This is my first time posting on here, and I would like to read some first hand accounts of hospitalization after a suicide attempt, or being hospitalized for threatening to do so. I would like to know whether you feel it helped you or made you feel worse. Were you diagnosed with a mental illness and do you still want to kill yourself?
I’ll start…
Bought components for helium bag online last fall (live in a small town so it was easier to find online). I suppose I was acting a little too disconnected from others and my boyfriend caught on before I could summon the courage to go through with it. He gave me the option of packing my things and going in voluntarily to a state psychiatric hospital – so I did. Had to go to the emergency room and be admitted that way. Had to be stripped down naked and searched and not given any clothes for a day (had a hospital gown – and as a girl with no bra or underwear, it was terrible). It happened to be during Thanksgiving holiday and they were understaffed. The nurses tried to give me medicine before I was seen by a doctor, the male nurses were inappropriate towards me, unprofessional staff and so on. There was hardly an therapy period. They kept me there for over a week and were fascinated in the helium method and the nurses would ask me about it constantly. It was horrible, and honestly, I have more severe suicide ideation now than ever. Just curious if anybody else has had a similar experience.
61 comments
damn sistem! Instead helping you, thay treated you like dirt…. Im so sorry for that experience…
Ah, it really doesn’t matter in the end… But it was a terrible experience. It turns out “voluntary” isn’t so voluntary in a state hospital facility. Even though I came in voluntarily, I literally couldn’t leave until the staff decided so. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t see a doctor until the third day, and she concluded that I have Pure-O, PTSD and psychotic depression. After being harassed by a male nurse, I developed a teeth grinding problem while in the hospital and during the wee hours of the night I think about cranking that helium tank wide open. I am very curious to know if other (private) hospitals are like this and about other experiences. Just the thought of going back there is enough to put me over.
Yes, that’s about the standard way of being treated at least from my 3 experiences, but legally they can only hold you for 72hours unless they commit you to a psych ward than they can hold you till a bed/room opens up
I was in a psych ward. The 72 hour thing is a little more complicated… If you’re considered a harm to yourself, they can indeed hold you for 72 hours and then you can choose to get ahold of a lawyer if you insist… But they make it very difficult for you. You can’t check yourself out and just because somebody shows up to get you after 72 hours doesn’t mean they will let you walk out the doors. There were people who were brought in involuntarily who left much faster than they let me leave.
Were you in a private or state hospital, if you don’t mind me asking?
That is honestly very scary. Those nurses must be pretty sick themselves to be asking an individual who attempted suicide how they did it. Plus, to ask about it enthusiastically as you put it, is even worse. They should all get fired. They don’t deserve to be “helping” suicidal patients.
It was terrible. I really needed help at that time I was confused. (Now I’m sure that I’m ready to die). I understand that it’s really like a holding place until you’re not literally about to blow your brains out, but still. I don’t see how anybody could benefit from something like that… I’m hoping that somebody has a nicer story than mine to contribute and change my mind about it.
The not having clothes isnt that uncommon. There are horrible staff in many mental wards across the country. The fascination with the helium hood method is pretty pdd though. And hey just wearing a hospital gown for a guy is just as bad….trust me its uncomfortable especially when they search you…..
Oh and not all hospitals are that bad. They actually do help. The good anddecent ones with therapy. The reason you didn’t see a docor is those doctors take their sweet time and usually have a bunch of other patients in that same ward. Trust me ive been through the system as a teen with no rights and as an adult.
Are you saying you still want to kill yourself? I don’t have a story that’s nicer. My only problem now is that I’m overly emotional all the time and I’m still grieving the death of my parents. My mom died back in 2003 and I treated her horribly before she died. I was only 17, but still. In December of 2012, my dad passed away from cancer, just like my mother, but I hadn’t talked to him for an entire 8 years before his death. I feel so guilty. Now I’m destitute and just got fired from my job a few hours ago. I know they would be disappointed in me. I feel like I should just end it and show people how I really feel. But, most importantly, I need to do it for myself. I hate myself to the core.
I’m sure it is just as bad for a guy, don’t get me wrong. It’s quite humiliating. Compared to others, I still took care of myself (showered daily, put make up and fixed my hair) and a nightly male nurse indicated an interest in me. It disgusted me! Completely unprofessional and inappropriate in a mental hospital. Honestly, thinking about that makes me want to die fiercely… When you most need help, people are there to prey on you in your weakness.
