We need to address how inhumane inpatient psychiatric hospitalization is in the United States. amirite?

I'm so sorry that happened. And I believe you, because my first time inpatient I witnessed a stabbing. It was before we were woken up for the day so the staff weren't on the lookout.

by Anonymous 18 hours ago

While I've no dog in this race, what exactly is the unpopular opinion here?

by Anonymous 18 hours ago

I think a lot of people think more people should pursue hospitalization and more people should be hospitalized. That this is a fine course of action. But they've never been inside of a psych ward. Most people haven't, so they wouldn't recognize that this needs to be addressed.

by Anonymous 18 hours ago

I guess the street is better?

by Anonymous 18 hours ago

The thing is I don't think most parts of the U.S. have better alternatives. My county just opened a 24/7 respite center for people in crisis who are at risk of needing hospitalization but aren't yet at that point. Most parts of the country have nothing similar. So that's the predicament. Where are they going to go if not the hospital? That's why the system needs to change, so that the hospital becomes safe

by Anonymous 18 hours ago

You would be surprised at how many refuse to acknowledge this, this goes double for most mental health professionals themselves. They really really do not want to see it and those that do, get ostracized by their fellow colleagues.

by bettyepfeffer 17 hours ago

I think for them, it's a liability so I don't blame them as much

by Anonymous 17 hours ago

I've seen A LOT of people in my city say that the solution to homelessness is to round up every person on the street and throw them into inpatient psychiatric wards. Which, by the way, is not even physically possible since we barely have the infrastructure to deal with the current amount of people voluntarily entering these facilities right now. Many people want an easy and quick solution to fix the homelessness crisis happening in American cities. They don't consider that we are ill-equipped to handle any more people than we are currently handling at this very moment. Anecdotally, when I was younger I was a very troubled teenager. Once after making an attempt to end my life I had to wait 3 whole days at an emergency room to even be transferred to a psychiatric facility to begin treatment. This was due to every single facility being completely at or over capacity. I live in one of the big cities in the country. If we begin throwing homeless people into these facilities without a choice, what happens to the people who choose to seek out help? They'll be put on waiting lists, and let me tell you, the kind of people who check themselves into a mental hospital are NOT the kind of people you can tell "Yeah, sorry, can't take you right now, come back in a couple weeks." It's harsh to say, but they'll be long dead by the time it's their turn to be checked in.

by Anonymous 17 hours ago

I'm sorry you had to go through that, it's disappointing that we've come this far and we still have this problem. What would you personally think we be a good start towards eventually fixing this problem?

by Anonymous 17 hours ago

My 13 year old had people glorifying psych holds on their social media. They don't realize the reality. It's not a walk in the park. It's traumatizing for a lot of people. Drug rehab can be similar. Sure you can leave against your treatment plan but some people need that certificate of completion for work or some risk jail time. They'll hold you until the insurance runs out

by Strange_Werewolf 17 hours ago

There's something to be said about being able to disconnect from the world. But then you have to go back and it's ridiculously overstimulating. And you also can't call your parents when someone gets violent. I tried telling my dad I witnessed violence on the ward and the nurse was yelling over me to invalidate me. Well thankfully my dad was visiting daily anyway and he saw the cops on the unit when he visited, and they confirmed what I said. I was an adult.

by Anonymous 16 hours ago

"You consent is not required" is a really good book about this. by Rob Wipond People have been talking about this for decades and it just gets ignored, much like the rehab situation.

by bettyepfeffer 16 hours ago

"You can either go voluntary or involuntary." A real thing a therapist said to me

by Anonymous 16 hours ago

It seems like it's always an extreme: Either they ignore you and send you home when you're having a mental health crisis (my experience), Or They put you on a mandatory psych hold just to cover their own asses.

by Anonymous 16 hours ago

I had that experience at the hospital I had to pay more money to go to. It was 90 miles away and I had arranged transportation there. Most people can't do that and go wherever they're taken. Your experience is sadly a minority

by Anonymous 15 hours ago

I did not pay for the hospital, this was just 'where I was taken'. I was taken there by an ambulance which came with a large bill; but the people at the psych ward made some calls so that I didn't have to pay it as I was unemployed at the time. I haven't talked with many others who have been in a psych ward so I don't know how rare my experience was. But if what you're saying is true, that is very unfortunate as my experience *should be* what happens to everyone.

by Gloverjoseph 15 hours ago

I wish more people felt safe to talk about it, but I understand the danger and thank you for speaking up.

by bettyepfeffer 15 hours ago

I would be fine with keeping people longer if the experience itself was actually helpful and not traumatizing. I know some people have good experiences, but many have horrifying experiences and a lot of people say it didn't do anything more than make them realize they need to do more to keep themselves out of there.

by bettyepfeffer 15 hours ago

Incorrect. That's for an "involuntary" psych hold, basically what they do when the alternative is jail. Lots of people are given ultimatums so they "choose" to be committed, and then it's considered voluntary when they were strong armed into it. It's kind of like most surgery is technically elective. When I was there, very few people only stayed for 3 days. I was usually there for a week, many people several weeks, some several months. It's a holding cell. If going outside was such a risk, other countries wouldn't let their psych patients outside and prisons wouldn't let inmates outside

by Anonymous 15 hours ago

Ya this dude is generalizing and it is broadly untrue.

by Anonymous 14 hours ago

I went to jail for 44 days due to a clerical error. Let's just say I came out with PTSD and meds to treat it.

