Psychiatric Hospitalization

Is it Time for a Psych Inpatient Stay? Things to Consider

Sometimes, hospitalization for mental illness happens involuntarily and isn’t under our control. Other times, though, an inpatient stay is something we have to ponder and weigh the pros and cons of. So, what are some of the factors to consider in making that decision? This post will look at a few of them. Suicidality There …

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When There’s Inaccurate Information on Your Psych Medical Record

An unfortunate reality of having a mental illness is that it’s fairly likely that inaccurate information will make it into your medical record at some point along the way. That might take the form of a misdiagnosis, inaccurate descriptions of how you were presenting, or inaccurate accounts of things you said. You might only learn …

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A Mouse-Infested Psych Ward: Does No One Care About Crazy People?

The raging mouse infestation on the ward where I was recently hospitalized strikes me as something that wouldn’t be allowed to continue on a non-psychiatric unit, but I’m guessing that stigma stops anyone from paying attention to it happening on a psych ward. This is what I’ve come up with so far to email to …

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A Dickless Prick: A Letter to My Psychiatrist

I wrote this to share with my psychiatrist, and I thought I’d share it with all of you, too. Thanks to Kat for the “dickless prick” phrasing. I thought we had established my background, but it seems like we/you need a bit of a refresher, so here we go. I used to be a pharmacist. …

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If You’re Going to Be Crazy, Might As Well Be Batshit

Things were going reasonably good… right up until they weren’t. So, the fun began when my psychiatrist was being a fucking pussy about ordering certain things for me. I had told him that I wanted him to do certain things, and provided research support to back it up. One thing was to order high dose …

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Tales from the Psych Ward Part IV

My psychiatrist agreed to discontinue my Mental Health Act certification and make me voluntary! It doesn’t actually change anything about what’s happening with my treatment, but it does make me feel better about the whole thing. We talked about the inaccurate charting from the psych ER about me being paranoid and yelling. He didn’t come …

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Tales from the Psych Ward

So, where to begin? Things began trending sharply downhill around Christmas. Hospital was something I considered but really didn’t want to do, given the negative experiences I’ve had before. Things picked up a bit in February, but then crashed back down. I had a meltdown that exploded in the direction of an unfortunate friend, at …

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Creating serenity-promoting spaces - image of flowers and butterfly

Creating Serenity-Promoting Spaces for Mental Health

I got thinking about this a while back when reading a post by MJ about being put in a seclusion room while on a psych ward as a teenager. While seclusion is sometimes necessary for safety, I think serenity-promoting spaces could be more useful, at least in some cases. In my last nursing job, which …

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