Quote:
Originally Posted by vixnix
the saddest thing for me was how bad everyone seemed to feel about me being in there. I didn't actually feel that bad myself.
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I would talk to the psych students who would walk around. That was about the only entertainment I had. I don't think they were used to talking to a "rational" person who was suicidal but not psychotic or acting out in some extreme way. Otherwise just sticking to the obviously non-dangerous people was the best bet.
One time, the last time I was in I think, there was this guy who was a coke dealer and had severe bipolar issues. Like he couldn't stop himself from repeating himself and getting all hyped up. He was high-functioning but he would just keep interrupting so they had to put him in the low functioning therapy group. But at the same time he was super nice to everyone except a couple people (and they were assholes) - I thought he was trying to ingratiate himself to take advantage of people but then I saw him doing it with some very low functioning people and realized there was nothing he could get from them and he was just doing it because that is who he was under his manic insanity. He was VERY annoying because of his illness and I don't know how he maintained as a dealer. Oh he had come in because he was very manic after going to the hospital after being shot in the foot by someone trying to rob him of a large amount of cocaine. He would have been a nice and decent person on meds and away from selling and using crack. I hope he got there.
That last time I was there there were about 6 of us who stuck together and were there for 2+ weeks each. I was the first one to leave out of our little group. In addition to the manic guy there was also this fluidly psychotic guy who was very interesting. He would be ok and coherent and be playing spades with us and all of a sudden he would get incoherent and stop being able to play. But he knew he was ill and didn't do anything extreme. I saw him picking up the telephone and talking directly into it without calling anyone and stuff like that. He tried to make me a bracelet while he was at therapeutic recreation (which I wasn't allowed to go to on suicide watch) but wasn't coherent enough to get my name right... I think he ended up spelling it Ehria or something like that. Was a sweet gift though. He would get severe word salad going on and it was just fucking fascinating tbh. It had some weird internal logic that you could almost grasp.
I remember two of the other people as well. I guess I was the only female. The ward was about 90% male. It didn't feel unsafe but a lot of guys propositioned me to get together with them after we got out. I declined of course.