Hi! Mental health social worker here- it’s for the patient’s safety, safety of other patients, and worker safety. Many people coming in are there because they’re at risk of harming themselves. Staff have to make sure (1) nothing that could possibly be used as as a weapon on themselves or others is identified and removed and (2) a thorough status of the patients needs documented when they come in. Oftentimes, people come in with injuries or conditions they either don’t mention or don’t realize are issues. If someone has that on their body and it’s not documented at intake then it could later be used as saying they received an injury while staying at the hospital. Many people coming in are depressed but are without a typical sense of reality and just need a safe place to be temporarily but some people coming in are having full psychotic episodes where they’re not in the same reality and information is misconstrued, they’re experiencing paranoia and making statements that people are hurting them, etc. I know that the process of everything must be really difficult especially when you’re there because you’re already going through something difficult but it’s kind of the only way to ensure everyone is safe. Unfortunately, staff can’t go strictly off what someone says or does to determine what intake process they have since there’s a large amount of people coming in who say one thing but you quickly find out a very different thing is going on with them. Hope all the best for you! I don’t work directly in our inpatient hospital but adjacent/work on processing their assessments for the state so still somewhat familiar and I worked in a residential setting with minors previously. If you hear someone in social work state that “anything can become a weapon,” they’re not kidding. I’ve had so many innocuous things become weapons in my time.

I guess I get what you mean but it was still humiliating to strip naked for strangers and open up if you get my meaning. I still feel humiliated by it.

Okay, sure. But the alternative would be “someone gets stabbed”

I’d rather be stabbed since I have a death wish

…you realize that means you in particular actually NEEDED to get searched, right? I was about to say “oh you got caught up in the rules that keep other people from killing themselves” but no, you personally actually are why those rules exist then.

I don’t want to hurt anyone else, just myself. I can’t help it at this point so I don’t think mistreating me is going to solve it

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?