My 1st time was in a state hospital, but lucky I had a female nurse so I turned on my “gift of gab” talked her into letting me keep my clothes on and walked out while waiting to be transfered to the local psych ward. I was involuntary committed, had 4 cops bust into my house an pull my outta bed it sucked ass. So I was highly pissed when I got there an they deamed me a danger to myself an others (which I am) and that’s also the 1st time I had a man hunt out for me ( when I left the hospital)
alec, I really hate to hear all that. I wish you luck and my best wishes are with you in your life and whatever choices you make. And yes, I still want to kill myself. I genuinely hate that you lost your parents and I hope you find peace somehow.
Wow! That’s an exciting story! I met a boy around my age in the hospital who escaped from the ward and he got busted up badly and left scarred on his face. Did they tranquilize you once they got you? How long was that stay?
I never made it to the Ward, I busted out of the hospital after the cops dropped me off for my evaluation. I felt like they were giving me the run around, everyone telling me a different story and shit so I left rather quickly I might have been there 2 hours. The cops finally caught up with me like a week later at my uncle’s place an back to the hospital I went. Turns out hospitals have there own padded cells with a bar coming outta the floor an I spent a while cuffed to that damn thing
Hahaha ooo story time?! I met one girl in the ICU mental ward who went out ini the fence in exercise area and climbe out and ran off. They dragged her back. There was one guy who streaked through the mens side at night till security tackled him but i was asleep so i heard about it the next day. Lots of fights and screaming. Staff, guards were kicked, punched, thrown. And this wasn’t the guys who were doing it btw. Poor guards they were nice and chill. I remember my recovering drug addict friend i met there was all protective of me when a fight broke out in the morning. Probably cuz i was the only 18 year old in the adult ward. I miss her y.y
Holy shit. That is wild. Was the reason for going to the hospital in the first place suicide /mental health related? They didn’t sedate you?
Forsaken they didnt give you the booty juice? Erm i mean the tran shots? No nurses held you down?
AtTheEnd, the same thing happened to the young man I met. He literally climbed straight up a 15 foot wall and ran for like 4 miles before they drug him back. He was in there for 6 months and I would probably do the same thing in his situation. I was one of only 3 out of like 30 who was in there for strictly suicidal behavior and not drug abuse. They acted like I was a freak show or something about the helium… asked me where I purchased things and what not… like it was entertaining.
I called a suicide hot line drunk as fuck one night an the next morning the cops showed up with my papers, they gave me some pills but at the time I was eating Xanax bars like skittles so I didn’t really feel whatever it was they were giving me, I stayed locked up in that lil padded room for like 2 days till I finally got to see a Dr. an by that point I had had enough so I told him what he wanted to hear to let me go like do you want to hurt yourself “No” do you want to hurt others “no” and all them stupid ass questions
Well the young womans mother told me because we talked with her and her daughter haha actually i think it was my drug addict friend. She wasnt suicidal she was im ICU as punishment because she got caught smoking cigs in a non smoking ward with some chick who had drugs on her. After the escape they add more fencing at an angle to prevent climbing. I met a girl who was in the teen ward that long. Teen wards are harder to get out of :/ at least all of mine had electric locking doors. Elevators with pass card readers. A balcony that was like a cage with a sliding glass door. Poor girl the doctors and her parents wouldnt let her leave. She did have a lot of problems. Yeah not many were suicidal in the ICU but then i was at least transfered to the adult mental ward with leas security. Wahhhh they made me leave my drug addict friend 🙁
I didn’t get any shots, I got a shit ton of pills but no shots
This may sound strange, but were you naked in the padded cell? The nurses told me that people go in there naked and they watch them on cameras :/ At least they let you out with a little convincing that time.
AtTheEnd, that is an interesting story. What was the security like at the adult center you went to? Were you there for suicidal tendencies? Do you feel like it helped you at all?
When they sedate theres always a lot of hitting and nurses saying calm down and holding people down. Screaming. More screams. Then silence.
Lucky you, forsaken1, I saw 3 people get taken down by shots… It’s like watching a nature documentary where they inject them, and they slowly stop fighting and then lay down…
Yup butt ass naked an every time I had to use the bathroom I had to go in a bed pan with one hand cuffed to the floor, never been back to a hospital since
Is it still a 3 step process? When I went I had to go to mental health 1st then the hospital and finally to Patrick B. Harris
Oh man, that is just seriously wild. There’s no way I could sit naked somewhere like that to be watched.
