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cyberbully
Feb 10, 2003

5, and where do you work?

quote:

cult_hero came out of the closet to say:
I used to work at a psych hospital as a janitor a few years ago. very harrowing experience, from witnessing the death of jesus, a full blown code 10 (riot), 2 seperate suicide attempts, a recreation of highlander, several people stalking patients, illicit lesbian love affairs, great escapes, bare handed deer hunting, and cody judy (tried to blow up the president of the mormon church during a conference)

and I only worked there a few months.
Really, I spent some time in a mental hospital too.. we should make this thread or another into a "post your encounters with mental hospital patients" thing. I'd love to hear yours, and I have some relatively interesting ones too.

cyberbully fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Apr 11, 2003

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cyberbully
Feb 10, 2003

quote:

Serotonin came out of the closet to say:
OK some quick psychiatry questions with reference to the differences between UK and USA. Sorry for the mini derail.

1- Are there compulsory treatment orders in the USA? If someone is felt to be a risk to themselves or others and has a mental illness and is refusing treatment or hospital admission, can they be detained against their will and treated against their will? In the UK we have the Mental Health Act 1983 which covers this is there simialr in USA?

2- Seeing as mechanical restarint is used- is there any use of chemical restraint? ie intravenous medication such as Diazemuls (Diazepam Emulsion) given until the patient lapses into unconsciousness? (this is only used in an emergency)

3- Is the use of Atypical Antipsychotics increasing massivley in the US, is droperidol still licensed for use? Whats the treatment of choice in psychosis in your experience?
1. Yes
2. Yes, seen and/or heard this happen numerous times. Quite scary.
3. From what I know of, yes to the first question and I don't know the second. I hear a ton of people saying they're on risperdal and I was even on it for a short period of time, despite not being schizophrenic.

cyberbully
Feb 10, 2003

quote:

Colton came out of the closet to say:
hey, serotonin... you a real psychiatrist?

hey, here's an idea! let's find all the goons who are in the mental health profession! it'll be fun... well, not really...
Do former patients count?

Anyway, I wasn't planning on telling many people about what happened when I was in the hospital, but I'm in a mood for writing. Jesus it's turning out way too long.

------------

A little background: I stayed in a hospital for roughly a week last year for reasons I won't go into, but I can assure you that I am sane, and not in the "hehe, yeah, I'm like SO SANE it's not even- oh god no the penguins!" hot topic shirt kind of way. The hospital held about 16 adolescents at a time, always coming and going. Some were normal with problems not regarding sanity like myself, some were 14 year old crackwhores there for rehab, and of course there were the nutcases. This was in Houston, so we had an interseting variety of normal people, rednecks, and rather ghetto inner-city kids.

And thus begins "the not-so-odd, more-so-freakish couple"

One day a rat-like creature showed up in the hospital. He was 13 but looked older, so much so that he slightly resembled that scary cavedemon picture that's been floating around (I'd post it, but my hosting went down). I'm not sure exactly what he was diagnosed with, my guess would be he was extremely bipolar as he did have his extremely depressed moods where he'd threaten to slash his throat (talked about this ALL the loving time, quite eerie). Everyone there hated him from the start, but you couldn't help but stare. You know how if you watch rodents in a cage, they'll run around doing pointless things like hopping onto stuff, trying to climb walls, and making weird noises? That was this kid. He's like the ADHD guy everyone picked on during high school only after having gobbled through a truckload of pure caffiene, yet his heart just won't loving explode already.

A few conversations with Ratboy:
Someone once asked him if he was a virgin or not, he said no. He then told us about his uncle's place nearby, where he boasted having hosed all sorts of girls and guys and his uncle. Quite the big pimpin' little dooder if I must say so myself.

In his worst moods he would squeek and hallucinate about something that had to do with Jesus and rainbows, but he wasn't very easy to understand so I'm not really sure. You'll notice most all wackos have obsessions with Christ.

Also, I swear EVERY insane person I've met has no control over their sex drive. Ratboy was not at all an exception, and as such would hit on every girl there. He had such charming methods as tearing out pages of coloring books and filling them in with whatever bizaare colors he interpreted the world to have. Kinda cute until he says "turn it over" and his number is scribbled on it with a hardly-legible "please gently caress me" and a floor-style smile. Infact, I wouldn't be surprised if the kid actually was floor, if he isn't a gimmick. They have a pretty similar grasp on reality and are about the same age.

Final note: Ratboy could also NOT handle being picked on, which comest to be important later.


Now let me tell you about the boy, or shall I say pseudo-nazi/hulk, who Ratboy was chosen to share a room with. This butch 15 year old just got out of juvy to be sent to the hospital because of the following story he told us:

He was truant from school so often (for doin' badass poo poo like smoking and taking the lord's name in vain, he added in his own words) that he was finally required by law to be there every day for the rest of the year. Well one day he comes to school late. The school notices during the day and sends cops to arrest him. When pseudo-nazi/hulk saw them come in to the classroom, THE loving FURY WAS ULEASHED, a cop was pommelled to the ground in a frantic reaction, and others were fought off until they could finally wrestle the boy and his raging nazi instinct to the ground and handcuff him.