by Anonymous 14 hours ago

I had a positive experience but it was at a very well known hospital

by Anonymous 14 hours ago

Is this an unpopular opinion? We've come along way since the days of walking people up in mad houses like Bedlam, but we still have sooooo far to go.

by Bruenwatson 13 hours ago

Seems to be

by Anonymous 13 hours ago

When I was hospitalized, the worst part was the cops. They were condescending, transphobic, and really rough with me. They wouldn't tell me anything about what was going on or where they were taking me. For context, I tried to kill myself. I was not violent at all nor was I a criminal.

by Anonymous 13 hours ago

I was released the first time because it was deemed safer for me on the outside than the inside due to a violent person on the ward. I wasn't actually better.

by Anonymous 12 hours ago

That is correct. But the point of psych hospitalization is to keep you alive because the only thing preventing that from happening is yourself. With oncology, that's not really up to the patient. So either many people are traumatized by their psych stay or the psych stay isn't helping.

by Anonymous 12 hours ago

No, All that stat says is, Ppl who were hospitalized , were in hospital for a reason, and that reason makes it more likely to die sooner than avarage person. To prove point you are trying to make you would need to comapre survival rates of ppl with for example self harm or suicidal.tendencies, between hospitilezded and non hospitalized ppl. Sorry for being harsh, but discourouging ppl who need help from seeking profesionals based on ur vibes and random stats pisses me off.

by Anonymous 12 hours ago

I'm sorry for your loss. My best friend lost a loved one a day after psych discharged due to the trauma.

by Anonymous 11 hours ago

They're attacking people with disabilities right now. This will not get better, it's gonna get worse right now.

by Mercedes80 11 hours ago

I've worked as a clinician in multiple of these hospitals. I did my best. That said. YOU ARE CORRECT. Some people are so ill they need 24/7 care and institutionalization or they'll literally, physically, rip themselves apart. Most psychiatric inpatients are not like that. It's dizzyingly horrible but whenever someone in my field protests the current hospitalization system they get shouted down about how it's necessary and there's nowhere else for people to go. Worst part, they're not wrong. We need better services for suicidal people and better training for clinicians to identify when someone is suicidal versus daydreaming about an escape. We also need the clinicians working in these hospitals to give a damn, just like in medical. Burnout is not an excuse to abuse vulnerable patients. I hate how unpopular OP's position is, especially within the field of psychology. It's one of the biggest stains on the profession, aside from its history (which is comparatively tame compared to a ton of other fields but psych is more recent so higher standards + easier for history to remember… but I digress).

by Anonymous 11 hours ago

My boyfriend proposed the idea of a "tiered" system where people have different levels of care based on the severity of their conditions. He was dumbfounded when I told them they technically had that at 3 of the 4 hospitals I went to, and I had been "stepped down" without knowing because nothing changed. All of the "tiers" were the same. Thank you for doing your best. We obviously need mental health professionals to keep working, and I don't expect people to risk their jobs just because the system sucks. But something, somewhere, somehow has to change

by Anonymous 10 hours ago

Maybe if we provided more resources to healthcare especially mental healthcare… we wouldn't have this issue, but guess who never wants to improve healthcare… you got it… the GOP..

by Anonymous 10 hours ago

This is also somewhat generalized and untrue… many psych hospitals are not like OP describes.. although I do believe there are some. You cannot put a blanket statement like this on all of them cause that is unequivocally false.

by Anonymous 10 hours ago

Convince me it's inhumane.

by Anahi15 9 hours ago

This is way too common and I witnessed it happen to people

by Anonymous 9 hours ago

I would think being injected with sedatives, regardless of allergies or health conditions (they don't always check first) for crying or arguing with a slightly raised voice to staff who won't explain what they're doing is inhumane. You watch a pregnant woman being held down by two male nurses and collapsing to the floor, and then being left there, because she "raised her voice" and you tell me that's okay. I would think not being allowed to see the outdoors for weeks to months is inhumane. No light therapy or anything like that either. I would think being told you're getting therapy and then learning it's 2-3 hours a day and then nothing to do for the rest of the day, which alone could cause people to go insane, is inhumane. Remember, no personal electronics, you don't always control what's on TV, no writing utensils besides crayons, and nothing that can be used as a weapon (which is almost anything). I would think disabled patients having mobility aids taken away because they can technically be used as weapons, then being punished for not leaving their beds and forced to stay longer is inhumane. I would think not having readily available language translators and then yelling at or restraining people who "ignore" staff is inhumane. I would think drugging someone up to the point of them not functioning instead of giving them actual therapy is inhumane. I could go on.

by Anonymous 9 hours ago

Forgot to mention, solitary confinement is common

by Anonymous 8 hours ago

Have you been loked up before? I find this uncommon. Source:Psychology Major

by OptimalBookkeeper996 8 hours ago

You should work on your spelling if you're a psych major, and listen to people who have been put in the psych ward involuntarily

by Greedy_Neck 8 hours ago

And realize that a lot of voluntary admissions are voluntary on technicality, the same way most surgery is elective

by Anonymous 7 hours ago

Yes, four times in the past 10 years in two different states. Are you doing any kind of psych rotations? You'll see it if you do

by Anonymous 7 hours ago

It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. -Upton Sinclair

by bettyepfeffer 7 hours ago

Damn. That hit hard.

by Anonymous 7 hours ago