Yes, obviously people in the mental health industry are only there because they hate people and don't want to help them. >.>

It's unfortunate that you had (possibly still have depending on the diagnosis) a mental illness. By your own admission you caused lots of problems for them. If you were psychotic, I'm willing to bet that at least involved swearing and spitting at them.

For their own sanity and safety, mental health care workers have to treat patients like you with a lot of caution because otherwise they are apt to suffer from burn-out or a pen to the eye.

You seem to think they are either mean or incompetent, but treating patients who vehemently don't want to be treated is always a difficult process.

It's nice that you eventually found the help that you needed, but a lot of my sympathies still lie with the hospital workers.

I'm aware of how awful a lot of those places can be. Especially if you are under 18, they act like your problem is entirely behavioral and you could just "choose" to behave the way they want if you wanted to.

I wish you had said more about the kind and patient but low-paid people. Are you talking about nurses? Some volunteers outside the hospital? Who?

Having been their myself, I sympatihize with anon's concerns about the appropriateness of the care often available in mental health settings. The long term trend of constantly diminishing funding has resulted in providers vainly attempting to fit suffering individuals into increasingly narrow diagnostic catgories and treatment plans, often less for their suitability than for short-term cost control. I imagine at some level such providers rationalize their situation by thinking that, since the only tool they can afford to make available and still make a profit is a hammer, everything they encounter must therefore resemble a nail.

Of course this isn't helped by the tendency of such short-term profit driven thinking to receive explicit approval from medical standard setters, who, though perhaps well intentioned, are none the less similarily driven to knuckle under to funding pressures and design one size fits all treatment programs employing the most short-term cost efficient therapies. It's their official sanctification of such programs that results in valid complaints by patients being dismissed as mansifestations of the "preferred illness," instead of as valid criticisms of the inadaquacy of the treatment.

Affordability is a central issure without doubt. But simply insisting that what's affordable is the same as what's effective is putting the cart before the horse.

At least they got your diagnosis right. Bi-polar issues are a hard row to ho. I've been wrongly diagnosed in the past and it was not helpful, the meds, pills were not appropriate! I have sympathy for this person although I have a hard time putting up with the bi-polar people I know, very disagreeable! I'm happy this person found some pro's who were actually helpful. My spouse helped my pro's get a more proper diagnosis going, it took a few years. Group therapy sucks! It'd be rough to be in a room full of bi-polars singing christian songs, jail might be better!

@4
Caution is absolutely vital. It's a dangerous job, for sure. My complaint has to do with attitude. But when a mentally ill person is trying to engage you, don't ignore them and talk about sports with your coworker, even if that person doesn't make sense. Honor their presence. Little by little, it does make a difference.

@5
I would say mostly nurses, but MHPs too. One has to remember, too, that mental health care is notoriously bad in this state.

i couldnt have described the experience of being placed in a psych ward better myself. it can be torturous and oppressive place for some of us. i wish there were better alternatives for those needing psychiatric attention. bleh. still traumatized three years later...

YOU got the attention you wanted.

@6:
Wow! Those forms are terrifying! Do they still do electroshock therapy?? REALLY?

Terrifying.

Thanks for the very important (but terrifying!) link.

@4 - You ever read One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest? Big Nurse Ratched exists. The institutionalization of people unwilling or unable to conform to acceptable social behavior has historically been a forum for abuse. Less than a century-and-a-half ago children could be institutionalized for masturbation. Even 60 years ago, homosexuality was viewed by many psychiatrists as a medical aberration which demanded treatment.

This isn't to bust out some Thomas Szasz shit, and say that mental illness is a myth. But the danger of those who suffer largely is. The schizophrenic homeless are FAR more likely to be the victims of abuse than to actually perpetrate violent crime themselves. Harassment, beatings, even murder are dangers that this people have to face every day - and the police are reluctant to intervene. From the SPD's point of view, if life for the mentally ill and homeless becomes unpleasant enough, the crazies will leave of their own volition, and the force doesn't have to waste money picking up the trash.

Since Regan largely privatized in-patient treatment for mental health, those centers which provide service are forced to work with almost no public support - leading to the situation Edward so accurately describes. My cousin is severely autistic, and will require care for the rest of his life. It's a crying shame that in the richest country in the world, my uncle's family has to bear the burden alone.

http://www.sociology.org/content/vol003.…

yikes, who let the crazy person on the internet?

huh?

Nice!

