Why are mental hospitals run like prisons?
I was recently involuntarily held in a mental hospital where I went through prison like conditions (strip search, had to wear scrubs, was locked in a room outside certain times a day, stuff like that) and thankfully came out in one piece after 8 days of this crap. I was just wondering why we subject people to these conditions when they haven’t even committed a crime?
If you want to hurt yourself, it’s their duty to make it as difficult as possible for you to do a very thorough job of it. Unfortunately, it’s a long line of patients before you, who came up with very creative ways to bring in weapons, that made the staff put you through that humiliating experience. They have seen too many deaths, and suffered injuries themselves.
And remember, if someone jumps a woman on the street and beats the shit out of her or cuts her open, she hopefully gets some kind of support. But if she’s a nurse on the job, her supervisor will react with “what was your failure that caused this to happen?” They can’t really control what goes on in their patients’ heads, so they control the things they can.
I thought I had bodily autonomy? I can get an abortion if I want, not sure why I can’t blow my brains out if I want to under the same principle. Seems a weird reason to incarcerate someone.
And again, I never hurt anyone there or anywhere, I’m not a violent person. Isn’t that what matters, only if you want to hurt others?
If you want to blow your brains out, it’s unfair of you to do it where it will hurt the careers and reputations of others, and traumatize them with the knowledge they failed to help you survive. Not to mention cleaning up the mess you leave behind.
Also, the violent people who do want to harm others are often very good at lying and pretending to be like you. I believe you, but the staff can’t afford to take your word for it. Even if an individual believes you, they would be penalized for not following the protocols, which were written in the blood of those who believed the wrong person.
By the way, I’m glad you live in a place where you can get an abortion. That’s not a given anymore. And I’m sorry you feel so cruel towards yourself. I hope you can become able to be kinder to yourself.
I thought I had bodily autonomy?
When you are committed, you lose a lot of your rights, and I’d assume this would go as well. (Not passing a moral judgement here)
It's not just you that they're worried could get stabbed, it could be anyone.
I took some psych courses in University and one of my profs was full of anecdotes about patients he'd cared for, there were people who were perfectly nice and calm and then in a split second something would go unpredictably wrong and they'd be savagely attacking whoever they could get their hands on.
And then a moment later they'd be beside themselves with dismay over having "lost it", apologizing sincerely and profusely. He said it was really hard keeping on your toes in there. He permanently lost his hearing in one ear when one of his patients slapped him out of the blue one time, to both of their surprise. If anything remotely like a weapon was easily accessible it could go very badly.
I'm sorry your experience was unpleasant, and of course I can't remotely speak to it myself - it was your experience, not mine. But it could be that the stuff that was done was for everyone's protection.
And how do people know that? How do they know you're not pretending to be a nutcase?
Do you understand that people can pretend to be kind, normal, etc as a way to sneak things in?
I'm sorry you had to go through these things, but you seem to lack some serious awareness of others.
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