My experience wasn’t so great.

I was put there involuntarily after I attempted suicide until they were sure I wasn’t a threat to myself (which ended up being about two weeks). They were not used to dealing with someone as lucid as me, I guess. When I first arrived, a lot of the staff members would speak slowly as though I would have a hard time understanding them if they went too fast/used words that were too big. It was pretty annoying at first and then turned to flat out insulting, which had a negative effect on my mood and how I responded to them, which obviously didn’t help me get out and definitely prolonged my stay.

All I really wanted was a cigarette and a cup of coffee the day after (it happened at night), but I wasn’t allowed to leave the building even with armed officers escorting me (there was at least one police/security guard just sitting around all the time). Yeah just FYI to anyone who has to deal with someone right after they tried to kill themselves: let them smoke a cigarette because that person probably needs one in that moment way more than anybody you’ve ever met.

There were small traces of blood splatters in my room’s bathroom, which was interesting in a way. They were only visible when you were in there sitting on the toilet with the plastic blind (which they used as a door) closed, so I understand why the staff missed it.

The weekly schedule they had for the patients was aimed at people with debilitating mental diseases, so I found very little joy or interest in them. I preferred to be in my room and listen to music once they let me have my phone back. This didn’t look good though, they thought I was showing anti social behavior. Actually Doc, I just tried to kill myself so I want to sit in here and think about my life instead of playing scooby doo bingo. My saving grace was that a very good friend of mine would come and play Go with me every day or two.

It was frustrating to be trapped there. I didn’t really have the ability to improve my mental state while I was forced to stay there, but my stay’s duration was dependent on me convincing the doctors that I felt better. I wanted to tell the doctors to fuck off a lot of the time, but I knew that would just get me in trouble. There’s no way to convince someone that you’re not suicidal if they think you are. The only thing they’ll ever believe out of your mouth is if you say that you are. It was the longest couple weeks of my life and afterwards I still had to go to group therapy (which was another awful idea on their part but whatever), but I know now that I’m pretty lucky, first of all for surviving my suicide attempt and second that it only took me 2 weeks to leave the psych ward. They could have kept me there indefinitely.