My Psychiatric Hospital Experiences

Trigger Warning

To begin this blog, I will be adding in a trigger warning right here. Psychiatric facilities are not the best and most memorable experiences of one's life, as you will read here soon. Also, I go into detail on topics such as eating disorders, suicide attempts, and self harm. Unfortunately, my first and third stay were sort of traumatic experiences and it took many therapy sessions to even openly discuss what happened there with my family, some things I don’t know if I’ll ever share. Although no one intended for my stay to be traumatic, I was in a bad mental state to begin with and some incidents made that mental state even worse which unfortunately can’t be prevented when you have multiple unstable individuals in a confined environment. With that all being said, I will not be naming these hospitals just because much has changed since then and they’ve worked endless hours to change their facilities to prevent more incidents such as the things that happened to me.

The First Hospital

My freshman year. It definitely wasn’t my best year of high school. I was trying to find my “group” which ended up being a couple of girls in the grade above me, we were inseparable and spent a lot of time together in school and outside of school. Although I had an amazing group of friends that made me feel loved and accepted, I still struggled with my mental health. There was a week in October where I began bawling in the office of my medication provider and telling her I was suicidal, my parents wanted to “stick it out” to avoid me going to an inpatient stay in a psychiatric facility, so I stayed home for probably another week, but on October 31st, 2017, my counselor could see that I wasn’t improving, I was self-harming, at this point I struggled a lot with my body. I didn’t like the way I looked and peers certainly didn’t make me love my body anymore. I began struggling a lot and began starving myself to avoid gaining weight. My counselor could see all of these factors beginning to take a toll on me and so on November 1st, 2017, I was admitted into my first hospital. I will not be disclosing the names of these hospitals due to privacy and the fact the facility has changed immensely since my first stay. Once I arrived on the unit, my parents and I discovered I was the first patient to be admitted into this new “unit.” This unit included adults and children on the same floor. It didn’t seem intimidating at first when my mom and dad were there, but it was a totally different story when they left. Although we were not together for groups, we were in the commons area together. We ate meals together, had free time together, the majority of our time was spent with them. I remember the first incident was probably on my second day, the other kids and I had been playing cards, and the man we referred to as “Meth Head,” (awful I know) had begun screaming at us that we were all going to hell because he was Jesus Christ and that that’s where people like us go according to him. I was terrified of this guy and he knew it and stopped at nothing to instill fear into me. It was a few days later that he wanted to speak to the psychiatrist I was speaking with, but she wouldn’t open the door for him. This made him hate me even more. He then began banging on the window that separated us and I was absolutely terrified of the 200+ pound man that could easily break the glass if he wanted. He was escorted to his room, but that is a terrifying image still engraved in my mind. Later that day, I had been eating lunch and the other kids and I were talking, we soon heard screaming from across the unit. The man began screaming at us, the nurses rushed out and told him to go back to his room. He became angrier and it go to the point security had to come in because he threw a weighted chair at our table. They give him a shot to basically knock him out. We didn’t see him the rest of that day. I feared this man even after leaving the hospital. I remember having vivid nightmares about him to the point I was terrified to sleep and was scared for people to even touch me. I had developed PTSD and I began EMDR almost six months after because the trauma was affecting my mental health. The EMDR did wonders and now I’m able to openly talk about what happened at the first hospital. I was put on a medication that I would end up having a severe reaction to and had to start a new one later that year.

The Second Hospital

On November 10th, 2019, I had gotten into fights with several loved ones and at this point had given up on medications and refused to take them. I had gone to work that night around six and acted as if I was fine. I waited tables, I washed dishes, I swept the floors, but in my head, I knew what I was going to do later that night. Once I got home, I took a shower and went to the kitchen to start finding pills, it was probably nearing midnight at this point. I found some painkillers from the kitchen and some medications from my suitcase, as I had just gotten back from National FFA a week prior. I began taking pills by the dozen. I was mad at the world. I was mad at God for making me feel this way. I woke up the next morning even more mad at God for not ending my life. I threw up in the shower when I woke up, I threw up all day as a matter of fact. My parents both assumed it was the stomach flu, not even considering an overdose as the factor because my behavior had improved so much besides the normal sassy teenager stuff. The next day, I’d stayed home from school because I continued puking, my mom came in the house to begin yelling at me for getting in a fight with my teacher the night I took the pills. I began bawling and screamed at my mom that I took pills so I could stop being a disappointment to all of them. I was taken to the clinic in my town and had blood tests done to see if my liver was still even functioning at this point. I was told I needed to go back to an inpatient facility. That night, I was at my second psychiatric hospital. It was much different than the first and I was with only kids my age. I was prescribed the same antidepressant my parents are on, thinking it’d be a good fit for me as well. It was at this hospital I realized I needed medication to be able to not have the dark thoughts that made me act out with irreversible consequences.