Has anybody ever heard of someone committing suicide in a psychiatric ward or experienced something like an attempt in one? I had a nurse check on me every 15 minutes, and I don’t think I could’ve done it in that time frame… Maybe found a way to hang myself with sheets or shower curtain? I wasn’t allowed shoe strings…
In any holding room you are in a hospital gown. I dunno about cameras though :s
The staff in most hospitals were nice. I never did sleep much so the overnight staff would give me snacks and ask if i wanted to draw or something. Of course im suicidal :3 i was held involuntarily for almost two weeks cuz im usually labeled as a danger to myself. Mental ward stays are vacations from my pathetic life….im there i have frieda if only for a week….out here in the real world i’m just a nobody with nothing and no one….despites the fights, the security, the pills, the doctors….for that week or two I’m not alone…but i dont want to go back and i havent been back to one since october. Security is different depending on the ward. The ICU was a maximum adult security ward. Then transfered to medium security adult ward for less crazy people who have calmed down a bit more.
I always got sent straight to the mental ward XD except when my mother drove me to the ER after slicing up my wrists :L they kept me in the ER nurses made me feel like crap for what i had done….then 3am transfer to the mental ward i had gone to as a teen only as an adult now lol
I live in a rural area where there really aren’t any options besides where I went. Actually, it’s state funded and criminally insane people from 1/3 of my state are sent there as well. I can’t live without my makeup and hair fixed (yes, I’m high maintenance, sue me :3) and I had to put my makeup on infront of the nurses at their station without a mirror, and then go back to my room to check it in the fake plastic mirror… It made me feel disturbed, like if I belong in a place like that, I’d MUCH rather be dead. Any day. So that’s where I’m at today.
Oh wrll there is something called a 1 to 1 were you are kept under watch by a personal nurse until your doctor feels you are safe. They don’t allow any strings. Or phones. My mom smuggled my phone haha but i stopped using it and gave it back to her since i didnt want to be kept longer for breaking rules. The worst ward i ever went to had a stash of weapons found a few weeks before i arrived. This was in the teen ward by the way.
Jail is worse, especially if you get thrown.in the Z tank. You’re in there naked with a thick ass blanket called a smog they don’t let you out for anything not to shower not to piss or shit. You literally have to.sleep in you own feces for a week Max depending on.which day you get put in there cause you gotta see mental health before you can get put in a regular holding cell an they only come once a week
Haha dont worry they had us shave with a nurse in the bathroom doorway. They checked me to see if i took my meds :l well don’t go back then? Some people hate those places some people feel safer and less anxious. I liked them because I finally felt like i belonged. Oh well those places arent real life. Gotta grow up and deal with what i have in life :3
These stories are very interesting! I want to know how you feel today looking back on them? For me, it just made the urge to die even stronger… Do you all feel differently?
Where I’m from it’s a 3 step process, the state really hates helping people on there own dime. So if you don’t say anything alarming they will let you go home
I have private insurance and I don’t think they wanted me to go so they could squeeze out more money from me… everybody else was flying out of there and here I was, just wanting to die. Is that so much to ask?!
Nope no different, actually I’ve given all my clothes away to the homeless shelter and most of everything else to the good will and going to shoot myself in 10days
Well that’s very considerate of you, even if you don’t shoot yourself, to give your things to the needy.
Well I figure that’s one of the hardest things to do after someone dies, going through all there crap deciding what to keep an what not, so I just did it myself.
No they didnt make me more suicidal. After my first stay in a mental ward as a teen they thought itd be best if i was sent to live at a group home for troubled teens. I was the only suicidal one there. I was a freakshowto the other kids….i wanted to kill yself every day…i was stuck in that house every day doing chores….almost no therapy….they had a payphone that they turned on at certain times….i was glad that my mother called me and i told her everything and the mext day she took me to get evaluated and despite the asswipe doctor not wanting to let me leave my mother got me out of there and i voluntarily went to another metal ward….that group home was hell….the staff were untrained volunteers….if anything that place made me want to write on the walls with my blood till i bleed out :/ and i have private insurance. My stays ran about 20 thousand not including the 1-2 thousand for ambulances.
