Inside the Darkest Corners of Psychiatric Hospitals: Chilling True Stories from Employees and Patients You Won’t Forget
Myself and another girl were in for anorexia. Another guy was suicidal to the point where he couldn’t have any cutlery but a plastic spoon for meals, no blankets, special pyjamas, etc. And then there was a young homeless guy who’ d been hit by a car while squeegee-ing for change, so his leg was in a full cast…yet he still had a habit of sneaking around (in his wheel chair) and hoarding extra supplies from the kitchen, the kids’ playroom, the nurses station, etc., so they kept him in one of the “psych” rooms.
We formed a weird little club, and would often play cards in a lounge area together. Conversations would go something like this:
Me: “Hey does anyone want this cheese? I snuck it into my pocket so Nurse thought I ate it.”
Homeless Kid: “Mine! Dibs! Here, you can have these beads I swiped from Craft Time.”
Other Anorexic: “I’ll get you some ice cream and saltines if you find me some sewing gear. I’m gonna sew some batteries into my hair scrunchie for my next weigh-in day.”
Suicidal Kid: “Do you think I’d die if could scoop my eyeball out with a spoon?”
And so on.
It was a very bizarro time in my life.
A doctor told me I was too fat to be in there and should come back when I actually look anorexic (I was already pretty underweight) and I was released hours after that.
Did psych rounds as part of my nurse training. The story I’m gonna talk is about my friend’s experience when she had psych rotations a month before mine.
Apparently, she had a patient who was sexually attracted to the Sun. The star of our system. Literally. She would lie on the floor, spread her legs, and get railed by the sun rays.
Most amazing: for some reason a piano was in the psych ward, a patient who never spoke started playing, she knew every piece by heart. The entire ward of psychotics, manics, and even staff went and sat in that room. Not a word was spoken for a good half hour.
Craziest: family members choking a patient because his sister gave another patient a blow job. A guy who thought he was Jesus convincing the entire ward to meet on the balcony to discuss ways of breaking out. A guy would run away every day, steal a car and drive back to the ward. People speaking in tongues- scary.
My best friend’s mom was in temporarily we went to visit and there were 2 dudes, one thought he was Jesus one thought he was the devil they had major beef for serious. (Not a joke)
It was a temporary thing for an incident I don’t care to explain right now, but in the psych ward there was this kid, like, an actual kid. And he would always cry really loud late at night. During the day he started touching himself inappropriately and screaming his father’s name. I guess he was r@ped for days straight and it messed up this kids head. I wish I could see how that kid is doing now, god bless his poor soul.
I was a social worker at an institution that had a hall for what we called “lifers,” it was essentially for people who had no hopes of ever being released due to their conditions.
Anyway, my hall had 14 beds and it was full.
There was this one guy who was huge. He was 6’7 and about 350. His name was Simon. He suffered from drug-induced schizophrenia and had bipolar disorder.
He talked to himself all day, but never talked to others. All the other men in the ward were scared of him.
It was my day to do first shift. I got there early to start on some paperwork I needed to finish. When I got my keys in the door, I heard Simon hit the door with his fists. I looked through the tiny window on the door and he and the hall was covered in blood.
I panicked and called security for backup because I thought he had killed somebody.
Turns out, Simon was in the throes of an extreme manic episode and had managed to walk the literal soles of his feet off. Other medication he was on thinned his blood and led to him bleeding all over the place.
We checked the camera footage and he had walked and talked all night. The orderly (who was fired that day) had slept through his whole shift and never heard Simon walking back and forth.
I was in one with people who were mostly in for suicidal ideation. One patient was a nice young girl who did not eat anything the entire week I was there. A few months later I was at the grocery store and she was working there but was getting fired by what looked like a horrible bully of a manager. Watching her walk to her car absolutely defeated broke my heart. I hope she is doing better now.
I did my internship (master’s degree in clinical psych) in the psych ward.
The thing that shocked me was nothing the patients did. It was the staff counselors and doctors. Fwiw, the nurses were great.