The Third Hospital

It was in January, I can’t remember the exact date, but I admitted to my school psychologist that I was suicidal and had a plan. I was taken in a police car back to a psychiatric facility which happened to be the facility I stayed at the first time. I arrived late that night. I shared a room with a girl several years younger than me and had to be watched all through the night by a nurse because I was suicidal. The next day, I woke up to my worst nightmare. Although the adults and kids were no longer on the same unit, there was a window that separated them and then a nurses station in the center that the nurses could get from the adult unit to the kid unit. That morning, I saw the guy for the first time. I laughed it off at first as he would knock at the glass and flip us off, just to seem cool like the other kids, but on the inside, my heart was beating a thousand beats per minute. While eating breakfast, a man from the adult unit managed to get onto the kids’ unit. I felt so incredibly scared, but I kept calm. In a group, I completely broke down and lost it. I was taken to a room called the Serenity Room where they gave me medication to stop the panic attack and I slept all day. I felt so incredibly frustrated explaining to the nurse the flashbacks I was having and that I wanted them to see if they could transfer me to another facility. They were unable to, but “fixed” the problem by putting sheets of paper over the window. When I woke up, I was even angrier at them for letting me sleep through two meals, probably freaked out because I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and I’m the epitome of the Snicker’s commercial. They then had given me another pill to calm me down, so essentially I slept through that entire day. This hospital stay sucked because of all the flashbacks, but it was there where I was given my “saving grace” of a pill. It was here I was diagnosed with PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) which is an extreme form of PMS and it causes suicidal thoughts and actions one week prior to a woman’s cycle. I was also prescribed the only FDA-approved drug to help with PMDD. Today, I’m still on this medication and it continues to work wonders for me.

The Fourth Hospital

Let’s hope this is the last one! Anyways, on March 8th, 2020 I decided to attempt to end my own life. I got myself into a situation with a man online where he was making me pay him then threatening me if I didn’t follow through. Instead of bothering my parents on vacation, I decided this was my only way out. I attempted suicide on March 8th with hundreds and hundreds of pills. I remember very few details from my overdose which is a very good thing. I remember writing suicide notes in a journal and receiving a hurtful text and then passing out. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and vomiting and then going back to sleep. My sister came in around 7 a.m. to wake me up, but I wouldn’t. My grandpa then came in because my parents were on vacation. He couldn’t wake me up either. My sister then FaceTimed my mom who was on her way home from the airport and I began having my first seizure. My grandma flipped me onto my side and my sister called 911, barely able to tell the dispatcher what was going on. It wasn’t until a few weeks ago I heard the page that was called over on the radio that morning, but my parents are both first responders so they let me listen to it. I’ll never forget the voice of the young female saying, “we have a seventeen-year-old female having seizures, possible overdose victim at the residence of Casey Schaaf.” As soon as my dad’s name was heard, dozens of EMTs and paramedics that had watched me grow up rushed to my house to help save my life. I was taken to a nearby hospital and began getting my stomach pumped, but the doctor told my family I was going to be ok. Then I was taken to a hospital three hours away, I remember a family friend who had been in the ambulance that took me to the larger hospital. I remember trying to tell him something and him telling me he couldn’t understand me. I remember opening my eyes in the ambulance, but not anything that happened. In the ER, the family friend told me he was going to leave, but he’d see me soon. Then it was all bits and pieces of the ER. I remember having seizures in the ER, having to get help going to the bathroom, getting my blood drawn, but not much else. It wasn’t until the next day when I finally realized what was going on. I had to be under 24-hour supervision in the hospital without any technology. I lay in bed the entire time and stared at the wall. The whole situation was humiliating to me at the moment. The fact I had vomit in my hair because I hadn’t showered in several days, the fact the ambulance crew saw my messy room, the fact people knew about it, the fact I was going to have to explain all of this to friends. I no longer feel shame for any of that though, well, maybe the messy room. Due to an irregular EKG, I had to stay in the hospital longer. After three days, I was sent in an ambulance to the psychiatric hospital I’d been out two times before. It was a fairly short stay and basically just gave me time to figure out a new safety plan. I had no medication changed at this time, besides adding on another medication.

Now

Currently, life is fairly uneventful, which is good for me! I returned to school on March 16th, but only for a day. The rest of my junior year has been spent in quarantine and online due to COVID-19. I see my school psychologist via Zoom as well as my counselor through Zoom. I visit my psychiatrist through tele-health every few months, but everything has been very consistent so far. I’ve had no medication changes as of March which is a pretty big deal and probably the longest I’ve ever been without a medication change. This week I’m wrapping up my last few days as a junior! This Summer, I’ll be taking online classes and hopefully working as a CNA. For my senior year, I’ll be a part of my school‘s dance team as well as several other extracurricular activities. I don‘t think I’ve ever said I’m thankful that my life is so boring, but due to the circumstances I’m very happy life is boring!

Until next time!

Taylor