Forsaken can you leave me your gun in a will? I want to use it after :c we can make the brotherhood of the traveling gun for suicidal people :3
@icandoyourhair- why do you want to kill yourself? If you don’t mind me asking an if do just tell me to fuck off and mind my own damn business
That may very difficult to do but your more than welcome to come watch me do what I do and you may do whatever you like with it afterwards 🙂
Well if you do it and leave it in the will the cops have to let your lawyer follow through with will once the gun is cleared XD i dunno if i can own a gun anyway im barred for five years in my home states because im california crazy certified but i moved. My new state doesnt have such gun laws for my case :3
I really do like the concept of the traveling suicide gun tho..
I was abused as a child and it fucked me up for life. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of people are abused and mistreated, but something just got fucked up in my brain. I’m 22, terrified of the dark, struggling with chronic depression and night terrors, pure-o (I constantly think about dying/suicide, literally). I’m just fucked up. I don’t like the world and I don’t want to live here anymore. I read a lot of near death experiences and I hope to experience that on my own terms, fairly soon. Everybody with Netflix should watch Season 5, episode 142 of the Twilight Zone “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” it’s about life/death and I find it very inspirational… I want to not be sad anymore.
I can relate, I was sexually abused by cousin when I was like 4 or 5, done a lot of fucked up things which I see everytime I close my eyes, an I don’t know what you want yo take away from a near death experience but I have had a few and I thought coming close to death would make me appreciate life but it did quite the opposite
I’m obsessed with reading accounts of them. I have never had a near death experience, myself. I guess I feel like near death is as close as we get to actual death, and I like to hear about experiences of that nature. In the hospital, I met a lady that took a knife and tried to hack her own head off at the neck… she told me about her near death experience and so on… I just like to hear about them to prepare myself a bit, maybe?
This is crazy, people climbing the fence running in to town with their ass hanging out and wrist band flappin’. I have a knack for making the even most self entitled prima Dona m.d.’s sit up forward in their chairs. It takes time though and this whole thread is a little depressing.
Yeah come to think about it there were a lot of questions about the exit bag. Their jobs suck though I wouldn’t blame ’em doctors treating the staff like dirt probably got Wikipedia blocked in their firewall like the damn suicide nets at that iPhone factory them Asian girls keep jumpin’ from. Shit I doan wanna go back to the flight deck now I sort of forgot. I’d better make this one count I guess.
I know how you feel… I’d rather die than go back.
My stay in the psych ward wasn’t that bad actually. I was probably in one of the better ones though. In northern California at the time. Great food. The staff there were really nice and caring actually. I’m sorry you guys had such shitty experiences.
I don’t plan on going back there though. My next attempt I plan on being 100% successful. If only I had enough money to buy a gun or order cyanide or ********..
I’m really glad you had a decent experience! Northern Cali food sounds pretty good haha… I had more of like a typical hospital food deal, except for thanksgiving and the next day we had leftovers. I thought the most degrading thing was getting something to drink. Every single time I wanted a drink of water, I had to stand at the nurses’ station while they ignored me for 5 minutes, and then ask me begrudgingly what I needed. They had to pour every ounce of liquid I drank for me into kid size Styrofoam cups. Honestly, to be healthy, you’re supposed to get 8 full glasses of water a day (I would guess it would take 5 of the Styrofoam cups to make one full glass). It made me feel stupid, constantly standing up there… I bet if an independent study was to be done, the long term patients would be malnourished and dehydrated constantly… which can lead to mental health problems…
Southern cali hospitals werent that bad for me lol :3 and
@coitus
I confuse all my doctors and nurses. I’m too calm, collected, and likeable in person. They think i dont belong there. Haha my nurses call me a contradiction because im not a normal suicidal person in their eyes. I had really interesting doctor visit me. He did the whole ink blot test and stuff. He had a rare condition called estonian or something where his writing looks like the doodles and attempts of a five year old but his mind could read everything he wrote as if it were a printed book. Quite an interesting person. I liked him.
@icandoyourhair
Can you do my hair? :3 haha at my wards food an drinks were plentiful. Food was good. Activities, down time, tv, ect. They even put on football games for the older guys haha. I watched last years basketball season XD celtics lost bitchesss haha
I can do your hair :3
@icandoyourhair: I had my very first ever meeting with a shrink earlier this week and thankfully, I had read up on what *not* to say in order to keep out of (I don’t know the proper lingo) … hospital.