Needless to say, he had SERIOUS anger problems. About once every two days he would completely flip out and start yelling at everyone, telling them to go away and not to touch him (of course, with much much much more swearing than that). The pseudo-nazi hulk would start to punch at walls and guys like Colton until they could finally tackle and inject him full of sedatives. His fists looked practically boneless under all the purple and blue swelling. It's scary to think of how much adrenaline goes through his body daily, and a shitload scarier to imagine having the same problem controlling anger. But this is not a story for empathy, and as such here are a few hosed up conversations with the pseudo-nazi/hulk.

Why do I call him a nazi you ask? Well he wasn't really one, although he thought he was. His grandpa was a nazi who died in the war, thus leaving it up to his family to continue the tradition or some other bullshit. Anyway one day while forming a swastika out of green beans on his lunch tray, he was asked why he's a nazi. "I dunno, I got nothing against Jews or nothin' but I got nazi in my blood so... uh.. guess I do hate them actually. poo poo."
After a long pause of staring and concealed laughter, the girl who asked the question (and also has reduced her I/Q to about 75 from all her drug use) decided to play with him.
"HEY! I'm Jewish!"
"NUH-UH! But you're sexy!"
"Haha, yeah I know. I was just joshin'"
"Dude, Laura, would have sex with me when we get out?"
"Naw"
"C'mon, I bet you're great in the sack." Creepiest use of a southern accent EVER.
"Naw man, go away."
"So are you sure you ain't Jewish? No offense or nothing but I don't gently caress Jewish chicks."

By the way I wouldn't accept any of the stories he told as truth, as pseudo-nazi/hulk was a bit of a compulsive liar. On my last night there he was holding an intelligent conversation regarding masturbation habits and previous intercourse experience. After typing the previous conversation spelled out perfectly having felt rather unfitting, I've decided to type it out how he would if the swelling in his hands would shrink long enough for him to be able to operate a keyboard. The conversation takes place with his sidekick who giggled at every word pseudo-nazi/hulk spoke, but was fortunately much more sane. I'll start at the point where I heard enough laughter to begin paying attention to their conversation.
"LOL u puss i stroke it like 6 times a day"
"What the gently caress? Haha. Don't the orderlies notice you?"
"HAhahahAh i first tried it liek sinse i waz in 3rd gRADE! ^_^ AHHAHAHAH"
"Hehehe, how do you-"
"I lost my virginity when i was 13 to an 18 year old."
The laughter has stopped, and he's taken an incredibly solemn tone. He broke it and began giggling as he shouted, "I hosed A 36 YEAR OLD!"
"Ahaha, It doesn't count if you were raped dood."
"dONT MAKE FUN OF MEE!!! AHHHHHRRRR HULK SMASH!!!!!!!!" (or at least that's a summary of how it ended, as I was unable to witness most of his rage. We had to go to our rooms while he was being sedated.)

Ok, I've been writing for too long. Will type up the rest later if anyone's interested.

cyberbully
Feb 10, 2003

quote:

Colton came out of the closet to say:
^^^

this is why my children will have the poo poo beaten out of them regularly... it knocks the stupid right out of them...

but seriously, that kind of stuff doesn't really phase me anymore. although it is kinda funny to see the whole "hey, I'm a teenager with low self esteem, I'll say/do stupid poo poo so I know what you mean very well as I'm at the age where that's quite popular. There were a herd of girls when I first came in.. gah they were the breed of even worse "Oh I tried to commit suicide again because of failed 'love' at my extremely young and naive age" emochicks. It was in the hospital that I began to wonder if all "insane" people were actually perfectly sane, but had such an intense desire for attention that they would go as far as they could in order to get it.

Oh, The people in juvy had that one kid moved to the hospital for a whole bunch of reasons. He's had really terrible family problems (I didn't share the stories of him crying about how he beat the poo poo out of his stepfather for hitting his mom) and all-around really loving needs help.people will like" behavior mixed in with a good dose of loving NUTS.

and don't get me started on the kids who are only there because they had a choice of the hospital of juvenile hall.. those little bastards really make my blood boil
I know what you mean very well as I'm at the age where that's quite popular. There were a herd of girls when I first came in.. gah they were the breed of even worse "Oh I tried to commit suicide again because of failed 'love' at my extremely young and naive age" emochicks. It was in the hospital that I began to wonder if all "insane" people were actually perfectly sane, but had such an intense desire for attention that they would go as far as they could in order to get it.

Oh, The people in juvy had that one kid moved to the hospital for a whole bunch of reasons. He's had really terrible family problems (stories of him crying about how he beat the poo poo out of his stepfather for hitting his mom) and all-around really loving needs help. I imagine there are a lot of kids who go there to "be on easy street" or whatever. People really do abuse the hospital... I doubt I should have even been there. One guy, hahhaha, he lived with his paranoid grandmother who checked him in because he would get drunk like every few weekends and was thus a raging and uncontrollable alcoholic. Do you and Serotonin see kids like these a lot?