Anyone been in a STATE hospital?

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone has had experience with being in a state hospital and what was it like?

I have schizophrenia and have been in short term psychiatric hospitals, which costs a ton of money for each stay (which is usually no longer than a week)
. I've become quite resistant to taking my medication because i cannot seem to get use to life without my symptoms (hearing voices, delusions, etc.) i've come to use my "illness" as a way of coping with the world.

Anyways, i've been warned by my family and by doctors, that if i continue down this "path of self destruction" i may wind up in a state mental hospital, because my mom does not have enough money to be able to find a good, private treatment center for me to stay in for a while.

I'm real afraid though...about these state hospitals. I've heard terrible things about them. Schizophrenia runs in my family, and my grandmother and aunt spent most of their lives in and out of state hospitals. Of coarse, this was back in the 60's and 70's, and from what i've heard, State hospitals were much worse back then.

Anyone know if a state hospital would actually be helpful these days, or are they still just the kind of places that are more like prisons, force you to take pills no matter what, are cruel to the patients, etc.?
Is there any other alternative? I'm wondering if i could live in a halfway house. Would this cost money?
BTW: im 18 yrs old. I dropped out of high school and am currently unable to be employed. In fact, im barely able to leave my house, due to the negative symptoms (apathy, low motivation, no energy, social withdrawl, no interest, etc.) and extream paranoia.

My Doctors have also recommended i register for SSI, which im going to try and do, but it doesnt look to optimistic, concidering that pres. bush has been restricting such things more and more.

thanks for any input

-Becka

Becka,

I was in a state hospital back in the 1970's, and my son was in one in the year 2000. The conditions have drastically improved from when I was in one. They are much cleaner and all around nicer...but I sure hope you don't have to go to one except as a last resort. They are not fun places to be....and my son was tried on so many different meds while there. He was discharged after being in several different places for 4 consecutive years.

He wa first admitted to a state hospital for anorexia. Our medical insurance had been used up by him and this was a last resort. From there they didn't want to send him home because he was showing sign of having schizophrenia.

He did get put on SSI and Medicaid without any trouble. The main thing I didn't like was they had him on such large doses of heavy medication ....and he was still not doing well.

I do hope you can manage to do this outpatient.

Take Care,
Kathy

So, this is a really old post, but I want to answer for anyone who finds this via websearch.

I started going to private psych wards a few times a year since I was about 10. I had a diadnosis of bipolar disorder (later found to be misdiagnoses Borderline Personality Disorder), and I would get suicidal.

I started hearing this same threat in my teens from psychiatrists which really scared me. I mean, why would a *doctor* act like this hospital was something to be scared of unless it was, right?!?! I would tell docs at the private hospital I was still suicidal, then they would threaten to send me to a state psych ward and say I really don't want that. So, I would aggree to be discharged before I was stablized. These docs were not worried about my medical condition, they didn't take me serisouly, they just wanted to discharge me cause insurance ran out.

SOOooooo.... when I was 18 I got on SSI and Medicaid, our house got forclosed on (the one I grew up in), my parents got their own apartment, and I went to an abusive boarding home. I lost everything. Literally. My parents even through away my most sentimental stuff and gave our pets away. I was so lost and the boarding home wouldn't feed us and her kids ran the place and no one believed us cause it was a home for people with mental illness.

So, I got suicidal again and I tried to kill myself, and since I only had medicaid now (wasn't on my parent's insurance anymore), I had to go to the state hospital.

IT WAS THE BEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ME! Seriously! It was not horrible like everyone acted. It was nice. There wasn't as many talking therapy sessions, but it was a large property like a little city. We weren't stuck in a little ward all the time. They had a little cafe with free food, they had a library, a movie theater. It was like school during the day. We had different class periods. We had animal therapy in one building, art therapy, music therapy, meditation, a huge library. They also had a tier system so once I started improving, I was allowed a couple hours unsupervised outside everyday... like completely free, I just walked right out the door. It was co-habiting males and females so with the free time I was able to have alone time with my boyfriend I met in there. I made real friends I met back up with when I got out too.

It was so much more helpful than a 2 week stay with a rush of meds, a bunch of whining about why I was depressed and getting shooed right back into an overwhelming life. I got more freedom and learned more coping skills. It was really nice.