I did mention my three prior attempts: hop in front of a train, helium exit and bridge-diving but referenced all of these as “yeeeeeears ago”. The train incident was 14 years ago but, the other two were about 3 weeks. I’m in my 40’s, fancy eye glasses, new hair cut (I need you to do my hair, too!) spiffy shoes and even wore my hoity-toity suit to see the shrink and based on her body language I think I more or less came over as a got-it-together kinda guy that just needs a bit of “talking-with”. Hell, she probably even think I recycle! I doubt she realizes I’m as bat-shit crazy as I really am – I’ve perfected that fake “smile” we use in public to prevent pele from looking at us and going all “oh noe!”.
One of the reasons I chose her is that she is connected with the largest private hospital in the area and their psych-wards are basically referred to as the Ritz-Carlton or Four Seasons for nut-jobs with good insurance – I thankfully still have a good policy though I don’t know for how much longer. I just wanted to ensure if she did lock me up I would at least get to experience sheets with a high thread count … I wonder if they would be Egyptian cotton? The local public hospital here … holy-crap have I heard stories about that place and all are very similar to yours.
I’m sorry to hear what you’ve gone through with your visits and I’m not sure what part of the US(?) you are in but, if I do end up on the inside I hope it’s at least doable. (I’m in the Pacific Northwest, btw).
Okay… It’s been a while since I’ve been on this website, but I’m back today. It’s been almost a year since I was in the psychiatric hospital, but I’m afraid I might end up back there, not by choice again.
SometimeSoon: I’m in the southeast. I also have a decent private insurance, which around here doesn’t help my situation at all. I have been having panic attacks lately and have been feeling unstable. Maybe it’s something about this time of year… I love the holidays and the fall/early winter, but somehow my fucked up brain turns these good things into making me want to die. I’m afraid I’ll end up back in the hospital and honestly, I now have access to a firearm and if a friend was to suggest going to the hospital, I would just blow my head off. I feel like I’m backed into a corner. Therapy didn’t help me, I don’t like taking medication with side effects that may be worse for me down the road, and I’d like to think that I could go to a hospital in a perfect world, but it’s just not worth it.
Similar thing happened to me too recently. Damn suicide hotline traced the call. Cops violently dragged me away in cuffs even tho I was just quietly sitting at home drugged on benzos. Yes, I was contemplating jumping from my 14th floor balcony, but still not a reason to be violent. They’re assholes.
At the hospital, I also told them exactly what they needed to hear to let me go. Are you suicidal? Nope, had a bad day, Etc. Wrote me a script for antidepressants and sent me on my way.
I was referring to this post written by forsaken1 when I was talking about my similar experience.
“I called a suicide hot line drunk as fuck one night an the next morning the cops showed up with my papers, they gave me some pills but at the time I was eating Xanax bars like skittles so I didn’t really feel whatever it was they were giving me, I stayed locked up in that lil padded room for like 2 days till I finally got to see a Dr. an by that point I had had enough so I told him what he wanted to hear to let me go like do you want to hurt yourself “No†do you want to hurt others “no†and all them stupid ass questions”
I had no idea before reading on here that you ran the potential for police if you called a hotline… I feel like that’s some sort of breach of privacy or something. I was never in a padded room… This may sound strange, but were you naked? I was told that if you’re placed in the padded room now, you go in naked.
I would die if I was locked in a room naked. What the fuck are they trying to do to suicidal people? Absolutely horrify them to the point that they would want nothing more than to die, possibly even more so than before they went in? That’s fucked.
I didn’t know either that suicide hotlines were permitted to put tracers on phonecalls. I thought it was a confidential place to call and talk to someone anonymously. I had even blocked my number before calling. Never going to call there again, obviously.
Huh, well that’s some interesting information about the hotlines but I had never thought of calling anyway. I heard that those hotlines are more like jokes than anything.
And, yes, in state facilities they make you strip down naked and you’re in a padded room with 3 cameras on you. During my week-ish stay there was nobody in the padded room, and I came in contact with violent types, so they must reserve it for the extremely violent people, but yes… completely naked in a state hospital. I really didn’t understand how any of the steps they took would help a suicidal person where I was at. It was more suited for people abusing substances than anything.
If I was faced with a situation where I KNEW my only option was to stay there again, I would make use of a firearm quickly, even though that is my biggest fear. (Never fired one, even for fun. I just know how to use it in case of dire situations that need an end.)