of school, but I have to go back on Friday and I don't know what I'm going to do. The stress of the missed school work might make me snap. But I can't miss any more school. Our T is on vacation, and I don't know if there's anything she could do anyway. So, that brings me to the point of this post; for those of you who have been institutionalized, how have you found the treatment in mental hospitals? There's one nearby and I might call my T about getting admitted. I would go to the mental ward again, but I doubt they would believe me, and I hate the nurses there. However, I doubt that I wouldn't face the same problem elsewhere; most nurses these days aren't even trained in how to deal with DID, much less to believe in it, and I'm not sure what most psychiatrists think. Should I look into the option, or should I just leave it be and hope for the best?

Is your T able to recommend someone who is able to see you on the weeks she cant (or every week and still see her). Sounds like you want and need help right now, I was only in hospital as a teenager so on a usual ward so afraid I can't help on that front. Would going in make you feel worse if they don't believe you or would it at least keep you safe. Hope you work out what is best

Inpatient has always been a bad experience for me, and is designed for low functioning clients-so it tends to make things worse.

Look into a partial or day program so you have structure and a safe place during the day, if you don't want to be inpatient.

I would look for a specialist for trauma based / dissociative disorders who can see once per week regularly, with flexibility for twice a week and emergency appointments.

On a more personal note, I used to have erratic behavior like this. I realized that I cannot control how I think or feel, but I can control my actions. You can even come to agreements between alts. DID is meant as a survival mechanism, so convince everyone that the behavior is not conducive to survival. Sometimes you gave to let go of the things that hurt, so you can heal and move on.

debetoile wrote:Is your T able to recommend someone who is able to see you on the weeks she cant (or every week and still see her). Sounds like you want and need help right now, I was only in hospital as a teenager so on a usual ward so afraid I can't help on that front. Would going in make you feel worse if they don't believe you or would it at least keep you safe. Hope you work out what is best

I have one backup person who is the head of the mental ward in the hospital (and also her boss). Kass spoke to him while I was in there and really opened up to him, but I don't know if he would understand if I told him about the alters. Sherri might have already when she e-mailed him, but I don't know... He's just as busy as she is, and I almost had a panic attack telling her, so I don't know if I could tell someone else... Then again, I'd have the same problem in a mental hospital. I have to remind myself that it's not just a chance to escape and calm down, but rather that it's an actual institution where doctors would be seeing me and I couldn't just leave if and when I was okay again. Laurie, the backup guy, is very quick to send people to the mental ward of the hospital again, and I absolutely can't go back there again. The nurses would never believe me if I told them everything, and neither would the doctor.

AltCtrlDel wrote:Inpatient has always been a bad experience for me, and is designed for low functioning clients-so it tends to make things worse.

Look into a partial or day program so you have structure and a safe place during the day, if you don't want to be inpatient.

I would look for a specialist for trauma based / dissociative disorders who can see once per week regularly, with flexibility for twice a week and emergency appointments.

The hospital I was in wasn't a good experience for me, either. It's designed for people in crisis, and as you said, low functioning clients. I suppose that's what I am right now, but because of its intended patients, it only serves to stabilize people in that particular environment and get them out of there as fast as possible. That leaves them to break under pressure when thrown back into the real world, without the support that you'd be very lucky to even glimpse in a hospital. However, I've heard extremely good things about the hospital nearby that is actually only for patients with mental illnesses. That's why I've been looking into that more... But it also requires referral from a psychiatrist, and it would be hard to get one from the doctors in town. I'm not even sure if it's a good idea.