The only bad things were that there were 6 people in a large bedroom, but each person had thier own space blocked off like a cubicle by furiture that they could lock their stuff in. Also, the entire women's hall shared a bathroom with 3 showers and 2 tubs (tubs had curtains making mini bathrooms and showers were walk-in with doors. Its just we had to wait in a line (like 15 of us), but it wasn't so bad, we got to chat. Also, the bathroom is like a public restroom with stalls and the sinks in a row against the wall. And there was a laundry room where everyone did their own laundry. It really wasn't a big deal, just a bit of a surprise when I first went that it looked less like a motel (and had more freedom) than the private hospitals.

Another cool thing, the community area, was huge and had 2 tv's on 2 corners with couches, 1 corner had pay phones we could call people anytime during our free time. That corner also had a ping pong table and a couch. There were tables in the middle where people could write, play cards or dominoes, draw, talk, etc. Then there was a corner where there was just a couple couches in case people wanted something a little more quite and still.

Oh, and good to point out, there are completely different wards based on how bad someone is. The people that are permanent residents or dangerous are NOT with the people who are semi-normal.

I was there 6 weeks, which totally freaked me out cause it seems like FOREVER compared to private hospitals, but I havent needed to go back in a psych ward since when I was going 3-4 times a year b4. It gave them enough time to try meds and then try other meds when they weren't working ideally. It also gave them time to watch the highs and lows play out instead of saying "she's been happy for 3 days, off she goes".

Don't be scared. I know they used to be awful like 50 years ago, but there are standards now. I'd never want to go back to a private hospital again. They don't care about how you are really doing, just the money.

Oh, and so you know, this was in 2006. It was Terrell State Hospital in Texas.

I hope things have improved in state hospitals as I donate alot of my time to the fight for human rights in the field of mental health and would hate to think I am wasting my time.

I found out about all this human rights stuff after my own reaction to the threat of a forced injection and a trip to the state hospital after refusal of a medication I hated was simply used as proof I needed more mistreatment. This was at private hospital owned by Universal Health Services., a fortune 500 company.

What's ironic is after my reaction to their threats of force and violence, telling them off real real bad calling them needle rapists rapers and stuff like that, I was the one placed on "assault precautions" when I was the one left fearing and threatened with assault first.

It was just horrible beyond words. The whole thing was a human rights violation.

I think this business of 'rapid stabilization' is stupid, shuffling around like a total zombie for a week never helped me.

@audrig

Interesting story. I've been threatened to go to the state hospital before. Maybe I should have taken them up on it... lol.

Exiled. wrote:@audrig

Interesting story. I've been threatened to go to the state hospital before. Maybe I should have taken them up on it... lol.

That's what I was thinking when reading below, I always found an inpatient girl friend and friends at the hospital during my short stays.

audrig wrote:It was co-habiting males and females so with the free time I was able to have alone time with my boyfriend I met in there. I made real friends I met back up with when I got out too.

That sounds cool , this thread reminds me of a thread I did in the anti psych forum called:

"Injection threats inpatient , call the bluff ? " anti-psych/topic116808.html

Read it if you want but its just a venting of abuse induced anger. The whole idea of making threats at someone who is already upset enough to be in a psych hospital is totally absurd.

Here is something interesting about state hospitals,

" In 1973, a federal district court ruled in (Souder v. Brennan) that patients in mental health institutions must be considered employees and paid the minimum wage required by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 whenever they performed any activity that confered an economic benefit on an institution. Following this ruling, insitutional peonage was outlawed as evidenced in the Pennsylvania's Institutional Peonage Abolishment Act of 1973.

Many assume that the advent of modern psychotropic medications was the catalyst for deinstitutionalization in the U.S. However, large numbers of patients began leaving state institutions only after new laws made unpaid patient labor illegal. In other words, when patients no longer worked for free, the economic viability of many state institutions ceased and this led to the closing of many state hospitals."

http://www.patdeegan.com/blog/posts/lea ... al-peonage

I know my post is totally all over the place but the direction I am trying to go is here needs to be "asylum" a safe place run and collect in crisis as opposed to 'rapid stabilization' zombification and the state hospital is used as a threat ?


The mental health system is broken and I blame the medical model for it.

Copy_Cat wrote:The mental health system is broken and I blame the medical model for it.

I blame greed. Too many people preying on the defenseless for a quick buck.

Deinstitutionalization started in the 60s I believe. I don't think that's a bad thing but we could have done better with the implementation.