I was in a psychiatric hospital for like 6 months, but like a pretty nice place (I wasn’t institutionalized or anything, this was something I chose) and heard horror stories from some of the other patients there about those places. I’m so grateful that I never had to go through that…

I literally thought one of my friends had been exaggerating until we got a new patient and he had similar stories. Horrific stuff.

Wait until you see American schools

Because most countries use them as prisons.

I guess you’ve only got to be attacked by a couple of people who should have been in a secure wing of a real prison before you start to treat everyone as a dangerous lunatic.

Perhaps actual rehabilitation costs too much and requires too much effort, so the cheaper “solution” is a punitive environment.

And maybe some people that come through actually are dangerous enough to warrant some of the measures, I couldn’t say.

At least in my country, you’re in there because you’re a danger to yourself or others, with weight on the latter because if you’re suicidal and lucid then they can’t section you.

So it is kinda the same thing, like people in prison are kept in that way because they’re dangerous to the population.

Obviously there’s voluntary admissions and stuff, but they’re fewer and the staff there aren’t really briefed so it’s easier to care for everyone the same

Welcome to Murica, where you have the FREEDOM to receive subpar care when you need help the most.

I’m a fellow citizen of the bald eagle who also has dealt with psychological issues and the United States’s terrible health and mental care system. I read through your posts and saw you’re thinking of ending it. I don’t know your situation, but I’ve been somewhere similar. I have an incurable, chronic, progressive health condition that causes some disability and just hurts like a motherfucker. Not looking for sympathy, just explaining.

I was dead set on ending it because I couldn’t imagine going through life always in pain, being a burden to my spouse, family, and friends, and just being a big overall sad sack like I was. Obviously I didn’t. I got help and worked through my giant pile of issues and I’m glad I did. I think about how I was then and my life now with my wife and friends and my stupid, silly cats and I always start crying because I love all of them and everything so much and I was so close to giving all of this away.

I agree with you 100% - everyone should have bodily autonomy, including the right to end your life as you see fit. Just give it a lot of thought. It’s fucking morbid, but what kept me going for the first few weeks is that I could always kill myself later. I didn’t need to make a decision then, I could always make a decision later if trying to make things better was as impossible as it seemed. It was a ton of work and it really sucked sometimes but it got better. Even when things regressed hard, I kept looking for ways to keep improving because at the heart of it, I really didn’t want to die, I just couldn’t imagine living, so I worked on making a life that I could believe in.

No matter what, don’t look at this as a failing. People like us can have a certain strength and appreciation for life that others who haven’t had to deal with this don’t understand. If you need to talk with someone who at least might get it, I’m here.

They aren’t anymore, usually, yours must be bad.

Btw, you didn’t say where.

My honest answer is that we have dark impulses and instead of fully handling them, as a society we have just managed to channel them through institutions.

The idea of vulnerable people being tormented by jailers is attractive to the darkest parts of our souls, and we have disavowed those parts of ourselves and hence cannot acknowledge them in order to control them.

As a result our society manifests this sadism in many of its institutions for dealing with vulnerable people.

Because it’s cheaper. If this is in a country where you or your family can sue because of a liability of the private institution or public one, then they treat everyone as a threat. Doesn’t matter why you’re there, you have to be treated just like the psycho Hannibal. Because if you turn out to be like that, and they didn’t screen you “for your safety and the safety of the staff”, it would be lawsuits galore.

Because if you don’t keep a close eye on mental patients, some of them might hurt or kill themselves or other people - sometimes in extraordinarily resourceful and unexpected ways. It’s rare and overhyped, but the fact that it does happen means the system needs to account for it. Then add the usual amount of greed, incompetence, stigma etc., and suddenly the only way of accounting for that is, well, prison style.

Someone got hurt/killed by something smuggled in. So the hospital got sued. The hospital thought, I guess we need to strip search everyone to make sure that it doesn’t happen again because that was a lot of freaking money. Later, there was a physical altercation. Or several. And there weren’t enough workers to keep everyone safe. And patients got hurt. So the hospital got sued. So the hospital thinks, we’ll just keep these people locked up so they can’t attack anyone else, and our workers aren’t so overwhelmed.

This could all be fixed if they hired more people, had more training, basically spent more money. Why don’t they do that? you may ask. Well, you see, they keep having to pay these lawsuits…

because we’ve been propagandized that mental health is a moral failing rather than a societal failing …

In theory it’s for safety, both for the patient and the workers. A lot of the point of inpatient facilities is to monitor the people, and ensure they can’t harm themselves or others, while their circumstances or medications get sorted out.

That’s not to say every facility is perfect, and that’s not saying anything about you. But generally, it’s for their own good.

I have some experience with mental health in Australia and it is pretty dire honestly. There is a constant sense that the staff are concerned first with making sure you don’t hurt yourself because that would be a breach of their duty of care. This unfortunaty made much of the interaction between staff and patients adversarial.

I am currently entering the individual suppory industry and we have a concept called dignity of risk. You have to remember that people are entitled to take risks that they consider worthwhile regardless of what you think. This means if someone wants to smoke weed that is their choice, I can’t stop them. If they want to drink that is their choice and I have to respect that. This is because they are their own people and have their own autonomy.

Two reasons.

One is to ensure people do not come to harm or allow harm to others. As harsh as it seems, the whole point is to stop people from killing themselves or enabling someone else to kill themselves.

The other is to prevent illegal drugs coming in to mental health units. Unfortunately mental health services are also overwhelmed by social issues and drug use is rife. The units don’t want to deal with high patients who can be aggressive or even OD.

It can seem harsh but it’s not like a prison. A prison is punishment, while a mental health unit is often a place to hold someone in a crisis so they can’t harm themselves. The loss of freedom and dignity can feel like punishment, particularly on over stretched understaffed units but they’re trying to save lives. It’s a blunt tool as a last resort.