Mental health workers do not have inflated salaries. If anything they get paid less than other workers in health care simply because a lot of the patients they see do not have the ability to pay for treatment. Of course there are people in the field who are terrible at their jobs, just like every other occupation. However, there are many genuinely caring individuals who work very hard in a difficult field with little reward (financial or otherwise) because they really do want to help people that they rest of society would rather pretend do not exist.

Totally behind I, Anon here. Mental health care is often demeaning, poorly tailored to the patient, and unnecessarily traumatic. AND the bills are terrifying.

Kudos to IA for accepting her mental illness and the necessity of her commitment. I'm sorry those assholes were mean to you, but at least they kept you safe.

Hang in there and stay strong. My best friend is bi-polar and finishing her PhD in organic chemistry. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re crazy. It’s up to you to choose your destiny.

You truly have been through a traumatic experience, but in the interests of returning to and maintaining your life on your terms, the most important point to hold on to is that your illness is a life long condition similar to diabetes, and like indispensable insulin, without maintaining your mood stabilizers every day for the rest of your life, you are almost certain to return to the wards at some point in the future. When bipolar patients most often meet trouble, self harm, or even suicide is the few hours following their own decision to lower or stop an effective medication regimen.

While I do not downplay the inherent suffering involved with your hospitalization, it is crucial for the mental and physical safety of you, your family, and the outlook of your future to continue use of your medication indefinitley. Please.

If you are organically ill and unable to pay your bill, you may be eligible for disability benifits or state medicare welfare assistance. You (or your parents) can talk to a lawyer about that, they are listed under workers compensation/disability attorneys and the call is free. No, I'm not one, but a large hospital bill can bankrupt a family/country/blah blah blah. Good luck.

This post smells fake. Even worse, it has the fecal smudge of Scientology all over it.

This is very similar to some things that happened to my wife.

I don't think it's the "mental health professionals" who are to blame as it is the results of combining the healthcare system with "market values".

Market values dictate that any healthcare center, including mental health treatment units, be run with "efficiency" as the primary and pretty much exclusive goal. This means that staffing and is always kept to a minimum , leaving staffers overstretched and sleep-deprived, which, as with anyone else, means they are often too burned-out to treat people properly.

But that's ok with the administration(public OR private)because keeping costs down is all that matters to either the shareholders OR the right-wing politicians who have to approve the funding.

And if the patients and the staff get screwed? well, so what? It's not like healthcare is about THEM...

Same thing happened about six times to my best friend - she's been committed that many times, and has some truly awful stories. At least over here in the UK she didn't have to pay a penny for the pleasure.

Mental health, like any caring profession, has a vast number of assholes in it. And a good number of amazing, kind, thoughtful people. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell they're all working in A&E. The only people who have ever helped me (with anxiety and depression, at different times in my life) have been nurses in A&E, or normal doctors without any real specific psychological training.

The psy-complex is flawed. The people working in it are often underpaid, or ridiculously overpaid. So don't expect to go to hospital and wait for them to make you better. You make YOURSELF better - with help. However unlikely that may seem. It's in your hands too.

@13 Yes, they still do ECT (electro-convulsive therapy) and for some severely depressed people it works wonders. Carrie Fisher swears by it. It's not the horrorshow it used to be, when it was used willy-nilly. Sometimes it's the last resort for people with intractable depression.

It wasn't fake, Montex, also, you're a fucking moron, just like the rest of the vitriol-throwing pseudo-intellegencia who flog their off-colour opinions. So trendy!

The hospital is called Behavioural Health Resources, and it's located in Olympia, Washington. The hospital to which I was transferred was Western State Hospital, which not too long before had housed Isiah Kalebu, and has also recently been ranked the most dangerous place to work in the state of Washington.

I'm just throwing this all out there because a) I don't give a fuck about protecting anyone who didn't give a fuck about protecting me, and b) because shit-for-brains like you need to understand just what kind of horror is behind those doors. I would rather go to Western State again than to ever set foot at BHR. My respect for the profession is absolutely disconnected from my contempt for a bunch of incompetent idiots. I'd rather go to the place where thirty people were forced to use one shower, where I witnessed a man I'd been talking to over dinner attempt to kill the doctor by throwing a 200 pound block-rubber chair at him, or where "code blue" alarms went off day in and day out. The number of assaults that occur in that place don't even make it on to the map. An insane asylum by any other name is still an insane asylum, and until you live through what I lived through, and what thousands of people live through and continue to live through because the system is a joke, you can get down on your knees and fucking eat me.